Preschool Summary

Nick's class had a Valentine's party today. It was so fun! The kids actually milled around handing out each of their valentines to the other kids. It should have been chaos and disaster, but it worked out fine. They are growing up (sniff, sniff).

Here is a summary of what's going on with Nick's preschool subjects and activities right now.

Reading:
The boys both love reading. Nick will choose to sit and read books almost as often as he chooses to play with any toy. He loves to make up his own reading of the books. I have to be crafty to get him to listen to me read aloud. Today I had him sound out the word "Mat" in a Bob book. He knew all the right sounds but I showed him how to blend the sounds. It will be exciting to see where he takes this sounding-out reading.

Drawing:
Both boys also love free drawing. I like how often Nick draws and has me help him write. Practice, practice, practice! Nick is very proud of his drawings. He sometimes asks me to post them on the refrigerator when he's done. They are all pictures of something. Storm troopers, clones, caterpillars, etc.

I bought each of them a medium-sized drawing pad so they could have a larger size of paper to draw on any time they want, and the drawings can all be contained in one place. They have easy access to markers, chalk, crayons, and modeling clay at all times.

What Your Preschooler Needs to Know:
I bought the What Your Preschooler Needs to Know book and the corresponding Activity Book 1 for Nick. We've had them for six months or so, but he just didn't seem ready for the activities at first. I would do them with him, but he would want to do something else with the page. Sometimes he had irrational (from my perspective) fears or dislikes of certain pages.

The Activity Book is really great, though, in my opinion. Once a month or so, I've been reading nursery rhymes to him from the reading book and trying a page from the activity book. The goal is to do the activities more often now that he is older, working up to one per week day eventually.

Art Appreciation:
I made Nick a Book of Masterpieces just like Xander's. Once or twice a month, I introduce another painting and its painter. After we look at it and talk about it, I put a postcard of it into their Books of Masterpieces and label it. We haven't done a whole lot more detail than that. Someday, I would like to sit down with just Nick and his Book of Masterpieces to see what he has to say about them.

Xander was a little bit resistant to this part of our curriculum, so I've backed off for now. I let him choose the next artist from the ones who had books of postcards available. He chose Georgia O'Keeffe. I posted a few of the postcards on our school book case where they can see them on a daily basis. And that's it.

Music:
Nick has an ear for music and sounds. They always grab his attention. He has been a relatively good hummer and singer since babyhood. I love to provide fun new songs for him to incorporate in his memory. Right now, one of his favorites is "Life's a Happy Song" from The Muppets.

I don't have him play on instruments very often right now, just because I don't think of it. But he gets to listen to Xander on the recorder and Erik on the guitar and harmonica. Both of those guys have allowed Nick to try out their instruments in the recent past.

Preschool:
The biggest thing Nick needed to work on when we started preschool was group time. He needed to get over shyness talking to a big group, learn to take turns, and understand how to answer a specific question by placing his name tag under a certain category on the pocket chart. As of today, he can do each of those things with hardly any problems. He does need to work on sharing when another child comes up instead of giving up the activity, throwing up his hands, and crying because now the other child is playing with it.

We wrote down goals at different points of the year so far:

1. Give him practice in a structured group environment. {Check.}

2. Have a time that is just focused on Nick. {Check. Xander plays in the play room with other siblings during our preschool time.}

3. Learn sounds of the letters of the alphabet. {Check.}

4. Practice scissoring skills. {We've gotten in some practice, but not a whole lot. We have worked on various squeezing tools in the last few weeks.}