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Pre-K - just not feeling it.


PeacefulChaos
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Ok.

So Pink is 4 - just turned 4 the beginning of May.

I've never really done anything 'preschool' ish with her - she likes to color, so I would find things for her to color... etc. 

I thought, up until this schol year got underway, that we would move into more preschool-like things this year, so that she would be 'ready' for K work next year. 

So we started up in August.  We don't do much - a lesson out of OPGTR stretched out over a couple of days, a couple of pages in Get Ready for the Code (we have the next two, as well) - which she LOVES doing, and a calendar.  We recite the months of the year, days of the week, and talk about the seasons and the weather.  We count the little counting bears and make patterns.  Total, it all takes about 15 minutes or so.

I'm not going to lie - I really just feel like there is no point. 

In OPG, she doesn't remember any of what we said in the days before.  Every time I pull out the 'A' card and ask what letter it is, she shrugs and gives a chipper, 'I don't know!' with a big grin.  Same thing with the sound it makes.  I just remind her, she repeats after me, and we move on.  But she still doesn't recognize her letters (granted, we've only gone over a handful!) because that wasn't something that I focused on when she was younger, nor do I think I needed to. 

She loves the Code books, so that doesn't bother me.  Though a lot of them involve letters, and she doesn't necessarily 'get it' when I say, 'Does b, b, bear star with the b, b, B sound?'  She answers wrong most of the time.  Which, once again, is fine - we just say it again and I tell her, 'Yes, b, b, bear = b, b, B.' 

She likes her calendar and stuff, but can't point out the numbers or recognize them on sight even after we've said them while pointing to them every day for two weeks.  Note: she CAN count, and she counts with a 1:1 ratio with the bears and stuff.  She just doesn't know what the numbers look like.  So we started with 0 and, just like with the letters, she gives the same answer when we come back to it the next day.  ;)  She does the patterns and counting well, but can't remember, despite us going over it daily, that the season is currently 'summer', etc. 

 

So part of me just wants to scrap the whole thing, because if she isn't remembering anything over the days/weeks then obviously she isn't ready I guess??  Like, I don't want to cause tons more work for myself now trying to teach her something that will take her forEVER to remember, when maybe I could just wait and do it next year and she would learn it better/faster. 

But then part of me thinks, no, everyone will think I'm being lazy (and truthfully, I do hate the preschool type stuff, plus, for some reason, I feel more self conscious of my ability to TEACH this early level stuff - both the boys went to pre-k somewhere, so when they came home, Link knew how to read - WELL - and Astro already knew his letters, numbers, letter sounds, etc.  Yes, Astro learned how to read at home, but I struggled with confidence in being capable of that, as well -- Idk, maybe it is strange that I feel MUCH more confident in my ability to teach them from the post-learning to read stage through high school than I do preschool and learning to read!!  :lol: ) ...and maybe it IS me being lazy, or just too set in our ways of the boys doing school work and Pink doing her own thing, and not having to worry about 'school' for her, too.  Though it IS going to have to happen, so I was hoping to go ahead with it now.  ... Sigh...

 

So what should I do?  Scrap pieces of it?  All of it?  Change things up?  Keep plugging along?

 

My thoughts right now are to maybe scrap OPG and just work on letter recognition, numeral recognition, and, like, her name or something.  Idk. 

Is there something workbook-ish that would give her a couple of pages to do, like the Code books, but not involve letters, even?  Since she likes those so much... or should we just keep working on that? 

What about the calendar/math-type stuff?

