Gregory Preschool Institute of Learning

Go ahead... call me a dork. I know what you are thinking...especially Momma Bird. I can hear it now. I decided over the weekend that, if Bubba and Baby can't go to school, I will bring school to them. My degree is in education, after all, and I do know a few things about teaching. So... welcome to the Gregory Preschool Institute of Learning. Ha!

On Friday, I went to Bubba and Baby's parent/teacher conferences and got a wealth of information. I found out that Baby doesn't talk (WHAT?) to her teachers, so they did not know if she could count, say the alphabet, or name her colors. After informing them that she knows all of the above, I immediately became concerned. Since when does Baby not talk to someone? She never stops talking. She talks to strangers in the grocery store, nurses in the hospital, and bugs on the sidewalk. I worried that she must have been uncomfortable at school for some reason, and then I got mad. Why had no one informed me of this? Why hadn't anyone said "Look, your kid doesn't say a word? What's the deal?" Instead, they explained that they knew she could talk because she talks to Bubba on the playground, so they weren't concerned. Not good enough!

Next I went over to Bubba's classroom where I found more interesting information. Bubba knows every shape known to man-kind (octagon, decagon, heptagon, etc), but he cannot identify any letter in the alphabet. He does, however, know the SOUND of every letter in the alphabet. Interesting! Typically, a child learns the letter name and then the sound, but my child has done the reverse. In a strange way, this is exciting because the letter sound is a higher level skill, so I know the letter name will come. Nonetheless, we have some work to do.

This was the beginning of my idea. I immediately knew that I needed to work with Bubba everyday to learn his letters, and I knew it wouldn't hurt Baby to hear it either. I sat down with a piece of paper and made a small schedule, two hours of circle time, math, science, letters, reading, art, sensory, and snack. Next, I went to my rubbermaid bins of teaching supplies and dug out everything that I could use (sentence strips, construction paper, glue sticks, calendar, art book, etc).

Today was our first day of school, and I must say it went pretty well. Bubba is amazingly different when in a "learning environment". I know it sounds strange because we were still at home, but he had a different objective. I think he really enjoys learning, and you could see it on his face. He was engaged and interested. He followed directions and listened to what I was saying. He sat still while I read and helped to put away his things when we were done. This is just the first day, so we will see how it goes, but it looks promising. Maybe I can at least mold two young minds!