My Daughter Loves Diego. So do I!

One day I made the mistake of letting the television run when I was doing other things. The next thing I knew, my daughter was sitting in front of an episode of Go, Diego, Go! This episode was about the rainforest animals having a race. The prize for the race was the opportunity to play on a brand new baby animal playground set up by Alicia (Diego's sister). The main character in the episode (other than Diego) was an Armadillo. Throughout the episode, Diego helped the armadillo to win, and Armadillo helped other animals when they were in trouble, then shared her prize with the others. It was sweet, taught sharing, and encouraged good social skills in young children. In other words, the show was a typical preschool program.

I didn't think much more about it until my daughter happened upon a Webkinz display at a Cracker Barrel country store. She ran to the display, pulled the Armadillo out and announced to anyone who would listen that the animal was an armadillo. Bear in mind that she isn't yet three years old, and I have to say that I was impressed with her ability to identify the animal so easily.

Since then we have been watching Diego regularly (though not on a daily basis). She has begun to interact with the program, to the point of actually participating in the quiz at the end of the show. She answers almost every question correctly and she is entirely entranced.

For those who don't know already, my husband and I have chosen to home school our daughter. We have a wide variety of reasons for choosing to do so, but at the heart of our decision is the fact that we believe we can teach our daughter in a way that is geared toward the ways in which she learns, individually. Following a lot of discussion between the two of us, I have decided that we will be using either the Charlotte Mason method of home schooling, with unit studies. We will be incorporating various activities into her daily schedule for the maximum learning potential, and we are all very excited about it. I had planned on getting her started with preschool activities some time this upcoming summer (2011) when she will be three and a half years old.

Since the first encounter with Go, Diego, Go! we have discovered that we can use the show as a launchpad for choosing animal science topics to study with our toddler. If the show features a puma (cougar/mountain lion) then we may go to the book store and choose a children's book about pumas (cougars/mountain lions). After reading the book together, we can look at Internet resources and explore more about the animal that was featured on Diego. Then, the next time she sees it, she will be able to identify it and knows a remarkable number of facts about the animal that we studied.

I have to confess that as much as anything, this has boosted my confidence in my ability to teach my daughter. I am impressed by her ability to identify different animals and to know basic facts about them, such as where they live, what sounds they make, and more. We have been able to bring this confidence into other areas of our home schooling.