It’s been a long time since I read any updates about kids in this forum. Hence I thought I would go ahead and post mine so that others might post as well.
Reading: My son can now decode complex words like ‘competence’ on his own, though not 100% correct he is near perfect. He is interested in reading Preschool Prep Level 2 series books on his own everyday. He brings one or two of those daily and reads to me. He also reads Usborne Reading level 1 and 2 books with some incentives/coaxing.
Math: This is the favourite subject for both of us and takes lots of our time. He can understand addition and subtraction conceptually with or without manipulatives. He tries to memorize the facts sometimes which I am discouraging at this point of time. I am using Miquon math with cuisenaire rods as the main program currently. My son loves colourful math textbooks. So I have some local kindergarten level math textbooks (equivalent to Singapore Early bird kindergarten I believe) and Singapore Primary Mathematics 1A. He brings one of these textbooks, out of his own interest, daily to work with. I am surprised that he could do few sections of the Primary Mathematics textbook.
Music: After Little Musician beta is out, we have been spending lots of time with it. He can recognize few chords and note names in the ‘Hear and Sing’ section. Since my son was showing lots of interest in music and singing from the very beginning, we enrolled him in Suzuki voice lessons. He is constantly singing nowadays. Even if he has to convey a message, he sings it in his own tune, which is so cute He can also play keyboard; few songs from the introductory section in Soft Mozart.
Puzzles: His favourite pastime activity next to Lego is solving puzzles. He can solve new 38 piece framed puzzles on his own without any help. He also tries to solve 45-piece unframed jigsaw puzzles with a little help but he loses his patience toward the end.
Foreign Languages: He absolutely loves foreign languages. Right now, I am introducing two latin based languages and he doesn’t find difficulty in reading them. I am looking for more immersion based playgroups in those languages and having a hard time in finding those. I am just wondering what other parents are doing for developing speaking skills in foreign languages.
My son is going to full-time daycare and attends swimming or gymnastics lessons during weekends. So, all the above are done only during our spare time. The main thing I understood from Early Learning philosophy is that the parent has to be well prepared in whatever knowledge he/she likes to impart. The time taken to impart the knowledge to your offspring is just a fraction of a time.
Sorry for the long rambling (effect of a sleepless night )