Pre-preschool

We never thought we would send our kids to preschool. The goal was for me to be home with them and to take care of teaching them what they needed to go to kindergarten. We work on reading comprehension skills, sight words, sounding out words, are starting to write the ABCs, etc. Anyone that teaches a young child knows that they just soak this stuff right up. And Connor is EXCITED about it! He asked to learn how to read about when he turned 3 and he told me the other day that he will take books to preschool and when he goes he will 'know the words.' Of course, ABCs and 123 s aren't all you need for kindergarten so we do a variety of other things too - music hours, storytime, etc where we learn to sit still, wait our turn, etc. And of course lots of fieldtrips - everything can be a learning opportunity even just helping with dinner! I've gotten a lot of tips and resources from homeschooling moms. I can't imagine ever being a homeschooling mom (I don't have the discipline!) but they have great advice for teaching prechoolers.

Then when we started looking at the public & private kindergarten options for Connor, we discovered something we didn't like at all - all of the kindergarten classes are full day. FULL DAY ! We talked about it a lot - a little obsessively maybe, and decided that Connor can not go from no school program to a full day school program. We feel that would be too much of a change for our little guy - even at 5 years old. Soooooo....the search for a preschool began and we believe we have found the perfect one. We went to the open house last week and Connor got the very last spot in the class we wanted! And is he excited about school! When we left the open house he said 'Maybe tomorrow we can go see my kindergarten?'

In the meantime, our little sneak (caught him on the counter getting goldfish from the cabinet) will continue 'school time' at home. Our latest project is flashcards around the home - on everyday objects. Connor LOVES this and walks around the house spelling out all of the words. When we wrote the words, Connor helped me to sound them out. Here's an example: