So how is home ed going so far?

There's been a lot of Life going on over the last few months, which has meant that some of the education stuff we offer to Audrey has taken rather a back seat. When things are stressed and busy, I tend to prioritise playing games with her, getting out on an adventure, seeing friends. We're always trying to be aware of the opportunities for learning that the day-to-day life stuff offers, but I do wish I could be a little more intentional with it.

Our approach to home education right now is very laid back and very child-led. I make "learning" play available and let Audrey choose what to do and when, and for how long. Often I make suggestions ("I know, why don't we play this game!") but I happily accept her yes or no to that suggestion.

And let's be clear, at this age the learning stuff looks like games, like fun stuff with shapes and colours and letters and numbers, like sensory and fine/gross motor activities. It's not sitting down with work sheets - although she does those, too, from time to time, and seems to really enjoy them.

So where is Audrey in her journey when it comes to education? Well, right now she is starting to write/draw with a little more intention - trying to combine circles and lines to make letters, to draw people, imitating "grown up" writing.

The other day, out of the blue, she started identifying the starting phonic sounds of words ("Train. T is for train, mama.") and I was so pleased that it had filtered through. We talk about the phonic letter sounds a lot, and play with letter shapes and talk about rhyme, all to try to teach her letters in a way that has meaning rather than by rote. We have a letter wall where we put letters next to pictures that Audrey has made of things that start with that sound.

Right now Audrey likes to read books - both with an adult doing the reading and by herself, although she can't read the words yet. She can identify letters and, importantly, she can tell a story by looking at the pictures and anticipating what happens next.

Right now Audrey enjoys building things. She makes block towers and houses and villages and cities. She makes gardens, she builds train tracks. She likes cutting with scissors. Her fine motor control is improving all the time.

Right now Audrey can count almost up to 20 (in that, she gets it sometimes but sometimes misses out or jumbles up some of the teens). She knows that a 1 and a 0 together is the number 10. She can do the most basic sums (1 + 1 and 2 + 1). She can identify small groups at a glance without stopping to painstakingly count each one out (two blocks, three birds, four chair legs).

She knows her colours and 2D shapes well. She's still getting there with the 3D shapes, cones tend to be called triangles for instance.

Her vocabulary is excellent, and she can hold a conversation well. I love this. I can't even tell you how it feels to sit and talk with a little person that I grew inside me.

There's more, far too much more to put here, that would describe where I feel Audrey is right now with her learning. Really, everything is learning. This encompasses everything we are and do. But this covers basically where we are right now, and I want to keep a record of that.

Happy learning, everyone!