Hi, there! My name is Anna, and I have many passions, but my primary ones are:
Kids (I have one of my own, and I am a former elementary teacher and a current children’s librarian.)
Learning and creativity (See above--teacher & librarian; I’m also an aspiring writer and fledgeling artist.)
Books and all things bookish (See my book review blog, The Library Faerie.)
Geekery (Lover of Harry Potter, Star Wars, and basically all things nerdy!)
So, now that you know all that…
I am a busy mom, working full time with occasional wonky hours. I have a beautiful, funny, smart little 16 month old daughter named Avery, an equally busy husband named Mike, and two crazy little dogs named Bean and Link. Life is good, sometimes crazy, always busy, and ALWAYS nerdy.
I recently decided to start creating plans and materials for slightly structured play/learning (I’m a firm believer you can’t have one without the other) activities to do with my little gal, as a sort of “tot school” or home preschool thingamajig. The intent is to offer some excitement about learning and the idea of “school;” some ownership, motivation, and self-esteem building when it comes to learning; and some basic structure and a learning framework to enhance her mostly self-guided learning through playing. And yet, to do all this in a low key, simple and easy, age appropriate, fun way that can be done on the fly in short amounts of time on weekends and evenings.
And I especially want to incorporate the geekery our family holds so dear in the process!
Please note: the intent here will never be to relentlessly drill information Tiger Mom-style. The point behind this is, yes, educational, but also to keep my little one busy and having fun!
I am putting a lot of work, my background in education and child development, and a lot of love into developing these materials. So I thought I'd take it a step further and put them out there for others to use, too. As I create materials, I will be sharing many of them for free on this blog, and I am working on an eBook project in the meantime where you'll be able to access even more extensive resources. This blog will illustrate ways I've used the Geekling Academy materials with my own geekling, with suggestions and ideas for adapting them in different ways to suit your needs. I’ll also include other types of posts here, like kids’ book reviews, goodies for the geeky parental units, and more.
And a lot of Geekling Academy materials will be useful for more than just parents! Teachers, librarians, scout leaders, childcare providers, and others might find some of the resources to be helpful, too. At least, that is my intent and hope! Like I said, I have a passion for this stuff, so I hope to be sharing some quality geekery around these parts.
Hopefully you will enjoy watching Geekling Academy develop, and hopefully it will offer something useful to others as it does to my little geekling and me!
-Anna
