Expectations

I have been doing a few activites with Abby every day, like I posted here.  She seems to enjoy them, just like any other time we do any colouring stuff.  My printer had been at the computer shop and I just found out that it's toast, so I hadn't been able to print off some worksheets that I wanted to do with her until yesterday when we went to the library. 

I was excited to try them with her.  In my mind, I had hopes of her exceeding what I thought she could do.  She would ace the sheets, following the directions exactly.  But that wasn't how it went.  The first one was a small maze where you had to follow the 'A's to find the end.  Any other letter led you down the wrong path.  I wasn't concerned with her following the path from start to finish, I just wanted her to identify all the 'A's in the picture.  She did get a few, but she also called a B an A, as well as some other letters.

I have to admit that I felt a little disappointment and discouragement.  I felt like she was so horribly behind where she should be.  But then I reminded myself that she is 3 and it is more important to feed her knowledge and information than trying to 'test' her with worksheets.  Because that's essentially what it was like, I tested her and she failed.  So today we did another couple worksheets, first identifying pictures that started with A and then identifying pictures that had the A sound in the middle.  Basically I just talked through it with her.

And I felt good about it.  She knew all the names of the pictures (well, she called an ambulance a truck but that's ok) and I just told her that they started with A, or had the A sound in them.  And I circled them for her.  Then I just let her colour them.  It didn't look as academic as I might have liked, but I think that it is a good step in the right direction.  It is a lesson for me on how this year might look, and I like the feeling that we are starting our journey!