learning, schooling, homeschooling, unschooling, I dunno what...

[lilismamadez]

So as Lilith gets older, she becomes more and more active in her learning about the world around her. I want structure for her. I have ideas about how to implement structure in ways that are normal and real life. So when I decide something like from now on I think I'll have Lilith help me clean her room by picking up toys, I don't think I am going to damage her in any way by ruining her childhood @_@.

But child psychology and behavioral opinion is so wide spread. You know what I think? I think people just don't know what it's like to be a kid. You can try, you can idealize, you can try your best to create a perfect childhood and a perfect structure (or lack of structure) for children everywhere to learn in, or outside of, but I think ultimately every CHILD is different.

You all know I was doing a little bit of a curriculum that I built with Lilith. It went over letters and numbers and colors and some other things. Well, the subject matter was too disjointed for her. We couldn't afford the extra things that we would (more specifically, I would) have liked. Basic stuff, like indian corn and brown construction paper, seems like special expenditure I have to bite my lip while picking up at the super marker. We are just quite literally really really poor.

But more than the THINGS I didn't feel we HAD to meet up with my own curricular standards was that she was losing interest. She thought the whole homeschool/learning time and board thing were the best things ever for the first 4 weeks or so, and this last two weeks, lesson 5, had kind of dissolved us. I picked a lesson topic she simply didn't care for, and I was having a lot of trouble making work for her, and for US. It wasn't age appropriate. It wasn't LILITH appropriate.

So I ask myself, do I try again? Take a week off, and restructure, and start lesson 6 with a better and more Lilith specific plan in mind, and truck through it in hopes she's picking up what I want her to? I have NO doubt that the learning structure was really helping her. Her learning scale is just going up exponentially as days go by, and anyone else with a kid knows how AMAZING it is when a kid goes from learning to use it's arms, to learning to use it's eyes, to learning to eat, and to dance, and to dress themselves, to less concrete things like learning concepts like *scary* and *cute*. When the kid starts to play using their imagination, when a dragon shift from being anything with sharp teeth to something with, more specifically, wings and scales... it's just amazing to watch. And you know? THESE are not guided lessons. You see your child swing, you sit beside her, and swing with her, and sing *swing swing swing* and think nothing of it until you are in the car three days later, she has a doll, and is swinging it back and forth saying *swing swing swing* (this goes for the bad stuff too, like maybe having watched South Park just to have your kid sit in the floor an hour after the movie beating toys against each other saying FOCK and BEECH, lol).

So does that mean that the unschooling, the *letting interest lead learning* was way more effective? Well, she loves letter and numbers, although she just doesn't get them much. She likes to see them written, she likes words on a page. Was it her interest that helped her learn over the last week finally to say ABC and sometimes add a D at the end in sequence, or my attempt at teaching her? Well... I think it was her.

I think sometimes it's okay, and GOOD to choose soemthing you'd like a kid to know, and hope to inspire them. The important thing is probably to know when to admit that the kid just isn't interest and move on WITHOUT feeling like you're admitting a DEFEAT. Lilith just doesn't get counting right now. The color orange still registers as pumpkin to her. It's not HURTING anything. She isn't developmentally challenged at all. She'll learn these things. She's doing damned well for a two year old with language. She is, like I said, learning on an exponential rise a new word and/or concept EVERY DAY now, LITERALLY and AT MINIMUM. I am an adult that can't take in THAT much new information.

So I do think I need, *I* need, some structure. Baking on Mondays, art project Tuesday, etc... but certainly I must keep a closer eye on what she is interested in, and keep more around the house to catch her interest. More used magazines. More counting books. She LOVES Baby Einstein videos, I don't care who thinks they are a useless waste of money, they are THE reason she knows how to sign many words, and is interested in signing at all.

I know my blog is thin of toddler mom's that teach, but does anyone have any thoughts? I think this is really going to have to be a transition point for me. I don't think radical homeschooling is *okay* in many ways. It kind of upsets me in some ways. I want my kid to be up to speed on standards. I really do, and yet... *shrug* I don't know. One day I am going to wake up a mother of one, and go to sleep a mother of three, and the issues will then be that much pressing (but I can't wait to buy my child dolls and doll accessories and *learn* about taking care of babies). So anyways, I just want to do this whole mom thing RIGHT. SHE will never be this age, or 3, or 4, or 7, or 12 more than once, and I want to figure out what is right for her, for my patience level (and OCD, good gods), and for ALL the kids that will one day pop up out of the blue and be a part of our home (lol).

So, plague me with your... criticisms or experiences p-p-p-pwease?

 

(this is a x-post from my personal livejournal)

[HelenGartner]

Nov. 15, 2009 at 4:45 PM

i as well have a 2 year old, and frankly am inspired by the amount of structure that you have (we have almost none) DS loves to color, count, play with his musical toys, and watch his shows (i will be the first to admit that we watch a bit too much TV here at our hose)

he is just now starting to play little pretend games and such.

at this age little bits of structure are good, but i am leary of too much. as he gets older i will introduce it more and more, but i have come to understand that toddlers have the attention span of a gnat!

so i say keep up with the things your LO is interested in, and slowly bring new subjects in as she starts to get boored. good luck!

[HelenGartner]

Nov. 15, 2009 at 4:49 PM

oh, and as for not having much in the way of funds, i am in the same boat. some things that have helped, taking nature walks, leaves twigs and pinecones make great craft supplys. and DS loves to color on plain white copyer paper just as much as in coloring books.