Starting Preschool

I know that kids start learning from the time they are born. With each of my kids I remember being amazed at what it must be like to be a blank slate. I watch Alissa right now at 6 months and I think, "Wow, everyday is full of new things for her." Of course it makes me think of the influence that I have on my kids. The words I use, my responses to situations, the way I spend my time... all those things are what my kids are learning from me.

I feel that my capacity to be teacher of more intellectual things, academic things is a more limited than it is to teach them to handle emotions, to fear and love God, and treat others nicely. So, as Andrew approached 3 years of age, I thought we'd enroll him in preschool. I found a nice preschool through the community center and got him all enrolled. Finding the right preschool was a challenge. There are plenty of really good ones out there, but they sure do charge a premium for enrolling. Many of them were far beyond our affordability. This particular one that we chose was not cheap, but I guess it seemed more affordable than some of the others.

I was really getting excited about preschool for Andrew. But I was also concerned that he wouldn't really get the type of challenge intellectually that I thought he needed. I know it sounds like I think my kid is brighter than all the other kids his age, but at the risk of sounding that way, I do think that he would get bored if he wasn't stretched a bit. I began to think that preschool would be good for him socially if nothing else.

Is social development for a 3 year old worth $120 every month for 2 hours, 2 days a week? I began to think there must be a better, less expensive way. I talked with my friend Jennifer who is a teacher and has one son (who is also 3) and she got me thinking that maybe I don't have to put Andrew in preschool this early.

So from the financial aspect and the idea that Andrew could be both intelectually and socially stimulated some other way, we've decided to not send him to preschool this year. I do feel that it's important for him to have some structure in his days, so today began what I hope is a long term attempt at challenging his 3 year old brain.

We had our first "at home preschool" lesson about shapes and matching. We worked on finding the one that doesn't belong and then we drew lines to put the shapes in their appropriate boxes. I was hoping that we would spend an hour or so working on these plus a couple of other worksheets. Andrew figured each worksheet out in about 1 minute and then completed them all in about 20 minutes. I guess I need to choose something a little harder.

Socially, my hope is to get him into some type of 3 year olds team sport and/or a music class. Andrew seems very drawn to music and I have to say that there are even signs that he might have some natural gifting musically.

So, being that Andrew is only 3, I think it's easy to get all wrapped up in what we're going to do for him. In a way, I think its just as important to let him just be 3.