preschool-teacher-turned-stay-at-home-mom should mean a whole lot more of this

Back in the day... um, almost two years ago... there was this mom who spent her days with her young children. She tried to engage them in interesting projects that explored the world around them while also providing natural opportunities for learning-- making observations, posing questions, doing research, investigating. It even prompted a mini-series of blog posts documenting the experiences with quotes, photos and other evidence of their work. Kids were happy. Mom felt proud. And it was good.

Then it stopped. The mom could give you a slew of reasons-- from a challenging full-time babysitting gig that ended up being a lot more than she bargained for, to more writing work, to life's regular responsibilities simply getting the best of her. There was lots of guilt-- there still is.

Yeah, in case you haven't figured it out yet- I'm that guilt-ridden mom. With a background in early childhood education, I feel that I should have been spending the last few years providing much more early childhood educating than I have been. Don't get me wrong- the kids aren't locked in a box all day long, and yes, I do think there's much value in the time they spend just playing together. We're really fortunate to have a fabulous supply of toys that allow for "educational" play, too-- the kids build with unit blocks, don a wide variety of dress up clothes for dramatic play, create train tracks, assemble puzzles, play alphabet matching games, paint/draw/sculpt... there's a veritable preschool classroom packed away in our IKEA cabinets. But there's been a serious lack of "focused" learning.

I've been mulling over ideas of what might make a good study to embark on with the kids, and I'm thinking it should be something more social studies related since our previous endeavors were in the science realm. I'm still stuck on that for now, but I do hope that things will get in place soon and I'll be back to documenting away.

For the time being, I'm happy to be able to record a cool book-related thing the young ones and I did today. (Let's just allow me this moment of satisfied mommy-indulgence.) The other night, I pulled a book off the shelf that had been a Cybils nominee that I had read myself but somehow hadn't read with the kids yet. A couple pages into Swim! Swim! and an idea began to blossom.

"Hey guys, is this book reminding you of another book you like?"

By halfway into the book, Red took the bait, shouting out the title of another Cybils nominated book that the kids adore- Memoirs of a Goldfish. Oh, the humor-- this is one hilariously funny book. We've read it only about a thousand times, so I was hopeful that my idea would work well even though they had exactly zero experience with it.

"How would you guys like to make a chart with me about this book and Memoirs of a Goldfish? We could make a cool chart that shows what's the same and what's different about them."

Oh yeah, it's Venn Diagram time.

Yesterday afternoon, the three of us sat down with both books and a big paper on our easel in the kitchen. Guess what? The kids got it!! Venn diagrams have a pretty simple premise, and they both caught on quickly. I was really impressed with the details that they thought of, and we worked for a few solid minutes with them excitedly shouting out ideas and me writing them on our diagram. Pudge tired out soon enough... I believe his exact words were, "Can we be done with this already?" But Red? Nope, that girl wanted to keep going, and we added a couple more similarities and differences to the chart.

Afterward, Red asked if she could draw pictures of each of the fish on the chart- what a fabulous idea. She sat for another fifteen or so minutes looking at each books' illustrations and making her own version on the diagram. With JAM in the living room practicing his baritone, Pudge playing on his own, and Red seriously concentrating on her own special work, there was an actual time in which all three children were happily engaged in productive activities. Yay!

a preview of homework in days to come

the finished product

Our Venn diagram is now displayed at the kids' eye level on our "art wall," and Red has already spent some time this morning looking at it and talking to herself about the books. The kids are proud of their work, and the mom once again feels confident that she's put some of her education to work with her own kids.

And it was good. The End.

Proud of her hard-working kids,