I have to take a moment to brag about little Jeffery. He is four now....he is very proud of that fact....and last year, after a lot of thought and research and prayer, we made the decision to homeschool him for preschool/pre-k. We did not come to this decision lightly. We applied to a very highly regarded preschool, not even 5 minutes from us, that we loved and he was accepted. But....the more we thought about it, the more we decided to keep him at home....for far too many reasons to list here.
Last January, we started an online program with him called ABCMouse. We'd had friends highly recommend this to us as an alternative or even supplement to preschool. He LOVED it. He took to it like a fish takes to water and loved everything about it. The program has curriculums for toddlers, preschoolers, pre-k kids, kindergartners, and they are beta testing a first grade program. We started on the preschool....Level 1 of 2.
10 months later.....finds that Jeffery graduated from preschool in early July (we celebrated with going out for gelato) and he is now almost 3/4 of the way through pre-k (I think he will be done by the end of the year). He still begs for ABCMouse almost every day....even on Sundays....but we only do it about 3 days a week. He loves the stories (Red Riding Hood is one of his favorites because of the wolf), listening to the songs (he loves to sing "Home on the Range"), his favorite letter is still "O"....I don't understand a favorite letter but whatever....., he loves most to learn about underwater kelp forests and can identify planets and has even used the term "boreal forest" correctly in a conversation with me. Granted....it was only once....but hey! I'm not complaining.
He can dance and sing and make his goofy gestures all he wants without disrupting a teacher or an entire class. I normally have a set amount of lessons I want to accomplish and most of the time, he's on the same page. But there are days where he begs for more...so we do more. And then, there are days where he's just not engaged and we do way less....and that's okay.
With him doing so well...and nearing the end of the pre-k work, we have also decided to add lessons from a curriculum that a dear friend loaned to us. It is a preschool program designed for Catholic families and I am LOVING it!!!! It includes the arts and crafts component that is missing with an online program, scripture lessons, and classical music selections to accompany the week's theme. Have I said that I love it?! We are also helping his motor skills by using workbooks to learn how to cut and hold scissors and learn how to hold pencils and trace. And then we are slowly starting to teach him how to read.
On a music appreciation level....he will tell you his favorite songs right now are:
* Celebrate - 3 Dog Night
* Happy Song - Pharrell Williams
* Suppertime - You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
* Rockin' Robin - Bobby Day
* Down at the Station
*Toccata and Fugue in D Minor - Bach
And then these two pieces:
And
The first is the 2nd movement of the Chichester Psalms by Bernstein (a personal favorite). The counter tenor singer is most usually a boy soprano and when Jeffery first heard this piece....he was fascinated that it was a little boy singing. *DING DING DING* A teachable moment! :) So....I talked to him about David, the writer of the Psalms and the meaning of the song....how it is the children at the beginning singing about God's peace and goodness (Psalm 23). And then the adults come in with angry voices and sing about the nations warring and turning their backs on God (Psalm 2)....but that in the end, they are silenced by the children who finish the 23rd Psalm. He sat there listening to me....and the song...completely engaged and a couple days later, told someone at a get together we attended all about "Little David" and how the adults were not obeying God, etc. He asks for the song almost every day and will tell people to be quiet so he can listen to it.
The second is a beautiful song by a relatively new choral composer. The first time Jeffery heard this song....the first time either boy heard this song....it got so quiet in the toy room that I had to poke my head in there to make sure mischief wasn't being had. They were both seated on the ground....completely entranced. So....as the text is a Sara Teasdale poem (my favorite poet)....I found the poem and read it to Jeffery and we talked about his friends and mommy's friends when I was little.
Moving on.....he is getting the social aspect and the "having a different teacher" part of preschool with his swim lessons and religious ed classes at church (which he just started this fall).
He is LOVING his swim lessons. He goes twice a week and has 2 coaches that he adores. Not only is he learning safety in the water and around the pool and some fundamentals....but he is having to learn to be a little adventurous (something this child is not) and grow in confidence. It has been WONDERFUL to see his growth in the few short months he's been going.
And then there is religious ed at our church.....with one of the best teachers I've ever seen for preschoolers. Seriously. :) Jeffery adores her and the lessons and crafts she comes up with for the kids are just amazing. He is in a class that is filled with the friends he loves the most (I think his class of pre-k and kindergartners is upwards of 15 kids) and he looks forward to it every week. Below, he is wearing his Pope Hat and holding his Pope Francis puppet that everyone made the week the Pope was visiting the U.S.
And in the spring, we hope to get him enrolled in a soccer team and art classes at the VMFA (fingers crossed....we keep striking out with that).
As you may imagine, all of this is keeping me busy. But so far....I'm loving it. Dave helps out when he can by occupying Jakob and when he can't help, Jakob gets a treat by getting to watch some Thomas and Friends....which he does not complain about in the slightest. :)
Is this something that we are going to continue with in the coming years? That remains to be seen. He seems to be absolutely thriving under the present arrangement but we are weighing all of our options (public, private, or homeschool) with in-depth discussion, research, and prayer. We believe that the education of a child is one of the most important things a parent is responsible for and that it shouldn't be taken lightly. Whatever we choose to do, it by no means discredits or devalues the work our friends do who homeschool or the work of our family members and friends who are teachers. (Just wanted to put that out there!) We are purely looking to make the best decision where it concerns the education and well-being of Jeffery.
With all of my above praising of Jeffery, let me assure one and all....he will still try to talk your ear off about NASCAR and trains and baseball....but there's a lot more going on in that big Sell head of his these days. :) He never ceases to amaze me with his vocabulary, his memory, his empathetic spirit, his knowledge on a whole host of topics, etc. And with Jakob looking on and hearing everything going on....it is only a matter of time before he starts to follow his big brother. :)
So, here is to my Jeffery Thomas and him being a "pre-k kid" (as he puts it)!!! I'm so proud of all you've done and learned so far!!!!!
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