The Beginning of Mom School

When my daughter started preschool last year, leaving the home daycare she and my son both attended since they were babies, I worried how they would fare without each other.  It turned out that I need not have been concerned; both children thrived, and it was actually a special experience for them to be independent and to continue to develop their identities in their individual spaces.

This year, due to her late fall birthday, my now four year-old daughter began her second year of preschool in the pre-K class at her school.  My almost three year-old son, now a bit more aware of the world around him, wondered why he wasn't going to preschool too?  A fair question.  

The truth is, since last year we welcomed a third little citizen into our family, and I made the decision to stay at home.  I continue to work part-time from home, logging hours mainly when my littles are snoozing, but this means that we no longer have the same childcare needs we once had.  It also means that my little buddy won't be starting formal preschool for another year.  These things are difficult to explain to little citizens, but I assured him that he would go to preschool when he was a little bit older, and in the meantime he would be able to go to a really special type of school: mom school.

He looked skeptical.  "Who will be my teacher?" he asked.

"I will!  Isn't that fun?"  

I was awarded another skeptical look.  

So I explained that he and I would have a special time each week when we would learn about the things that he found interesting, fun, and exciting.  I could tell I was winning him over.  "Like dinosaurs?" he asked, testing me.

"Absolutely!  Just like dinosaurs."  And thus our first lesson was born.

I will briefly note that I am not formally educated as a teacher.  That being said, I did teach for some time when I first graduated college and later worked in the administration at a Montessori school.  I have a deep and profound appreciation of and gratitude for teachers, particularly my own teachers and those who have educated my children so far.  I also feel grateful that as a parent, I have the opportunity to teach my children about love, life, and the world around them; that is the spirit of the "schooling" that I am doing now.  Our little home is also a little schoolhouse, where I am teaching and learning with my little citizens through stories, art, and play.

...And this week we are learning about dinosaurs.