Early childhood education is not only good, but AWESOME!

It started on the day I bought a set of crayons for my 17 months son. With a book of blank sheets, I draw colors, shapes on them while telling my son the names. After that, I use all these shapes and colors to draw houses, animals, cars, mountains, trees and telling my son stories about them. He loved it so much. I told him about the round fan, the rectangle door, the red tomato, the blue sky...Yes, I did not notice our world is formed by all those lovely colors and shapes, they are just everywhere around us. 

A few days later, my son began to be the one who pointed out to me the colors and shapes he recognized. He asked for green when he wanted to eat the vegetable in my plate, he asked for brown mentioning the stew beef...Each time we going out, on his car seat, he commenting non stop about the scenery outside the car window with me joining him jolly. Green tree, flying birds, white cloud, traffic lights...all of them amused him so much. 

I have changed my attitude towards early education since then. I use to think that there is no need to learn so early, he will learn eventually when he goes to school. But by observing him, I realized that knowledge is for exploring the world, connecting to the social, not for competing or getting praise. The good news is it doesn't cost much. A full of love heart, a child like attitude will do. In the adult world, daily negative news on the TV, household bills piling up, mistreats are everywhere...I love the idea of being a child again, who don't?

I have some thoughts about early reading too. It boosts his imagination, focusing skill, observing skill, analyzing skill...all these are great tools to discovering the world around him. Toddler is just so new to the world. A flying bird, ant crawling in and out, a twinkling star...are just nothing new to us, but are wonderful to them. 

An idea of teaching early reading came to my mind. After 1 month he has memorized and can read the alphabet, 1-20 numbers. Practicing has never been so easy. He can see alphabet and numbers everywhere, we've made it like a seeking game. Fun, anytime, anywhere. And here he is, 2 years old boy, fluently reading the alphabet, shows me the the laundry clip as an A, turns it up side down to make a V, he can see shapes, colors in any things. The world is so interesting in his view! So it is in my view now...