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. 

I found this idea at Chasing Cheerios and adapted it for our use.  The flowers are from my scrapbooking stash.  I laminated everything so it will last longer.

Caroline has been loving this.  She carries the number line around off and on all day.  We were playing with one of her stuffed animals with me making Bunny talk.  Bunny tried to count, but she kept getting stuck or making mistakes.  Caroline “taught” her the numbers and how to count to twelve.  Very cute and an easy way to check her knowledge.

Caroline has recently shown an interest in glue sticks so this was a perfect activity for that.  I did the cutting so we could focus on the gluing and counting.  I only printed off the pages for 1-5 and the apples on the last page since I knew more than that would overwhelm her.

This apple activity came from this site that has TONS of free printables and activities. Enjoy! 

I mentioned this idea the other day and that it was on my to do list with Caroline.  We had to make an unexpected trip to Home Depot last evening for some things so it gave me the opportunity to pick up a few paint chip cards and make this!

Caroline likes to point out “matches” so I was pretty confident she would find it interesting. And I knew she would like the basket I found in my “hang onto it for something” stash. I wasn’t sure if she would be able to manipulate the clothespins.  She wasn’t.  She immediately set to the task of matching the colors, but couldn’t figure out how to get the clothespins on there.  And she was only moderately interested in any instruction on how to do so. 

So we’ll see how this goes later in the day and tomorrow. I may just put it away for another month and get it out again later.