The Start of Something New

I have never had the desire to homeschool my kids. And by never, I mean NEVER EVER. Even though I was a teacher, I was a high school teacher of a very specific subject and have not been trained in Elementary Ed or the fundamentals of teaching children the basics of reading, writing, math, phonics or anything else. I know that I'm passionate about education and teaching, I know that I'm creative and I know that I can come up with some great ideas for art projects, games, and hands-on activities, but I never put those facts together with the notion of homeschooling my kids. Yes, I know that my boys are only 18 months old. Yes, I know that they don't talk yet. Yes, I know that 'homeschooling' wouldn't officially begin for another several years. But I also know that when I found out about the concept of 'Tot School', my heart skipped a beat. Tot School is basically 'intentional learning through play.' You develop age appropriate lessons for your child based on the skills or knowledge that you want them to learn and then reinforce those skills throughout the week through various applications during playtime. Wow, that actually sounds really complicated! (But it's not, I promise!) After talking this through with Charlie, desiring to put my skills as a teacher to good use and wanting to give the boys the best educational opportunities that we can, we decided that Tot School was in the very near future for the boys... and by 'very near future,' I mean we start tomorrow! For my own planning and focus purposes, I thought that having a Theme of the Week would be helpful. This upcoming week we'll focus on Circles. The next is Squares and the next is Triangles. I think Colors will be shortly after that. If you'd like to learn more about Tot School, I would recommend the Tot School link and the ABC&123 link along the right of my blog. And if you have any ideas that tie into the upcoming themes (listed along the right hand side of the blog) PLEASE leave me a comment and let me know. It's never too early to start something new. This is going to be an adventure!