The plan to stay home and homeschool the kids has been more or less firmed up and I am mentally prepping myself everyday. I won’t be yelling “Bring it on!” yet, but I am working at it slowly, running trial lessons with the kids in the evenings when I return from work.
I received the Hands-on Homeschooling curriculum I ordered from the States, and started on the two-year-old curriculum after going through (and digesting) the four hundred-page folder. This month, we read about Jesus multiplying five loaves of bread and two fish and learned what it means to be thankful. We also traced straight and curvy lines, first with our fingers, then with a crayon. The kids practised drawing straight lines with a ruler (I seriously didn’t know this had to be taught) and coloured fishes, balls and insects.
I also did up a little gallery in the living room to showcase the kids’ work.
Don’t let me fool you. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I have to admit, it has been tough doing this homeschooling-lesson gig. For one, I am sorely lacking in the patience department and I spend most of my time having to deal with my inability to handle my emotions of being frustrated and annoyed by the kids. I’m so used to engagement of the intellectual kind that I often forget that children need a lot of affirmation, compliments and repetition. Plus, I have to very purposefully differentiate the lesson for Ben and Becks. Ben is three-half and Becks just turned two, so development-wise, they are at different milestones, learning and accomplishing different things. I have to constantly deal with one or the other getting disinterested, unengaged and seeking attention, while at the same time keeping my temper in check and being generous with praise when some parts of the task are being completed. Add to that, the baby is often hungry and needing the Mama-touch in the evenings because he still dislikes drinking from the bottle at daycare — and you’ll see a mad woman in the house thinking to herself this is just mission impossible.
But I’m glad that the kids would always look forward to the next lesson cos’ whenever they see me go into the study, they would go “Are we having lessons now, Mama?”, and I would always make a mental note to myself that this Mama can do better as their teacher the next time.
12 Comments
I can only say that I salute you. I couldn’t think of home schooling 3 kids at one go, of different age groups. I occasionally do some craft activities with Kah Yen on weekends, and I am the one doing 90% of it. However, best of wishes to you and do keep posting on it, I think we all would like to learn something from your experience and be encouraged by your determination.
Haha I will! Good or bad also I’ll post! My way of destressing also! 🙂
I remember feeling awfully frustrated during my first attempts. Nothing was going on as I had imagined. Boy pulling the materials, not listening, not following instructions…yep, I also lost it. So bad that I decided to take a week break & only bounced back when I promised myself not to get angry at my toddler for not perfecting my expectations & allowing him to explore in his own right. We had loads of fun once I ‘let go’ & we actually accomplished more after that till this very day. So, I’m saying, what you had experienced was nothing less than Normal! 😀 You will soon find the rhythm, the first few lessons are opportunities for you to identify the methodology that suits your kids. Jia-you! 🙂
Thanks for sharing. I guess I also need to learn not to expect and to ‘let go’! 🙂
Alot of things in life that we always take for granted and blinded till my 2nd girl Michelle’s arrival. Learn everything from scratch. She is a Down Syndrome (DS) special kid and at 5 months old, we got to learn how to teach her movement and concept of physical left and right from head to toes. didn’t know that it takes alot of different body muscle to do a simple task like walking.
I fully agree that parent is the better teacher and knows their kid better. Special school teacher deny our input that Michelle was crawling, citing that DS kids don’t crawl until she saw with her own eyes.
Mission Impossible must be read with clear mental and determine state as “Mission I M Possible” 加油！！！
I salute you and your wife for your love and patience and perseverance! Michelle is so blessed and I’m sure she’s a blessing in your lives! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I think you’re doing an awesome job. Now working FT and still doing this in the evening with them? With a baby some more. You really must be superwoman. Slowly and step by step, you will be able to do it. I don’t homeschool Poppy (4 years old); she goes to school, but off and on I do expand a little on certain topics with her at home. Well now, it’s more off than on cos of the baby!!
It’s much tougher with the baby around but I guess things should get better for us in a year’s time?
i feel like my son needs homeschooling … if only i can do it (prep him for o-levels at home) but i might just kill him before i kill myself – literally. probably with a chopper.
Better to send him to school to avoid a tragedy, Karen! Josh is so big now eh!
Wow! Great that they like the lessons! I’m still having trouble getting my sons to sit down and work on the activities that I’ve prepared for them. The elder one (4.5) always has “better” ideas of what he wants to do.. Sigh!
It’s hard, isn’t it? How do you manage that? I often think as long as I try to make it engaging they would sit still, but sometimes things don’t go as planned!