I am into my second month homeschooling Georgia and it has been fun AND tiring too! I am slowly getting the hang of it and should be ready for more action in the next month! I started out drafting a schedule in the beginning and eventually find that it was too difficult for me to keep to it. Why? Because there are always unexpected events interrupting us and I would end up doing something else. In fact, I am not really bothered about us not keeping to the schedule and have chucked it aside! I do not subscribe to any particular style of homeschooling method and so would teach according to what comes to my mind each day. As long as by the end of this year, Georgia should be able to fulfill what is listed here. In fact she has fulfilled all the 'specifications' of a preschooler!
I bought some workbooks for Georgia to work on and she loves doing them. We would usually spend about 15 mins completing them. Sometimes if she doesn't want to work on them anymore, I'll just stop and switch to something else. Either reading or playing with her. In fact, it is not recommended that we give workbooks to preschooler at all especially if parents or teachers give them pressure to answer the questions correctly. We treat it as an activity book where she would do them in a fun way.
Children at this age needs to play a lot. According to the book 'Einstein never used flash cards', play=learning. And it's very true. Georgia loves to play with her stuff toys and would always enact scenes of our everyday life such as cooking for them, going to the supermarket to do grocery (she'll push her toys in her princess trolley!) or simply taking a book and pretend to read to them. She would use cereal boxes and asks me to cut windows and doors so that she can used it as a doll house for her tiny dolls. Or she would create countless of things like camera, cash register or car with the blocks. Through play, children learn to be creative and as parents we should encourage them and not inhibit their growth by telling them what to play and when to play. Play should come spontaneously. And so you can expect that we definitely have a lot of playing in our household!
The other activity that we should be doing with preschoolers is reading. Children enjoy hearing stories and enjoying having parents read to them. Be sure to buy them lots of different catergories of books suitable for their age. Otherwise if you have only two or three books, you'll be getting bored real soon while your kid will always request you to read the same book over and over again! Anyway, children loves to hear the same stories over and over again. Although it is a dread to us, children loves to play a part in reading. For example, Georgia knows and remembers the stories to all her books (she has an amazing memory and she has close to 50 books!). She will participate in my storytelling. She will sometimes say the next sentence or the next word. It is very engaging to them and we can engage them even more by asking them what the characters will do next or how does the character feel. Georgia has been learning her phonics and she is doing quite well for a preschooler but I am not expecting her to read by the end of this year. Most children will start to read by age 6 and I am not rushing Georgia. I am letting nature takes its course. Although she has yet to learn to read, her spoken words are pretty articulate for her age. So reading (a lot!) to them has its benefits.
Georgia has also started to create stories of her own and most of them are very random and sometimes illogical stories. Here are two stories she made up to tell her stuff toys the other day.
STORY A
Once upon a time, there is an elephant swimming about. He's going to find the way. And he saw a baboon and ran away. The baboon is afraid of the elephant. Then afternoon the koala bear went for a walk. THE END.
STORY B
The witch and the bread are running fast. The witch ran and ran (she was doing the running motion!). Then afternoon the Gorilla is brave and shout at the witch. The witch wanted to eat the Gorilla and bread. THE END.
Upon hearing her stories, I had a really good laugh! Those were really funny and certainly weird stories! I must say it certainly is a very good attempt at composing stories. And Georgia did it all in her barely four year old brain. Good effort Georgia! ^_^
Showing posts with label Homeschooling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homeschooling. Show all posts
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
We love homeschooling!
We have officially started homeschooling Georgia since June and we're loving it! It was a very natural occurence that we went into homeschooling. In fact I had little confidence in homeschooling when I first heard it from my friend whose auntie has been homeschooling her two children. I thought it sounded a little out of this world and doubted how effective it would be. That was a few years ago. Now it is a different story for us. We tried it and we love it (I must warn you that it's not easy as it's extremely time-consuming! But the rewards are priceless!) It's going to be very lengthy post so please have some patience with me ^_^
I spent two years staying at home looking after Georgia when she was born. I also breastfed her (I am a strong advocate for breastfeeding!) till she was 18 months old. The two years staying at home with her was such special time. The bond between mother and daughter was so strong and of course with the daddy as well. I get to see how she grows, how she starting talking, how she take her first steps...those are just priceless. I went back to the work force when she was twenty months old. So we enrolled her in Modern Montessori International. Georgia learned a lot during her time at the childcare centre. The teachers there were great and she spent five days a week, almost twelve hours a day away from us. I missed Georgia terribly. But I had to help Andy to bring in some bread for the family too. Everyday we only get to spend less than three hours with her and I felt sad and guilty. Weekends became very precious for us. But that wasn't enough. So I made a decision to work for only two years (that's the duration of my contract), save up as much as I can and quit and be a stay at home mum again. It got so bad that I would always go to work with a guilt stricken heart!
