HomeSchool Planning

To set the records straight again. We do not have the intention to fully homeschool our little T for the time being. However, we believe that we can do more as parents for a preschooler / kindergatener than solely rely on the rigid traditional school system.

It is not about trying to make her the smartest kid around, but our bigger concern is to try to cultivate her interest in learning and encourage self motivation. I always worry about the method and approach to learning/teaching and how it can influence a person for live on what education / learning is about.

Give an example. During T's year end review with her school teacher. Teacher disclosed that T does not boldly use colours in her drawings and looks very 'stressed' and always colour only in one area of the picture. She doesn't seem 'creative' and 'confident' enough to change her colours and colour outside of an area. I was quite surprise about this as T is complete opposite at home. She keeps changing colours, is very happy and makes a 'mess' of colouring all over the page. After a short discussion, we concluded that in school, teacher always reminds them to colour nicely / neating, try not to go over the line, so as a result, the colouring session becomes more demanding than simply colouring as you wish. That is why T then opts to just stick to one colour and only one area. On the other hand, during our 'toilet wall' painting sessions at home, there's no limit set on what she can draw and we don't judge her for quality of drawing / colouring. For me, at 2.5 years, I really don't mind if her apple looks like a triangle and a pink blob of paint is a pretty flower to her. I think at this young age, its more important to encourage them to continue to draw / colour, be bold to use all the different colours / mode of arts as they wish and when they are older we can slowly introduce the rules of the game. I understand that traditional schools are there to teach the child the rules of society, to conform and obey, to respect and not question authority, etc..., but there are other approaches to life too.

This is the main reason why we try to maintain some homeschooling activities at home, so I can have a chances to expose her to less traditional method of learning, encourage her to attempt to solve the problems and find answers by herself and also observe for myself her strengths and weaknesses. Being 1 to 1, I can adapt our materials and lessons to her learning style and making timely decisions to change our lessons to match her current interests (windows of opportunities).

I realised these weeks when we try to pick up on the homeschooling that I lack a focus and direction on this topic. What we do is too random and ad hoc and I have no clue if the activities are age appropriate, if I am missing an important element to build a good foundation, if we are moving in the correct direction? As such, I also spend / waste alot time doing random research and getting distracted by all sorts of information that I think may be of interest, but might not really be useful. The conclusion, some proper planning needs to be in place so we can be more efficient and effective in our efforts.

So I put aside 2 whole days and seriously researched into preschool / kindergarten education. First was to find out what are the norm milestones for a 3-4 year old to reach, second was to think about besides these basics, what other 'stuff' to we wish T to learn during this time? Lastly was to organize the information in such a way so that we can make lesson plans and easily track and follow up on how we are progressing until we achieve the goals.

I gathered the info online from a variety of sites, reviewed, filtered and consolidated what I felt was reasonable for 3 - 4 yr old into the below charts. (I haven't figured out how to put downloadable files on blog, so if you are interested, you will have to print them or save them as photos). For curriculum planning and tracking, I referred to http://www.donnayoung.org/ and got some templates and ideas from her, made some customization and now I have a thin binder book to help me track our homeschool progress. If you are interested in taking a look at my homeschool planner book, drop me a line in the chatbox. With these tools in hand + my Montessori pre-school teaching manuals + the lovely BFIAR recommended curriculum for lapbooking, I now feel alot more confident that we will be able to have an enriching and enjoyable preschool home school experience at home. I also no longer spend alot of time browsing and researching like a headless chicken and wasting alot of time, instead, I just have to put aside a couple of minutes a day, or an hour on the weekend to plan ahead for next week's activities. Its been a great time saver (goes to explain why I have time to update the blog now)

By the way, we've worked on 2 more BFIAR books these weeks, stay tuned for post on them once we finished.

Achievement - Reading by own self

I feel very proud and comforted to know that I have successfully cultivated a reader. I hope T will maintain this love for books. We have been reading to her daily since she was born (OK, maybe not every single day, but 8 out of 10 is good enough for us). Her nightly routine goes like this. Evening shower at about 8:30pm, brush teeth, change into diapers and pyjamas and reading on the bed before lights out at 9pm. Nowadays, even if we don't sit and read with her, she will spontaneously go to her room and take out her book after she finish her shower. She sits by herself and starts 'reading' out loud to herself. Its really very cute to see this. She is not able to recognise any word yet, but she recalls the storyline of the familiar stories. If she pulls out a book that we have yet to read together, she will 'make up' her own story by looking at the pictures. I think the BFIAR program has played a part in why she seems more keen in reading at last few months as compared to the earlier 2 years. All the BFIAR storys are truly living books and the activities and animations that we do with each story cultivated her strong interest in each of them. The Green Pocketbook has been her favorite for 2 months and she has been asking for Caps for Sale everyday this month.

Hong Kong Disneyland - We are a family

I've lost count of the number of times we've been to Hong Kong Disneyland, but hey, we have got to make the most out of our annual passes right. Anyways we were there again at the end of May and this incident is definately worth keeping a memorable record off (pity no one was able to take a photo of it).

It was time for the fire works and we stood on Main Street enjoying the show. Daddy was carrying T and the 3 of us were standing close, swaying to the music. Out of the blue, T wrapped her arms around us, pulling our heads closed in right next to hers (left arm around Daddy's neck, right arm around Mummy's neck). She held us tightly next to her head touching head, one of us on each side. In those precious few minutes, I could really feel we were the only possessions in the world she loved and she wanted to share this moment of her enjoying the fireworks with us. I hope this bond will last forever.

