Now that Aiden is four, we will be doing daily structured preschool here at home. I've had a lot of people ask me why he's not enrolled in a traditional preschool. This past February we toured a private Catholic school and really liked it. During the car ride home, however, Aaron and I had an overwhelming sense that it's just not the right time to enroll A in preschool. He has a late summer birthday so he would have been one of the youngest in his class. Although I know that he would do just fine, I have talked to several educators who have stressed the importance of waiting a year and allowing the child (especially if it's a boy) to be the oldest in their class rather than the youngest. Not only that, it seems as if kids are growing up so quickly these days. I don't want to rush through these precious, innocent years of Aiden's life. I want him to be able to spend most of his day here at home playing, because as many parents are forgetting, play (PLAY) is such a vital part of a young child's life. In addition, with a new baby on the way, I know there are some definite adjustments our family will be making and again, sending Aiden to school this year just isn't the right choice. So the plan is to do some preschool here at home this year, perhaps a Pre-K program at St. Elizabeth Seton next fall, then kindergarten when he's six.
At the beginning of the month we started our "home preschool" and it's been going really well so far. I feel so fulfilled providing this education for my sweet boy. We start our day talking about the weather. Thanks to a catchy little tune, he now knows the days of the week, and we discuss today, tomorrow and yesterday. We play games and sing songs to assist him in spelling his name. He told me last week that he dreamed about his name song, and now can spell it easily. We play a number recognition game. Utilizing flash cards and colorful block manipulatives, we do more work with numbers. I found some great workbooks at Hobby Lobby and we use those for various exercises. Starting this week we will be working on identifying letters, their sounds and handwriting. We will be placing a letter on our coconut tree (a theme based on the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom) and discussing and working on that letter for the entire week. We end by talking about the Presidents. Sometime soon I'll begin to incorporate character development, but that's something that we worked on quite a bit last year. As we have for his entire life, we continue to read on a daily basis. Aiden has been expressing a strong interest in learning Spanish so I've requested through inter-library loan some of his favorite books, written in Spanish, just to expose him to something familiar but in an unfamiliar language. I hope to find some Spanish flash cards that we can post on objects around the house.
I'm finding my biggest challenge is organization and the development of a daily plan. It also seems like we have a lot of appointments in town these days, so it's been hard to devote a specific time of the day for preschool. I know that after the baby is born, it will probably be even more challenging but I keep reminding myself that at his age, it's more about making things fun, playing, reading, and allowing the focus to be on what he's interested in.
In addition to our "home preschool", we are meeting once a week with a preschool co-op group. The group consists of eight other boys, Aiden's age. Us Momma's have developed monthly themes and will teach weekly lessons based on those themes. We also have field trips and holiday parties planned.
If the last few weeks are any indication of how our year will go, I think that it will be very successful! I'm so happy to be directly involved in what Aiden is learning.
First day and a glimpse of our classroom
Handprint coconut tree, we later added sticker letters to the tree
A sticks out his tongue a lot when coloring and cutting
Awesome back pack that Grandma and Poppy gave A for his birthday. We take it to co-op each week.
The co-op boys
