my oldest son is 2. he doesn't attend a day care or any formal education classes. he is having his own little pre-preschool at home as i'm sure most 2 year olds do.
we started with book reading-he wasn't all that interested at first so i took him to the library and took out a stack of books that revolved around his major interests in life-cars and trucks.
once he realized they were interesting we were reading 10 and 12 books a sitting for a while there. It has calmed down now and we read often but not quite with the intensity we were.
now he learning letters, numbers, shapes, he has colors down. we do all of this in a casual as it happens kind of way, i just point out the shapes or colors or we count things as we see them. i am no teacher, and my son is not going to sit down and have a lesson, he hardly sits down! we finger paint (he says funger paint), we draw, we color, we play with play doe and pasta, we have attended a few little classes at the zoo, we look at bugs, we do lots and lots of pretending and role playing-in other words, i let him be 2.
the joy of this age is he wants to learn about his world and how things work. for example i stuck him in the sink the other day for a quick wash up-when i drained the sink he said "oh no! water in the garbage!" because under that sink is where i keep the garbage. i had to explain to him that the water went into pipes under the sink, and when he was all dry we opened the cupboard, moved the garbage can and showed him the pipes.
what i have learned is that if i want him to pay attention to the lesson at hand it has to key into his current interests or be part of his game. he is not going to learn for learnings sake, and that is fine now that i know what i need to do. i have to show him how it is relevant to him and his world. i'm curious to see if this pattern continues into his formal education, but for now i'll just use what works!
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2 comments:
That is a smart plan.
You sound like a homeschooler:) That is the perfect learning plan, and you can educate a child that way, all the way through to college. Good for you for being so present to his needs and desires.
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