| Been busy getting my hands on online resources about my preschooler. And I am pleased to have found this (from Parent Center). It makes me more excited to know that there are far so many milestones to look forward to...
Preschool teachers provide opportunities for children to learn through play. To help develop social skills such as taking turns and getting along with others, they organize group activities such as building a Lego town or singing songs in a group. To foster independence and enthusiasm about learning, they set up activity areas throughout the classroom and encourage the children to follow their own interests and work on whatever projects interest them. Activity areas can include musical instruments, art supplies such as paint and crayons, books, toys for building and pretend play, plants, and even animals. Preschool teachers also encourage children to talk about their feelings and to resolve conflicts by using words instead of fists (or teeth!). |
by Dana Sullivan
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• Participate in conversations in which eight out of every ten words are understandable. Benedict tries to tell me in simple words/phrases/sentences what he wants to do or what he wants me to do, but as I have mentioned before his words are mostly peppered with syllables. I hope its just a case of talking too fast that his words gets slurred. But I am happy that he is now conversational and animated too.• Speak and understand 1,500 words or more (by age 4), though the vocabulary of preschoolers can vary dramatically. I should make a separate blog entry on the words he learned already prior to being in play school. This way it will be easy to gauge at the end of the year (or what remains of it) if he has learn more.
• Form sentences of six or more words. Now he's still in the 3-4 words range..such as "(B)enedict eat Cheerios, Mom!" sometimes adding the word "please" followed by a toothy grin. Or mostly "Nene Mom, please!"...or telling his Yaya.."Oh no! (his fave expression) what happened?" which I find so cute, haha.
• Ask "who," "what," "where," and "why" questions. He is currently in the "whassat?" (what's that?) stage. But he is also into where Qs occassionally, mostly asking for a fave toy or activity.
• Understand and follow spoken instructions, such as "It's time to put away the puzzles and go to the reading corner" oh but he is so stubborn that i would really lose my patience many a times when i have to repeat asking him to do something such as..lying down after bath so i can lather his body w/ lotion or put on his nappy. Hay, it's such a challenge!
• Link two ideas in a sentence to organize a thought — for example, "I want to go outside because I can ride my bike there"
• Tell a simple story. For example, she might tell a friend, "I went to my grandma's house last night. She has toys at her house. I like the toys at my grandma's house."
• Sing songs, play rhyming games, and perform "finger plays" such as the hand motions that accompany "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" or "The Wheels on the Bus". He likes Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star too and currently,
• Understand the concept of writing: the idea that letters carry messages. For example, she may ask what a sign says, or copy words from a book and tell you she's writing a story.
• Show some understanding of the alphabet by calling out letters she sees on signs or in books. He learned to recognize the letters very early on. The posters on the bedroom wall are a great help as well as educational videos.
By age 4, your preschooler may also be able to:
• Write some letters and words
• Use simpler vocabulary and sentences to suit a younger sibling or friend
• Repeat her name, address, and phone number.
• Explain a four- or five-step sequence — for example, "After I take a bath, I brush my teeth and put on my pajamas and get in bed"
Children learn to communicate by listening, hearing others speak to them, and speaking on their own. To promote language skills, your child's teacher will set up the classroom so the children spend lots of time at activity tables where they have to interact with one another. She will also read to the children daily and ask them questions about the story afterward. She may also ask each child to talk about something he's interested in, either during a formal show-and-tell time or informally when discussing a topic or book. Most preschool teachers also begin alphabet work. They may choose a letter of the day, for example, and encourage the students to write it and come up with words that begin with that letter.
by Dana Sullivan
The preschool years aren't about academic learning, but they do lay the foundation for later schooling. Your child will learn the basics of problem solving, observing, and discovering. Here are some specific cognitive milestones you can expect your 3- to 4-year-old to reach. Keep in mind that children develop at different rates and that every teacher follows a different curriculum, so your child may not do everything on this list. |  |
• Observe objects with curiosity and notice differences, such as how some rocks are smooth and others are bumpy
• Explore cause and effect — shaking a jar of water, for instance, and noticing how it creates bubbles
• Use something she already knows to attack a new problem. For instance, after learning to use a computer mouse to navigate around a site, she may test that skill by trying to play a computer game.
• Think logically. She'll be able to classify objects by size or likeness, for instance, and to recognize patterns.
