Without daycare for 16 months, we were working parents homeschooling which came with a steep learning curve but immense rewards. After our daycare reopened, we realized that 1) our child was advanced in terms of educational standards expected in the 3K-K range, and 2) that we didn’t want him to lose the academic gains he had made. Supplementing school (in this case, the daycare curriculum) at home became our plan. By continuing to provide him with play-based early education learning opportunities after school that were at his level and tailored to his interests, we were
Laying the foundation for early childhood education
What I love most about laying the foundation for early childhood education is that working parents can set the tone and rhythm as it suits their schedule and their child’s whims. We chose to focus on fine motor skills (particularly strengthening hand muscles), pre-writing, pre-reading, and building deep number sense at home. To make smart decisions about early childhood education means you respect the boundaries of your time, mental bandwidth, and energy. As working parents who are choosing to supplement daycare or public school education, the reality is that this is a labor of love.
In addition to the three Rs of education, we also target social emotional learning for preschoolers, fine motor skills, process art, foreign language (mandarin), and science activities for preschoolers. These are treated like extracurriculars and we end up doing 1-2 activities in each bucket per week. Prior to transitioning to our current curriculum for early childhood education, we followed the Playing Preschool curriculum by Busy Toddler which we loved but blew through quickly because the weekly activities took up maybe 30 minutes of our day. We concurrently used Blossom and Root’s Early Years Curriculum which we also loved but found wasn’t as time-consuming as we hoped it would be.
Early childhood education options
Before the age of two, early childhood education options don’t exist so you choose between a nanny or a daycare. Once your child is two years old, your choice becomes daycare versus preschool. Finally, at the three or four year mark, your choices are public 3K or Pre-K programs versus private schools and/or daycare. For us, our son has been enrolled in daycare since he was nine months. He would have started at the six month mark if an opening had been available.
This is the first year we regret having him in daycare, but our regret could easily have started during the year of the pandemic if daycare had remained open. Had we never homeschooled him exclusively, we would probably not have known what he is capable of in terms of learning. A lot of the public discussion around early childhood academics centers around how detrimental it is to start formal schooling early and how important play is. This is why supplementing school is so important to us now.
Play-based learning for the win – supplementing school!
I fully embrace play-focused childhoods AND I also believe that there is no need to wait for a certain grade level to learn something children are interested in and ready for right now. At two, our son wanted to sit and trace Montessori sandpaper letters with me. He was interested in learning the sounds and I know this because he would pick the materials or ask for them on his own without us reminding him or prompting him for them. We also didn’t have a set schedule regarding the types of activities we would do at the time – we simply had blocks for outdoor time, eating, and naps. The rest of the day, he got to choose what to do at home
Is private school better than daycare?
Now this is an interesting question. We debated whether to enroll our son in private school, but at the early childhood education level, what I’m seeing is that the results we were able to achieve even inadvertently are on par with and in some areas exceeds what is taught in a private school 2s, 3s, or pre-K program.
Don’t fall for the immersion or dual-language program fetish
But Kim, what about the schools that have immersion or foreign language instruction? I want to assure you that this fetish isn’t rational. The benefits of multilingualism are overblown except for where it brings joy to the learner and helps them feel at ease in the world. If your child moves abroad, he or she will learn the language naturally. If your child marries a person of a different nationality, he or she will learn the language naturally. Knowing or not knowing a language beforehand will not be the factor that changes your child’s trajectory.
Furthermore, the important thing to know is that unless you have the capacity and ability to support your child in the target language of the immersion preschool or dual-language program that you’re enrolled in, this particular early childhood education investment will rarely result in the outcome that parents desire (namely, fluency). Yes, exposure is important. Yes, I support doing what you can to sustain language learning. But spending every last dollar in your education budget on an immersion/dual-language program is unlikely to be the best use of your hard-earned money.
Unless you can consistently support your child’s foreign language instruction, immersion and dual-language programs will not result in fluency if your child is speaking a minority language.
