Where We've Been

I haven't quit homeschooling, just been busy and haven't had a chance to upload pics so I haven't posted about what we've been doing.

I will admit we aren't doing as much as we should be. It's hard to do organized activities with toddlers, most of your homsechooling is play. This also makes it hard to decide what constitutes part of our homeschooling. We've been going to the library and playgroup once a week where she plays with toys, learns about the current subject, paints pictures and does crafts. We've still been doing a subject a week. I will still be posting pics and info on each subject, so look for that this coming week.

We also had a death in the family on friday, funeral was today actually so I'll try to catch up next week.

Been a Little Slow

The last two weeks we've been sort of lax. I haven't been feeling well and just haven't put in much time. Luckily it's not hard to homeschool a toddler as all play is learning for them. I have pictures of our week of Yellow and Monkeys that I will hopefully post soon but even that week was slow. This past week we had books on dogs but didn't even do a colour and barely did anything. We did go to playgroup though so she did some painting, crafting and singing. I'll be posting pics of her artwork as well. Today I have her playing with playdough and we've gone on a few walks where she's seen motorcycles and we are still working on the difference between trees, bushes and flowers.

Tonight or tomorrow I'll hopefully get all the pictures downloaded onto the computer and can then post them.

Picture Books Really Do Teach Toddlers

This news article is actually from Nov 2006 but it's the first I've seen of it.

"Reading picture books to 18- to 30-month-old toddlers helps them learn things about the real world, psychologists find."
"Simcock and DeLoache tested 108 little boys and girls: 18 month olds, 24 month olds, and 30 month olds. Kids of each age were divided into three groups. One group was read to from a book with photographs, the second group was read to from a book with color drawings of the photographs, and a third group wasn't read to at all.

The pictures showed a child going through the three steps of building a simple rattle — putting a ball in a jar, attaching a stick to the jar, and shaking the assembled toy to make it rattle. The pictures came with simple text explaining the actions.

A researcher read the story to each child while pointing to the pictures. Then the child was given the ball, jar, and stick and encouraged to build a rattle.

None of the 18-month-olds, four of the 24-month-olds, and six of the 30-month olds actually finished building the rattle. But many of them got it at least partly right — and nearly all of them were kids who'd been read to."

I already knew that The Cuteness learned from books, that's why we use them. After a week (and sometimes a few days) of reading a new book, she can point out almost everything in the book and can sometimes "read" it to herself by turning the pages and saying the names of the objects on the page.

It's just nice to have some evidence.

Red and Birds

This past week we learned about the colour red and birds. I decided do just keep going over the alphabet and numbers every week instead of concentrating on a single number or letter. As soon as I point out for example the number 1, she points to the other numbers and wants to know them.


Here she is looking at pictures of different kinds of birds.
These are the books we read last week.
Here are the red toys we played with
Art class! Well sort of. She loves drawing on her magna doodle (which is now broken.)
Next week is Yellow and Monkeys!

Week 1 - Science

Cuteness loves magnets so we played with magnets this week. We will be continuing with magnets for another week.

Here she is learning that the two black sides won't touch each other, that the magnet is pushing it away. (Magnet Polarization.) She laughs as she struggles to
make them touch.

For Animal Science we are learning about Big Cats:
Tigers, Lions, Leopards etc... These are some of the books we read this week.

Finally here is Cuteness with her stuffed tiger.

Teaching the Colour Blue

This week I am teaching about the colour blue.

I have collected all her blue toys into one basket and we occasionally take them out to play with and identify. (see left) I hope that by seeing all blue objects together she will understand what I mean when I say blue. (That I am referring to the colour of the object.)

She has all blue blocks to build with.

I point out all blue things around the room and that show themselves during the day.

I have dressed her in blue clothing all week.

As Friday closes, she can say the word blue but still doesn't understand what I mean when I say something is blue. But I'm not worried. She's only 19 months and everything I'm doing with her now will just help prepare her to learn more when she's a little older. In a few months I believe she WILL know what is blue and what's not. The most important thing is that she had FUN!

About Me

I've wanted to homeschool my children since I was in high school. I had a bad experience with school and didn't want that for my children. As the years pass, I've heard more and more bad stories about schools which only makes my urge to homeschool stronger.

I now have two beautiful daughters, Cuteness who was born Jan/06 and Precious who was born Apr/07. As I start this blog, my oldest is 19 months. Most people I've talked to started homeschooling at age 4 or 5 but really we are always teaching our children, right from birth. At such an early age, we obviously won't be doing workbooks or homework or reading from textbooks but there is a lot we can do.

This blog is about my homeschooling adventure as I get started and then continue homeschooling my girls from toddlerhood on. This blog is for me as well as others. I hope that I offer some help to others who wish to homeschool early.