School (kinda of random train of thought)

N has been in school for five weeks now. Wow, I can't believe it's already been five weeks. Time flies! He likes school. He likes his teacher. I think he likes his classmates. Ha. He doesn't talk about them that much. He hasn't complained about any of them, so I guess that's a good sign. N's teacher is super sweet. She is very organized and is really good at communicating with us parents. She's good to send out newsletters, calendars and emails as needed. She even texted me the day the kids had a field trip and got back to school early. She gave us a calendar that lists what skills the kids will work on every day this month. I really appreciate that because I can support what she's working on in class by doing similar things at home. Each week the kids learn a new letter. This week is the letter D. She's talking about dinosaurs this week, so she has lots of dinosaur books for the kids to read in their books shelf. The boys and I went to the library and picked up two dinosaur books to read at home. (We also picked up a book about fall since the weather and leaves are changing right now.) Each week the kids bring in a small item from home that begins with that week's letter for "show and share" time. Each child has a job to do at school each day. N can't always remember what job he performed, but the tasks he has remembered are plant waterer (is waterer a word?), fish feeder, door opener, "caboose" (I think this job makes being the last person in line exciting. Ha) and backpack buddy. I still haven't figured out what backpack buddy is. I think that child gets to pull the wheeled back pack to the gym for gym time each day...The backpack contains kleenex and other essentials that the kids might need while at gym class.

Some thing I've been doing at home to support N's preschool curriculum are below. N has really grown an interest in letters and numbers. The second week of school I decided I'd print out a few activity pages from education.com just in case N had an interest in doing them. I wasn't sure if he'd have any interest in them, so I prepared myself for him to tell me no he didn't want to do them. I printed five pages, one for each week day. We did one page, then another, then another and another until we did all five pages in one afternoon...We did them all in about twenty minutes actually. N devoured them! I was shocked! Now I make it a routine to print out several pages for the week and I purchased an activity book to keep on hand. I also make one activity page each week. I make it in a Word document. I choose two letters to focus on and find items who's words begin with those two letters. So, one week I found picture of items that began with "A" and items that begin with"B." I copy and paste images onto one pages for each letter. I then make one page titled "A" and one page titled "B." N and I say the names of the items as he cuts them out. He then determines what letter each word begins with and pastes them on the appropriate page. I'm not an education major, so I don't what all this is teaching him (beside letter recognition and cutting practice), but he seems to be enjoying it. I also try to do a bigger project with him each week.

Week A: we played play-doh using all of our cookie cutters that are shapes that begin with a.

Week of letter B we made a bus out of paper (He got to ride a bus at school and loved it!)

Week of C we made apple "cobbler." N kept calling it cider. That begins with c too, right?

This week we're talking about fall and pumpkins, so we painted pumpkins and made pumpkin muffins. I plan on carving pumpkins sometime this week.

N went on his first field trip to a pumpkin patch last week. I was not able to go because it was during L's nap time. After much deliberation I decided N is a big boy and he could go by himself. I had two friends attending the field trip with their kids who said they'd keep an eye on him as best they could. I prepped him by telling him to stay with his teacher or with our two friends. I told him about the hay wrack ride they were going to go on and told him he had to sit down during the ride to be safe. I read books to him about strangers and how we shouldn't go anywhere with a stranger...I even wrote a note on his permission slip that he kind of tends to wander so the teacher would be aware of that...Really, all of the preparation was good for him, but I think it was more for me than it was for him. Ha! I was nervous about sending him out by himself to a public place but he did a good job. He got to ride the bus with his class and teacher and he got to go somewhere with his class like a big kid. He is so proud and I am too. It turns out (my friend who attended the field trip told me), there were so many parents in attendance that N practically had his teacher to himself. So, I had nothing to worry about in the end.

I hope N's interest in school continues to grow. I can't believe he's going to be in Kindergarten next year! I want to do my best to prepare him for it, but I also want to enjoy this last year I have with him being at home!!