I received an incredible amount of wonderful advice on my first post. One thing I did after that was toss age limits for toys out the window. I pulled down all the puzzles last week that said 2+. I verbally explained to my son (now 17 months old) how they worked and that was that. He was able to do them all with no problem. He really enjoys the puzzles and will spend a lot of time intensely taking the pieces out and putting the pieces back in. What is a good next step puzzle and where can I find it? A four-piece interlocking puzzle perhaps?
He does still struggle sometimes with the physical coordination of getting the puzzle pieces exactly where it goes but he knows the head has to go one way and the tail another (or whatever object it is) the same as the puzzle hole or the piece will not go it. (I hope this makes sense.)
My other question is about when to start PreK. In our state the cut off for preschool is August 1. My son has a mid September birthday so he will be almost 4 before he can start PreK and almost 6 before he can start K. My general belief is to not start formal education too soon but rather let the child play in a literacy rich environment. That said, DS seems to be learning things at a rapid pace. Ex: He brought me a shape book at 16.5 months. It was his first interest in and exposure to shapes. I read the book maybe 3 or 4 times and then he moved on. Two days later he lugs over his shape sorter and starts holding up the pieces and naming the shapes and pointing at the holes and naming the shapes with no additional reinforcement of shapes since I read the book. I gave him the book and he was able to "read" it to himself by flipping the pages and pointing out all the shapes. He mastered circle, square, rectangle, triangle, heart, and star from that one exposure. I'm fairly certain that isn't normal at 16.5 months.
About the same time he started saying his ABC's to me. He can't get all the way through yet but I have no idea where he is picking this up. It's the same with language. His English verbal skills are on par with a 3 year old right now so by the time he is 3 or 4 I cannot imagine what they will be. (I did start French with him after my last thread and he now interchanges French and English words. He really loves language. When I start speaking to him in French he recognizes it's not English and asks to watch the French Little Pim. How does he know it's not all the same language!?! It boggles my mind.)
Logic tells me if this is what he is doing now that by the time he is 4 learning shapes and whatnot in PreK won't really hold his interest. Should I start to look for (and save for) private PreK to begin right before he turns 3 or is this a bad idea? Money will definitely be an issue so I have to get a head start on this if early enrollment in PreK is the way to go.
