Athena One Smart Cookie

Athena has had one year of preschool now. The preschool year is ending. Next week is our last week.
Athena is far ahead of her class in her education. Tucker has been 5 years old for almost the entire school year and Athena has far passed him as well.
The reason she is so ahead is because 1) She is just a smart girl and 2) She has done the preschool lessons twice every preschool day. She has gotten twice as much class time as the other children.

This week she has impressed me. For fun she is choosing words, saying them aloud and then announcing what letter that word begins with. Last night she said "Protect. P is for protect."
Today it was "Vitamin. V is for vitamin!" And those are words we did not cover in preschool.
We have learned those letters though. The only letters we have yet to learn are Mm which we are learning this week. And Qq which we learn next week.

Sunday it was "Jumanji! G is for jumanji!" So I gave her a little lesson on how confusing G and J can be when going off the sound of it. She now knows that Jumanji starts with a Jj.

She does not recognize all the alphabet letters though. So that is what we will work on this summer. I don't want her going backwards in her education because of the summer break.
Plus, next year I am hoping to not consider her one of my students. Next year I am having only one class. So I want as many paying students as I can...6.

Plus, next year I will want to teach Athena how to read two letter words. She will be 5 years and 7 months old when she starts Kindergarten.
With her being very smart I want to keep her learning but also not advance her too much. I don't want her to start the school year being too advanced. I want to leave her stuff to learn in kindergarten.
She will have the alphabet down just fine by then. That leaves small and other things for her to work on. But who knows what she will learn next school year in preschool just by doing some of the preschool class stuff.

Next year I plan to give Athena the option of joining the class or being alone, doing the activities or not doing them. This year I made her do all the learning work and activities atleast once each preschool day.

Next year she will continue to practice writing her name too. She will have that down just fine before starting Kindergarten.

Being a realist, I always feel when I praise someone in my blog that I should write a fault too. Maybe that's my own flaw.
Athena's fault...sugar addiction.

We got popsicles and she ate one each day for two days. Then it was colder and rainy so I said "No popsicles." She had a little bit of sugar that day. But she constantly asks for sugar and I say No.

She bugs me about it and I'm tempted to get rid of all the sugar foods so she won't have the option. Just because she won't stop begging for it.

I told her no on the popsicle and she asked me like ten more times that day! With me No means No so I don't know why she has to keep bugging me about it.

Anyway, we love her!
The other day Sterling and I had a conversation about her. Sterling said since she is such a pretty little girl she might grow up to be not so pretty. That happens alot. BUT...I don't think that will happen. She isn't so pretty that you see her and think "Wow! She is gorgeous! Too pretty even" . Those kids are often the ones who grow up to be kind of ugly. Athena is a healthy amount of pretty and I bet she will be pretty her whole life.
Sterling also said he worried she would become a teen who isn't kind to others because she is pretty. I said That won't happen! We are raising her! And we will raise her to serve others and think of others, the way I was raised. In high school I was pretty and the boys drooled over me. But I cared more about serving others (even at the school) than about popularity or what people thought about me.

Athena will be the same way. I just know it.