SunSchool

Anna Louiza spearheaded the formation of SunSchool, a cooperative pre-preschool group.  We have four mamas and their two- or three- year olds are now meeting each Friday.  Linus was already friends with Anna and Lucero, and now has a new friend named Max.  Max is the three-year old.  Although he is older and taller, his verbal skills are behind those of Linus and Lucero; so he doesn't seem like such a big kid.

Each Friday a mom is responsible for the lesson plan and instruction.  We all decided we would sing a welcome song together at the beginning, read at least one book on the chosen topic to the kids, have a bit of exercise or movement time, then do a craft.  We are aiming for 20-30 minutes of instruction and then snacks and playing together. Each family brings a snack to share.

I lead today's topic.  I decided to talk about frogs to follow up on Anna Louiza teaching about snakes last week.  I showed the kids photos of frog eggs, tadpoles, and frogs swimming and catching flies with their tongues.  Linus hadn't seen the non-fiction frog books yet because I wanted them to be new for him, too.  Well Mr. Smarty Pants answered every question I posed to the group.  When I showed them the picture of frog eggs and asked what they were, Linus called out, "Eggs!"  After talking about the eggs a bit I pointed to the tadpole and said, "What did the eggs turn into?"  Linus called out, "Tadpoles!"  He did this for everything we talked about during the lesson.  This exercise once again showed me that he doesn't just memorize everything and repeat it back when we look at the same books over and over again.  He latches onto the information and/or grasps the concepts and applies it in other settings.  Of course he was the most comfortable student since I was teaching and we were in our own back yard.

Here is a picture from last week's session.  The kids were coloring and attempting to cut out snakes.  Linus is in the lower right corner.

A couple of side notes:  I brought Linus' potty chair outside during class and he used it twice. Lucero was starting to use her potty a few months ago, but ever since she found out her mama is going to have another baby, she says she is a baby and won't use the potty.  Even so, she came over and watched Linus pee and we talked about him having a penis.  These potty lessons are kind of funny because as a grown up I never really had any reason to discuss this topic so much, if ever.  Another interesting element of our group is that all three of the other moms are pregnant, so there is quite a bit of pregnancy talk while the kids play together after the lesson.