Using Slow and Steady: Get Me Ready

I really hesitated about buying this book, but I am glad that I did. It's a curriculum with an activity suggestion for every week of life from birth through age five. Am I that parent? I asked myself. That parent who so longs for a high achieving child that she follows a curriculum guide for her fifteen month old? I really value child directed learning. I began my own homeschooling back in middle school after reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook, which is about as unschooling and child directed a homeschool book as you will find.

So why on Earth would I want a curriculum, especially when my daughter is at an age where she learns the most through free exploration? I'm not worried about missing any crucial building blocks, or that she might become delayed. But I have found that in the long hours of unstructured time it preserves my adult sanity if have some activities up my sleeve. Ladybug has fun, and I always move to something else when she's losing interest. That happens within ten minutes or less, which is to be expected.

I like to page around the weeks near her current age and pick something that feels good. Or, I will select an activity that I would not do naturally. I figure that broadens our horizons a little bit more. Then as I read the page for that activity, I try to internalize it so I'm not referencing a book all week. That way I can make the activity my own and change it to suit our needs.

The first activity I chose was "The Face and Head Game," listed under Age 1 - Week 1. It's about learning the parts of the face by drawing a face as well as touching the child's face and naming eyes, ears, nose, etc. I drew the face on a sheet of paper once, but my drawing is seriously sub-par, so I abandoned the creepy face. Ladybug was very engaged simply by the touching and naming. I also bought Where Is Baby's Belly Button? and read it to her frequently. It was a fun book to integrate into our playtime. The whole game extended well past one week, and now Ladybug knows the parts of her face.

I will let weeks pass without having a Slow and Steady activity in mind, no big deal. I skip the rhythm activities because Ladybug is enrolled in Music Together, so we do tons of that already. I often repurpose a toy we already own instead of fashioning the props exactly as the book suggests. I'm enjoying all the ideas I get from having the book to use, while balancing it with a flexibility that fits us.

"It's Not Homeschooling. It's Parenting."

I have come across variations of this comment on the internet. The idea is that you can't call it homeschooling your toddler or preschooler when you're just doing what any at-home parent with a rich list of activities does. Part of the argument is that you're kidding yourself, because actual homeschoolers of older kids have a much tougher job. Also, this line of thinking continues, stop minimizing the work of those actual homeschoolers by calling your ordinary parenting "homeschooling."

I think these people are probably right, but I'm not going to stop calling my behavior homeschooling. Here's why:

It really is an argument over semantics. How often are these kinds of arguments worth spending much time on? Just know that when I say I homeschool, I do not sit my toddler down in front of worksheets, and I don't think I have mastered the challenges of home educating a rebellious 9 year old.

I live in an area where children begin preschool programs at age 2. Maybe 3 if you're a holdout. Stay at home moms will ask what you're planning "to do with" your toddler, and they mean which preschool are you selecting. I have a good friend encountering a lot of this preschool pressure. She has no intentions to homeschool, but she's wondered aloud if she needs to meet up with the area homeschoolers simply to find other parents who aren't choosing early school. In short: where we live, if you don't preschool, it's homeschool.

We do plan to "officially" homeschool when Ladybug reaches school age. Why does her learning count as homeschooling when she has reached the state-mandated age, but not now? She's working hard!

I homeschooled. I attended public school through mid-eighth grade, then withdrew and homeschooled through completion of high school. It's a lifestyle I love, and learning with my daughter feels like a joyful return to that lifestyle.