Ok homeschooling bloggers. I need your help. Although I am working mom, I would like to help my little one learn, grow, and be more prepared for Kindergarten. He attends private pre-k, however I would really like to work on some things at home like recognizing his name, writing, identifying letters of the alphabet, identifying numbers, counting. I know that he'll get some of this stuff at school however I feel that he is a bit behind some of his peers (some of his peers already can read and spell their names).
What is the best way to accomplish these tasks?? He's only interested in trying to draw animals on the paper (he LOVES animals...everything and anything concerning animals). It's been a daunting task to get him to focus. For instance I am right now trying to get him pratice writing capital and lower case A's. He's doing them, just each A is a worm, a tad pole, a snake,etc, so then he has to draw eyes, wings,etc... Thus we are constantly erasing. And would should be an hour or two turns into 3 or 4 hours of frustration for him and me.
What I did today is 1.5 lines of capital A's and 1 line of lower case a's then let him draw. Then we'll move on to the next thing which is writing and identifying 2 numbers ( 1 and 2). Then he'll draw some more animals, then we'll start his name.
Is that the right thing to do? Or should I be more forceful? I need help (and probably structural (how long to spend on each thing, etc)). ANY help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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100 people will give you 100 answers to this, but this is MY opinion. School MUST be FUN at this age. If it is not, they will not want to do it. And if learning is not fun at 4, what are you ultimately teaching them about learning for life?
ReplyDeleteMy first suggestion would be to put that practice paper away.
He does not have the fine motor skills as a 4 year old boy to write independently with a pencil on a paper yet. Not between the lines, etc.
He DOES have the ability to start learning to recognize letters. Check out some of these fun sites:
http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/load.htm?f
http://www.bemboszoo.com/Bembo.swf
http://www.beginningreading.com/Alphabet%20Set%201.htm (my kids write, color, and then cut out the picture. Not neatly, any of it)
Praise, praise, praise any efforts, and do not be critical. Because he really IS trying.
Also, encourage him to try writing letters in the dirt with a stick (go boys!) or with sidewalk chalk in the driveway. My kids also LOVE some great pretzels I found that are shaped like the alphabet. When you're waiting in line at the grocery store, play letter games, "hmm, what letter is for p-p-pretzels?" etc.
Listen to your instincts. You know that what you're doing doesn't feel right, it's not fun for you or him.. bring in the PLAY, the FUN, and that's where the learning will happen.
Go Mama!
Corey
www.watchingthewaters.wordpress.com
www.getoffthecouchwaters.blogspot.com
Thanks for checking out my blog and leaving a comment.
ReplyDeleteHe is young... learning at that age is wonderful because it can happen doing almost any task. It does not need to be formal learning. Just enjoy teaching him when the opportunity arises.