As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve founded a new school with only one student and I’m calling it Dad School!
I’ve appreciated the feedback and advice I’ve gotten on facebook, comments and e-mail! Thanks! Day One is in the can and Luke seemed to really enjoy it a lot. The challenge was that I wanted to do an assessment on day one so I’d have both something to measure progress with – and even evaluate my own effectiveness, but how do you start out with “testing” and have your boy want to do Day Two?! LOL
I decided to take an interest of his, cars and parking lots (he absolutely LOVES parking lots, and has mommy make him a new one nearly every day!) and use it as a review tool to see which letters and numbers he can recognize. He loved it and didn’t even know it was a test!
By the time we got through all the letters and numbers 1-20 I had a record of which he knew and have my assignment of what will be focus on in the weeks ahead. Here is what the “test paper” looked like when we were done:
Shhhh, Luke doesn’t know it was a test!
I also made a kite sheet to work on scissors skills and had him try to cut it out since that was a skill the preschool said needed work and we dated it and I wrote “dad helped hold the paper, but Luke cut it out.” Every few days we will cut out the same kite and date them so he can see his progress. (Download the kite here)
We ended with reading “Go, Dog, Go!” which allowed us to end with laughter – but also with a promise, “Lukey, someday soon you will be able to read this book yourself!” He is so excited.
Let me just finish by saying – the point of Dad School is not to push my son to learn, it is first and foremost to build my relationship with my son around a purpose and goal of helping him learn. He will learn, and together we will celebrate his progress. But the learning is secondary. He would learn all these things eventually – without me. But by learning them with me, and from me – I am being his father. Dads need to engage with their kids while their children are young. Otherwise, dads will wonder why their kids don’t engage with them later when they are older. It’s all about investment.
Dad School isn’t about education – education is the benefit. The purpose is relationship.
(Sponsored by BeTheDadToday.com)
LOVE your parking lot “test”. That is so cool. You are a great dad! Keep up the good work. Thanks for your personal response to my comment and I apologize if my comment was too long. I get carried away sometimes. By the way, Luke has your smile!
Ha! Cool idea with the parking lot. The key is relationship and knowing when enough is enough. It’s been an art learning when to push the kids to “keep at it” and persevere and when to simply say enough is enough and then go play.