We officially started preschool on Wednesday. We're aiming for three days of "structured" preschool (Montessori mostly) activities, with Tuesday and Thursday free completely for playing no strings attached!
The good thing about not being a regular preschool is that we can do school in our pajamas, and also the first few days don't have to be spent getting to know one another and doing a lot of "all about me" stuff. We jumped right in to a dinosaur unit with out MTH (Magic Tree House) history lessons.
Bear has been spending more time than I like on the computer as we finish up our Reading Eggs trial and continue our Dreambox trial. I have mixed feelings still about her being on the computer to learn, but she begs for Reading Eggs and by using The Linton Academy's suggestion of turning off the sound, Bear is actually reading all the words in the games. She's not begging for Dreambox as much, but I really like it for math. She's been practicing comparing numbers in those games and it is much more challenging than it sounds because the dots on the cards are different colors or in different arrays, so she has to really think to be able to choose the correct answer.
Her Montessori work period has been focused and she has surprised me by choosing works in all areas. (Practical Life, Language, Math, Sensorial)
Stay tuned for the Montessori Monday post to see more of our week's activities.
See other preschool activities at
We are having the same problem with the computer. I won a 6 month free trial of Zoodles and that's all she wants to do. I have it it timed to where she can play on it for an hour and then it turns off (she usually plays for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon), but she is constantly begging me to play. I'm getting frustrated and I fear that I've created a computer monster!
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard of Zoodles. Do you like it? I'll have to look that one up now:)
ReplyDeleteDon't you just love it when they all of a sudden, out of the blue, start doing something they never used to do? I know I love it :)
ReplyDeleteComming from a household that is big into computers, my husband works in that field, I have a different view on computers. I feel if they are learning something it is good and computers are not going to go away. They are everywhere, better to know how to use one now then later. But like everything in life moderation is key :) I think you are doing a great job so keep it up!
Our rule is pretty simple - not more than an hour of electronic entertainment a day. Lately it's been mostly Dreambox, Anna absolutely loves it. I keep thinking about making her some stencils, since it's such a nice exercise for those motor skills.
ReplyDeleteI love your insets! I almost bought them instead went for the $1 picture frames at Michaels. It's amazing how much she loved them though.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting on the computer time. I figure she'll have years to play educational games on the computer.
@Joyful Learner - Those insets are actually from the geometric cabinet which I ended up buying for later geometry.
ReplyDeleteI am going to wait on computer time in the sense that I don't think we'll pay for either of the games she loves right now. However, it has been worth the 2 week trial periods to try out. Also, Reading Eggs helped tremendously for her to overcome the trepidation of too many words on a page. She's over that stumbling block and reading easy readers - not bad for a just turned three year old. So it was worth it.
Quick question, How does the geometric cabinet do for an inset substitute? I am trying to decide if I can get by with just buying the cabinet.
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