My Shadow In Time: Schooltime for Ava

Friday, June 10, 2011

Schooltime for Ava

Ava loves to learn. She is at the age where she would rather do an activity where she learns vs. playing with toys. She knows her shapes (even octagons and hexagons), she knows most of her numbers (when they get above ten visually she has a hard time with say 12 being twelve and not a one and a two/she can verbally count to 20), she knows her ABC's verbally and can identify all of the capital letters and most of the "baby" letters (as she calls them ), she knows all of her colors keeping in mind that colors are subjective (as in deep blue may be purple to her or a dark yellow may be orange).

Anyways I found myself thinking okay now what?!?! Her desire to learn needs to be encouraged and not ignored and I have no plan to put her in preschool anytime soon (just not our thing). Well, Wednesday I met up with a friend of mine to study at the local borders and hello, borders clearance section you have answered my prayers. Okay, well maybe not that extreme but they did offer loads of education material for a bargain price. I got four workbooks for $3.99 a piece and from what I can tell they retail between $10 and $12 a piece.

I also found these jigsaw flash cards for $4.99 and they retail for $20.

On the non-educational side I scored two Curious George travel kit things for our five hour drive to WV next month. I'm slowly preparing an activity box/bag for her so she has all sorts of new goodies to keep her occupied. The travel activity kits retail about $10 a piece and I got them for $2. I think I will go back next month before our trip to see what else I can find.

Back to schooltime...

I was talking to Nana and she said when we were little that schooltime was one of our favorite times of the day. I can remember practicing writing and reading way before I was five. Then practicing my cursive the summer before third grade so I would have a head start on my classmates. Ava and I started with her first workbook on Wednesday and although it says to do 1-2 a day we average about 4-5. We will do some early in the day and then typically color or paint afterwards. Then we have lunch, free play, and then normally another learning activity. We never do 4-5 in a row because well, she is two and typically doesn't want to sit still, listen, and follow direction for that long. Here are some photos of this afternoons session...please ignore the craptastic grain and lighting issues in the photos...the camera was on auto and the lighting sucked.