I finally call it quits in May and then we pulled Georgia out of the full day program and enrolled her for only half day. The cost of her half day nursery school fees is more than the full day program! And she's only there for three hours. There is also my transportation fees to be taken into consideration too. In that month, I began doing research on develomental psychology, preschool teaching methods and parenting guides. Andy and myself have also started to think about Georgia's enrolment into Primary One when she turns seven (yeah we know it'll be another three years but we can't help planning for it). And one day when I was chatting with my neighbour, who has a son in primary one, told me that the school principal said that students who have scored over 70 for their exams should not be contented. If they have worked harder, they should score 100! What was that all about! Our society is results driven that a lot of students are missing out on the process of learning! I kinda freaked out the moment when she told me that. I certainly do not want my daughter to be so stressed out with her school work that she will have phobia going to school. I also cannot fanthom the idea of having to volunteer myself for the school just so that my daughter can have a higher chance of enrolling in it! What is that! Tsk. Tsk. Children are spending so much time in school and parents are away from home most of the day and where is that family bonding. A lot of school going children have to attend tuition after school hours because they are not able to learn effectively in school. So what does it mean? Is there a decline in our public education? Why is children spending so much time in school and yet they need tuition? Some took up tuition so that they can be ahead of their peers. Sigh.
That really got me started thinking about my daughter's education. Then one day Andy told me there was an article in the newspaper about homeschooling. I missed that article. I thought I'll go to the library and read about it. And the rest they say is history. I read up a lot on the subject from books and also from the internet. I realised that I like it. The basic reason why most parents started homeschooling is because of their love for their children. We all wanted our children to learn in a conducive environment and who says that home is not a place for learning. We parents are the best teachers for our children. We taught them how to eat, talk, walk, and of course we CAN teach them how to study. Most importantly we are also teaching them how to love and be confident about themselves.
There are loads of resources for us to teach our children. The internet is one of the best option. Books from libraries and also loads of activities books from the book store. I go to here, here and here for homeschooling information and free activities. Just google homeschooling and you'll get more. I also love this book called Einstein never used flash cards, ISBN 1-59486-068-8. It's written by developmental psychologists and is about how our children should learn to play more and memorize less. I highly recommend this book.
There is the question of socializing when homeschooling is concerned. First of all, we are not isolating our children from the world. They still play with their neighbours' children. They play with their cousins. They interact weekly with their grandparents. They chat with the shop keepers. They play with other children from the playground. There is certainly no lack of socializing here!
Andy and myself are parents who want our children to grow up wholesomely. They should not only be good in their studies but also have good morals and have great love for mother earth. With my decision to stay at home (with Andy's support) and homeschool Georgia, I will give her the best education. I am not so hung up about whether she can read now, or knows how to count to hundred or thousands or whether does she knows how to speak in different languages. What matters most is that she enjoys herself learning while playing, learning how to write in the air when sees sign boards, counting the numbers of M&Ms I give her, pretending to prepare a delicious meal for me or taking care of her numerous stuff toys and simply enjoy the many hours of reading that I do with her. I will never trade the time with her for anything in this world. ^_^
Besides learning her letters and numbers, Georgia learns about practical life skills. Here she is screwing the bottle tops.
Learning about the different types of materials.
Matching alphabets and numbers.
Putting the covers on the tupperwares.
