How Young is Too Young?

One of the first questions I'm asked about homeschooling, is what age did I start to teach my children. After speaking to many of the mothers I know who also home-school, they confirm also receiving this question. What eludes us, is are the people implying we've gone a single day since the birth of our children not educating them? When people see my four-year-old asking about a letter or color, they tell me he's too young for school, especially when I explain he's almost ready for the first grade. In fact, saying these parents seemed horrified, when I told them, would be an understatement.

When asking 5 people to define 'learning' they will all give you a different answer.....most people don't see educational play as real learning or schooling (which car is green? How many snacks do you have? put all the orange balls together. etc)...so when asked about learning they picture sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day.....of course No One can see a 2 y/o being able to do this with any success.

However, we home-schoolers are more flexible than that. We see learning as an every minute of the day experience. Walking through a park talking about how grass grows is a learning experience, coloring and scribbling is seen as the building blocks to learning to write. Even cleaning their room is seen as learning to group and sort - early math concepts.

What is surprising to me is, most moms don't see themselves as teachers. Saying they could never rely on themselves to teach their children. Baffling. From our child's first day of life, mom's sing and croon. We feed and cuddle. Talking to our child, reading bed-time stories. Teaching them to crawl then walk. These are all examples of us, mothers, teaching our children. So, I ask, why can't you teach them their letters when teaching them "Ma-ma" and "Da-da". Why can't we teach them basic math operations like addition and subtraction at snack time when eating - How many apple slices do you have? If you eat one subtracting it from the group, how many do you have left?

Do I think we should sit our toddlers down with a pencil and set them on logarithms? Absolutely not. But, the young mind is a sponge. They are learning absolutely every minute, so why can't we direct that learning a little bit?

Babies and toddlers use the 5 senses to learn about the world they live in. This is one of the reasons everything goes in the mouth. When they pick up a block and a parent says - look at that smooth brown block. Block starts with the letter B, then sings the alphabet while the child feels and tastes the block, then drops it to hear what sounds it makes, we are opening those mental pathways to phonics.

Even such silly past--times as 5 Little Piggies teaches them counting. I would say the rhyme in English then French and Spanish, my children could both count in all 3 languages by their second birthdays. Does this mean my children are smarter than their counterparts? No, it just means I've introduced these concepts in a more specific manner than many other parents.

My advice? Take control of your child's play. There's no need to make it less fun, but you can make it more educational.