Saturday, March 13, 2010

School moments

I've come to think that children are like the Borg from Star Trek. You can find something that works for them but after a short time they "adapt" to it and don't want to do it anymore.

Take Kylie's at-home "school time" as an example.

In the past, I would say to Kylie, "It's time for school" and we would spend 10 minutes completing some worksheets from Summer Bridge Activities: Preschool to Kindergarten. She would love doing them and showing them off to her Momma at the end of the day. Now she has no interest in even looking at one of those worksheets.

So I've had to get more inventive and hands-off with regards to her learning opportunities. The latest system that works is to have some activities ready for her on the floor before she wakes up in the morning and again when she wakes up from her nap.

She puts together words from her alphabet puzzle.
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She sorts buttons
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She traces letters fromABCs Uppercase Write & Wipe Flash Cards (Kumon Flash Cards)
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And she matches cards from one of these sets.
Counting Match Ups
What Goes Together? match ups
Puzzle Moms And Babies

It tickles me to watch her work on these projects by herself. She is so proud of herself once she has them done. And I think to myself, "School moment-- check!"

Here are a few other ways she likes to play.

She loves to play grocery store. She hides her eyes and counts to ten as I put some plastic food on our couch. Then she puts the food in her grocery cart, telling me what each item is. Then she wheels her cart over to some of her stuffed animals and feeds them the food.
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She likes to "mail" things by putting business cards or magazine subscription cards into this mail slot.
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And of course, bubbles are still a daily favorite. For now.
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2 comments:

Teaberry said...

She's so cute! I was taken by her playing post office-- eventually I bet that post offices will be extinct! This reminded me... I was a preschool teacher once for about five minutes, and watched some kids playing with a block- one of them held it up to her eyes and pretended to take a photo with it. She said click, then showed the back of the block to the person whose picture had been "taken". I was really amazed to see them mimicking the use of a digital camera--very different than how we'd have pretended with a camera! Cute-- I wonder if one day kids will play "email" rather than post office!

Stacey said...

great activity ideas!