 

Oh, and I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE crafty, artsy, stupid pre-k and K 'projects'.  So don't suggest those.  I also have no interest in doing a whole themed bunch of worksheets on A is for Apples or anything like that.  We tried the LOTW type stuff before and it failed MISERABLY because we just never did it - I hate that stuff.  :p

 

 

ETA:  I just wanted to add, I hope this post doesn't come across as me thinking she's dumb or anything - I don't think that at all.  There are a lot of things she CAN do - I just listed the things, school related, that she Can't.  :) 

Also, I'll admit that she hasn't been read to as often as the boys were.  I stopped reading a bedtime story to her when she was maybe 2ish because we ran out of time, plus I got tired of reading the silly Disney Princess stories she would pick on top of the reading I did with the boys during the school day.  Up until that point, we ALWAYS read at bedtime with all the kids - I just reached the point where I was sick of the whole bedtime routine taking 20-30 minutes.  So I could add reading time into her daily 'school' stuff, too.    Don't get me wrong - she's heard stuff read - sometimes she's sitting with us when we read our current read aloud or SOTW or whatever - but it's not the picture book/ fun reading experience that the boys had.  Which I don't regret - it just is what it is.  *shrug*

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We also hate the crafty stuff. DS liked Before We Read (Amish Pathways) last year and is now doing Learning Through Sounds. (I have him use dot markers because he doesn't even like to color.)

 

I'm reluctant to even suggest it, but are you sure she's not pretending sometimes when she says she doesn't know things? My brother did that in kindergarten (and it worked on a professional teacher!) to get out of answering stupid questions.

 

I don't think you need to worry if she's not remembering the letters and numbers yet at 4, though you might want to consider whether her vision is okay. If I don't wear my glasses, a lot of the letters and numbers do look alike.

 

This wouldn't surprise me at all!  ;)

She (and Astro!  How did I get TWO OF THEM?!  :lol: ) are both sort of silly, enjoy clowning around, kids.  Both knew colors, parts of the body, etc, as little kids but wouldn't answer when I'd ask.  ("Astro, where is your nose?  Can you show me your nose?" *Insert big, mischevious grin here* ... and Pink did the same thing!)  Then they'd turn around and insist on the blue (or pink, or whatever) crayon, or tell me they only wanted to wear orange head to toe, or something like that. 

 

:rolleyes:   Kids.  :lol:

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I did a lot of incidental learning with DS and DD. Basically, this means I brought up letters and their sounds and numbers whenever I could, but especially at meals, in conversations. " look, we're eating soup. Ssssoup. Do you hear the sound SSS at rage beginning of soup?" and then I would show them the s magnet or draw an s on the napkin or a scrap piece of paper. Same with counting. We would count our crackers/ food and then I would write the number for them to see.

 

Leapfrog letter factory gets our vote too.

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Letter Factory is great! I'd also use books like Doodling Dragons (has all the sounds the letters make)and a lot of alphabet books. Dr Seuss' ABC book too.

 

Like you I dislike cutesy! A nice down-to-earth and not cutesy program for prek is Flowering Baby Volume 5 (ages 4-5) or 4 (ages 3-4). Each volume has twelve months of active hands on learning with letters, rhymes, math, fiction and nonfiction, culture/safety, nature, fine/gross motor. It uses things found around the house to teach.

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I will use the time for opg to do some nursery rhymes, nursery fairy tales etc with her. Sometimes they get lost in the bedtime routine and don't get done with the 3rd or 4th child. I got a big collection of children stories that have stories like goodnight moon, corduroy, caps for sale etc and read one or two during her time. You might also look at getting her to memorize little poems- Emily Dickinson, Robert Luis Stevenson has some short ones that perk- k can memorize.

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I will use the time for opg to do some nursery rhymes, nursery fairy tales etc with her. Sometimes they get lost in the bedtime routine and don't get done with the 3rd or 4th child. I got a big collection of children stories that have stories like goodnight moon, corduroy, caps for sale etc and read one or two during her time. You might also look at getting her to memorize little poems- Emily Dickinson, Robert Luis Stevenson has some short ones that perk- k can memorize.

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I agree with the pp.  I would drop what your doing and just read books and teach as your living life .  (point to a cereal box and say hey that letter makes the "k" sound or there is the letter "a" type thing.) You can start up again when she's 5.  I didn't start teaching my daughter anything formal until 5.  Although,I tried a pre-k program for about a month when she was 4 but I dropped it as I thought it was way too involved and I didn't have the time.    I also second the Rod & Staff books.  They are wonderful, gentle and you can do one page a day if you'd rather not drop everything completely. 

