Preschool with Koyle

Preschool with Koyle has been a journey this year. I went back and forth all summer long about whether or not to find a preschool to put him in or just do it at home together. I did try and do a joy school group but it fell through. Koyle was adamant that he wanted to do it at home with mom so I bit the bullet and decided to just do it. Things were pretty rough going, ahem.. I mean fairly non existent at the beginning. New baby made it really hard to settle into a good routine and find time to make it happen. But we were doing things whenever we got the chance. I quickly realized that I was going to need to think outside the box and switch things up though. Trying to follow our old preschool model wasn't working with just us. And he had already been through my curriculum twice and he was losing interest. One thing I tried was writing down a bunch of different activities and resources on papers in a jar and then throughout the day I would have him draw an activity out that we could do in 5-15 minutes. That worked for a while but he wasn't getting the substance or consistency I wanted. During this time I was doing a lot of reading with him and focusing on that, as well as doing a lot of writing/coloring. Those were two big things I wanted to accomplish with him the year. It took finding the right motivation but we have made huge progress. Koyle started wanting to write down schedules for different sports teams. He will look up a team on my phone and then copy them down in his journal. I need to get some before and after pictures so you can see the improvement in his writing. We also got him a sports coloring book for Christmas and he LOVES it and his coloring skills blossomed overnight. He is also officially reading these days and that has been really fun. So we weren't totally failing at preschool but we were still floundering a bit. Then in December I found a website called Little House Kindergarten. It's actually a kingergarten curriculum for homeschooling but it is the perfect level for him. Maybe a hair easy but a lot of good review for him. It's all online and you just go down the list of each days activities. There are some worksheets to go along with it sometimes that I printed out, and it is all free. It's not perfect or all comprehensive, but Koyle loves it and it eliminates the prep time for me which I was never getting to. Lincoln also started napping consistently in the afternoons after Christmas so we have a set time each day during Landon and Lincoln's nap that we can come down and do preschool together. Some days we just do one day of curriculum, some days we do three or four days. Some days we do science experiements after or art projects, or little games. And some days we just do the computer work. At the end of the day I am glad I stuck with it and didn't ship Koyle off like I was so close to doing a couple of times. He wants to do this with me, and there aren't very many things that Koyle wants to do with mom. I haven't gotten to be a part of some big learning milestones for him and I love that. I feel confident that he is going to succeed and do just fine at Kindergarten. He will have a learning curve of sitting still and focusing for a whole day, but if he has a good teacher he will do fine. Moral of the story: All the things I always profess to believe are really true! I can teach my own children. It doesn't have to be a perfect organized moment for good learning opportunities and bonding time to happen. I have treasured this extra time with Koyle and am so glad I didn't take the easy route and just send him to someone else. (Don't assume I'm trying to make you feel guilty if you send your child to preschool. For us, this was the right answer.)