Gareth's Raccoon Teachers

About a year ago I heard about a free online preschool for kids in Utah who are one year away from entering Kindergarten.  It's a long waiting list, so I hurried home and registered Gareth.  This summer, I found out that he was accepted into the program.  I was excited since I knew that we weren't going to be able to afford to send Gareth to a "real" preschool this year.  The program is called UPSTART and it was developed by the Waterford Institute.  I didn't really have that much confidence that it would actually teach Gareth stuff, but I was excited about it because I knew it'd be fun for Gareth.  So far, I have been AMAZED by the program.  It's very well designed and it's just what Gareth needs.  It knows just where he is in his learning and adjusts the lessons for him.  He has to do school 5 days a week for at least 20 minutes (but he really does 40 mins every day).  Gareth started in September and he already recognizes all 26 letters (uppercase and lowercase).  He understands the process of reading left to right and he has been practicing writing letters.  The best part about the program is that when people ask him if he goes to preschool, he replies "Yes, I go to school on the computer in my mom's room and my teachers are a boy raccoon and a girl raccoon."  (which is true... there are two characters on the program named Rusty and Rosie and they're the ones that give assignments and instructions). 

Usually the people he tells this to kind of laugh and think he's being silly.... but they don't realize how much he's learning.  I'm very proud of him.  Yesterday, he wrote Grandpa Capel a card.  I told him how to spell the words, but he did the rest on his own! (He said the "B" is a fancy b.)