Accomplishments

Dawson seems to be a very bright child and picks up on things very quickly. Here are some of his accomplishments at 3 years old:

• Letters / Reading: While Dawson has known his letters and letter sounds since before he was 2 years old, he's yet to master sounding the letters out to read a word. However, we have been teaching him letter combination sounds like "at" (cat, bat, rat) and "og" (dog, hog, log) and he's learned those very well. He also can identify many words (well over 50 words) by sight.
• Numbers: He's been counting for a long time, can count to 100 by 10's, and has recently learned his 100's and 1000's. He's also very adept at adding and subtracting small numbers.
• Geography: He is able to identify at least 10 states on the U.S. map and is also familiar with several landmarks and their location. For example, he knows the Statue of Liberty is in New York and the Golden Gate Bridge is in California and, of course, that Mickey lives at Disney World in Florida. :-)

There are still so many things I want to teach Dawson and so much more he's capable of learning if only I would be more diligent in teaching him. I'm hoping to implement a "school time" into his schedule this fall and plan specific things to teach him. I'll certainly plan short sessions (30 minutes to an hour) and try to make it fun. And I understand the importance of being a kid and just having fun playing so we'll continue to do plenty of that. I just want to be sure Dawson reaches his potential and doesn't suffer from my lack of dedication.