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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

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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