Life with a preschooler: All Aboard!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

All Aboard!

Spiderman, Patrick, Rabbit, Baby, and Monkey all line up to see our math and reading cards.

Lately Hunter just loves to make sure that all of his "friends" are around when I show him his math, reading, and encyclopedic knowledge cards.

Whatever toy he may have been playing with before we do our cards, he always makes sure that they get to come along and watch.

"They really want to see them [the cards]" you know.

He lines them all up, and positions them where they can "see" good, as in this picture.

Indeed, he loves this special times of learning throughout the day, and is always sure that his toys will get to take part in the fun. Learning reading, math, and encyclopedic knowledge has certainly heightened his imagination, curiosity, and love of learning, not crushed it.

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"We have succeeded in keeping our children carefully isolated from learning in a period of life when the desire to learn is at its peak. The human brain is unique in that it is the only container of which it can be said that the more you put into it, the more it will hold. Between nine months and four years the ability to absorb information is unparalleled, and the desire to do so is higher than it will ever be again. Yet during this period we keep the child clean, well fed, safe from the world about him - and in a learning vacuum."

-Glenn Doman

There is no child too young to learn. And the most curious learner in the world is the small child below six years of age. Babies and little children are natural learners and problems- solvers and they WANT to learn about everything there is to know, and they want to do so right now.

Yet what most people have not realized is that little children can appreciate Michelangelo just as easily as cheap and simplistic cartoons. A little baby will learn phalanges, clavicle, and humerus just as easily (and just as joyfully) as he learns fingers, shoulder, and arm. Beethoven goes into their ears just as easily as Pop Goes the Weasel. And he will memorize great scriptures, songs, and sonnets just as easily as he memorizes commercial jingles and nursery rhymes.

Little kids are capable of a lot more than counting to ten and making dirty diapers. You can teach a small child absolutely anything that you present to him in an honest, factual, and joyous way, and if you teach a tiny child the facts, he will discover the rules.

Small kids are experts at discovering the rules that govern a set of facts. Ever hear a small child say "I drinked that"? We laugh at his "poor" speech when in fact he just applied the rule of grammar that says if you add "ed" to the end of a verb it makes it past tense. When was the last time YOU reviewed a language to discover a rule of grammar? May I suggest that you were perhaps three years old?

Little kids will discover the rules that govern any set of facts and you can apply this reality to teach a very small child to read fluently, understand mathematics effortlessly, have perfect pitch, and understand and ENJOY many concepts typically considered far beyond their reach, and you can do so with just seconds of joyful play each day. No pressure, no elaborate or boring lessons, just joyfully showing a child the facts for a few seconds every day, and letting him discover the rules. In our house, learning is a privilege, not a chore.

You can raise a precocious learner with strong character, social grace, and physical excellence if only you will give him the opportunity and environment to thrive in.

Learning many interesting and worthwhile things does not hinder Hunter's imagination, creativity, or desire to learn but fuels it, as you will soon see. The myth of a "lost childhood" applies more correctly to children who are raised by tired, stressed, distracted parents, without a plan or purpose, who try to fit their child into everything else they have going on in their life.

So welcome to our blog, and enjoy the fun, excitement, and inquisitiveness you can have as you discover the potential of life with a preschooler.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

All Aboard!

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Life with a preschooler

Hunter Mitchell Three years old

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