Every parent is a teacher, constantly nurturing the development of their child even before birth. It starts simple, we show them about proper nutrition by carefully choosing or preparing their food, then we start encouraging them to walk and speak. The term homeschooling starts to appear at some point after these things. When Princess of the Wild Things (what I will be referring to my daughter as) turned three, I started getting asked about preschool from parents in the playgroup we actively participated in. The parents I had these conversations with were schooling their children at an early age for various reasons including concerns about obedience and listening skills or their belief that the classroom was the best place for instruction.
Preschool wasn't for us. I didn't put a lot of thought into it. Her participation in ballet class left me with little concern about princess' ability to listen to a teachers instructions. As far as the academic part goes, I felt like teaching preschool skills and knowledge came very naturally in my parenting. I didn't think a lot about it. When I was pregnant with Prince of the Wild Things, the two year old princess and I would go for walks. On every mailbox and house that we passed we saw numbers and houses. My goal at the time was to be able to make it around the block without having to chase her. We talked about those letters and numbers we were passing, we also talked about the colors of the flowers and the names of the animals we heard or saw. It worked! Every day we got further and further down our street before we needed to turn around and go back home. One day, we made it around the block and another day we walked all around the neighborhood! It is probably obvious that she wasn't just learning how to walk beside me for an extended amount of time. Before I knew it, a day came where my husband took my daughter out on a errand and came back bragging that she impressed everybody by identifying the buttons on a vending machine. We couldn't pass a sign without her getting excited about the letters she saw. I'm not sure that she will always be so excited about learning that she is giggling and cheering, but I want her to enjoy her education as much as possible.
At this time, as I am creating the first posts on this blog, Princess of the Wild Things is still preschool age. In Maryland, children do not enter kindergarten until they are five years old. Next September we will register as a homeschooling family and work the state requirements into our daily learning. For the rest of the year, we are just having fun and learning at the same time.
My Daughter, one of my little wild things, is always on the run. She constantly has something she wants to do or something she wants to discuss. Does this mean she wouldn't sit and listen to a long lecture or go over flashcards if she was asked to? I honestly don't know. We are just too busy to try. There is so much to do!
