Going Rogue

It's official. I have completely left behind the curriculum I bought to use this year. It assumes that a preschooler knows nothing AT ALL about letters or numbers or word meanings and I find it completely tedious. So I am being creative and working on James' strengths and encouraging him to develop skills that he needs but isn't quite interested in yet. Today we did a hodge-podge of things. I guess that's how it will be from now on. Always, we start with the calendar, the Pledge and Show-and-Tell. We then read 2 poems (James got to participate in one of them). I read "Three Little Kittens" and James did the "miaow, miaow, miaow" part for each stanza. I read the story of "Sarah and the Toys" in which they come to life and play with her one night. After that, 3 worksheets: an alphabet maze, handwriting (he always complains) and Thanksgiving addition. Even though James might him and haw about handwriting, he takes great care in his attempts. I give him praise and that is motivation enough for him to continue just a little more. He practiced writing "James Hutchinson" today. He said his hand was tired and so I told him that was enough. Baby steps. I had found some numbers flashcards not too long ago so I convinced James to count. He counted to 50. He's never done that before and he enjoyed it. And lastly, he practiced saying his ABC song. Hilarious. When he gets to "L-M-N-O-P", he doesn't yet realize that he is saying the letters super fast so it sounds like a word. He loses his place after that. As always, learning happens all the time, not just in the fun yellow room. Yesterday, even though we didn't "do school", James, Chris and I went to Blue Jay Point Park. We hiked by Falls lake and collected an assortment of acorns, we through big and small rocks into the lake and made BIG splashes and small ones. We looked for the disturbance in the water that was a tell-tell sign of fish nearby. We marveled at all the shiny sand. We figured there must be a lot of shale around or something. James got to play on the playground and practice hitting the baseball with me and Chris. I see some baseball in his future. Smile.