First Day Of School

Homeschool preschool, that is.

Since Shiloh won't actually go to preschool until she is 4 (going on 5), we joined a homeschool preschool group this year. It is made up of seven 2-3 year olds; the oldest turned three last month, and the youngest turns three in June. Two of the moms were teachers (preschool and kindergarden) before having kids, so they run it and the other moms help out. We meet for 2-2 1/2 hours every Tuesday morning. We'll meet like this for the remainder of the regular Gwinnett County school year. Each week we do a new lesson plan (for the most part), every month we'll do 2-3 field trips, and there is even homework (usually just a craft that pertains to that weeks lesson).

I think this is going to be so good for Shiloh. I'm most excited about the socialization aspect of this. She doesn't see much of other kids, unless we're at the park or the play area of Chik-Fil-A or Mcdonald's, so we'll get to work more on sharing, taking turns, and openning up to kids she doesn't know. Also, she'll get to work on taking directions from someone other than mommy or daddy.

Today was a great first day for her. The first thing we did was music. She didn't really participate in that, even though she knew one of the songs (Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes), but she did stand there nicely and watch everyone else. After that we went into the "classroom" and read a book about our bodies, during which Shiloh sat very nicely on the rug and listened intently. Next we talked about the letter "A" and number zero. Each kid got to try drawing an "A" and a zero on a dry erase board. When that was done we split into small groups and worked at three different stations. One station was letters and numbers. Each child was given a paper with the little and big A on it. They then took an apple stamp and traced along the letters with the stamps. We also worked on writing the number zero. The next station was folder activities. There were three different folders; a big/little folder, a same/different folder, and a shape sorting folder. The last station was decorate your own birthday cake. We talked about when each kids birthday is and then they decorated a birthday cake cut-out and glued on a candle with their birthday written on it.

I believe next week we'll be talking about "our community". If I'm remembering correctly, I think a field trip to Pulix is planned as well (apparenlty they give tours to kids).

P.S.- Before Shiloh was born, Kim gave me some pictures of herself ranging from age 3- high school age. In this picture Shiloh looks like a blonde haired, 3 year old Kim. It's interesting to me, because Kim's features have never really stood out in Shiloh. I've never looked at her and thought, wow, she looks likes Kim/I see a lot of Kim in her, but lately there have been a couple of pictures where I've thought just that. I guess it's kind of neat for me to see. Since I can't find myself or Richard in her (and I don't know who her birth dad is), it's neat to be able to see SOMEONE in her. If that makes sense. Anyway....