Let's talk preschool

When the girls were infants, I read quite a few discussion threads on a triplet message board regarding preschool. The general consensus appeared to be that:

• Preschool was expensive.


• And unnecessary. (I think being expensive helped with this determination.)

I didn't really have an opinion or a plan. When your three babies are a year old and you have been in survival mode for that entire year, you don't really plan much. Your brain can't handle planning that far in advance.

Anna began receiving physical therapy (PT) services through Early Intervention (EI) when she was about 15 months old (I think.) We soon became aware that EI is only offered until the child turns three and then the child is transitioned into the public school system.

Preschool is not an educational requirement. What does this mean? It means that you have to pay for preschool even if attending public schools unless your child requires services. So EI transitioned Anna to the public school system shortly before her third birthday. Because of this, we do not pay for her schooling. It is free.

Public preschool classrooms (in Massachusetts) are set up so that half of the 12 to 15 students in the classroom are there to receive services and the other half are there as "peer models." We pay $240 total per month for Allie and Emily to attend preschool. We are lucky in that our town has a fairly large preschool program. Several surrounding towns have wait lists for their preschools.

I think a general misconception is that preschool is all about socialization. It actually isn't. Preschools have curriculums. I mention this for anyone who is considering preschool for their child(ren). I do think it is important to find out what the curriculum is because there are some programs that are really geared toward socialization while others are not.

We felt that preschool would be best for the girls in terms of learning what it is like to be in a structured classroom setting. They have never been in daycare and I thought that the transition from being at home to attending kindergarten would have been a big shock.

The girls are learning things that I would never have thought to teach them at this age. Like the days of the week. Did you know that there is song for that? Sing along as if you were singing Oh My Darling, Clementine:

"Sunday, Monday
Tuesday, Wednesday
Thursday, Friiiiiiiday, Saturday"

Allie sings this all. the. time. She has been more vocal than Anna and Emily with respect to school stuff. She was singing another song with a line "there are seven days in a week." They are also learning the months and seasons.

In addition to learning their letters, they learn what sounds those letters make and associate that sound with words. So the girls might walk around the house saying, "Ta..ta..ta...toe! Ta...ta...ta...tiger!"

One night last week, I asked Allie to go write her name for me. She didn't have anything to look at, copy or follow. She returned with a piece of paper with "AELE" on it. Then she said, "Oh, I forgot the other L and she tried to add it after the A. I was so proud of her. Unfortunately for her, Allie is a nickname so there may be some confusion between spelling her legal name and her nickname.

Okay, so this is the best quote ever. It comes from Allie. Ms. D is her teacher.

"But Ms. D says that we should make every day a fun day."

This was after Allie asked me where we would be going the next day and I replied, "Nowhere."

And more random stuff. Em's nickname at school (from her teacher) is GigglEmily. She actually brings home papers that say this on it.

So I guess the point of this post is to show that there is more to preschool than socialization. The girls are learning more than I discussed above. I thought it would be boring (and long) if I went through every single thing.

And I can't have a post without adorable pictures....so here we go. The girls' classrooms had "Valentime's" Day parties, which they were so excited about. I took these pictures that night as they looked through their valentimes. (And yes, I am misspelling that wrong on purpose. That's how the girls say it.)

Anna making her duck face because her hand was wet from a lollipop. When she makes that face, which is quite often, I call her my baby duck. (She wore a jean skirt over her leggings for school.)

GigglEmily

Allie refused to wear pink or red. And took off running when she saw the camera.