School for Nola

So Nola is 3 1/2 and doesn't usually take a nap anymore. She tries. She really does lay nicely. Only talks to herself quietly and maybe acts out a few scenes from Diego with whatever animal she's sleeping with. So I decided it might be time to let her stay up a little longer in the afternoons. After I lay Violet down for her afternoon nap, I spend time with Nola doing "school". We haven't been doing it long. So far it has consisted of writing letters from a pre-school activity book we bought. It's a bilingual activity book which is cool. All the directions are in English and Spanish, and each letter has a word that starts with that letter in each language. The letter "E" is for elephant/elefante. The letter "F" is for flower/flor. The letter "L" for lemon/limon. It's cute.

I had heard you shouldn't push kids to write too soon. Because of this, I'd kept the workbook in the closet for a long time because it's mostly just writing worksheets. But we keep it very low key and I try not to correct her too much. I just let her effort be the goal. Sometimes she wants to keep going to a new letter, but I say no. Short and sweet is my goal. I want it to remain a happy, fun, stress free time. 

I got an awesome book from the library called WOW! I'm Reading! It has very simple activities that feel like games, but have a purpose in preparing your child for reading. I love it. We've done a couple of the activities so far, and Nola has enjoyed them.

We usually read together after the worksheet. Reading a book with your kid is never a waste of time in my opinion. And I love it. I wasn't a huge reader growing up, but Nola seems to really love it. I hope I can encourage her to keep loving it.

I have loved getting a few minutes of Nola to myself each day. Spending time just the two of us reminds me just how awesome she is. There's a whole lot of awesome springing out of those curls, I tell 'ya.


P.S. Ryan and his dad made that super cute picnic table. Isn't it great? That's where we have school.