A day in at the zoo

I've been in a rut with L and her lessons lately. I know we need to work on handwriting, pre-reading and counting high numbers, but I haven't been coming up with any fresh, engaging ways to tackle these subjects. Feeling uninspired by any of the preschooler-oriented at-home-lesson planners I have, I searched through some of my home-schooler philosophy books and stumbled upon some great advice: Just play with your child and let her show you what she wants to learn. Then look for opportunities to teach her as you go. Simple.

It suddenly occurred to me that L had been asking for days to try papier mache and was itching to rifle through the storage bins of her old baby clothes. She also wanted to get out her stuffed animals to set up a little zoo in her bedroom. She had been waiting on me for days to do these things with her and I had been dragging my feet, doing what I thought we should be doing instead. So I decided to switch gears. I followed L and C for a couple of entire days early this week--just doing what they wanted (within the confines of naps, snacks and potty breaks, of course) and these have turned out to be the best days we've had in weeks.

We put our hands in starchy water and coated balloons with newspaper strips for papier mache hot air balloons. Then we spent an entire afternoon in the nursery, constructing cages out of foam play mats and dividing the animals by species. We fed bananas to the orangutans, nursed the mice with bottles and took each animal to the veterinarian for check-ups. Today, while C napped, L and I unloaded all of those Rubbermaid bins up in the loft and L set up little layette outfits for a pretend photo shoot.

Along the way we learned some stuff. We measured things, we talked about what different types of animals need for survival, all the while keeping the potty nearby to help C stay on target. Oh, we had fun, too.

Sometimes children know what's best for themselves--not always, but often. I need to remember to be wise enough to listen.