Schooling at home
I know what you are thinking, “don’t you have babies?” Yes, yes I do. My oldest just turned three. Ever since I was pregnant I knew that I wanted to have my babes at home with me to learn. It isn’t that I have anything against public schools. In fact, I loved school when I was growing up. And I am living in the same district where I went to school. I just feel that I will be able to teach my kids better, having the ability to give them one on one time when needed. And there will be a lot less pressure to conform. It doesn’t mean that I will always homeschool, but I think it is a pretty good possibility.
This post, however, is not about whether or not I will homeschool, or about socialization etc. etc. It is instead about my 3 year old daughter, and her insane desire to use workbooks. I had always planned to read a lot of books until Emma was older, which we do. I figured that interest led learning would be good for quite a few years. I did buy a couple workbooks on letters and numbers at Barnes and Noble on sale. I thought they would be good to use in a year or so. How was I to know that she would see them and want to do them immediately.
Now, she has an insatiable need to do the workbooks. All. the. time. I thought maybe it was because there were star stickers at the end of each page. So I gave her stickers to use on paper. Nope, that isn’t really what she wanted. She actually wants to do the workbooks. She wants to do the workbooks at 5:30am. She wants to do the workbooks instead of eating lunch. She wants to do the workbooks when Matt comes home from work. It is workbooks all the time.
Is it bad that I try and hold her off the workbooks? Only doing a couple pages at a time. I feel like if I let her, she would do the entire workbook in one day. And considering I only have 4, I’m not sure how far that would get me. Then part of me thinks if I let her have at it she will be bored with them after a couple days. I figure not letting her do them constantly is probably a good thing, then she wants to do them everyday, and continues learning.
These workbooks are a far cry from what I expected her to want to do with regards to learning. I figured she would want to do a lot of playing outside and hands on learning. She likes those as well, but, for now at least, she seems to prefer the workbooks. And I can’t say that I am disappointed…I was a total nerd growing up and loved workbooks too…
I totally agree! I figure we can always pick up more books, and she has been enjoying them. Who am I to stand in her way of exploring learning 🙂
I say let her use the books. With so many free sites on the computer it doesn't take much to make a new book for her later on. It may be a phase she is going through, but my idea is never stop a child who wants top learn in anything-hope this helps.