Bagels = Zeros.... and Some iPad Love

In case you didn't know....... bagels look like zeros. ....Reid told me so. 
A week or so ago while making bagels Reid shouted out, "Mom..... ZERO!!" while proudly holding up his bagel. I stopped and looked at his little face.... and realized he was connecting that a bagel is shaped like a zero, therefore it was a zero and....well, I squealed.... yes, like a girl.... no, more like a very happy momma that was celebrating that her child had made this connection and then picked that little guy up and twirled him around. These little connections are BIG connections in our world! I didn't even know he knew zero yet.
So what do you do when your child brilliantly declares bagels look like zeros? Well.... you plop him on the couch and document it baby!

and then you eat those zeros bagels!

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One of the BEST investments we have made for Reid..... which we have seen contribute to much of his progress in number and letter recognition is the iPad. I love this thing, absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.  He is so independent with it and navigates himself around to the apps he wants to work in that day and I feel ZERO guilt because he is playing and learning all at the same time. 

If you have thought about getting one for Christmas or are on the fence..... my advice? Get it. The advantage it gives our little ones with special needs is HUGE. In my opinion it is worth EVERY cent!

The app Reid is working on below is the iWriteWords app (it also has a # section) and I believe the one with the letters is from his Starfall ABCs app.... both are must haves. 

Other items worth mentioning are the Big Grips Frame shown below in blue and the Just Mobile stylus. The Big Grips Frame goes without saying... you want to protect your investment and we have found this one to be perfect for Reid's little hands. We had our iPad about a month before we bought this and we had too many close calls with falls so I feel much better with this on! The stylus is something we decided to purchase to help him with gripping an item such as a pencil or crayon. This is also one of his IEP goals so this stylus is helping us achieve that I think. We bought it in yellow to resemble a pencil but they have lots of different fun colors. He loves using  it to trace letters and numbers on the iPad... and sometimes you will even find my goofball with it behind his ear to be, well, ahem ....a goofball.