We had AJ's birthday at a new place and everyone loved the place. It was an indoor park called Inside Out with lot of activities. Pizza was great too. Only thing i didnt like were their goody bags. I didnt have time to check in advance what they would have in the goody bag and they really didnt have much :P
We had lots of friends come in for the party and AJ was one happy kiddo. Ofcourse, Ashu too since most of his friends were invited too :) They both had a total blast.
We had 1/1 in aj's school and he got rave reviews as usual. Not just on studies also on socializing aspect. Apparently he is a social butterfly and a delight to be with. :) They said he is way ahead in language and math. They work on some science too, but not much on geography and history. Obviously it is just a preschool and these are just a bunch of 4 year olds and expecting them to know all these is too much too. Ashu went to a daycare that was also a preschool and tey didnt even do as much as what aj's school did and B and i used to challenge him all the time and he knew a lot more than any 4 year old would know. He knew most countries, most states in US, their capitals etc. He knew most presidents..and some facts about most of them too. But, we never really spent a whole lot of time with AJ on these topics. So, i asked AJ few questions and noticed that he knew very basic stuff like how many continents, their names..some countries and some states and no idea on capitals. For instance he would say one country as a captial of another..and some funny stuff like that. Ashu found it hilarious..us too. He is a sponge and takes in whatever we teach him in a jiffy..So i decided to focus on geography and teach him some stuff abotu history..just what i know and decided to start with presidents of US and i gave him the placemat that has all the presidents and he knows a lot now, but the funniest thing was he kept arguing all the presidents lived only for 4 or 8 years and then they died..Ashu (actually all of us) found it hilarious..Just funny how a little kid's mind works :) Also, how he made the learning process fun is by checking how many presidents were born on our birth months and found that his birth month had the least no of presidents (among the 4 of us) and was quite P'd off. hehe..
On the geography front, before we started teaching him the states and their capitals, ashu decided to test and he was wrong on the first few questions and thoght it was funny and started giving all weird answers. At that point ashu stopped finding it funny and got serious and said "AJ, if you behave like this you are not going to be a Geography Bee" and AJ said "That's fine..i can always be Geography A" Ashu's reaction was priceless!!
That reminds me..Ashu got selected for the school geobee. He was the only one from his class and we came to know when he went back to school after our india trip and the contest was next day. We were severely jet lagged, we had no material to prepare and no energy to go get anything from the store or from the library. Ashu slept at 7, so no point in trying also and i told him in the morning to take it easy and we can always try next year.He made it through 3 rounds and got out.and said from the next round on he knew the right answers..maybe better luck time :)
