Nicole's Education

Before Chris was born Jim and I decided we wanted to move Nicole from the home-based babysitter she was going to to a more pre-school-like daycare. Like every other parent on the planet we think our daughter is really bright and [obviously] want to nurture this as much as possible.

I have to say that I am thrilled with where she's going (TLC Academy) and what she's learning. It used to be that Nicole would learn what we taught her - ABC's, counting, songs, etc. Now she knows things that I know I didn't teach her- she asks to sing songs I've never heard of, she knows 3 planets by name, etc.

Yesterday's report said she's studying the following:

Language Arts - Dd

Science - Dinosaurs

Art/Dramatic Play - Fall Leaves

Geography - Spain

Math - 5

Yeah, it's almost 2X as much as what we were paying but it's worth it.

All this aside, we still really push Nicole at home to learn new things. I realized last week that she has all the fundamental tools to play a basic version of Uno - she knows her colors and her numbers. My first attempt at teaching her had her too distracted with how cool shuffleing was- we didn't get any further than her trying to shuffle all the cards. Last night we pulled them out and had her sort all the cards into piles - black, red, yellow, green, and blue. She was very happy to sort. Afterwards Jim used the cards like flash cards to test her on her letters/numbers/colors.

Jim thinks that after doing this for another week we'll be able to actually try playing the game again less the word cards.