3 year olds are smart

Three year olds are pretty smart. There seems to be something that really clicks right around the change from two to three.  I'm surprised at everything they can do.  

Here's some things Sam has been doing lately.

 Sam knows all of his upper and lower case letters (he will sometimes call lower case Ls 'ones', but that's understandable)

 He has started writing letters.  He works on a "school book" sometimes at daycare (Thank you Dollar Spot at Target).  T's are his favorite.

He loves numbers too.  He will hold up his fingers to show a variety of numbers.  He is also starting to figure out how different amount equal the same number.  He will hold up four fingers on each hand, showing 8.  Then he will hold up five fingers on one hand and three fingers on one hand, and get excited that it shows 8 too.  This surprises me that little three year old brains can start to think like that.

His artwork is becoming more purposeful. He is attempting to stay in the lines, or make circles, or make a face, etc.

Sam made this on his own.  Sam often requests we sing songs about spelling names Bingo style (There was a boy who...), so he remembers how to spell our names.  He told me this says, "Sam, Mom, Dad"

He asked me how to spell Luke, and then made this one

The other day, I was upstairs changing Luke's clothes and Brad was not home.  I came back downstairs and Sam had built that tower...

Then he built this one, he had to get his step stool to reach that high.

Yes, of course, I think Sam is smart... but many of these things aren't out of the ordinary for 3 year olds.  They are far more capable than some might think.

And just to prove Sam isn't perfect.... No, Sam can't sit still for longer than a few minutes, he is quite stubborn, he puts his shoes on the wrong feet almost every time, he cannot follow multi-step directions or find things on his own, doesn't clean up his toys very well, and doesn't know how to spit out his tooth paste... (I don't want Sam to read this when he gets older and think he was some sort of genius or perfect child, haha)