DS3 is loving preschool! He goes to a play-based school for 2.5hrs twice a week. They are semi-structured, but the main focus of every activity is to have fun, be respectful and polite, and to have more fun.
This our experience as well. DD(3y3m) loves going to her "real" preschool. (We do two other structured activities every week at the children's museum and botanical gardens that call themselves "preschool" but they are not "real" to her because I stay and participate.)
Her "real" school is strictly a play school (her favorite things are snack, playground, and playing cars with the boys,) so we have no issue with what they are teaching her. Also, she is in a small class of only 7 students that, save her, are very old for the class. The next youngest will turn 4 in December. The rest have been 4 for awhile now. I feel like that makes a big difference because the older children seem to challenge her socially and emotionally in a good way. There is a little girl in her class that will be 5 soon that has a really strong personality. Having to be independent from me and deal with older children will probably be the best thing we get out of this program. That, and just having barrels of fun. (To be honest all three programs are just outlets for her to act her age with other children. We needed that.)
Although they teach very little, the school still has a lot of expectations of the children--be a nice friend, use your listening ears, sit criss-cross applesauce at circle time--and I am told that despite her being the youngest in the class she is the best behaved. They call her "the observer." When chaos breaks out, she will sit and watch with a sparkle in her eye. She takes EVERYTHING in, and relates it all to me later in the day.
This school is great. The ECE director is fantastic. She does not believe in pushing academics onto young children in the traditional way. So, it is a perfect place for a child that has already learned how to read. We have really just lucked out with this school, with the class size, the ages, and did I mention the teacher has gifted certification?
We have also applied for 1 of 20 spots at a full time gifted academy for pre-K next year. At the very least we will get scores back that might help us with another school down the line. It seems insane to test children so young, but it is an outstanding program, and DD might need it.
Um, otherwise we supplement a lot at home. A LOT. But, this mostly consists of hands on learning while we are out and about, reading, watching youtube videos about subjects she asks for, or "conversations." We do no curriculums or table work. She plays by herself for hours at a time, no exaggeration. She is quite easy in that respect.
Our "conversations" in the past few weeks have covered what things are made of, cells, elements, chemical formulas--H20, O2, CO2, how we breath in oxygen, breath out carbon dioxide, the plants reverse, photosynthesis, the color spectrum, the dwarf planets, (thankfully we have moved on from history ATM,) compound words, and just tons of word power, lol. Today we were talking about the difference between using the word "random" and "anonymous."
It is surprising just how well she fits in at preschool, but she really does. She is shy and has an easy-going temperament. She blends right in I think. Maybe if it was a full time 8-5 kind of day we would have problems. I don't know.
