Schooltime

It's 100% true that kids are total sponges when it comes to learning. I've been amazed time and again at how much James absorbs and how eager he is to learn new things. Now that he's a bit older he's able to grasp concepts more easily and his attention span is growing, which makes teaching a lot easier for me.

There hasn't been a day since he was born that I haven't made a point to teach James SOMETHING, but I recently decided to kick it up a notch. I created a curriculum for us to follow and daily/weekly/monthly lesson plans to abide by. I've incorporated a big range of subjects: language, science, social studies, art, music, math, reading, writing, geography & bible study. I've broken it all down so we spend about 10 minutes (give or take) in the morning and afternoon working on 2 subjects a day with some time spent on language & reading books every day. By the end of the week we'll have covered all the subjects and he'll have been exposed to lots of fun, new info! In between all of that is lots of playtime and exercise of course.

You'd be surprised just how much age appropriate stuff you can find to do in each of those categories! Take science for example, it's not like I plan to teach him the Theory of Relativity, (though I think Paul would like me to!) instead we'll take a walk through the Botanical Gardens looking at the different kinds of trees and leaves. The idea is to keep it light and fun!

There are loads of online resources including some really great blogs packed with creative preschool ideas. I also found some books at the library and T-O-N-S of great teaching aides at the local teacher's supply store...I'm hoping to post regularly about the things James is learning and to share some ideas with other parents in the process!

Jimcasso

James just finished up his first "semester" of art classes at the Kaleidoscope Arts Foundation (KAF). It was sort of a mommy and me class, which means I got to tag along and enjoy the fun too (i.e. get paint all over me)!
James loved painting, gluing, chalking, and stamping. He even developed his own signature style -- whenever he painted he had to have the small containers of paint right ON his paper, then he'd paint around them leaving little circles all over the page.
Every week we decorated the playroom with his artwork from the week before. He made so many beautiful pictures - here's a compilation of some of my favorites...KAF also hosted a student art exhibit and James' artwork was in it. We're so proud of our little Jimcasso!

Polkabats & Octopus Slacks

Three cheers for Calef Brown and his book, Polkabats & Octopus Slacks. This collection of children's poetry is funny, weird and totally brilliant! Reminds me of the stories I used to write when I was in high school (minus the brilliant part, of course). Calef Brown writes and illustrates this fantastic book, as well as 4 others. Go to this link on Amazon to read excerpts from one of his books and then when you fall in love with his writing, you can follow his blog like I do.

I love children's literature and I've loaded up James' shelves with some really great books. Here's a list of some of my favorites:

Little Pea
Llama Llama series
Where the Sidewalk Ends
The Pigeon series
I'm Not Really Tired
Tikki Tikki Tembo
Cat in the Hat & most Seuss books
The Snowy Day
Corduroy
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Magic Thinks Big
The Story of Little Babaji
Six Dinner Sid

I'm always looking for recommendations, so please feel free to share your favorite titles!

Smarty Pants

Like all children, James is a total sponge when it comes to absorbing new information. I am constantly amazed at how much he comprehends. It's funny because he'll all of a sudden do or say something out of the blue and I'll stand there totally surprised because I had no idea he knew about whatever it was. I read that kids really blossom around this age and it's so fun to see that for myself. Things that were challenging for James a few months ago are a cinch for him now. Recently he showed us that he knows shapes, colors, most of the alphabet and several numbers. Here's a video clip of James pointing out his colors.

We are doing our best to expose James to lots of different things. I found this solar system poster at the teacher's store and thought it would be a fun addition to his playroom. Paul taught James the names of the planets one day and we were impressed to find out he remembered them all so quickly. Take a look...

Sign of the Times

When James was about 6 months old or so he started using sign language to communicate with us. It totally took us by surprise as we weren't the ones who taught him how to do this (it was the teachers at his daycare in Connecticut), but we loved the concept of being able to "talk" to our baby. I went online and found some great resources and we began teaching James more signs. It's been a huge help and he gets such satisfaction out of us understanding him. Now that he's older he puts some of the signs together to form small sentences. Here are some pics of James signing a few common words.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Llama Drama

Some of you may already know about the Llama Llama books and I'm sure you'll agree they are the best!

For those of you not familiar with them, they are a part of a small series of children's books about a little llama and his mama and the frustrations of being a child. Anna Dewdney is the author & illustrator and so far there are only two of these books available, but I just found out she is releasing another, Llama Llama Misses Mama, in March 2009.

From a parent's perspective these books are spot on - they are short, but very sweet, funny and totally relatable. James loves them too! We read these books to him, per his request, at least once a day and he'll sit entranced the entire time. He will ALWAYS select his Llama Llama books before any other and he'll spend lots of time looking at the colorful pictures while "reading' aloud to himself as he turns the pages. Llama Llama has become a household name with us. Sometimes we'll say to James, "Go play with Llama" and he'll run off to look at his books. :)
The perfect gift to give for anyone shopping for kids this season.