Along with my general winter apathy, I seem to have a general preschool apathy. Poor Jonah, he loves to do school, and I find it soooo boring. What kind of homeschool mom am I shaping up to be? Laaayzeee...
It really is great to watch him learn. He now knows letters quite well, all the uppercase and most of the lowercase. And just recently, it clicked in his brain that letters stand for sounds, so now he knows all the sounds that they make.
Up until Christmas time, I was really good about doing school with him every morning. It's not like it takes very much time to do a dot-to-dot page and color a picture, drill letters, say a memory verse, sing a song. 20 minutes, tops.
But the routine can't ever vary. Three-year-olds are generally OCD. If you skip something or change the routine a little, the entire earth tilts on it's axis and nothing is right anymore.
So I get bored.
And during the holidays, I just had a lot to do, so we had an extended preschool-break. "Mommy... are we gonna do school today?" "Uhhhh... I don't think so... we have a lot to do..."
But now, that excuse is not holding water, and he knows it. Mommy is sitting by the fire reading a book again. She must be bored. "Mommy, can we do school today?" "Uhhhh... I don't... ummm.... really want to... I have to... uhhh..."
"Okay! I'll get the books... and the crayons... they're on the table! C'mon, Mommy! Time for school!"
He's a smart kid. Not only has he learned letters and shapes and numbers and colors (so well that there seems to be little point in "doing school" about those things...), but he's also figured out the trick to my apathy.
Now, if I can only train him that way for everything... "If Mommy doesn't do it, I'll do it myself!" Can't you just see the dishes getting done, laundry finished, floor swept...
No?
Really?
I guess you're right. I guess it's more like "milk spilled, bathroom flooded, floor peanut-buttered..."
Hm. Looks like the school books are on the table again. Time for school, I guess.
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He recognizes the upper and lower case letters and understands they have sounds attached??? Samuel didn't know that til he was SEVEN. He still has issues with a few. Peter too.
ReplyDeleteSOME people would call that Unschooling, donchaknow. It's working.
Unless you want him to be accelerated so he can hit college by twelve.
Aha! Reverse Psychology! Brilliant, my dear, genius.
ReplyDeleteKatie, do NOT school him. I mean, you don't want him to grow up and be all smart do you? Course not! Being smart is soooooo over-rated.
I truly didn't intend for a Reverse Psychology affect...
ReplyDeleteThink Mom should try it on YOU?
Being smart IS over rated. Ask all the non-geeks out there, they'd agree with me ^_^
ReplyDeleteSounds like it's time to mix up the school - letters and colors get boring. So go outside!
ReplyDeleteCheck out this blog for Nature Hour studies - you can start doing this with him now, I promise!
http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com/2008/09/where-to-start-with-outdoor-hour.html
You also might find some stuff from the Waldorf preschool curriculum - making puppets or baking bread anyone?
http://www.waldorfcurriculum.com/preschool_overview.html
Or perhaps montessori is more up your alley (I suspect it is ;)
http://www.montessori.edu/homeschooling.html