Acorns of Knowledge

While surfing around my Unplugged friends sites, I came across a link to free printables for preschoolers. I found a counting activity with squirrels and acorns that I thought E would really like. I cut out three squirrels with numbers on their tails, and three matching acorns. There were actually fifteen squirrels, but I thought it would be good to start with something easy. It seemed like a "schoolish" activity and I wanted E to be successful. I'm afraid sometimes that I overwhelm her with information, and I don't want to scare her away.

I didn't tell her about the game, I just put it at her place at the table. When she found it she said, "Hey, Mommy! There's squirrels here! And acorns!" I asked her, "What's on the squirrels?" She said "Letters!" I told her that they were numbers, not letters, but I took her answer as a good sign. Until this point I had never even heard her talk about letters at all.

It took her all of thirty seconds to match up the squirrels with their respective acorns. I even tested her by trying to match up the number two squirrel with the number three acorn...yes, she corrected me. Before she went to bed, I promised her that there would be more squirrels in the morning. But what will I do when she matches all fifteen? I mean, even Doogie Howser didn't graduate from college until he was a teenager!