He walks into our room every morning, gives me big hugs and kisses, then asks, "What time is it?" Given that "Too early," "It's still time for night night," and "Time to go back to sleep" weren't satisfying his curiosity, we put our little alarm clock by the bed and he loves to push the button, turn the light on, and tell us what time it is. And he's getting really good at it. He still doesn't have a full concept of time and telling time, but he's always using time landmarks throughout his day, such as "It's almost dinner time" and "It is breakfast time." And he will randomly tell us what time it is (without looking at a clock) - this past Sunday afternoon (around 12:30) he announced it was "six-oh-three-fifty-two o'clock." So, he's taken an interest and we're rolling with it. He's getting pretty good at reading a digital clock.
Then there's his new thing about on what days some things will happen. When he says goodbye to his Becca on Monday, he always reminds her that he will see her on Wednesday. And then again on Friday. Sometimes he'll ask to see one of his speech therapists after school, and I'll tell him, "You get to see Miss Jane tomorrow." Or sometimes he'll ask to do some activity but we can't do it that day so I'll promise him to do it tomorrow or on Saturday. He's become very interested in this concept of time, so I made him a little weekly wall calendar:
Seven individual squares that are velcroed to our living room wall - and I used a wet-erase marker to write the big events of the day. This way, he can learn the days of the week, and see what the big events are for the day (e.g., on Sunday he goes horseback riding with Amber and Shadow, on Saturday he has ballet and then a birthday party).
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| On Thursday he'll go to school, then see Miss Emily for speech. |
Because he's been learning to read - and it is one of his favorite things to do - I figure this could double as a way to learn new sight words (at school he's learning to read via phonics, at home we use sight words and he is kicking butt in both methods). And I created little manipulatives that he can take on off to designate "today" and "tomorrow."
The other nice thing about this: my mom is starting to help me 1-2 afternoons a week when I need it (I'm on an informal order of rest for the remainder of the pregnancy). And this past week Sheridan would cry on some days when I would pick him up (because I wasn't my mom - he LOVES his Nonna). So, I can add my mom on the days she will come so he can know on what days to expect her, and on what days he should expect me (and hopefully decrease his disappointment at plain ol' mom walking in the door).
I'm sure preschool and kindergarten teachers will have plenty of critiques of my method (and feel free to tell me how to improve it), but I'm not trying to do anything rigid here. Just taking advantage of what seems to naturally interest him, and help him learn more about it.
One final note... I had to move his beloved 1-20 number line to another location to make this fit in our living room. I've wanted to take it down numerous times, but every time I think about it, he starts using it for a new skill - lately it's been counting backwards from 20 to 1. So, back up it goes in our hallway, and my house continues to look more like a preschool than a home. But I'm ok with that.
