Nathanael's schooling

We have added something new to Nathanael's schooling this semester--gym class. The seminary offers a gym class for 3-6 year-olds once a week. The theme is animal movements. His first class was this past week, and he learned about how lizards move. They creep and crawl. Several of his friends from church are in the class too, and he was so excited to go to "Daddy's school" and have his own class.

He is getting better at counting, and can count to 100 with just a few helps. He has learned to skip-count by 10's and is working on skip-counting by 5's next. He loves words and is getting better at sounding out words. He has a couple books he can read that Mom found online at various phonics sites with printable books, "Zac the Rat" and "In My Hat".

His bath letters are a great way to practice reading. One night Daddy had the word "FAR" on the bath wall and Nathanael sounded it out, "like far away, Dad." Then the letter "T" was added to the end. Nathanael looked at the word, thought for a bit, and a huge grin grew on his face and he said "that says fart!" and the bathroom errupted in hilarious laughter. Laura and the girls heard it in the other room and wondered what was so funny.

He's also working on rhyming. But sometimes he gets that confused with same beginning sound, example: "bat rhymes with hat, and frog rhymes with fire". One of the kids' new favorite shows, Word World, has helped with this some. Sometimes, he will come up with some innocently inappropriate rhymes. In the car the other day, "Mom, grass rhymes with..." Mom just said yes it does, and went on to the next conversation.

He loves to practice writing his name, at the doctor's office he'll get a piece of the exam table paper torn off and put on the floor and a crayon. He'll try to write his name all by himself, and before the doctor's visit is over, he'll have it at least once.

He still really enjoys "schoolwork" and asks for it every day. Hopefully by enjoyign it now, he'll grow to be a lover of learning later in life.