Rebekah's Insights

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Last week was Liam’s first week of Pre-School! (As I develop it, I am referring to the curriculum as “Pre-School I” since it is a very basic skeletal structure for introducing concepts and designed for very small bits of time. He is, after all, not even three years old yet, so there is no pressure with this “school time.” In fact, it is largely a purposeful expansion of our times devoted to reading and catechism instruction.) He is SO eager to learn about letters, numbers, and really anything I want to tell him about and since so many of his little friends started school last week, it adds to his confidence in becoming a “Big Boy, too!” ;)

With that said, the following is just a brief synopsis of our activities focusing on the letter “Aa:”

• We added words that begin with A to our “Aa” list throughout the week as we read
stories and looked around the house for the letter A. At this point, any exposure
to the sound associated with the letters is purely incidental, as my focus is on
letter recognition and a beginning awareness that there are big and little letters.
(A tip of my hat goes to Bill Martin, Jr. for writing Liam’s current favorite book,
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.)
• Liam “wrote” A’s on his own sheets of paper.
• We sang the “Alphabet Song” and Liam practiced matching with the “A to Z Zoo” from
Fisher Price.
• We enjoyed reading many new books, as well as old favorites, including Animalia, A
is for Angry, Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, and The Big Red Apple.
• We introduced the fourth Catechism Question and learned about the first day of
Creation.
• Liam helped Mommy make Apple Crisp! He really did a lot of it himself…AND he helped
himself to a lot of the apples that were supposed to go into the baking dish. LOL!
He did a great job and Daddy agreed that the Apple Crisp tasted great, too.
• Liam counted out ten animal Crackers for snack.

William asks Liam every day what he learned about during school and Liam enjoys recalling our activities. He then often chooses books we’ve read as bedtime stories in order to “show” Daddy what we learned.

Aine also wants to “tell” Daddy about what they read and launches into an adorable little jibber-fest with recognizable words here and there. She is so exuberant! ;) Aine is saying her own approximations of several words, including Aine, Liam, doggy, kitty, water, cracker, COOKIE, (and thinks we should eat them at EVERY meal), juice, and of course, Momma, Dada, hi, bye-bye, and NO! She has taken to arranging books all neatly lined in a row, much like Liam has always done, although she is NOT inclined to LEAVE the books neatly arranged IF Liam has arranged them. The two play very well together at most times, however, and just the other day I overheard Liam teaching and encouraging Aine to roll the ball to him in the play room while I was washing dishes. :) How sweet it was to hear his little voice (made higher-pitched as he spoke kindly to her) saying, “Roll the ball to me, Aine! You can do it, baby!” And when she rolled the ball to the OPPOSITE end of the room, responded with, “That was nice, Aine. Now this time roll it to ME!” :0)

[I will endeavor to take photos THIS week to show some of the learning activities—especially the cooking, as I am using the Gold Medal Flour Alpha Bakery Children’s Cookbook for each letter, providing lots of great culinary and motor skill opportunities!]