School started today at our house.
Just kidding.
Sort of. 🙂
Jesse will be 3 on Wednesday. Many would say that 3 is too young to begin school, and I agree. But it’s never too young to begin learning and to love the process. That is the ultimate goal of my homeschooling – to teach my children what my mother taught me – to love to learn. I will only have so many years in which to instruct my children in wisdom and knowledge. If we look at the years from kindergarten to graduation as the only formative years, there is no way they will be able to acquire all the knowledge necessary to function and thrive in this world. But if, during that precious window of time, I am able to impart to them the love of learning and seeking and knocking and finding wisdom on their own, then they will have learned the most important skill, and I will have done my job.
That’s why school didn’t start at my house today. Because we already began – on the day our little boy was born. First he learned about love, and trust, and peace. Very early on he learned who was in charge (and it wasn’t him!), not to touch Daddy’s glasses, and how to ask for milk without crying. By 9 months he was already using his first signs, and when he was 2 he had over 100 words in his sign language vocabulary. As we played and worked together, I constantly stretched his little mind around new ideas, words and sounds, making learning a part of every hour of every day. At 2 1/2 he knew all his colors, both saying and signing them correctly. He learned adjectives and loves to identify everything with at least 2 adjectives. “Big, red truck!”, “Little, green ball – mine, little, green ball!”
Today’s ‘lesson’ was all about sorting by color, shape and size as we cleaned up the play room together. I gave him an item and encouraged him to place it in the correct bin – a brown Lincoln log, a green block, a blue train. His delight at identifying the appropriate bin (“‘Dis one, mamma?”) was evident in his smile and his enthusiasm for the next task. After lunch he helped me put away the leftovers, following instructions like, “Put this in the bottom drawer of the white fridge, Jesse.” Then I let him try and figure out what the bottom drawer was (instead of showing him immediately or just doing it all myself). After that we went out and picked grapes. He loves the big ones, and helped me pick the ripe, purple ones, and not the unripe green ones. And he’s not even three! I give him an A+.
Oh, this is a riot. I'm sure we'll be there with Jesse and Claire pretty soon, too. He likes thing just so, but she'll probably be more of a free-spirit, creative type. 🙂
We've been going through the same steps with Vivi lately and it's been such a lesson in patience for me not to interrupt her process by “helping”. She's been learning sizes and shapes.. which is so juvenile for poor Aidan, it pains him to watch her and if she gets one wrong he'll try to do it for her instead.