Ready for Preschool

Since starting to homeschool Sofia, people have been asking me if I'm schoolin Marcelo too or they might just assume I'm trying to turn him into a super genious.  But actually, I decided not to do any organized schoolin with him until he was four. I figured I would start preschool activities with him then and wait until he was five to start reading instruction.  Unfortunately, my plans have been foiled.  He has recently demonstrated quite a bit of interest in preschool activities (well mostly just wanting to use the scissors) and since I gave him a schultute with a big "P" for preschool when Sofia graduated Kindergarten and moved on to first grade, I guess I had to make good on it.

One of the ways Marcelo has proved his readiness for preschool is suddenly becoming interested and capable of completing puzzles.  Just a few months ago, it was hard to get him interested in the large cardboard puzzles with a few pieces, now he's doing these little 25-piece puzzles and some giant floor puzzles as well as the wooden puzzle sets I got him for Christmas.  Recently, he even helped Sofia with the 100-piece Noah's Ark puzzle.

He's been crazy about cutting with scissors, so naturally I had to give him his own pair of scissors as part of his schultute goodies. Better that than to find him trying to cut with the giant and very pointy kitchen scissors.  He's actually pretty good with them.  (I think his fine motor skills might be a bit more refined than Sofia's).

I had been letting him doodle in Sofia's old preschool activities book, then I told him he could get his own if he was able to follow instructions about what to do on the pages and not scribble. He wasn't too keen on the whole doing what someone tells you thing for the first three times.  After getting the scribbling out of his system, I got him his very own preschool activities book which has it's very own place in our Staples Office Apprentice (mammoth paper holder that Ray got me for my birthday).  He's very proud of this.

And just to reaffirm that I'm not the only one with rules on this planet, I enrolled him at Little Scholar's Preschool a couple of blocks away from our house, twice a week.  They're not as militant as Challenger but I think he'll do fine there and I'm not as focused on their academics since I plan to cover that at home later.  I do wish they'd make their book bags a little smaller though.  What's up with that.  I do have a small problem with a school that doesn't understand proportions. Oh well.