First Day of Home-Preschool

John, standing ready for "school" with his backpack (stocked with two chopsticks he found), bare bottomed because of his current potty training.

Mama reading Curious George Learns His ABCs to John, who found a use for those chopsticks: pointing at the letters.

The first official day of home-preschool didn't go as picture perfect as I had envisioned, but it was good and I'm already learning some lessons. Our day was altered because I woke up sick (again or a resurgence of last week's illness), I had two errands to do, and the first three hours of John's morning were spent with me giving undivided attention on a potty training matter. I'll spare you the details, but by the end John made a big accomplishment and was proud of himself.

Therefore, my organized day wasn't exactly how I envisioned it, but that is a lesson about how homeschooling fits real life. We did spend about 15 minutes reading alphabet books and then John brought me some other books and puzzles to do together. Later I was working in the kitchen and had John play a matching game using Trader Joe's alphabet cookies and an alphabet puzzle. When he matched a letter, he got to eat the cookie. We did that for about 10 minutes, multitasking with me working in the kitchen, John eating a snack he was going to eat anyway, and homeschooling.

It will be interesting to get an idea of what is age appropriate, as I don't know. I noticed quickly that John had no ability to match letters if given the entire 26 letters from which to choose, the same way I imagine I'd see lines swimming if I tried to look at the Chinese alphabet of characters. He can match with some success if I hover the alphabet cookie over three choices on the puzzle, very slowly. I noticed that he has age-typical dyslexia in that, for example, when shown an 'L', he'll match it to a 'J,' or he'll match an 'M' to a 'W.' All very normal.

I'd like to put in more time reading about how the Montessori Method teaches letters, reading, and writing. It teaches children shapes first, which makes sense since they have to be able to discern shapes before they can discern letters (which are 2-D shapes). I just ordered a set of Montessori geometric solids and I look forward someday to buying some sandpaper letters.