DD5 came home on the first day of kindergarten, wouldn't speak to me, sat down and had a big tantrum. When I finally got her to settle down and tell me what was wrong, she said, "They made us sing the alphabet like we were three!"
I think she was hoping to write her dissertation this year.
I see this in my daughter's future, and I don't know what I can do about it. Her daycare provider already spoke to me about my daughter's tendencies to try and opt out of group activities and "look down on" the other children. My wife and I spoke to my daughter about it and got her involved again. I think she expects that preschool will offer educational activities on her level, but I'm not so sure. IF they put her with the 4-5 year old children in a type of pre-k perhaps. The curricula posted by the preschools in my area aren't very specific. I'm going to start visiting schools in the new year, so my daughter can start after her birthday in March. I'll try and get detailed information during those visits.
The alphabet, letter recognition, basic shapes, counting with 1-to-1 correspondence, and number recognition will all be review for her. She's already learning to write numbers and letters and constantly asks me how to spell words. (I got a good chuckle when she finally asked me how to spell "spell". hehe.) At home I'm teaching her about patterns, simple addition and subtraction, and simple fractions. She loves starfall, and her vocabulary is huge, but she's not reading yet. She's getting a calendar for the new year to learn days and months, which she's showing some familiarity with already.
So... is preschool for review, fun, socialization and art projects, and home is for learning? Or should I maintain hope that I'll get help expanding her intellectual development? She's currently under the impression that preschool is for learning. Should I change that impression before she even begins?
I kind of dread the conversations I might have with the preschool reps. I'm expecting them to assure me that she has plenty to learn everywhere I go, and perhaps tell me that book learning is inappropriate for this age group. Will they believe me when I tell them that she asks to play with counting cubes and starfall, and to read her children's encyclopedias?
