I'm a little late posting this, but Ben had his first day of preschool last week. This year he is going 3 mornings a week instead of 2, and both he and I are very happy with that arrangement:) I think he may be somewhat in the minority, but Ben has never had a problem going to school. He truly loves it, and has never acted like he didn't want to go. In fact, I wish I had signed him up for more preschool "camps" over the summer, because most days he would ask, "do I have school today"? I don't know what that says about my parenting skills or lack thereof, but I'll choose to not be offended!
Inspired by a little survey I saw on Pinterest, I thought I would ask Ben some questions to commemorate his first day. My plan is to ask him the same questions every year, and then compile them all along with the first day of school pictures into a book to have as a keepsake. Here are his 3 year old preschool favorites:
T.V. Show: Veggie Tales
Song: Take Me Out To The Ballgame
Food: Oatmeal (this is true, believe it or not)
Candy: Bunny teeth (these are some sort of gross gummy concoction he got at his preschool Easter egg hunt)
Toy: Green trash truck
Activity: Riding my big wheel with Owen
And as a bonus, yesterday we were taking a little nature walk down our street and had this conversation that came about after discussing the leaves changing colors:
Ben: My favorite color is red.
Me: Oh really? That's a good favorite color. I like it too, but my favorite color is orange.
Ben: Yeah. I think your favorite color is blue.
Me: Oh...okay.
This summer has been a big one for Ben. He grew a little over an inch, and went up a whole shoe size. He adjusted to being a big brother and after a little bit of a rough start he is really starting to have so much fun with Abe. His capacity for learning has become so much greater, which means we are enjoying longer books during our reading time. We even made a little foray (accidentally) into reading non-picture books and Ben was able to keep up with the story for quite a while before needing a break. This lets me know that he is capable of hearing the words and then drawing from his own experiences to imagine the scene on his own. Big stuff for a three year old.
Our reading has invited a whole bunch of questions regarding how to to spell various words and write certain letters, so we've been forming letters with play dough. He has taken an interest in learning how to write and likes to sit down and practice his Bs and Ss! He also likes to count and assign a number to groups of objects. I know they don't really work on number or letter recognition at his preschool until age 4, so this interest is entirely his. Ben seems to be pretty left brained and he is a very visual learner, so it makes sense that he enjoys the orderly aspect of letters and numbers. And having a father who is a mathematician, an uncle who is an engineer, a grandfather who is a geologist and two great-grandfathers who were talented carpenters certainly means he comes by it honestly!
Basically, Benjamin is growing into being a fun kid. He likes to climb the highest structures and ride the fastest bikes, and barely makes a fuss when he falls or wipes out on his big wheel. He likes to make friends with everyone, doesn't need a whole bunch of attention and is great at entertaining himself in a constructive way. I mean, 3 year old boys are also pretty frustrating and Ben can drive me cah-ray-ZAY sometimes but I'll avoid the complaining in this post!
I used to think that how a kid turned out was entirely dependent on parenting, but now I'm not so sure. I think parenting has a huge influence on how a child turns out, but I also think you can just get a kid with a combination of personality characteristics that just makes them close to awesome. I just happened to birth a child who is friendly, inquisitive, easy-going and independent. And when it comes down to it, I think Ben is pretty cool little dude. Watching him grow these past few months makes me excited about the coming year school year.
No comments:
Post a Comment