• Be aware of her own body in space. You may hear her say things like "I'm up high on the slide."
• Understand the concept of sequence. For example, she may sort objects from smallest to largest.
• Use numbers and count. Benedict can now count up to 13. I dont really know how he learned to count beyond 10 as I have been teaching him only til 10. I guess this is an offshoot of my sister's visit wherein they counted from 1-20. I guess my little one is really fast in picking up new words..and in this case eager to learn more numbers.
• Understand basic concepts of time, such as "now," "soon," and "late."
• Identify six to eight colors (He knows red, white, black, yellow, red, orange ("e-range" to him), purple, blue, green, brown, pink) and three or more shapes (He has learned circle, square, triangle, star, heart, diamond (thanks to fisher price website).
• Take on pretend roles. For example, she may hold a doll and say, "I'm the mommy" or look in a doll's ear and say, "I'm the doctor." You may also notice that she has a vivid imagination and perhaps even imaginary playmates. He would hold up a stethoscope to his ear and let Daddy lie down so he can do a "check-up" on him. It's easy to bring him to our pedia for well-baby check-ups as he will cooperate when asked to open mouth or check his ears & nose. Our pedia would often tell us that he is her fave baby.
• Understand that pictures and objects can symbolize something else. For example, she may tell you that something she's scribbled is a picture of a dog, or she may show you the "house" she built out of blocks.
• Complete a six- to eight-piece puzzle. Not yet, he's still into the one-piece wooden puzzle peg. He easily gets frustrated with more than 4 pieces of puzzles, but he has no problem doing 2- or 3-pc. ones as long as they are wooden. He has not enough patience yet for the cardboard puzzles.
• Notice the features of people and animals that make them different. For instance, she may see that rabbits have big, furry ears while people have rounded, hairless ones.
• Understand the difference between herself and younger children
• Identify familiar signs and labels, for instance stop signs and her own name. This is quite telling of our being mall rats, as he recognizes the logo of SM, hahaha.
By age 4, your preschooler may also be able to:
• Ask questions about birth and death
• Understand and remember her own accomplishment.
• Understand the order of daily routines, such as the fact that she always brushes her teeth before going to bed
• Follow two unrelated directions — for instance, "Take your shoes off, and comb your hair"
In class your child will be encouraged to do things such as arrange dinosaurs from smallest to largest, take three crackers from a bowl, and put puzzles together. These activities help lay the foundation for math. To teach your child how to relate words and images to experiences, the teacher may ask her to paint an abstract picture and then describe what it means.
Looking forward to new "discoveries" in the year ahead. It's going to be an exciting year for me & the little boy as we continue to journey through preschool. One thing is for sure, he is always assured (and I guess it shows in the way he is growing up) that Mommy and Daddy are behind him all the way. And I only pray that he will be guided by the Lord up above to soar greater heights and be what He intends him to be. After all, we are only guardians of Benedict. And his being loaned to us is already a great gift in itself.
) to go about school-hunting today.
We are quite happy with the way the directress explained to us how they go about their toddler class, which by the way is only composed of 5 kids, with Benedict being the 6th if we chose to enroll with them. Another plus factor is that they have a teeny-weeny kiddie pool (if you call a 3-ft. body of water that, tee hee), but my Benedict was practically squirming out of my reach to be able to get near the splashing kids enjoying their "fun day" activity. We found out that every Friday is a free play day where kids get to swim for a few minutes. Oh wow! great news for my little fish of a son. 
My only concern is that being advocate of independence that they are, we might not be able to fully trust 'em to "take care" of our son the way we want. I hate to admit it but I am bordering over being sooo over-protective and Marlon is even worse. 
Now I'm thinking ahead...will i let Benedict go through that??? Hmmm...do I have to answer now? hehe.. As I have said, my own Dad especially hinted that he wants to see his grandchildren being brought up in the same manner we were brought up...that being made aware of discipline & hard-work even at an early age. Isn't also frugality the best trait of the chinese ancestry? And I am so sure I didn't inherit those genes and my Dad will surely disown me for saying so...hahaha. Kidding aside, I know what he means of being immersed in the chinese culture and all...I didn't particularly like being "tindera" in our provincial gen. mdse. store at that time but I am reaping the benefits now, being inherently business-minded inspite of my swearing (a few times too many!) that I am not gonna go into biz. Talk about eating my own words! 
of a mom! 
