Friday, July 4, 2014

Starting a Mommy Preschool during the summer

Being a substitute teacher means that I do not have a job during the summer. Now this is absolutely by no means due to a lack of applying for a job. I spent about every night during the month of June applying to various summer positions and fall positions for teaching. Since I'm not working, we can no longer afford to have my 3 1/2 year old in daycare for the summer (like we could really afford it before -.-) I also applied to various nanny jobs for the summer, and tutoring jobs... although the latter would mean that my husband would be watching her which was fine when he worked Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Nanny jobs I was hoping to get and be able to take her with me. No one emailed me for the nanny jobs, tutoring jobs, nor the summer school jobs which all start on Monday. To make matters a bit challenging, hubby has gotten a different position which means he can only work days. That's great for him and his resume but means tutoring is absolutely out for me, at least during the days. So I've resorted to looking back into waitressing nights... but that hasn't panned out yet either.

Sob story over, I had an idea. I haven't been to happy with the daycare my daughter was going to for some personal reasons. But the biggest reason I was not happy with them is because I felt that the teacher was just not really teaching my daughter. Now I'm not trying to brag and my daughter is no child prodigy, but she is absolutely so smart. She picks up concepts like a sponge. While I know there are certain things that are cognitively beyond her level (I am a trained birth- grade 6 teacher), the things she does know never ceases to amaze me!
Daycare teacher: "Does anyone know about Earth?" (During Earth Day)
Autumn: "Earth is in space."
Little boy in her class: "I don't want to go to space, I just want to go to daycare! whaaa"
Autumn in a hellooo tone: "Daycare is on Earth and Earth is in space!" trying to calm him down with reality. 
Thank you Umizoomi, Baby Einstein, or Bubble Guppies for teaching science lol.

With my husband's shift in schedule and my OCD in wanting to have a routine, I've decided to hold daycare sessions with my daughter to teach her what I feel she could learn. I know how brilliant she is but more importantly that she is capable of absorbing much more.

Foreseeable problems for the future, her age. She has to wait 2 full school years before she can enter into Kindergarten. I don't mind this really because I do want to keep her a kid forever. This will also make her the oldest in her class which will mean she will be more emotionally able to handle her education.
The first problem comes in with her next daycare. I want her to be mentally challenged, however that was not the experience I had with her last daycare. She did learn while there, but I feel if there was actually a set curriculum, she would have been much farther.
The second problem may be what happens when she gets into KG. She will already be reading by the time she is in KG. And while review may be great, I may be putting her past the content taught. I'll worry about that later and hope my husband's degree lands him an amazing job so we can put her in private school OR I can home school her lol.

Oh well, I am planning on teaching her calendar, literacy, mathematics, writing skills, a language (Spanish to start but hopefully Japanese as well), interspersed with music and some playing activities. Doing this in an order will also create a nice routine which we haven't been able to have with my sporadic job as a substitute teacher.  

Let the toddler training begin!

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