Watching Her Think

A few weeks ago I hit a rut in my preschool at home time with Aria.  I knew it would happen.  Most of the time I get this crazy idea in my head that what we are doing is not good enough.  I then think I need to make things more elaborate or I project abilities on my daughter that are still beyond her.  And then I get mad.  And then I give up.  Oh the joys of a recovering perfectionist.

But thanks to my good friend Lindsay, my enthusiasm picked back up by simply picking a new time of day for our "school time."  Part of my problem was figuring out when to do school stuff on days that our mornings were busy with other involvements.  I was trying to do too much on those mornings, and really on all mornings.  I thought I needed hour-long, elaborate lessons all focused around the same theme. 

Lindsay shared with me that she does school time with her daughter after lunch.  I thought that might work for us, too, because Aria does not have rest time until 2.  Plus, we are almost always home around 1:00.  We tested it out for a few days and loved it!  In fact, we've probably done more school in the past week than we had done in the rest of the month combined!  My attitude has changed, as well.  I am trying to do a few short things instead of one big thing.  We play a lot of phonics games, work on patterns, practice writing and coloring a bit, count, sort, and even work on skills like buttoning buttons.  Aria has enjoyed it so much that she asks for school time now.  One day I was not feeling well and we didn't do it.  She came running out during rest time and said, "Mom!  We forgot to do our school time!" 

I really enjoy her enthusiasm for learning and I love seeing things click for her.  Today we were working on patterns.  We were using some apple cards we painted back in September.  We attempted this same pattern activity in September with not much luck.  Aria had a hard time figuring out what came next.  But today she got it.  I can't say we have worked on patterns a ton, so it could just be cognitive growth that helped the light bulb go on today. 

We started with a red, green, red, green pattern.  She easily completed that one with all the cards we had.  She also counted the colors and observed the pattern very carefully.  Then we moved on to red, red, green, green.  Again, she completed it with ease.  The next pattern provided a little more challenge.  It was red, yellow, green, red, yellow, green.  This is the point where I was watching her think and seeing the light bulb go on.  I watched her look back in the pattern to see what came next in the first sequence and then repeat it in the second sequence.  It was almost like I could see the thought process in her head, "Let's see. There is a red one on the end.  Back here a yellow one came after the red one, so there must be a yellow one next." 

Man, I thought watching my students learn when I was a teacher was awesome.  Now it is my own kid!  So exciting!  I am thankful for this time with her and the chance to see the light bulbs go on.  I am thankful for a renewed sense of direction for our school time.  And I am thankful for her enthusiasm and for just being a great kid!