Today I asked Caroline to get a can of pineapple from the basement.  While she was down there she just happened to decide to stop at her chalkboard and write the numbers 1-15. Out of the blue. No, I haven’t worked on this with her. She just writes numbers because it interests her.

I have to say I think this is pretty good for a preschooler who will be four in about six weeks!

This is really how homeschooling happens at this age. It just happens.  Tonight I was writing a numbered listed. Caroline came over to see what I was doing and asked to count the numbers 1-22.  So I pointed and she counted.  Homeschooling on the fly. In my teacher mode, I’m mentally taking note of whether or not she has any difficulties with any of the numbers.  I also note that she is now easily counting 1-19.  She sometimes forgets what 20 is called, but once I tell her what 21 is she can rattle off the rest of the 20′s.

This is what I love about homeschooling one as opposed to teaching in a classroom.  I don’t have to do pages of math with her and formal assessments. It is just organic this way. Life happens and learning happens.  It will get more complicated as she gets older, but right now it is so easy to fit into everyday life.

Which brings me to another reason why I don’t want to send her to preschool.  This came to me the other day.

I’ve paid my dues the past four years in getting through the newborn, infant, toddler and initial preschooler phases.  Although every age is interesting and enjoyable, Caroline is to the age where she’s really interesting and interactive in a whole new way.  I realized that the other day and thought, “Why would I want to send her to preschool now so someone else can benefit from all my blood, sweat and tears!?!?!?!?”  

It was just a tiny revelation that I’ll revisit on the hard days. 

Several days ago Kat left a comment asking if I would share how I organize Caroline’s day, what we are doing with her learning, etc.  So, for what it is worth, here is where we are right now.  And this is honesty at its finest.

I am motivated. Caroline is not ready.

I feel guilty for not doing more structured things with her.  Caroline is not ready.

I am tempted to feel angst over the “lost” months this summer when I was too sick to do much of anything with her except watch Pride and Prejudice (A&E) more times than I will ever publicly admit.  (She was obsessed with it for quite awhile and it worked for me.) Caroline hasn’t really suffered for it except in my overly conscientious mind.

The truth of the matter is that we are very unstructured right now. Part of it is that we are just getting somewhat back to normal after me being anything but normal physically since late February.  Part of it is simply that Caroline is not ready.

I read these blogs of women who do all these amazing, planned things with their children who are a similar age and am tempted to feel guilty.  But Caroline is just not ready.  She isn’t ready for structured learning.

This is one of those areas where I just have to trust my gut.  And I also have to trust my convictions.  I’ve believed for a long time that children are too over structured too early.  I believe strongly in the importance of open-ended play.  I really appreciate the teachings of Charlotte Mason because they reflect my own instincts about children.

We don’t read nearly as much as I would like to.  For some reason, she just doesn’t respond to the idea right now.  I’m not going to fight her on this so we don’t read as much as I thought we would.

So that is a little bit about what we aren’t doing.  There is no structured learning going on in our house.  That isn’t to say that there isn’t learning.  We learn all the time.  But it is much more situational and arises spur of the moment far more often than me planning that Caroline is going to work on “X” skill.

Truth be told, I am still trying to figure Caroline out.  She is a mystery to me in many ways and it has been a challenge.  In many ways I cannot figure out what makes her tick.  It is hard for me as her mother to feel that way, especially since I am a very insightful person.  But she has a complicated little personality and it has been one of the big challenges of parenting so far.

So what do we do?

We go places – Meijer Gardens, the zoo, Children’s Museum, stores, Starbucks, apple orchards, drives in the country… We have to literally drag her out of Starbucks.  How great is it that she loves hanging out in a coffee shop? 

We work together – loading laundry into dryer, putting things in shopping cart, cleaning the bathroom, putting laundry away, dusting, cleaning mirrors, working in the garden…

We read books and printed materials. She’s fascinated by catalogs.

We watch grown up DVDs – the exception is Baby Einstein and home DVDs.  She has learned so much from Baby Einstein videos. We started watching those right before her second birthday and they have been wonderful. I plan on doing a post on that.

We listen to a lot of classical and instrumental music.  When she hears something on the stereo that was in one of her Baby Einstein videos she will say, “That’s like Cow” or “That’s like on Horse!”  or “That’s on Instruments!”  (She identifies most of the BE videos by the animal on the cover.)

