Preschool Wrap Up

Today we finished up the last day of preschool and had a "graduation". We have done a little preschool co-op this year with another mom and her boys. It has been a good experience for us and Esther learned so much. Here are her "about me" pages from September and today. 

At the beginning of the year she couldn't write any letters and could only recognize "E". She couldn't write her name. Now she can recognize and write most of the letters and can mostly write her name. I helped her with the S but she did the rest herself. She refused to draw a picture of herself today so I put that one on instead. She is silly about drawing (and writing) and pretty much won't draw anything on command because it won't be "perfect". We're working on it. 

 Socially she had a great time and loved preschool. Academically I'm not sure it was the best fit since the other boys were way ahead of her academically and would kind of dominate every lesson. There were crafts and cooking as part of every lesson too so it wasn't all academic.

I have finally finished a read aloud chapter book with Esther. We tried a few others but she would lose interest part way through. I found this one, Esther the Kindness Fairy, and of course she loved it! They also had "Adele the Music Fairy" but we weren't able to finish before it was due back at the library. I have always looked forward to reading chapter books with my kiddos and I think they will really start to be old enough in the next few months. I can't wait!

Esther has proven to have a tricky little personality when it comes to teaching her. She is the opposite of me in a lot of ways. Her perfectionism has thrown me for a loop, but I have learned to not push her too hard. I know the stuff I teach her is sinking in because when she is properly motivated she can do it all so easily! One time we were playing outside and she was making a balance beam. She asked me how to spell balance and wanted to write it out. I almost didn't do it because I thought it would be too hard for her, but I told her each letter and she wrote it all by herself! It was a proud mom moment for me :)

Next year we will be doing "homeschool" preschool again. Her friend we did the co-op with will go to Kindergarten in the fall, so it will just be us, which will probably be better for her anyways. I plan to take May off then probably start in June or July with a different preschool curriculum, just so we have more structure to our days and because both girls love doing "school". I also have her signed up for Upstart, which is a free online preschool through the state. That will start in the Fall. I'm not sure how we'll like it but I've heard good things about it. I think she will have fun since it is basically games on a computer. 

Teaching your own children can be a little daunting. I'm usually thinking that she would probably listen to someone else better, but being the one to be there when she reaches new milestones and seeing how far she has come makes all the hard parts worth it.