Chanya is excited about the idea of preschool. She likes cutting and pasting and tearing it up and starting all over again. Painting? check.

What about learning her letters? Not so much. Interesting note: She painted two watercolors which she liked well enough to tape to the wall. Each one is signed with the following letters: F E P B r O H. So there’s that.

She’s memorized the fingerplays I put in my book, Recipe for Reading .

Is that education? Or memory work?

Consider our trip to the museum during spring break. There were several stations set up in the museum lobby for making guitar themed crafts. Chanya had a ball, from the press pass, to the CD case, to the cardboard amp that we brought home to finish.

Education? Or busy work?

Then there was the preschool promotional event where she played a touchscreen video game, colored a butterfly mask, and had her picture taken in front of a green screen.

Education? Or fun?

I scoff at these contrived educational events, yet the baby loves them. What about our one-room school house experience? Where the 4 year old worked on puzzles and workbook pages in a desk with her mother.

School? Or play? Or busywork? or….what?

We’ve been working on tangrams lately.

Where we make pictures with different shaped blocks. It took a while for Chanya to get the hang of it, but now she can consistently make the sad dog picture. She can read the picture and translate it into shapes.

I’d venture to guess this is education, or something very near it.

Chanya has also mastered getting her own cereal including pouring her milk this year. Lunch? PB and J is a snap. I’d think that was education too. Where she owns the skills. She owns the knowledge.

We are working on reading and piano this summer. Not to mention painting and cooking.

We probably wouldn’t pass up on many contrived educational experiences either.