We dance.

We talk about things all the time.

A little bit of “school” stuff – When I find something online that I think she will like, we do it.  Totbooks, cutting and pasting activities, etc.  If a teachable moment arises related to letters or words, I use it.

We use Bing video searches – This started kind of by accident, but we look up videos on Bing and she loves it.  (I think she is a highly visual learner.)  Daddy actually does most of this with her and they’ve learned about windmills, waterfalls, trumpets, Celtic Women Christmas, Christmas trees, dogs… Lots of things.  Here are her two favorites that she has watched over and over and over again…

Here is the first favorite – Wynton Marsalis playing a Haydn Trumpet Concerto.  (No, I am not making this up.) She has probably watched it several dozen times over the recent months. That is saying something considering the picture quality is not all that great. But she loves the music on the trumpet.

This is the more recent favorite. She heard the Celtic Women Christmas CD at my parents’ house a few months ago and absolutely fell in love with their version of Ding Dong Merrily On High. We found the video online and she loves it. When she hears it on CD, whatever she is doing immediately stops and she starts dancing around the room.

I’m sure there are other things that will come to mind, but this is a bit about where we are right now. I am guessing maybe this winter we will get into a little more structure.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I know there is no way she would be ready for preschool right now.  We’ll just continue to do things here as they seem appropriate and have fun in the process.

Caroline’s big Christmas present this year was a Melissa and Doug easel.  It has a chalkboard on one side and a whiteboard on the other.  She uses it every day and enjoys it.

Most mornings when she comes down she has a message waiting for her.  Sometime it is just a picture that David drew the night before (I draw bad stick people) and sometimes it is a message I’ve written such as “Mama loves Caroline” or “Good Morning, Caroline.”  This photo was taken this morning.  She is still very much into the manger scene and if we draw anything else, she erases it and asks for the manger scene. This morning David just cut to the chase and drew the manger scene. (Note the crescent moon!) 

We are pointing out more and more words in context, sometimes running our fingers under words when we read things to her, etc. She is not even close to being ready to read, but I take advantage of  opportunities to demonstrate that those letters go together to mean something.  We’re learning that words communicate a message.

This Morning Message idea doesn’t have to be done on an easel.  It could be done on chart paper or even printer paper.  Simply writing a message on a piece of paper and hanging it in the same place on the refrigerator each day would work just as well.

The idea of a teachable moment is to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself with your child.  It can be as simple as making an extended comment in reply to something your child has said or as complicated as creating a whole study out of something of interest.

Teachable moments in language and vocabulary development with small children are easy to find and take no extra preparation.  So here is how I take advantage of those moments. I’ll share a couple of conversation examples.

Caroline: Snowman!

Mama: Oh, look at that happy snowman with the pretty blue hat!

Or…

Caroline: The icicles are dripping!

Mama: Yes, the warm sun shining on them is making them melt and drip.

Simply by responding to something Caroline says to me I can introduce more words used in context which, in turn, increases her vocabulary.  I’ve been amazed at the words she’s picked up with only limited use by David and me.

Expanding on what she says also trains her to look more closely and notice details she might have missed before. I can see how this has definitely paid off in that she pays close attention to details even on her own.

Oftentimes it also allows me to make the most of the moment and slip in a science concept such as with the icicles. I  don’t expect her to remember it after one mention (although she often does).  But providing her with more and more information about her world allows her to continue to learn and make new connections.

I also look for opportunities that present themselves through the books we read.  For example, I noticed that several of the stories we’ve been reading lately had crescent moons in them.  I mentioned it in passing a few times when pointing them out in books.  Rather than just calling it a moon I called it a crescent moon.  She picked up on that concept and ran with it, pointing them out whenever she saw them.  So we started looking at other moons in books, mostly full moons.  So she now knows how to identify a crescent moon and a full moon.  We had a gorgeous full wolf moon recently and we all stood at the window and admired it for quite some time.  The past two mornings have been clear and we’ve had a crescent moon.  So we’ve all stood and observed the crescent moon.  Caroline is thrilled with seeing the real thing in the sky and not just in her books.

These are just a few examples of how I simply take advantage of opportunities before me and make the most of the moment!