This past winter was tough...having a baby and weather that was not enjoyable to be out in...we rarely left the house and poor Rylee, who was at a great learning time in her life, was bored. We had decided to sign her up for half-day pre-k for this fall. Registration was in March and we had to wait until the end of July to find out if she would be accepted (they only take so many 3 year olds, based on state funding). At the end of July I called the school and found out she had been accepted AND was going to be in the same class as one of her good friends!! I was so excited and started dreaming about back-to-school shopping!!
After a few days of being a little too excited, I started to realize that she would be learning the same things 2 years in a row, since the 3 year olds are in the same class as the 4 year olds. I also had a couple of moms tell me about the current pre-k curriculum their kids are enrolled in, and it wasn't anything Rylee doesn't already know. Since the tuition for 3 year olds is more than double 4 year old pre-k, I didn't think it made much sense financially to send her this year. And regarding her need for social time with peers that was much needed during the winter, we have met so many other families in the area since winter and have several play dates per week.
We discussed the pros and cons of sending her to pre-k this fall with a couple of teachers. One, a friend of mine who taught kindergarten and 2nd grade, and the other was my first grade teacher --- how fun it was to talk to her on the phone and hear her voice again!!! Both of their personal and professional opinions were the same -- don't send her until next year -- let her be a kid one more year before she has to enter formal education for the next 14 years of her life.
So, we un-enrolled her for this year and felt good about our decision. I did some research on home preschool and got some good resources from a teacher friend and had a blast shopping for preschool books, lessons, crafts, etc. I am so proud of how much stuff I got for about $100 (which is about half of what one month's tuition would have been). The Dollar Tree and Target's $1 bin had SO MUCH stuff!!! I really loved all the "wipe off" books I found, so that they can be re-used over and over! Of course I bought beautifully colored dry erase markers too- duh! I even found chalk boards and colored chalk at the dollar store too!
I don't know who is more excited about learning....me or Rylee...everyday she asks to "do preschool" :) We go down to the basement, to our little designated preschool spot, while Wyatt is napping, so we don't have any distractions. It has been a little challenging trying to figure out exactly how to teach certain things, but I have decided that it's more about exposure at this point (she learns so quickly and has demonstrated her ability to retain information just from short exposure). My teacher friend also advised me to let Rylee choose what she wants to learn, so that she will be more interested. Today she chose to learn the letter 'G'. She knows all of the uppercase letters by recognition, but doesn't know their sounds or lowercase versions. So, we traced the upper and lower case letters, colored a goat with a green crayon, talked about Grandma, and read a book about Grover. We will be having green grapes with our lunch as well. She has been asking me "what else starts with G?"...so, I guess she enjoyed the lesson :)
To brag a little, I have been very impressed not only with her willingness and excitement to learn, but also by the things she does know! The workbooks I bought will ask her questions that I assume I'm going to have to help her out with and instead she tells me the answer....and with complete confidence! She is very observant, soaks things in, and never forgets!
My plan is to have a preschool lesson 3-4 times each week for the next year (they only last about 10-15 minutes right now), along with 1-2 play dates, library story time and dance class each week. My teacher friend who is also doing home pre-k and I will try to do some "learning field trips" as much as possible too. We are both pretty excited about this!! I think maybe I should have been a preschool teacher :)
(yes, she is still in jammies -- we don't have a dress code at our "school")
Happy 1st day/week to all my teacher friends!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment