We just stopped making Aiden go to basketball for the last few weeks. We figured this isn’t a battle we need to be fighting - drugs, sex, obscene behavior, yes, those are battles we will fight but this, nah. Instead, we placed him into a very informal preschool in which playtime is the focus and academics and strict structure are loosely exemplified. Also, he started art class today, which he really enjoyed. Thus, he’s getting the socialization with children his age (and children that aren’t people he’s known his whole life, I.e. his siblings and cousins), being placed into a more structured environment to prep him for school and above all, he really loves these new activities.
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| This my friends is what I call "Art" :) |
On top of that, these last two weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time with him prepping him for Kindergarten (thanks to my cousin who‘s an elementary teacher and who‘s given a completely clueless I-have-no-idea-what-I‘m-doing-idiot some direction on what I should be doing with my preschooler). We’ve been working on recognizing letters (one each week) and the sounds they make, writing his name (tracing his name with a highlighter) and counting up to 20. My goal is for him to recognize each letter and their sounds, write his name proficiently, count up to 50, know simple addition and subtraction and know a host of other preschool/ kindergarten things (such as the tying his shoes, reading the clock, recognizing patterns, know the days of the week and each months, what each coin is and how much their worth is, know his phone number, etc., etc., etc.) before he starts kindergarten. P.S. I had no idea how much I should be teaching him!! Yikes! Mommy fail. But we’re slowing getting there and he’s progressing really well - even much better than I would have ever thought.
The biggest struggle I have and have had with Aiden is he hates when he doesn’t get something on the very first try and when I say hate, I mean HAAATES, as in he will shut down like nobody’s business. He’ll proceed to tell me that I should do it for him as if independence and growing up bores and pisses him off at the same time. I’ve resorted to threatening him that I’ll take away TV time or toys in order to get him to learn things. It’s frustrating but it’s working. He doesn’t like writing his name because he doesn’t know how to control a pen yet. He doesn’t like counting because fifteen sounds like it should be five-teen.
He doesn’t like it because he’s not good at it yet but the more and more I force him to do these activities that are essential to his education, he’s beginning to really grasp what we’ve been working on and he’s even started asking if we can do more “homework.” The progress we’re making is astonishing to me. I’m one proud mama :D
Love,
Kristine
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