Benjamin's New Day Care

Benjamin's been at his new day care a little over a week now and he's really enjoying it. He's in the three's group and his day is structured so he participates in a variety of activities each day.

Based on his daily progress reports, here is a sampling of what he has done the past week.

Morning
Art-He loves coloring and making crafts. He's finger painted and done some actual cutting and pasting (not the way Mommy and Daddy do it at work on their computer). Our refrigerator is loaded with drawings.

Spanish-He's been counting to 30 now (!), yes you read that correctly. He can read some Spanish words off cards and sang and danced to Spanish songs. Note: Daddy could barely count to ten in Spanish...in Junior High!

Creative Movement-Currently his class is practicing for their Winter Show. They will be singing holiday songs. Last week among the activities he did was play soccer, he did some jumping and skipping exercises and learned how to tumble with supervision. Daddy's taught him how to throw a ball and he can swing a kids bat. He can catch pretty much anything thrown to him and he loves to run. They have a nice gym there so all the kids can run and play.

Math & Science: Benjamin's learning to add and subtract with his fingers and today they were using flashlights to make shadows. He's learning about the weather, mountains, volcanos, clouds and trees. He's also fairly well versed in dinosaurs, a requirement for all kids as you got to know your dinos.

He sleeps up to a couple hours after lunch. They provide the linens while at the other place, we had to.

Afternoon
Music/Drama-Singing, marching and puppet shows.

Social Studies-Geography and current events. He can point to the state where he lives on a map and when I picked him up one day last week I was stunned when he asked me if I knew who Barack Obama was. Obviously I knew and told him but you don't expect a three year old boy to know who the next President of the United States is.

Language Development-He's learned some new words thanks to their story time and a board they use to put pictures on it. I've been amazed at what he retains. For example, D.C. United hasn't played a soccer game in two weeks as their season is over but he still remembers his favorite players ( For the record: Fred, Bryan Namoff, Jaime Moreno and Zach Wells).

Computer-Benjamin's been learning mouse skills on the computer and they have been using educational software to get him familiar with the computer. Today it was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Pretty soon he will be a contributing writer to this blog.

His day ends around 5:30 when his group is in the music room singing. It's neat to go inside to see him singing and participating in their activities.

Usually when I pick him up, he gives me a big hug and then I speak with his teachers about his day and what he learned, etc. While it will cost Weena and I a little more each month, it's going to be worth it as we've noticed a change in just a week.

We believe the key to his learning has been the time both Weena and I take to read to him on a daily basis. We go to the library every couple weeks and he loves checking out books. These are exciting times in our household now and we're very blessed!