One of the most important things I learnt this week was from 1+1+1=1: Tot school is not about making a tot LEARN something, but rather, to expose him/her to early learning skills through FUN play.
I decided to give myself a little taste of what it might be like when I really begin to plan things for my 27mo. So when he brought out a box of dominoes himself, I showed him how to sort them by colour - start each column with a domino, place another of the same colour below it and pass him another of the same colour to place below that.
He caught on pretty quickly, but that only lasted about 2 minutes. Then he wanted to gather them up in his hands, so I joined him in "gathering". After a bit I demonstrated simple patterning (red, yellow, red, yellow) which he was willing to help with for... 1 minute? He changed his mind and decided that pushing the dominoes around on the tray would be really fun, so we did that for another minute.
After that he chose to join his brother and sister on the sofa to watch TV, so that's the end of our little lesson, which lasted for about ten minutes or so.
The biggest challenge for me was to focus on him for these ten minutes and not run off to do other stuff once he was settled. I guess I'm rather blessed in that this child is pretty good at playing on his own (trains, blocks, puzzles, counters), but I can see that I will have to change my own mindset (and still my heart) when we begin to homeschool.
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