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One game we've played with success: get a movable alphabet (even Melissa & Doug has wood letters). Take one letter and say its sound, then go on a scavenger hunt for things starting with that letter. After a few weeks you'll have made it through the alphabet. Go back, start over with a different case set. Floweringbaby had us go through lowercase, uppercase, and sets containing both in matching exercises and writing OR identification exercises.

We've also played with letters in pretty much every form. Some days I put shaving cream on the mirror and let him draw in it. As we played I suddenly laughingly may say "look! I can make 'f'" & soon we're laughing and learning what that letter says. We've used cheerios, pretzel sticks, salt, flour, dirt, paint, chalk, written in pudding, cut jello letters. Anything to make it interesting and just incorporate it in play. Instead of flash cards put a set of tactical letter cards next to a sand tray.

Sometimes letter hunts can be on book pages, in the grocery store while shopping, or cooking in the kitchen. Point out the letters in the menu ordering at a restaurant. I've also followed other tips from Teach Your Child To Read With Children's Books like when reading aloud to your child always have your finger pointing to the words you speak, slightly pausing at question marks, slightly lifting and returning to the page at periods. Helps make the connection.

 

Leap Frog has a set of letter magnets that make the sounds, too. You place a letter in the holder and it chants for example "a, a, a says 'a' the a says 'a' every letter makes a sound the a says 'a'". Very useful.

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I would continue ETC since she loves it, but ditch the rest.  I loved the PK materials from Handwriting Without Tears.  I highly recommend those for letter/number formation.  Those and just reading to her daily (a good book list like the one from Sonlight P3/4?) and give her some time. 

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Ok.

So Pink is 4 - just turned 4 the beginning of May.

I've never really done anything 'preschool' ish with her - she likes to color, so I would find things for her to color... etc.

I thought, up until this schol year got underway, that we would move into more preschool-like things this year, so that she would be 'ready' for K work next year.

So we started up in August. We don't do much - a lesson out of OPGTR stretched out over a couple of days, a couple of pages in Get Ready for the Code (we have the next two, as well) - which she LOVES doing, and a calendar. We recite the months of the year, days of the week, and talk about the seasons and the weather. We count the little counting bears and make patterns. Total, it all takes about 15 minutes or so.

I'm not going to lie - I really just feel like there is no point.

In OPG, she doesn't remember any of what we said in the days before. Every time I pull out the 'A' card and ask what letter it is, she shrugs and gives a chipper, 'I don't know!' with a big grin. Same thing with the sound it makes. I just remind her, she repeats after me, and we move on. But she still doesn't recognize her letters (granted, we've only gone over a handful!) because that wasn't something that I focused on when she was younger, nor do I think I needed to.

She loves the Code books, so that doesn't bother me. Though a lot of them involve letters, and she doesn't necessarily 'get it' when I say, 'Does b, b, bear star with the b, b, B sound?' She answers wrong most of the time. Which, once again, is fine - we just say it again and I tell her, 'Yes, b, b, bear = b, b, B.'

She likes her calendar and stuff, but can't point out the numbers or recognize them on sight even after we've said them while pointing to them every day for two weeks. Note: she CAN count, and she counts with a 1:1 ratio with the bears and stuff. She just doesn't know what the numbers look like. So we started with 0 and, just like with the letters, she gives the same answer when we come back to it the next day. ;) She does the patterns and counting well, but can't remember, despite us going over it daily, that the season is currently 'summer', etc.

 

So part of me just wants to scrap the whole thing, because if she isn't remembering anything over the days/weeks then obviously she isn't ready I guess?? Like, I don't want to cause tons more work for myself now trying to teach her something that will take her forEVER to remember, when maybe I could just wait and do it next year and she would learn it better/faster.

