Eric Carle Animal Flash Cards

A while ago, when Ellie was still an infant, I bought her a set of Eric Carle Animal Flash Cards. They are made on sturdy cardboard, great for younger kids who don't quite understand how to play gently yet so things can be used over and over again. Eric Carle is the author of awesome, classic children's books such as "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do you See?", "The Grouchy Ladybug", Ellie's favorite "10 Little Rubber Ducks" and so many more. He has a very distinct way of illustrating his books and children and adults love his art. On one side, the flash cards depict animals from his wonderful stories which are, of course, illustrated in the same manner. On the other side of the flash cards there is a fun, brightly colored background with a capital and lower case letter to match the beginning letter of the animal on the opposite side.

We have been showing Ellie these flash cards for months and months. Recently, we have been showing her the letter side first and saying the letter, then, we have her repeat the letter shown on the card, hand her the card which she then eagerly flips over to see the animal, and then we say the animal. We repeat this through the whole deck, multiple times. We add in animal sounds and motions where we can too!  She really gets a kick out of the fact that I say "EW!" to the snake and the vulture. That little stinker has even been known to find one or both of those cards (even when we aren't playing with them) and chase me around the kitchen showing me the vulture and the snake pictures. She cracks me (and herself!) up!

This morning I decided that after our typical routine through the deck I would push her a little and see if she could pick out the animals I named if I laid them out for her six or so at a time. I couldn't believe it but she nailed every single last one of the animals-- even the weird ones like quetzal, xolo, and narwhal! Unprompted, she even told me some of the animal noises or made the movements of the animals. We very rarely ever do the cards in alphabetical order, but even if she knew all of the animals through memorization, I'm pretty amazed. Or, even if she didn't know the animal I named but rather used deductive reasoning that "I know that is a monkey, that that's a giraffe, that's an octopus, that's a turtle, and that's a rooster, so that one has to be a quetzal" then consider me impressed! I didn't know she had it in her! This is an early lesson for this mom to never underestimate her child's abilities! I made a mental note to see if she could repeat the same skill with the letters on the other side at a later time.

At her request, as we were going through the deck again, (after she had just named all of the animals) she insisted on carefully laying each card out, one by one, with the animal side facing up so she could see all of the animals around her. She was pretty pleased with her display until she stood up and realized how much her effort really looked like a big mess and said "oh nooo!" and squished her cheeks together in dismay. So, we made it into a game and she helped me clean up by bringing me scoops of cards at a time and then the stragglers one by one as I said things like "can you bring me the duck card?" She is so eager to please, always observing people's reactions to her actions. It makes me wonder if this is a personality trait or just the age. Maybe both? Regardless, I think it's a pretty great characteristic-- awareness is a good thing in all stages of your life, and to a certain degree being a people pleaser can be a great thing, too.