Toddler Preschool: Watercolors & Shapes // Homeschooling
Over the past couple of years, we have been thinking a lot about public schools vs. private schools vs. homeschooling. I imagine that these thoughts cross all parents’ minds at some point. It’s a big decision and there are so many pros & cons on all sides. It will be a little while longer until Roman is ready for kindergarten and we will be forced to make a decision. For now, he’s only ready for preschool and we’re doing that at home for the time being.
Up until this past month, my homeschooling efforts have been totally unstructured. Roman is constantly learning & developing and I always sort of just went with the flow and followed his lead. Now, at two years and two months, I can tell that he’s craving more. His mind is such a sponge and it’s extraordinary to me how much he absorbs, retains, and learns. I know that this is all “typical” for a toddler, but since Roman is my first child, it totally blows my mind. It’s incredible to watch him interact with the world and to quench his thirst for learning.
Most of what Roman knows now, he has picked up naturally through listening to adult conversations, playing with toys & puzzles, and watching television shows & movies. He has a great grasp on so many concepts & his vocabulary is extensive. I couldn’t begin to explain them all, but some of the concepts that we’ve been focusing on lately are:
- letters – he can identify 23 out of 26 letters
- numbers & counting – we’re still working on this & he’s making progress
- shapes – he can identify all of the basic shapes
- colors – he can identify all of the basic colors
Another thing that we’ve been doing for awhile is “creating.” Coloring has long-been one of Roman’s favorite activities. He also loves to line things up. He creates “trains” out of everything. He loves to build towers and “birdhouses” with blocks, to gather flowers for bouquets, and simple things like this. Our next step in creating will be some more structured arts & crafts type projects.
Yesterday we went to the craft store and picked up some watercolor paints and a multimedia pad. We also got a tube of colorful, foam sticker shapes. Roman had so much fun learning how to dip his paintbrush into water and then into the watercolor paints. We talked a little bit about mixing primary colors to make secondary colors. It was a little over his head, but boy did he enjoy mixing colors together!
After painting, he added some foam shape stickers to his artwork. I peeled the white backs from each shape a little bit and allowed him to peel them the rest of the way before sticking them onto the paper. I also taught him to put the little white peels into a neat pile rather than throwing them all over the place.
When we were finished we cleaned up his workspace and washed the paintbrushes & water cup in the sink. Then we hung up his artwork using a piece of twine, some fabric tape, and miniature clothes pins. It was the first time we ever put a piece of his work up on display. He was beaming with pride and I felt like my mama heart was going to burst.
I have so many ideas for more projects to do with him. I can’t wait. I get just as excited as he does. I’ll be sharing lots more of our preschool homeschooling adventures as we go along.
Comments (4)
Tina
July 10, 2015 at 9:47 am
Aww look at his cute painting. I’m also doing preschool at home and I can’t explain how much crap I get for it. It seems that everyone on the planet must think it’s a bad idea for me to homeschool Lyla and I’m so sick of hearing it. My child is one of the most well behaved children I’ve ever met and has never been sick in her life. She’s also super smart. So tell me again why homeschooling preschool is bad! Haha. I have structure in Lyla’s homeschooling now. We do flashcards, workbooks (tracing, similar&different, etc.), and then an art project. Then I try and make sure she watches one education video like those leapfrog ones. Also, field trips to all different places that I turn somehow into educational haha.
Mallory
July 11, 2015 at 7:06 pm
So cool! I hear you about being amazed at how fast kids pick up things. My son is only 1o months old, but he astounds me daily with what he can learn. Yes, typical, but its so amazing. I think one of the most beautiful things about children is their ability to imagine and create, I am so excited to be able to encourage that in him as he grows 🙂
Momista Beginnings
July 12, 2015 at 10:37 pm
This is awesome! I remember how much in love I was with Mia’s entire first experience with art. I mean, I’m an ex-art teacher, how could I not? She still loves creating and she gets a lot of that through her preschool. She was 2 years old when she first started going. I felt just as you do, that at age 2 they’re craving more, needing more. I was totally capable of creating a little homeschooling experience for her, but to be honest, I needed “me time” badly. She only goes 3 days a week for 3 hours each time. But I can’t tell you how much BOTH of us get out of that time apart. And I really wanted to socialize her with other kids because we don’t have many other friends with kids her age. NOT to say in any way at all that this is what YOU should do or consider, just speaking from my own situation. I actually should do more with Mia as far as learning activities go at home, structured time together with little lesson plans. Roman knows 3x more letters than Mia does so that should tell me something. This post is really inspiring and I really need to get things in gear over here. Mia is really smart and I know she’s capable of handling it and thriving even more from it. Just gotta do it.
Education before Preschool – Boldly Bravely You
September 30, 2015 at 7:29 am
[…] make an effort to find out of the box activities to simulate learning. Dena has a great post about how she is educating her son at home. I plan on trying out her shape activity with my […]