But then part of me thinks, no, everyone will think I'm being lazy (and truthfully, I do hate the preschool type stuff, plus, for some reason, I feel more self conscious of my ability to TEACH this early level stuff - both the boys went to pre-k somewhere, so when they came home, Link knew how to read - WELL - and Astro already knew his letters, numbers, letter sounds, etc. Yes, Astro learned how to read at home, but I struggled with confidence in being capable of that, as well -- Idk, maybe it is strange that I feel MUCH more confident in my ability to teach them from the post-learning to read stage through high school than I do preschool and learning to read!! :lol: ) ...and maybe it IS me being lazy, or just too set in our ways of the boys doing school work and Pink doing her own thing, and not having to worry about 'school' for her, too. Though it IS going to have to happen, so I was hoping to go ahead with it now. ... Sigh...

 

So what should I do? Scrap pieces of it? All of it? Change things up? Keep plugging along?

 

My thoughts right now are to maybe scrap OPG and just work on letter recognition, numeral recognition, and, like, her name or something. Idk.

Is there something workbook-ish that would give her a couple of pages to do, like the Code books, but not involve letters, even? Since she likes those so much... or should we just keep working on that?

What about the calendar/math-type stuff?

 

Oh, and I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE crafty, artsy, stupid pre-k and K 'projects'. So don't suggest those. I also have no interest in doing a whole themed bunch of worksheets on A is for Apples or anything like that. We tried the LOTW type stuff before and it failed MISERABLY because we just never did it - I hate that stuff. :p

 

 

ETA: I just wanted to add, I hope this post doesn't come across as me thinking she's dumb or anything - I don't think that at all. There are a lot of things she CAN do - I just listed the things, school related, that she Can't. :)

Also, I'll admit that she hasn't been read to as often as the boys were. I stopped reading a bedtime story to her when she was maybe 2ish because we ran out of time, plus I got tired of reading the silly Disney Princess stories she would pick on top of the reading I did with the boys during the school day. Up until that point, we ALWAYS read at bedtime with all the kids - I just reached the point where I was sick of the whole bedtime routine taking 20-30 minutes. So I could add reading time into her daily 'school' stuff, too. Don't get me wrong - she's heard stuff read - sometimes she's sitting with us when we read our current read aloud or SOTW or whatever - but it's not the picture book/ fun reading experience that the boys had. Which I don't regret - it just is what it is. *shrug*

I'm not feeling it either. DS enjoys his work once he starts, but its like pulling teeth to get him to START. It's disappointing because he picks up on things so quickly, and I want to monopolize on that. But he doesn't learn anything when were both frustrated.

 

So, I'm putting school away for a couple weeks. We're going out of town for a wedding then a vacation at the end of the month, so I might start back up after that.

 

AND after a week and a half of no school, DS asked to get his reading book (phonics) out yesterday, and we did blending for about 30 min - which is the MOST and BEST he's done since we started in early August.

 

So yeah. Relax. Be a mom. Save the teaching for later.

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The Before Five in a Row and Five in a Row manuals do a good job of explaining how to insert learning into day to day life as well as using picture books to do the same.  I don't follow FIAR with my kids now, but did learn a lot from using both FIAR and B4FIAR with my firstborn.  I probably still incorporate a lot of the lessons out of habit when we run across the FIAR selected picture books.  The general teaching philosophy is a good one to learn and store away for use with any curricula. 

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Throw out all the Disney books and read books you can enjoy to her.  Every day.  There are so many great picture books out there.

 

Schedule something each day she enjoys whether it's painting, music, blocks, cooking (even with pretend food), dress-up, etc.

 

Spend time outdoors.

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I would keep things simple and 2 things daily.

 

Read to her. Point out the words. Talk about the pictures. Discuss the books. Talk about her thoughts and feelings, her predictions etc.

And do math. Read math books, count, measure things when cooking. Play games. Show her 2 stuffed animal and have 3 more join them and now she has 5 stuffed animals. Talk about bigger, smaller. More, less. Etc. nothing formal. Just part of day to day life stuff.