I'll be posting regular updates on our homeschooling! ^_^
I spent two years staying at home looking after Georgia when she was born. I also breastfed her (I am a strong advocate for breastfeeding!) till she was 18 months old. The two years staying at home with her was such special time. The bond between mother and daughter was so strong and of course with the daddy as well. I get to see how she grows, how she starting talking, how she take her first steps...those are just priceless. I went back to the work force when she was twenty months old. So we enrolled her in Modern Montessori International. Georgia learned a lot during her time at the childcare centre. The teachers there were great and she spent five days a week, almost twelve hours a day away from us. I missed Georgia terribly. But I had to help Andy to bring in some bread for the family too. Everyday we only get to spend less than three hours with her and I felt sad and guilty. Weekends became very precious for us. But that wasn't enough. So I made a decision to work for only two years (that's the duration of my contract), save up as much as I can and quit and be a stay at home mum again. It got so bad that I would always go to work with a guilt stricken heart!
I finally call it quits in May and then we pulled Georgia out of the full day program and enrolled her for only half day. The cost of her half day nursery school fees is more than the full day program! And she's only there for three hours. There is also my transportation fees to be taken into consideration too. In that month, I began doing research on develomental psychology, preschool teaching methods and parenting guides. Andy and myself have also started to think about Georgia's enrolment into Primary One when she turns seven (yeah we know it'll be another three years but we can't help planning for it). And one day when I was chatting with my neighbour, who has a son in primary one, told me that the school principal said that students who have scored over 70 for their exams should not be contented. If they have worked harder, they should score 100! What was that all about! Our society is results driven that a lot of students are missing out on the process of learning! I kinda freaked out the moment when she told me that. I certainly do not want my daughter to be so stressed out with her school work that she will have phobia going to school. I also cannot fanthom the idea of having to volunteer myself for the school just so that my daughter can have a higher chance of enrolling in it! What is that! Tsk. Tsk. Children are spending so much time in school and parents are away from home most of the day and where is that family bonding. A lot of school going children have to attend tuition after school hours because they are not able to learn effectively in school. So what does it mean? Is there a decline in our public education? Why is children spending so much time in school and yet they need tuition? Some took up tuition so that they can be ahead of their peers. Sigh.
That really got me started thinking about my daughter's education. Then one day Andy told me there was an article in the newspaper about homeschooling. I missed that article. I thought I'll go to the library and read about it. And the rest they say is history. I read up a lot on the subject from books and also from the internet. I realised that I like it. The basic reason why most parents started homeschooling is because of their love for their children. We all wanted our children to learn in a conducive environment and who says that home is not a place for learning. We parents are the best teachers for our children. We taught them how to eat, talk, walk, and of course we CAN teach them how to study. Most importantly we are also teaching them how to love and be confident about themselves.
There are loads of resources for us to teach our children. The internet is one of the best option. Books from libraries and also loads of activities books from the book store. I go to here, here and here for homeschooling information and free activities. Just google homeschooling and you'll get more. I also love this book called Einstein never used flash cards, ISBN 1-59486-068-8. It's written by developmental psychologists and is about how our children should learn to play more and memorize less. I highly recommend this book.
There is the question of socializing when homeschooling is concerned. First of all, we are not isolating our children from the world. They still play with their neighbours' children. They play with their cousins. They interact weekly with their grandparents. They chat with the shop keepers. They play with other children from the playground. There is certainly no lack of socializing here!
Andy and myself are parents who want our children to grow up wholesomely. They should not only be good in their studies but also have good morals and have great love for mother earth. With my decision to stay at home (with Andy's support) and homeschool Georgia, I will give her the best education. I am not so hung up about whether she can read now, or knows how to count to hundred or thousands or whether does she knows how to speak in different languages. What matters most is that she enjoys herself learning while playing, learning how to write in the air when sees sign boards, counting the numbers of M&Ms I give her, pretending to prepare a delicious meal for me or taking care of her numerous stuff toys and simply enjoy the many hours of reading that I do with her. I will never trade the time with her for anything in this world. ^_^
Besides learning her letters and numbers, Georgia learns about practical life skills. Here she is screwing the bottle tops.
Learning about the different types of materials.
Matching alphabets and numbers.
Putting the covers on the tupperwares.
I'll be posting regular updates on our homeschooling! ^_^
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