3 TO 4 YEARS OLD: EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

I think it is important for a child to have extra-curricular activities, but not too many at a time, and they should enhance, rather than detract from, what you are trying to accomplish overall. For example, I am not particularly interested in Joey becoming a 'jock' or getting his precious brain injured, so I will not allow participation in football, for instance, or soccer. That does not mean he should not be physically active, on the contrary, but there are other sports (swimming, running, tennis, crew, even basketball) that provide exercise and in some cases and even teach teamwork without the high potential for injury and without encouraging what I feel is aggressive behavior (like football). 

So as far as physical exercise, Joey has swimming lessons once a week, and as you have seen from prior posts (see here and here), he started very young with Infant Swimming Resource. One of the reasons we decided on this program, apart from the fact that it was THE sport a baby could practice, was out of necessity. We lived in an area with a lot of pools and year-long hot weather at the time, and there was hardly a month without reports of a young child drowning. I though that for a baby, this was a great gross motor developmental exercise too, although Joey has never been behind in this regard. We started when he was 6 months old, and repeated the program when he was a little over a year old. Both times, he did very well, and I felt reassured that if he ever fell into a pool, we would have that extra minute (I wouldn't count on much more) to rescue him because he would have learned not to panic and go back to a back float (and as a toddler to paddle to reach the rim and even pull himself out). 

Once we were done with this great program, he started small group (one or two toddlers) lessons, and then because of scheduling challenges, he had private lessons for a good while. Joey picks up the skills very quickly and loved swimming. Even though he is now at an age when he could try other things to a limited extent, it is clear that we found a sport he enjoys, provides good exercise, and is pretty bump and bruises-free. I think that within the next two-three years, Joey will become a strong swimmer, and we can move on to another sport (like tennis) or stay with swimming. 

Music: Neither I or Joey's Dad benefited from music instruction when we were growing up, and this is something we would like to provide for Joey. Because of our cultural heritage, the violin is our instrument of choice, but prior to that, we got Joey a little toddler piano. Not expecting much, we started teaching him a few basic tunes (using the color-coded sheets since we ourselves cannot read music), and he actually remembered a few! See below..:




Then shortly after he turned three, I started investigating the Suzuki method to teach him violin. I first learned about it in Amy Chua's book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and it seemed like the only choice to teach very young children music (traditional instruction starts as young as age five, but the Suzuki method can be used with children as young as two). The method is very regimented, and although anyone reading this blog can see that I love structure, it felt more like adopting another religion than a teaching method, and it is quite demanding on the parents and care-takers, and requires daily listening of the Suzuki CD 1 (Suzuki Violin School: Violin Part, Vol. 1), which is basically two hours of 'Twinkle, Twinkle' and other simple tunes. Still, I certainly understand the need for a lot of repetition in young children and of course the general principles of making small but continuous progress at such a young age. So I started looking for a teacher, and let me say that the average Suzuki teacher is rather peculiar, or perhaps all music teachers are like this. And just because the Suzuki method can be taught to very young children, it does not mean that every teacher will have the patience and experience to teach these young children and actually make measurable progress. So we did find a teacher, and for now I am reserving judgement. Joey is making progress, but not quite as fast as I got used to with his other endeavors. Still, I would like him to persevere (a very important life lesson) and eventually (sooner rather than later) learn to play Klezmer violin. 

October 2013 update on violin. I thought I would share this bit of good news: something happened this week that made me very happy: Joey started to understand the value of practice with violin and doesn't protest anymore when I make him repeat a music sentence (actually he does it on his own when he messes up). Joey is also starting to read real music, with minimal effort on our part, and starts practicing the next tune ahead in the book on his own volition (not well, but still).... He really seems to enjoy it and is making steady progress transitioning between notes. Now I can say that violin is here to stay!

There's a video of his recent progress (November 2013): 

And finally, we have chess. Chess for very young gifted children is interesting because it stretches not so much their intellectual capacities or memory (Joey understands and remembers how to move the pieces without any trouble), but their developmental readiness to play a game. What I mean by this is that the motivation to win, the give and take of a game is developmental, not cognitive, yet it is essential to progress in implement game strategies. We are fortunate to live in a city with a very famous chess center, and the teacher there gave me his curriculum at no cost, and this is what we are doing (actually, Joey's Dad is implementing this on the week-ends). Joey is making steady progress, and this is very exciting. I expect that when he reaches the minimum age (five years old) to go to chess classes, we will enroll him. To encourage his development, when it comes to playing board games, I got some other games, not very challenging ones, like Kosherland (the Jewish equivalent of Candy Land) and 'What Should you Do: A game of consequences'. Finally, as a special motivator, I ordered a beautiful custom chess set from Natural Chess.