Changing Focus

With the birth of my son in September of this year, there is a new focus in my life. I find that much my interest and energy is consumed in making sure that his needs are met now, and in ensuring that I will be able to meet his needs in the future. After a whole lot of discussion, his Dad and I have determined that homeschooling will best meet our Little Monkey's needs. I've decided to change the focus of this blog as well, from a general sampling of whatever happens to catch my attention to one more focused on my thoughts and experiences as a homeschooling Mama.

There's a lot of interesting information out there on homeschooling. How to do it, why to do it, when to do it, what you need to have (or don't need to have) to do it. Around here Kindergarten is not compulsory, so Monkey doesn't actually have to begin his "education" until he's nearly seven years old (because of when his birthday is). However, between now and then there is a large amount of learning... sitting, standing, putting on clothes, speaking, tying shoes, letters, numbers... many many things to learn. It seems to me that it would be ideal to move seamlessly from these very basic skills into more "school-like" topics. Certainly he will have many stories read to him. Hippos Go Berserk by Sandra Boynton actually captured and held his attention yesterday, long enough to read the whole story, with him actually looking at the pictures. I anticipate that he will have a natural curiosity about the way that letters go together to make words and suddenly one day we'll realize he's reading.

I imagine that in the early days that numbers and Math will go much the same way. Really, in settings outside of school, Math is often well mixed with Reading. For instance, that same Hippos Go Berserk book we read yesterday is actually a counting book: it counts one to nine, then back to one again, introducing not only numbers, but different ways to organize them. Another fun counting book is Counting Cows by Woody Jackson, which also counts backwards. Not to mention the counting we do around the house in counting his feet when we put on his socks, the sets of sit ups or other exercises his Dad and I do, and whatever else we happen to be doing that presents an opportunity to offer him numbers.

In an effort to find out what is going on behind those awesome eyes of his, we plan to use sign language to give him expressive language sooner than what he will be able to manage with speech alone. One of my girlfriends (also a homeschooling Mama) recommended the Sign With Your Baby materials she used with her children - I bought her kit for a song at her yard sale last summer while I was still pregnant. After watching the video we've decided to go ahead with the program, with a slight modification: we're introducing a few signs now (he's almost 3 months) rather than waiting until he's 6 months old. We may have to wait a while before he produces any signs, but I don't think that any language acquisition is wasted. I'm not waiting until he is able to produce speech to speak to him, so I see no need to wait to sign.

For right now, those are the activities that form the core of his "education," with one significant addition. I wear him in a MobyWrap a lot, so he spends a great deal of time in the thick of the activity, watching what I'm doing, and I often will give him a running commentary on what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and why it's important enough to bother with. Keeping him in the wrap keeps him close enough that I can guess what he's looking at and tell him about it. Not to mention that it allows me to hold him virtually as much as I want to and still get most things done almost as quickly as I might if he were playing on the floor.