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Last year my now-5 yr old couldn't remember "Mayflower" "England" and "Pilgrims" no matter how many times I read/told him stories (thanks to What your K needs to know).  At the same time, he knew all the planets in our Solar System and some other things that came from random books that we read.

 

This year, he is all about those things.  He just didn't care enough to "remember".   He is still doing it.  Things that do not interest him - all of a sudden it's "mommy, I just don't have a good memory".  Yeah, right. 

 

But at 5 - I don't care enough to push him

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

My newly turned 5 yo DD was similar. She enjoyed the Leapfrog videos, ETC primers, Essentials A, the HWOT app, number sense activities, and that was it. She hated Pre-AAR and couldn't bear any story with a moral.

By 5.5 yo and 7 weeks into kindie, she's reading cvc words and blends, writing the lower case letters, and doing Essentials B w/MUS for K. She attends a 3.5 hour kindie class, one day per week and came home last week telling me she wanted to quit because she wasn't learning anything new, and she thought the class was too easy...I'm like, what?

Kids grow pretty quick. Lay off and enjoy her.

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I agree with dropping most of that stuff and reading more books you enjoy to her. Get the Letter Factory movie for her to learn her letters and sounds. You can also try approaching numbers and letters from a different angle. One of my girls was loving math and learning great, but for months she just wasn't recognizing the numerals, no matter how many times we went over them--she could do patterns, counting, more/less, ordinal numbers, simple addition and subtraction, but she just couldn't recognize even the number one when she saw it. But after I set the Letter School app to numbers and let her play with it, she knew them. (I did this just twice, for 10 or 15 min. each time.) I guess she needed the kinesthetic approach.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My ds 4.5 is in love with the "I don't know" game. He smiles as he says it, that's how I know he's joking. Today, it helped that we had puppets. He had one and I had one, and after our lesson (4 letters, loosely following WRTR) he took the puppet i was using and switched it with his own puppet. Then he was the teacher and suddenly knew most of the letters we worked on.

 

I also teach through life. He plays starfall a lot and knows some letters that we haven't yet worked on from that. He watches leapfrog letter factory and we have that leapfrog alphabet fridge magnet thing. I haven't taught him the alphabet song yet in any language. (We are working on two letter systems (arabic and english) at the same time.) When we read books, I point out the beginning letters of titles, and in other situations when there are large distinguishable letters, I point those out. I usually ask him "hey, what letter is this?" And we don't usually call letters by their names, but by their sounds i.e. "ssssss" instead of "Ess".

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My son is almost 3 and loves the leap frog videos. Letter factory is huge for the letter sounds, as others have recommended, but I didn't know about that one at first. We started with the newer ones that don't seem to have much educational value (all available on Netflix) when I needed distration while packing. We started with Numberland at around 2 and within a week he could recognize numbers through ten. Then Alphabet Amusement Park (only teaches letter names not sounds). My son loved these so much, and loved Tad, Lilly and Scout, that when I realized that Letter Factor and Talking Word Factory existed he ate those up to. I really credit leap frog videos with his love of numbers and letters. He spends time on his own every day going through magnetic letters and saying what sounds they make and he is now starting to try to make words.

 

Honestly, I never expected a video/tv show to teach him so much. I know that it could be the type of learner he is, and it may not work for my next child, but its definitely worth a try!

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Oh, and "take a guess" comes out of my mind throughout the day so much that by the end of the day, it makes me feel sick to say it, lol. I have always been accepting of his wrong answers; I don't say anything to make him feel inadequate for getting an answer wrong, etc. But still he seems constantly worried to get something wrong. I tell him "just take a guess," and he's usually correct.

 

Our math activity today (after 2 months of just free play with c-rods a number puzzle, and informally counting things) was 15ish minutes of an actual math concept (number cubes sorted into boxes, matched to the numerals 0-4) He was pretty successful on his own, and it really surprised me. He only struggled with 0 and with wanting to use up all of the leftover cubes, which I was actually expecting him to do. Usually for math, we just play with C-rods and build firetrucks and people and such with them.

