C isn't the type of child that likes to sit still. We've been giving storytime at the library a good try for the past year, but it usually ends halfway through with him turning around, stating (very confidently) "Go Home NOW," and then jetting for the closest door.
He's a smart boy, but he loooooves being active. He does better in engaging learning play, and he's pretty good at making it self-initiated at times. Thus, I decided to look up some homeschooling and Montessori-based preschool curriculums, and I chose to give them a try.
Considering the fact that he's only two years old, I decided to take the schedules a lot more slowly.. so this week we did the typical one week curriculum over two weeks. I had to learn a lot myself-- a lot of patience, creativity, and adaptability. I mean, I already have to use that TONS with my patients at work (especially the elderly demented ones)... but it's different with healthy children, particularly my own child.
I made our lesson board on a large bulletin board:
And I placed it on one of his toy shelves in a high-traffic area of the house. 75% of the time we pass it, we review at least one item on the board, and a week and a half into the lesson, he can identify the items perfectly (even differentiating between Big A and Small A).
Of course, since he likes to mix up the teaching/learning mediums a big, we do a bunch of different "activities" related to the items we're working on.
For example, we use a lot of tools to learn the letter A. Of course, we have traditional flashcards, which we bought at Target (I'll get to making other kinds as time goes along). We also have refrigerator magnets and bathtime foam letters.
We use internet videos as well... a couple of our favorites are Starfall's ABC letter A exercise and Dream English's Letter A Phonics Song.
Since we're super new to this, we've had to improvise. I did try printing out worksheets on writing out the letter A, but he didn't like the structure of learning how to write... so I figured (newly) 2 years old was a bit early to do the whole writing thing for him.
On the other hand, he wasn't too young to learn the concept of the color red, so I busted out the (erasable) crayons to go over colors and re-enforce "red" with him. Target had some inexpensive window crayons that were on sale, so I bought a box of those home and let him draw in red all over our sliding glass patio/balcony door:
He *LOVED* it. My parents freaked out a bit, of course. ;P
On learning about the number one, it was a bit difficult because he was more a fan of the number 2. In fact, he never really likes to say "one" unless I encourage it, but he obviously understands the concept. I pointed out as often as I could during playing or reading time when there was one thing-- one nose, one truck, one banana-- and I kept on doing so until something happened one day that REALLY made me realize his ability to count and recognize numbers was more advanced than I thought. I mean, there were days when he would take two things (two being his favorite number) and plop them down, saying (respectively) "ONE" then "TWO".. but this surprised me.
We were playing with blocks one day, and I started counting them as he stacked (or positioned) them. To my surprise, he started doing it himself... all the way to TEN! Another thing I found was that allowing him to stack and count his blocks early in the morning bought me time to prepare his breakfast. :)
Which is always something that requires a lot of creativity and adapting since he's a picky eater with no predictable likes or dislikes-- if he likes something one day, it's sure to be rejected sometime soon. :P
We used puzzles and toys (like the box) to re-enforce the concept of squares... and he surprised me with his ability to differentiate between a big square and little square (he can even point it out on our lesson board!
We just started incorporating counting into his playtime... of course, I never stopped showing him what "one" meant... but he was really good at counting his toys, especially to the number five, which he would show me while connecting all his trains.
For the topic/theme of the beach, it wasn't a tough one to do living in San Diego and so close to the beach. My husband and I (well, him particularly) love surfing, so we're there more often than not... and it's somewhere we always go with visitors, particularly in the summertime. We pointed out a lot of things on the beach... especially the little crabs we caught with C's sand pail.
We practiced pinching our hands like a crab. We scooped water with his crab bath toy during bathtime. I even tried teaching him how to do that funky backwards crabwalk, but C would simply laugh and say, "Funny mommy." Ah, well, at least I tried.
All in all not a bad week and a half (still have another half week to go). It's been fun, and I have more ideas for next week, especially now that I have a better idea about what he's capable of. :)
