1+1+1=1

I have been asked for years to record videos of me teaching my young children.  Many moms have emailed me sharing how uncomfortable early childhood learning is for them and that if they could see it in action, it would help! Honestly I never really did it because I don’t think what I do is anything special.  But then I started thinking about how much it would help ME to see upper grade subjects being taught by some of you!  I know how it feels to be out of my comfort zone too!

So for those of you who are totally out of your comfort zone with this early childhood stuff, I am going to try to do better and put together some videos showing a few minutes at a time with Ladybug. She is currently 4 years old {just turned four in April 2013}, and working through home preschool with me. Please know that I am not posting these because I think I have it all figured out, but to humbly share in hopes that a glimpse might help someone out there.

Our first video together uses the printable entitled Cut, Count, Glue which is found in many of my printable packs.  Some packs have up to the number 5, and some to the number 7.  If your child is younger, just cut out the grid to only show the number you want to work on. The printable shown in the video is from the Gymnastics Printable Pack, and looks like this…

I took a few video clips during about 5-10 minutes of working together and edited them together with captions for you.  I hope this helps you see how early learning skills are exposed so naturally through the use of fun printables, toys, activities and just simple discussions with your child.

List of skills we touched on…

• number identification
• counting
• ordinal numbers {1st, 2nd, etc.}
• Positional words
• What comes next, before, after?
• same/different, most/least, how many?
• basic addition language
• 1:1 correspondence {touching one at a time as you count}

You can also see when she is “done” at the end of the video, I didn’t push her any further.  We had been going for awhile, and I sensed it was time to stop.  This is a delicate balance, knowing when to stop with a young child, as to not wear them out, but also knowing when to push them gently through tasks that are a bit challenging. I do not always get this right, and we have tears in our home when I push too hard.  Our learning time does not always look like I was trained in early childhood development!  There are days I would be ashamed to record a video.

I hope this glimpse helps even a few of you to gain confidence as you teach your young tots at home.

Are there any other topics or specific printables you’d like me to create a Show Me! video for? Leave any ideas in the comments and I will add it to our list!