My Neighbourhood Buddies

I think very kid should have some neighbourhood buddies. In the current society, it is a norm that our front doors are kept closed all day and we don't know our neighbour's name. How I miss the good old days when all the kids on the block would gather at the void deck every evening and we would play hide and seek or police catch thief with a group of 10 or more running all 13 floors of the block.

Gor Gor Felix and Boobie are T's neighbourhood buddies. We live in the same block and every evening after dinner, T will have about an hour of play time at the lift lobby with Felix and Boobie (not to mention enjoy the free air con at the lobby). At times we will have play dates at each others place.

Unfortunately their family will be moving away soon, and so will we at the end of the year. Hope we will manage to keep in contact after we move.

Our Quirky Moments

Our quirky moments. I think we will become best friends. (Reminder to self : Must not let the mother in me ruin this)

The Lost Generation

This is an amazing video. We should all take a look and re-think the priorities in our life.

Reflections - Excessive Shopping

The last 2 years have been years of excess. We (more accurately, I) bought too much clothes, shoes, bags, hats, etc... for T. I realise that this cannot continue as it is simply too wasteful. This photo is to remind me of how overboard I have been.

More than 20 pairs of shoes in 24 months. Hey, that comes down to less then 1 pair a month. Not so bad hor...

If you are wondering what is T wearing, its her halloween costume.

Little T attented real school on Tues & Wed this week. Daddy was the one who accompanied her as I was away on a business trip. These 2 days left us with alot to think about.

T has been mostly a well behaved child. We adopt the Montessori approach at home, so we don't have many noisy toys and T rarely throws tantrums or scream. Her toys are well organized and she has now learnt that she neats to tidy up after she plays. We are really blessed with a well behaved child.

However, the noise in school this week seems to have made T a little uneasy. Don't get me wrong. Some parent have commented that perhaps we don't let T mix with other kids enough, but I don't think that is the cause. T already attends playgroup 3 times a week, but the ambience is also well managed thanks to the tight control of the teacher and she totally enjoys playing with the kids there.

From what Daddy has described to me, some of the kids in school seems to be less under control. Kids crying and screaming, some parents shouting at children. Toys being thrown around. Daddy said there was one child pinching and poking T and the child's mother just stood and watched. Daddy had no choice but to pull the child's hand away from T. I think T's personality is just more docile. She is used to a calm environment and prefers having one to one or small group conversation rather than vying for attention by been loud and rowdy.

We are having second thoughts about whether we should let T be more rowdy too? Allow her to throw tantrums and throw her toys about? Teach her how to 'fight' with others?

But observing her the past 2 years, I don't think this is her personality. She is warm and affectionate to people she knows well. She is a little more wary and cautious of strangers. But isn't it the same with us adults. I have no doubt about her intelligence. She may not be academically inclined, but she definately learns skills at an amazing pace. We have been so happy with having a child like her, so calm, mature and reasonable. So innocent yet cheeky. So understanding of our feelings, knowing when to and not to do things. I can walk the pavement with her without holding hands and won't have to worry about her running into the street. She cleans up after her own spills and puts her own dirty laundry into the laundry basket.

Do we really have to 'change' her to behave like the other kids so that she won't be labelled as 'anti social' and 'slow' ?

I recall when reading the 'The Absorbent Mind' written by 'Maria Montessori', that it was commented that most visitors were surprised by how quiet, calm and organized the children in the Montessori school was. It is surprising that after so many years, some people still find it strange to see such a young child that is calm and quiet. Someone even told me that this is unnatural and that perhaps we are too strict with her.

I hope I have made the right choice by bringing up my child the Montessori way.

HomeSchool - How my journey started

As T approaches the big 2 (20 mths..., 2 yrs old...), I start to think more about how to prepare her for her future (IE, school).

I am not keen to send her to pre-nursery. These places starts accepting students from 1.5 to 2 yrs and put them on an strict academic curriculum. I am not confident that the traditional schooling style is the kind I would like to expose T to at this early edge. As the saying goes, it is easy to draw on a fresh white paper, but difficult to unlearnt what has been taught and start all over again.

On the other hand, I worry that this decision of mine may potentially cause her developments to fall behind that of her peers in the future.

As such, I started to research on pre-schoolers activities and come across many home schooling sites. How I wish I can have the previledge to be a SAHM and home school my children. Alas, this is not an option for me.

However, thou shall not give up so easily !

I still have the weekends and 1 - 2 hours every day that I spend with her that can be put into good use. I shall try to manage my time better and plan a more structured learning environment when I am home with T.

This is one of my main reasons for starting this blog. During my research, I found many successful homeschooling stories. However, all of these stories had SAHM. I believe there are many FTWM like myself who wish to do more for and with their kids. If people can work and study part time for their degrees / masters / doctorates, I belief that we too can work during the day and provide a good part time education to our kids in the evening and the weekends too.

I hope we can share more ideas here on how to make part time home schooling successful for FTWM.

Reflections

Little T is 20 months today. Very soon she will be 2 years old. She is really God's gift to us. She is always ever ready to give kisses and hugs. Always suprising us with the things she learns. We must try to keep in mind to nuture this precious baby as best we can.