Preschool

Evelyn has been my shadow lately.  She has be attention crazed and never wants to leave my side.  There have been times over the last few weeks where I have snuck into my room for a few minutes to just have a few minutes of quiet before she inevitably realizes I'm not on her radar anymore and she hunts me down.

My natural response to this is to cringe and try desperately to convince her that she doesn't need to by a cling-on.  Knowing her though, that will only make things worse.  So I'm embracing it and finding ways to give her some special one-on-one attention.  I've had some preschool materials laying around for a while, so I went ahead and planned out a few weeks worth of activities and have dove in.  She's loving it!  I'm really enjoying it too.  Rather than feeling annoyed that I can't just sit and read a book without her squirming under my arm to have as much of her body physically touching mine as possible, we can sit together at the table enjoying an activity together.

I really like the preschool materials I have.  They are simple, inexpensive, don't take a lot of planning, but are engaging and educational without being boring.  The preschool program is divided into two books, each with 25 weeks worth of activities.  The first workbook is for 3-4 year-olds and the second for 4-5 year-olds. There is an additional book you use with both workbooks that has all the poems, songs, short stories, and other readings you need to supplement the activities in the workbooks.

The first week we worked on identifying and writing the letters in her name, learning what it means to compare by finding similarities and differences, worked on fine motor skills, and learned a simple poem and song.

Here's the first activity book, second activity book, and book of readings.

This is the first time Evelyn has written her own name.  Sniff, sniff.