Jack The Scholar

Ok, yes, "Scholar" is a stretch.  "Willing Participant" is more like it, and that's all I could have hoped for as we conclude Jack's first week of Pre-K.  

I started out with a daily schedule of the way I wanted things to go every morning, and it worked pretty well.  I had to add a recess break and snack in after the first day, which I should have thought of in the first place.  Expecting him to sit through class for three straight hours was absolutely insane on my part.    

I really liked the "Letter of the Week" curriculum that I found online, and that's what I started with.  I also found another Latter Day Saint "Letter of the Week" curriculum that was scripture based, so I tied the two of them together.  I don't think anybody can get too much Jesus in a day, and most certainly not Jack.    I scrapped the computer activity since he spends a considerable amount of time on the computer playing educational games anyhow and replaced it with music and art.  

I realized early on the very first day that we had already reached a little speed bump.  Motor skills.  Jackson does NOT like to color.  Or draw, or paint, or do anything at all remotely close to it.  He likes to kick balls.  And throw balls.  And swing a bat.  And do head-stands.  And that's it.  And I was totally fine with that.  Who "needs" to color?   Well, apparently you do need to color to build the muscles in your hands so you can learn how to hold a pencil.  Seriously, I had NO idea.  It became very clear to me though that he needed to do a lot of motor skill activities because he hadn't done any coloring in the past.  

We started every morning with a traceable letter sheet of the Letter of the Week.  We did this exact same sheet every morning for consistency.

His hand was killing him after the first letter.  I feel awful now that I didn't know how important coloring and other related tasks were to his development.  Live and learn, I will correct it now that I know.  I'd like to say that as the week wore on that it got easier for him, but it really didn't.  Monday's A's look just  like Friday's.  I imagine it will take a decent amount of time to build up his strength.

I also need to add that going in to this, Jack had zero ability to identify the alphabet.  When I first introduced the letter A to him, he was clueless.  But by Wednesday he was able to identify the letter A in random food labels and other things around the house.  I am thankful that although he is a little behind for his age, he seems to be a quick learner.

We also did a lot of coloring.  Did I mention how much Jack HATES to color?  I did, didn't I... Ugh.  We have done a lot of coloring.  I give him a coloring sheet related to the Letter of the Week and allow him to choose what he wants to use to do the coloring (crayons, colored pencils, or markers).  He does three sheets per day, and each one has to be in a different medium so he uses them all every day.  He was not a good sport.  And he is the worst "colorer" in the world.  Here are a few of this week's masterpieces.

I have noticed that he holds crayons with both his right and left hand, and switches his pencil back and forth until he settles with his right hand. We do have a left handed child in the bunch, so I'm watching to see if maybe he will end up a lefty, too.  He seems to be unsure about it right now, and I'm thinking that is adding to his frustration about coloring.  I don't think either hand is comfortable, but I'm sure as the weeks pass he will figure out whatever hand works best for him.  

Here is my all-time favorite picture of this week.  Wow is all I can really say here.

After we worked on letter recognition, we moved on to scripture time.  Since the Letter of the Week was "A", we used Adam as our focal point this week.  We sang the first verse of "Follow the Prophet" and watched a video about Adam and Eve.  YouTube has proved to be awesome, it's filled with kids videos and stories.  I laughed when I saw this picture.  It looks like biblical porn instead of a kids educational video, but I swear it was kid-friendly.  At this point in the story Adam had just taken a bite of the apple and was embarrassed because he realized he was naked.  Honestly.  

I hate Math.  Really and truly loathe it.  This would be a good time to add that I took College Algebra three times before I passed with a C.  I suck at all math with letters, and that's all there is to it.  I am a whiz at what I choose to call "life math" though.  I can do all sorts of mental math for figuring out discounts on items in stores, how much it will cost to fill up my gas tank, and I can tally my grocery bill  in my head in line and be within a dime.  I can do stock-market math, interest rates, and all that other important stuff mentally and quickly.  But if you toss a letter in the problem, I'm DONE.  I know I only passed College Algebra the third time because I took it online and had a dear friend tutor me every single day at lunch.  The point of this story is that it's Math Time in Pre-K.  And I'm not feeling it.  But Jackson was totally feeling it!  

While Jack had no idea what the letter A looked like and couldn't identify it at all, he surprisingly knew his numbers and could count to ten easily.  He loved counting and sorting, and was a whiz at grouping and even some basic addition.  Justice is a Math whiz too.  He is seriously awesome at Math.  He wins the "Math Award" every single semester at school without fail.  My brother is an aerospace engineer and was always a Math whiz.  It apparently skipped me.  Awesome.  I would say that after watching Jack this week that it did not skip him.  It won't take long before he passes me up in the Math department.  Justice has already done it.  Good thing Joe is also a Math whiz or my boys would be in trouble if learning Math were up to me.  

Disclaimer:  Jack has had a bad rash on his face all week, that's why his face is bright red.

The Math Pizza was the best 6 bucks I ever spent.  I suppose if Math Pizza's were around back when I was learning Math I might have enjoyed it a little more.

Putting the sausage slices in the correct order and counting them.  

Finding and counting all the "ovals".  He was too funny, when I was asking him about the different shapes he took one look at the pentagon and proclaimed it to be a "housetagon".  I can totally see that.

I found this cool pom pom activity on Pinterest and Jack really loves it.  You attach a magnet to each pom pom and then "color" the pictures with the pom poms.  Each activity sheet is laminated and you put it in a cookie sheet.  The magnets stick to the cookie sheet and keep the paper in place.  I'm glad he likes it, because it was a HUGE pain to make!  And in other news, I've had a Tupperware divided tray for almost 20 years and I've never ever used it.  But I kept it, and I'm glad I did because it came in really handy to store the pom poms.

This toy is very cool.  There are three different size dump trucks, and a dozen different shaped pieces.  There is also an activity book with different pictures, and the goal is to duplicate what is on the picture.

He wasn't really enjoying the memory-matchup game, and that's when I figured out why teacher's use stickers.  Boy do kids like stickers.  He will do just about anything for a sticker, including playing memory matchup.

We also did our fair share of crafting.  Again with the motor skills... I had him tear up a bunch of tissue paper to make this apple and his little hands were killing him.  It was great exercise though so I will make sure to include a tissue activity each week.  That's an apple, just in case you may be in doubt.

Alligator hand puppet.  Glue and children do not mix.  I cannot believe that my teachers had to deal with that paste in a jar with the brush or even rubber cement to do these things when I was little.  Big props to the teachers back in the 70's, because even a glue stick was a hot mess.  

And the dreaded play dough.  It was easier to manage if I didn't just say "play with it" and give him no real direction and let him choose the colors.  Instead, he picked the three colors of an apple and I asked him to make me an apple.  My aversion to play dough is diminishing a bit.

And I finally got the courage to break out the paint this morning.  This is an alligator, sky, and sun.  Or so says Jack.

This morning, he was tired and really wasn't feeling school.  He hasn't been feeling well this week anyway, and his random rash is bothering him a lot.  I had anticipated him possibly feeling this way and put a short day in the schedule for Friday.  We reviewed the Letter of the Week and have a trip to the library planned to check out books geared towards next weeks letter.  And I will spend the bulk of the afternoon printing off an endless amount of worksheets for next weeks lessons.

I would have to say that this week was a successful week.  My stubborn little Jack-Jack behaved very well this week and I was happy with the way things turned out.  I know it won't always be this easy, but I'm thankful that he really enjoyed his first week and his surprisingly good attitude really made this a fun and rewarding time for both of us.