Are you sometimes also overwhelmed??

[Lolobride]

Are you sometimes also feeling overwhelmed with all the things you could / should do with your child(ren)? The more, I read here in the forum, the more I include things to do in our schedule... the less time remains to play freely. Also, because I work 3-4 times a week from 8 to 5pm. How do you manage to do all this learning and still have enough time to chill and just play? I'm sometimes afraid to overdue the learning, and at other times I think, I'm not doing enough.

And if I read about children on this forum already reading on 1st, 2nd grade level at 3... well, that my DD doesn't do yet... (she will be 3 in march).

Here our schedule:

daily:
- we read / recite some poems and sing / listen to songs
- we're learning words with LR and also with self-made flashcards. Here I'm concentrating on new words. Words we read in a book, but she didn't know until now. I explain her the meaning of the words and she learns to sight-read them

almost every day:
- we talk german (we talk hungarian at home) for a half an hour, sometimes longer, if we are outside the home and meet some friends (we live in Switzerland)
- we read 30-60 minutes a day in hungarian (60 minutes, if I don't work, else I try at least 30 mins)
- we read 15 minutes in german
- we have began with the 12-month-curriculum on LR in english (I already did with her the whole curriculum in hungarian, when she was 11 months to 2 years). Else we don't talk english at home, because I'm afraid, that she would mix up with german...

- we sing the solfege from do to do or re to re, etc

3-5 times a week:
- 10-15 minutes of Soft Mozart
- phonetics flashcards

I worry, that we should maybe do more... maths for example we don't do at all... I don't know, where to begin with her. She knows the numbers to 10 and can count to 20. Any suggestions?


Could you please also post your schedules? That would be a great help!!!

Thank you so much!

[MamaOfWill]

Hi, I don't have much advice, I just want to say I think you're doing great! 

Personally, I think you're building a good brain if you are interacting positively with your child, whether that's with tried and tested techniques (like Doman) or just making things up as you go and following your child's lead (play, fool around and chill).  I believe this and therefore only spend time on preparing materials etc while he's asleep, because when he's awake and I have time for him, I spend it with him. (I've been known to be wrong.)

And yes I feel overwhelmed many times, on these forums I read about "quantum speed reading", "mental math,"  and "photo memory," then I think; that sounds so cool, but my days are allready full, I hardly have time for the things I'm currently busy with.  I feel like I HAVE TO make time for these interesting things (which I no nothing about currently,) I even feel like I owe it to my baby, but then I take one step back and say to myself, the grater population isn't even doing as much as reading to their babies, nevermind teaching them to read. 

Just try and relax, as I said, 3 languages + reading + music, you're doing great and your child loves you for it!

[PokerDad]

She knows the numbers to 10 and can count to 20. Any suggestions?

Something that would be similar to this but very helpful is also doing the counting backwards from 10 to 0 or 20 to 0. I just think having that awareness will pay off nicely when the time is right.

[SixtineCharlotte]

@ Lolobride: You are doing awesome - I wish I could as much for my own daughter. She is almost four months old and we are only reading, singing, and doing flashcards. I speak French to her and my husband speaks English but other than that...I also have her do some gym time where I sing and move her legs, arms around, counting.

I would love to know what else I could do with her -- she is so young !

I am currently reading Doman's How Smart Is your Baby and I try to do some of things he suggest but I find some of them not very realistic !

[Lolobride]

Hello everybody,

Thank you so much for your answers!

@MamaOfWill: Yes, I'm doing it the same way as you: only preparing things, when she is asleep. If she is awake, I spend my time with her, even when I cook, she is there and chats all the time It's working good for us this way. And I'm also overwhelmed, when I read here in the forum about kids younger than my DD reading already in many languages and progressing in math, etc etc...

Maybe I just have to relax a bit

@PokerDad: That's a good idea, we never did this before. I will do this from now on. Thank you for the suggestion!

@SixtineCharlotte: You are already doing a lot! When my DD was 4 months old, we were only reading (but not much) and doing signlanguage and only spoke hungarian with her. Then, when she was 11 months old, we began with the LR, later with LM (which she didn't like so much). When she was 2 years old, I began to introduce german to her, and only last week english. Soft Mozart we are doing since december. So you see, it was a slow building up for us

[Tanikit]

Yes, sometimes I do feel overwhelmed and then I try to figure out why and step back a bit and do less because if learning isn't fun then there is no point in doing all those things. Usually when I feel overwhelmed I will return to just reading out loud to my child as we both enjoy this and this is probably the way they learn the most plus it is comforting to me and my daughters.

I work 2 mornings a week and am meant to be homeschooling my 4 year old. She goes to art class and also two sessions on Friday - a Moms and Tots group (for my younger child but she comes too) and an older children's group so not much gets done on Fridays either. I try to stick to reading, writing and arithmetic daily but each of these takes only about 5-10 mins maximum. We do 4-5 phonics words a day, read a few pages of whatever book she or I choose (max about 5 minutes), she does one page of Singapore Math or a worksheet of MEP math (and this never takes more than about 10 minutes) and we write two to four words a day - she is not able to write more than that yet else she gets tired and the writing gets sloppy, so I would rather keep it short and get her to know the letter formation than have her write loads badly.

I do not count read alouds as part of the homeschooling although it is probably the largest portion of it. I like reading to my child and she likes listening so we read everyday - on bad days it'll be only a story or two before bed, on other days we will read long chapter books for ages. I have lengthened her reading session at night now so we will do one fiction book, one Bible story, one page of non fiction and she will also read a short section if she has not done much reading at other times that day and then if she still wants more I will sometimes read more fiction to her as this is what she likes best.

My child is 4 and is reading at a 3rd grade level now (she started very early beginnning readers at age 3) though it is advancing so fast now I am not sure how fast she will go through the levels. Children do learn to read in growth spurts - sometimes it seems they are learning nothing new and then the next week or two they just take off and advance. You do not need loads of time to get them to this level - just a consistent short time every day. And with small children they also sometimes need breaks and you to step back to let it sink in. When she was 3 years old there were times we took breaks from the reading for a month or two even so that I could sort out what needed to be done next - usually she was resisting reading and I needed to find out why - sometimes she needed a stronger phonics appraoch, sometimes more fun books and sometimes back to the readers in a series she was comfortable with and sometimes she just needed to know that Mom would still read to her even if she was reading herself.

You are doing great - the most imprtant thing is actually not education (and I know I say this on a board about early education) but really it is all about forming strong relationships with your child - if the two fo you are having fun together while learning then it is working - if not then rather don't do it and figure out what will make it fun again.

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