Homeschooling our son

Our son is preschool age. He is so happy now that he does not go to daycare every day. When I first got laid off from my job, he used to ask me every morning "am I going to preschool" and I tell him no you stay home with mommy and we will have school at home. He would be so happy after we talked about no more preschool. Then he would not want to get out of his pajamas, I think he knew that when he got dressed that meant he had to go to school.

Now almost 4 months after being home together, he still asks me about once a week, "do I have to go to preschool?" Then I remind him we have school at home and he no longer goes to preschool, he says "oh". When we drive by his school he says "hi" and "bye" to it. He will then point up to the hill, where I used to work near his school, and says "there is mommy's work". I remind him that he and mommy work and have school at home, and he says "oh". He is still processing all this information.

I can say that I am learning more every day about him and his personality. His favorite color, foods, toileting habits, clothes, naps, and toys. He shows us how creative and curious he is every day. We spend all day together, and now that my hubby is home more too, he loves it. He is a different child now that he is with us more, we love it.

We read to him daily, its pretty much when we/he feels like it. He talks clear and can count to 10. He can recite half the alphabet. We plan to keep his home school as unstructured as possible. We have a routine, he gets up every day by 7 am, takes his nap about 1pm for couple hours, and goes to bed by 8 pm. While he is young we let him learn his environment, while learning the basics learning blocks for english and math, and living life. He knows where the store, post office, mall, marina, mountains, ocean, and capital are. He points to their directions when we are driving. He also is learning the parts to a sailboat, he will tell us about the mast, jib sail, and main sail. He really likes talking about the jib sail.

We like to keep him active too. We go for walks almost daily, sometimes to the park or store. And take him to places where other kids are, so he can interact and play in a different environment from home or boat. He is pretty social at times, but when he is building legos or trains no one else exists and no one can interfere with it. He gets very focused on those building toys.

With a tv and computer it sometimes is hard to limit screen time. We let him experience cartoons, movies, and games, but then we turn them off and go do other things. It is easy to use screen time to keep him occupied and out of our hair, but that is no good. We will watch movies or cartoons with him in morning or evening, then turn them off.

This last week we learned I am pregnant, so this sort of puts a wrinkle in some of our plans. I am happy because I didn't want him to be an only child, our son is too little to understand. He did say he wants a brother. We are planning another home birth with the midwife, not sure where, can't imagine all this labor on a boat (a baby born on the boat?). Our son was born in water, a birthing pool in our living room. We will see what happens.  : )