Every year around fall, when the crisp weather arrives, it always brings me back the memory of my kids' preschool days. It was the season when autumn came with hay rides, pumpkin patches and turkey crafts. To this day, as I close my eyes, I can still recall the very first craft my son made in the parent & me class. He used his tiny hand to print out a shape of turkey and decorated with orange paints. Those days are so precious.
I spent four years accompanying my kids through the parent and me classes in their preschool years. It had been my passion to watch them play and observe what they liked, then researched various resources to soak their interest. If you have kids in the preschool age, I highly recommend checking out the "Parent Participating Nursery School." Unlike the traditional drop-off preschool, the parent participating nursery schools are run by involved parents and you get to accompany your child in class to learn along. If you are interested to find one close to your, here is the link of the California Council's web site. http://www.ccppns.org/
In those days of watching my kids play, I noticed that my son was fascinated by alphabets. He would literally held up two alphabets and pretended they were dialoging. It's no surprise that he grew up as an early reader and language has been his strong suite. My girl, on the other hand, could hardly sit through the story time in those days. She loved cutting instead. She held scissors well in an early age and was skillful in using it. She also loved buckling and unbuckling her car seat, booster chair and stroller. Anything with buckles attracted her and she would get up and down multiple times to practice. And now, she has been my great helper setting up the children's ministry on Sunday mornings with her skillful hands.
Time flies and they are in their preteen years now. It is harder to find things that we can naturally play together. Unstructured playtime is especially challenging to establish in today's society that is saturated with screen play and organized events and classes. I do long for those moments. And in the midst of finding the right activities, I came across this site and echoed the editor's words. Take a look at the site, there are some good resources available: http://childhood101.com/2014/07/23-activities-for-tweens/
I constantly have this overwhelming sense that I need to seize this moment now, and make an effort to do things with my tweens, to find common interests and to strengthen our bond before they grow into teenagers and young adults and spend even less time at home, and find their mother even less cool!
Let's seize the moment, laugh, love, embrace and live the moment to the full.