I speak multiple languages and have lived for extended periods of time in three countries. I grew up bilingual and learned to speak a third language fluently during multiple years abroad. I have attended an elite university and worked in highly competitive fields. Even when it came to competing for expat postings, the combination of my ability to speak multiple languages (even the target language) + having the cultural fluency did not necessarily help me get the role. It helped me pass the machine screening of resumes, but it did not result in an easier or better interview outcome.
Instead, I am working with our son 1:1 with the Mandarin early childhood education resources that are available on the market. The technology and options have dramatically changed since I was a child learning Mandarin, and I’ll have a post on those amazing options
The question of private schools versus daycares really comes down to:
- Quality of teachers and the types of activities they do; there is a very clear difference in how a trained teacher (compared to a daycare worker) presents information. There is also a clear difference in what activities are done (i.e. worksheets versus hands-on learning with manipulatives) and access to different learning materials.
- Quality of the parents. The rough correlation is that if a parent can afford private school tuition, he/she likely has more social and financial resources to draw upon, and has more skin in the game to lobby for specific school/classroom outcomes. This is not the case for the majority of cost-conscious parents sending their children to daycares.
- Overall cost: it’s not just the tuition and materials fees you have to worry about, it’s the summer months when there is no school in session.
How do I supplement school at home?
This is where supplementing school comes in as an alternative. A lot of parents’ to-the-last-dollar education provisioning plans come down to fear that their child will fall behind peers and be uncompetitive in the job market when they are young adults. The quest for home ownership means that parents’ criteria for the house and neighborhood largely hinges on the school district or school options available to them. This leads to a lot of frustration when it comes to bidding wars and ultimately, financial security.
The alternative path is to enroll your child in the non-private school option, whether that be daycare or public school, and make the commitment to lay the foundation for early childhood education. This means that yes, you become a parent teacher and help your child acquire the skills he or she will need in the classroom. At the early childhood education level, this means investing in or borrowing math manipulatives, phonics programs and early readers, writing utensils (crayon, chalk, paint brushes!), and fine motor practice tools like tongs, droppers, shoelaces for threading, etc.
Mama, let’s do an activity!
It also means committing to time in the day, usually no more than an hour, of 1:1 time with your child to do activities as he or she pleases. Our son loves to come home and say “Mama, let’s do an activity”! On weekends, this is uttered with glee as well, and it is so rewarding to know that 1) he wants to spend time with me (which I am promised will decrease over time, and 2) he enjoys having me show him how to navigate his world. Early childhood learning to me is really about becoming independent and comfortable with the child’s place in the grand scheme of his or her family, neighborhood, and community. And the best way to gain this sense of possibility is to learn how to do things for one’s self.
Pros and cons of supplementing school at home
Let’s start with the cons of supplementing school
- Time – our son usually wants an hour to explore the ideas in his head. Depending on whether you have optimized the rest of your schedule or have the flexibility to outsource certain home tasks, fitting in this hour after school ends and before bedtime could be very tricky. I also anticipate that balancing this time dedicated to his interests will potentially run into conflict with any homework assignments he receives in later grades.
- Energy-intensive – there will be prep time and the time it takes to conduct the activity
Benefits of supplementing school at home
- Tailored learning – never fear that your child is falling behind or losing interest because they are ahead of what the class is learning
- Raising self-directed learners: your child won’t rely on authority figures and will know how and where to find information
- Financial savings – instead of tutors or classes that work with your child’s schedule but don’t match his or her interest, supplementing school at home allows you to provide relevant, fun activities.
Early childhood is such a magical time – instead of trying out outsource everything about this time, I encourage parents to dig in and play with their children. It takes time and effort, but if you’re already going to spend time with them whether they’re in front of a screen or meaningfully engaged, you already know the answer to what is going to be the better use of both your time. The investment pays off, and anyway, they’re only little once. The tween years when they start to ignore you and sequester themselves behind closed doors is coming – spend time with them while they still want to.
