Got Quads?

Here’s how I think preschool was formed: A bunch of kindergarten teachers sat around complaining that they and their students were always sick. To solve the problem they decided to create preschool. That way our children build up their immune systems before entering kindergarten. Oh sure, they’ll still be sick on occasion, but not nearly as often as they would have been without being subjected to the germs in preschool. My daughters became sick within a week of their first day of preschool. They all had a nasty cold that just wouldn’t go away. Since then we’ve had one case of pink eye, two stomach bugs, numerous colds, various fevers, possibly a case of Fifth’s Disease… am I leaving anything out?

Don’t get me wrong… preschool has been a wonderful thing for my daughters. Their speech has improved, they’re making friends, they’re learning all sorts of new and great things. They had to build their immune systems at some point, but you’ll cut me some slack since I’m dealing with four young immune systems, right? School is almost over for the year… I just hope the germs aren’t as cruel to us next year. (Can you tell by this post that one of my daughters is sick today?)

The other day I told a friend that my daughters are really excited to do their homework. She looked at me in shock. I thought at first she was shocked they wanted to do homework, but it turns out she was shocked that preschoolers have homework.

I’ll admit, when my daughters first began bringing home assignments I was a tad skeptical. They’re 3. What kind of homework could they possibly have? Then it dawned on me… the homework is actually for the parents. I help each of them individually with their homework, so it gives me a chance to see how my daughters are doing in school. Sure, we have parent-teacher conferences, but this gives me a chance each week to see what they’re learning and what they need to work on. For the first few months when I picked my daughters up from school and asked them what they did that day the answers would be something along these lines: “We drank juice boxes.” “We had cookies at snack time.” “We got to go on the playground.” Now that they see I’m excited about their school work, they’re excited about it, too. Just last week their class started a lesson on space. All four of my daughters came running out the door at pickup time and couldn’t wait to tell me about the rocket ships they made. Since then I’ve been trying to find books to keep them interested in the subject.

Their homework is pretty basic: find the matching pictures on this page; color 10 things on this page, etc. But by giving 3 and 4-year-olds at-home assignments, every parent has to get involved with their child’s education. Not a bad plan… let’s just hope they’re still excited about homework in high school and I’m still able to help them!