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2 Year Old, AIW² Home School Club, DIY, Easy, Guide, Home, Mother, Motherhood, Parent, Parenthood, Positive, Reinforcement, Responibility, Rewards, School, Tip
Last month, my oldest daughter turned 2 years old. Ava is in the “repeating stage” as in she has every Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, and Doc McStuffins episode she’s ever seen memorized … true story (hey at least they are educational cartoons). She can act out episodes without the television even being on. She’s learned a lot of words this way, but it’s obvious I’m putting her in front of the television a little too much (bad Mommy). I considered video taping it and loading it up on YouTube (which I still might do) because it’s so damned funny, but I haven’t for fear that I’ll get “hate-comments” about what a horrible mother I am for letting my child watch so much television. She’s very expressive and even does the facial expressions and hand gestures. I find it hilarious that she has all of this memorized like a little actress in the making. That kid is gonna go places!
I digress … I started feeling guilty about it and decided that since I’m a stay-at-home-mom, I should be doing more with her in regard to her language and education. I think it’s time to start teaching her the basics … the alphabet, numbers (she can already count to 10 without help thanks to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse), colors, nursery rhymes (she loves to sing Patty-Cake for anyone who will listen … I taught her that one), animals (she knows a good handful as well as the noises they make), etc.
So, I got on the inter-web and started doing some research. My first stop is always Pinterest (here’s my Homeschooling Idea board). This is the sort of thing I’m guilty of being cheap about … if I can make it or print it out myself at home, I refuse to go buy it … point being, you will find a lot of FREE resources here. I found a lady who has a 26 week lesson plan already put together (her link will be below, and I’ll follow it very closely as it’s the only one I found that I liked so far). Obviously, I’ll start looking for another one as we work through it and I’ll keep linking things.
My next step was finding a space to build this learning space for her. It just so happens that we have a loft/attic space in this house that we use for storage. Our landlord used to live in this house and was using the space as a play area for his nieces & nephews. It’s got an underwater mural painted all over the walls that I hate that I have been instructed not to paint over. But I decided to make due with what we have. This is the mostly finished product (I say mostly because I am going to be adding some items to the shelves … books, bins, learning toys, etc.).
Just a note: I am not a teacher and I don’t have a teaching education. I’m just a mom who is guilty of putting her child in front of the television for lack of a better idea. If you see a resource (flashcards or printables) that were created by me, it’s just because I was looking for something specific on the internet, probably found several things that had certain elements that I was looking for, but not all in the same resource, so I was inspired to create it myself.
I hope these things help you. And I hope you will check back often to follow our journey. Welcome to AIW² Home School Club!
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Getting Started
- How I Created Our Home School Space
- How To Make Your Own Chalk Board (Video & Blog Post Coming Soon)
- How To Make A Calendar Board (Video & Blog Post Coming Soon)
- The Lesson Plan I am using created by Shelly with Free Homeschooling 101 (Free)
- As instructed by Shelly in the lesson plan, I made a binder for myself and one for Ava to keep hard copies of everything in so we can go back and review easily. These are the printable binder covers I’m using by Lyndsey with A Year Of Many First. I was able to edit them to include our theme. (Free)
- Decor ~ ABC Flash Cards by Mr. Printables (Free)
- Decor ~ 123 Number Flash Cards by AIW² Home School Club (Free)
- Instead of getting a whole desk for her, I found one of these cute lap trays at Wal-Mart for $5. I tried to find it on their website, but I couldn’t.
I just added a new tab where I will post everything so it will be easy for you to find if you want to use anything we are doing, AIW ² Home School Club. I will be adding more resources almost daily as we work through the lesson plan (which I plan to start tomorrow), so please check back. I’m just getting started 🙂
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