Mothers like me would always want nothing but the best for our children. We tend to feel guilty, or much worse, feel frustrated when we thought we're not giving them enough care and attention after a sudden change in our life.
Kids in the US in general, as early as 2 years old, are already enrolled in a day care center so that they could learn some of the milestones effectively which is appropriate for their age in the hands of a professional primary teacher.
But in my son's case, now that he's already 3 and will turn 4 years old in a few weeks, he's learning everything at home. My husband and I practically would want it that way because of the high cost of tuition fee at day care centers.
When my third child hasn't been born yet, I was really hands-on to my son and I could teach him closely with the basic knowledge that are taught in school. And because I now have less than 6 months old infant, I couldn't do the same things as I used to do before with my son.
My attention is divided by a lot of more things now, but we still have "reading time" when ever I can or when ever my baby is asleep. At times, I would ask him to read on his own, but he often wants me to read his books with him.
Since I was kind of worried with my son to fall behind from learning, my mother-in-law and I searched online for any subscription with educational learning in substitute to enrolling my son in a day care center. We have found one which costs $9 monthly with a 30-day trial for first month. I tried the 30-day period trial, but I thought it wasn't worth it because first of all, you know, kids easily get bored and they want to try to watch different videos whatever attracts them on their tablet/iPad.
So, what I just recently discovered and since I'm not "techy", I didn't know that I can connect YouTube with our TV! My goodness! Haha! You're all probably laughing at me by now. I know it's that simple. However, I didn't actually paid attention to it before because I thought anyway, my son has tablet that he can play with any time if I allow him to. But it's different now that he can clearly see it on a big screen. Also, the advantage on my part is I have a full access and control of what he can watch.
Here it goes -
If your TV is an internet-ready, you may follow these simple steps that I did:
Just type youtube.com/activate on the internet browser in your tablet or any mobile device that is available at the moment and it will then automatically connected to your TV.
On your TV screen, it will prompt you to key in the code given in your hand-held device. So when they've matched, perfect! You can now enjoy browsing any educational stuff for your kid.
What I did was I typed the key word PRESCHOOL in the search engine and there were a lot of videos about "SIGHT WORDS" appeared that I could choose from.
It's really a great help for me and my son. Not only this is free, but he's also learning so much and can grasp quickly what he's watching. What's exciting and enjoyable part of this is we're both having fun at the same time, even while I'm holding my youngest child. But I only allow him to watch TV for just about 30 minutes in the morning, and in the afternoon after he takes a nap.
Disclaimer (Lol):
I did not intend to change how you teach your child the "standard" way of learning nor to encourage you to switch solely on TV as your teaching tool.
Every baby is unique and different how they behave. You're fortunate if nothing has changed with how much you take care of your toddler while having a baby at the same time. Again, my son and I still have "reading time" together when ever I can or when ever my baby is asleep. Nothing still beats the traditional way of reading a book with your child.
I meant to do this in the meantime while I'm still unable to fully guide my son on the things he needs to learn in regards to preparing him before going to a regular school because I also have a little one here that requires much attention.
My intentions was to share the joy I feel as a mom when I see my son how excited and eager he is to learn so much.
See how my son enjoys learning:
Thanks for dropping by and may God bless your family!