StarFall

If and when you are going to allow your child on the internet, this is my favorite website to start with. There are many great websites - and some not so great ones - but I want to feature StarFall because it has a combination of fun + education in a safe environment. By safe I mean that it’s free of the many commercial icons that underwrite so many sites.

The main activity our family uses is the ABC section - basically it opens up an alphabet and your child can click a letter, go through a serious of phonics & little songs that correspond to the specific letter. The approach to phonics is similar to Leapfrong’s videos & educational activities. (Be sure to have your volume turned on!)

After letters there are different levels of reading, depending on where your child is at, where they can go through a story right on the website and start learning sight words. There’s also a section of holiday activities, always updated for the next batch of holidays (did you know there’s a grandparents day? And that it’s coming up soon?!?) My son loves the holiday section because, like me, he’s a sucker for celebrating the seasons and these activities prompt him to learn about different reasons to celebrate.

All in all, I give StarFall a thumbs up for kids 3-6 (or so). Enjoy!

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Staying Put

Living in the San Diego area I have so many amazing attractions at my finger tips - the world famous San Deigo Zoo, SeaWorld, Legoland, Wild Animal Park, Disneyland; not to mention the beaches and museums of a metropolitan city. It’s tempting to spend every day visiting something new or a favorite friend (Shamu) and indeed, most of our days do start with a car ride somewhere. But when we have a “free day” I ask my kids what they’d like to do and most often the response is “stay home.”

Why do I feel compelled to get out and “do” things?

I grew up on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. The closest neighbor was at least a mile; the closest general store about five miles, the closest movie theater forty five minutes. Most days “going” somewhere meant walking down to the barn or riding my bike along country roads. I spent days not going to town - not going anywhere outside of our farm-world. Now I know as adults we have a tendency (I have a tendency) to romanticize our childhoods - I’m not saying it was all a bed of roses. But it was simple, in terms of activities, and I see that I’m going a little overboard with our schedule.

The community I currently live in is about mini-vans, playgroups & playdates, soccer moms (and spanish/gymnastics/music/dance/karate-moms). I’ve read a lot about the over-scheduling tendency our society has gravitated to, and from what I can tell it only gets more difficult to manage as children get older & are competing for college acceptance letters. Where’s the balance between giving our children enough space to simply be versus exposing them to enough activities that they have a chance to flourish as swimmers or musicians or gymnasts?

One of my good mom-friends has started Tuesday-home day; the one, sacred day of the week where she stays home all day with her kids. Her and I are still in the pre-school years so we have this luxury - for one more year - of dictating our schedules rather than having the school system dictate it for us. I like this idea, and am reminding myself to spend more time at home, staying put for a day or even an afternoon for unscheduled, unspecified play.

Try it. Stay put and see what happens.

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Bats are nocturnal

We were walking home from the park today when my 4 yr old son blurted out, “Mommy, bats are nocturnal.” Nocturnal: I don’t think I knew what that word was until 4th or 5th grade. I never was a big science buff. I know kids pick up all sorts of words and phrases, and I figured that’s what happened with my kid. So I asked him what nocturnal means; it’s something that comes out at night. Do we know of anything else that is nocturnal. Crickets. And owls. This wasn’t just a word he heard somewhere; he is studying bugs and animals and his mind is processing, cataloging who is who in the world of night owls.

Where does my kid learn this stuff? Don’t get me wrong — this post is not about my ever-so-bright kid. We certainly have our fair share of issues & things to work on. But the fact of the matter is kids — all kids — are smarter these days. And, they have the capacity to learn, to really learn, at a young age.

Earlier - before the nocturnal discussion - I toured a new preschool in my neighborhood, Aspirations. It’s a beautiful, new facility that teaches the Reggio Emilia approach. I wasn’t familiar with this philosophy, so I asked and the guide told me it was child-based, letting the kids learn at their own phase. It gives them confidence, “teaches them positive self-esteem so that they are ready to start learning when they enter school (i.e. Kindergarten or first grade).” It occurred to me that we don’t expect our children to “learn” until they are in school. In fact, as a society, most of our preschools ARE play-based, child directed, which all of us mothers are comfortable with because it means our toddlers & young kids aren’t being pressured, and they are having fun. But what about learning, can that be fun?

Recently I also toured my public school, where the new principle talked about a balance between work + play. “You have to work hard, get your stuff done, and then you can play.” This matches up to my philosophy of eating your dinner before having desert. But again I wondered, why can’t the “work” be fun? Why is there always this dichotomy, between learning (i.e. work, forced activity) vs. fun (i.e. freedom, enjoyable).

Somewhere along the way my kid learned about nocturnal animals, and it’s fun for him. It saddens me that as parents, teachers and a society in general, we view learning as this treacherous, difficult thing we HAVE to do. Kids love learning, and their capacity to learn under the age of six is immense. I witness it. My 4 year old has taught my daughter to count to ten - in spanish. No, we are not a bilingual home, no I didn’t play a role in this. It just happened! And my kids are regular kids, they have tantrums and bad behavior and love sugar. And they love to learn.

I challenge you to allow your young kids to play in the world of learning; to enjoy it, to relish dissecting a leaf and all its veins; to search for letters on buildings and signs when they are learning the alphabet; to get a CD of a foreign language you know nothing about, and play it in the car. You’ll be amazed. I am.

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