New Concepts

The June that Caleb was two, I began doing some "schooling" with him.  Sarah Rose was just four months old then and so the lessons were in part because I had a very bored and active two year old boy but was limited with what we could do with a baby. So to help "cure" the boredom and to scratch my teaching itch (once a teacher, always a teacher!), we began the lessons. Even at that young age, Caleb had shown some academic awareness that was beyond what would be considered normal for a two year old.  His lessons began with a homemade interactive calendar, then quickly progressed to index cards with words on them and three-ring binders full of homemade phonic activities and math work.  By his third birthday, he was reading 100+ words, doing simple addition and subtraction, and could read a calendar and figure dates very well.    All the things we did were made fun for him and any time he started showing slowing interest we took a two week or so break.  By the time the break was over, the games and activities were new again and we would keep going with the same enthusiasm. A few months ago during his preschool assessment, his academic abilities were assessed at being many months into a first grade year... all because, I believe, he was shown learning can be fun and we built a foundation on that concept.

Now Caleb is in preschool, leaving Sarah Rose home alone with no one to play with.  Once again, I've found myself with a bored two year old!  I had been planning to start lessons with her anyway, bored or not, when Caleb started school.  On Monday, we sat down for an hour to make her calendar.  Well, okay...I sat down for an hour while she excitedly ran from room to room for an hour doing a happy jiggy dance.  (She slept well that night!) 


It turned out great; its amazing what two pieces of tagboard, crayons, a ruler, scissors and some masking tape can create!




We cut out all the pieces and assembled the calendar.  Sarah Rose was pretty excited that this was HER calendar for HER school time.




Here's how it works (its actually pretty involved).  The main calendar is just an outline of a blank calendar (you can see it in the first picture).  All the other pieces are removable with masking tape.  Why masking tape?  Because the pieces that aren't being used are stored on the wall beside the calendar and masking tape doesn't pull off paint!  Anyway, the upper left hand corner has a spot that says "Today, it is [blank spot] outside".  Sarah Rose then has choices to pick from to put on the calendar (sunny, rainy, stormy, snowy and cloudy...you can see them lined up on the right side of the picture).  On the upper right hand corner, there is a spot that says "Today is a [blank spot] day".  She has the choice of putting up a smiley face that says "happy" or a frowny face that says "sad".  This helps give her a little accountability for her behavior.  Believe me, she is really disappointed she she has to put a frowny face on the spot!  The 11 months that aren't being used on the calendar are lined up under the calendar, which we go over every morning to teach the months of the year.  We also go over the days of the week every day, which are colored in the order of the colors of the rainbow.  Why?  Well, because when she colors a rainbow I won't have to tell her all the colors (she can refer to the calendar for help) AND it also teaches how to make colors (orange is between red and yellow on a rainbow, so we can mix red and yellow to make orange). 




Each day, we count from the beginning of the month, starting with "1" to whatever day it is.  Then she puts up the number for whatever date the day is.  She'll be counting to 31 in no time!  This also teachers her that we read from left to right and how to go to the beginning of the next line when we're done with the one we're on.  It also teaches her how to add by one without her even knowing it!  When she gets the hang of counting and adding the day, we'll move on to how to read a calendar.




You can see she's little unsure about adding today's date (30).  And you can see "31" being stored on the wall until tomorrow.  It really is amazing how simple it is to teach these basic concepts in a way that is super fun and exciting to a kid and super cheap for Mama!

 When the "newness" of the calendar has worn off, probably in a week, we'll start doing a few words after calendar time.  And things will just fall into place.  I think we'll have a lot of fun :-)