At less than a year old, some people think we're "jumping the curb" when we start discussing MunCee's schooling but in some ways I think we may be a bit behind. After seeing an infomercial for the "Your Baby Can Read" program, I started researching online and found a wealth of information that left me a bit overwhelmed but newly enlightened. While we've have always known and valued the importance of education, we never really focused on the early years and what we could do at home in preparation for school. I guess we figured we had a lot of time to get there. Well, not necessarily so, according to some experts on Early Learning... as a matter of fact, we are actually 19 months behind if you were to include the prenatal stage ;-) But seriously, I do think there is some validity in exposing your kids to learning sooner rather than later. There are arguments for both sides of the coin but my take is that as long as it's not in a forceful regimented structure that is not fun for the child, why not???
So we bought two programs: Your Baby Can Read (YBCR) and Baby Signing Time (BST). I don't want to get into a detailed review but I will say that I really like both programs, a lot. I certainly don't expect MunCee to start reading or signing after 2, 4 or even 6 months of watching these, but I do think she is learning from both programs. She LOVES watching them and sings and claps right along. In fact, she learned to clap from YBCR and is now signing "milk", "eat" and "all done". I like that, in addition to us reading books to her, she's getting additional exposure to words and language from different formats. And, it's also the only way I can get her to sit long enough for me to braid her hair ;-)
During my research, I also discovered Montessori and fell totally and completely in love! It goes along perfectly with everything I had planned so I am super excited to incorporate it into our household. Much more to come on MunCee's Montessori journey...