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Thanks all!

After reading all the responses, I decided to go with my gut and ditch everything formal for now. 

I need to look into buying the Letter Factory DVDs - haven't gotten around to it yet.  Other than that she's just doing her thing as usual, playing, reading, etc.  We did rearrange the kids' rooms so she has a bookshelf with more books now, so she's been more interested in reading as of late. 

Thanks again!

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Thanks all!

After reading all the responses, I decided to go with my gut and ditch everything formal for now.

I need to look into buying the Letter Factory DVDs - haven't gotten around to it yet. Other than that she's just doing her thing as usual, playing, reading, etc. We did rearrange the kids' rooms so she has a bookshelf with more books now, so she's been more interested in reading as of late.

Thanks again!

Sounds like a good plan to me. If you want affirmation that it is ok to not teach preschool academics, I will be happy to offer it. Lots of reading, playing, imagining.....life is good. :)

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I'm using HWOT, Rod and Staff A-F Series and mfw preschool toys with index cards for my pre-k son. He just turned 4 in June. It takes about 30 minutes to do, about 10 minutes each activity. He also does a calendar / weather chart / # of day notebook alongside big sis but modified to his pre-k level. Then he generally joins her for her core, if he feels like it.

 

Rod and Staff does a lot of repitition of the basic pre-k stuff like colors, numbers 1-10, cutting, pasting,coloring, crayon control, left and write, fine motor skills, letter intro., etc. We do about 2 pgs a day.

 

With the index cards from mfw I chose one activity from each section m-f so that each week we do critical thinking, Language development, fine motor skills, large motor skills, and early math. All the basic skills covered in a preschool workbook are covered through hands on toys with manipulatives. This is our 2nd year using them and he is not tired of them at all. Last year he learned all his shapes, colors, and numbers 1-10 with them as well as the letters in his name.

 

The HWOT program so far has been his favorite. Last year we used the program as a supplement to mfw k and followed along by doing either the workbook page or some of the manipulatives following whichever letter of the week we were doing with mfw k. We did not use a teacher manuel or follow the HWOT order. I did have ds, then 3, do the Get Ready for School workbook but I did not expect him to remember the letters really. He sometimes did, but it wasn't the emphasis.

 

This year I am following the the teacher manuel and going through the scheduled lesson plan. It's actually nice this way for us because we are doing pre-writing skills right now and he loves it! I was going to skip it at first, but I feel like he's learning a lot to prep him for writing and is enjoying it all so much. We'll be starting in about 4 weeks with the letters. Excited!

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Guest The Bad Feminist

I'm not feeling pre-k at my house either. My daughter just turned 4 and is very smart for her age. She wants to know *everything* but gets frustrated when she doesn't learn it in the first five minutes. I've been trying to teach her patience (which I know will come with age and maturity, etc.) while still incorporating what she wants to learn. Today I told her that we would start doing just one lesson from The Ordinary Parent's Guide and when I started the letter A she said, "hey, I already know this stuff." She flipped through the next couple of lessons and I told her we would go through them even though she already knows them- and she was on her way to reading. She beamed and seems really excited to continue. Hopefully she won't get frustrated when we start learning something new.

 

I was on board with just allowing her to do "kid stuff" such as playing outside, Legos, etc. because that is their main way of learning when they're little. She seems to have a different outlook on it (I want to play and I also expect to read and do math too!) so that's why I'm even bothering with the curriculum I've set up, if you even want to call it that.

 

My daughter also likes to do the smile and "I don't know" thing- I guess they think it is funny and until they are parents they won't understand what we go through! Also, I try to remember that this isn't about me and I need to be open to other options than what I want. My daughter is very receptive to computer learning (ABC Mouse, abcya.com, IXL Math app, etc.) and at first I wanted nothing to do with it because I didn't want to turn her into a computer hog. I've finally just accepted that she may need that time away from Mom to learn on her own, and as long as she's not on there all day I'm okay.

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