Purple Mouse Books

I taught English in Japanese students in Japan for 7 years, from 1st to 6th grade for 3 years and PreK and Kindergarten for 4 years. Now I'm a mother of a toddler and teaching my daughter the same way I did in the classroom. She's 2 and already is reciting the phonics initial sounds we learned through play and incidental learning.

With young children, I believe keeping the lesson short, and the hands on activities long. Children only need the lesson to introduce the topic, and play to interact and learn about what works and what doesn't. Passive learning through daily life is also important. Depending on the age, the discussions throughout the day about what we previously learned as a class should be 90% teacher from ages 1-3 years old, 50% teacher and 50% student from 3-4 years old, and 25% teacher and 75% student from 4 years and up. At that point, the teacher is a guide for where the discussion goes, and listens to the students' own ideas.

Yet to be added

Yet to be added

I live in Tokyo, and am American. I'm also a mother of a curious 2 year old toddler, who is trilingual (English, Japanese and Hungarian) and learned baby sign language from age 1. Many times throughout teaching I've experienced and been surprised just how clever young children not even 2 yet can be. I feel most adults highly underestimate them, and we should be giving them more opportunities to express themselves and give them more access to education through play. I learned from my teaching experience a very efficient and effective way to teach toddlers very early learning, and was able to get my classroom reading at age 4. I would love to share that method with other teachers at school and at home.