Since the year is coming to a close, and since I often get questions from readers who ask me how I teach my three children who are so close in age, I thought I’d start a series on the resources I use and the routines I started this year in my attempt to home-teach them.

I started off this SAHM gig with the intention to homeschool all three of them. This proved to be a huge challenge and it didn’t take me long before deciding it was impossible. Ben turned four in February this year and began to reveal himself, at four years, with an enormous appetite for information and knowledge – he was brimming with questions, questions and more questions every waking minute. Becks was still in her Terrible Twos, being only two-half when I left my job, and every day with her has been nothing but exhaustion and fatigue. She is obstinate and emotionally-driven, and it took a lot out of me to have to handle the host of emotions (and tantrums) from her every day. As for the baby, he turned one earlier in the year, and was still very much a baby – needing to be nursed and played with all the time.

We struggled to develop a routine together and I thought I was all set to homeschool them with the Hands On Homeschooling curriculum I bought from the States. Within a week, I knew I would go insane if I continued trying. It was just impossible to perform mothering duties, prepare resources and stay patient, not to mention TEACH. In all honesty, I tried to make things work. I’ll try to get Ben and Becks to do Becks’ level of activity, and then work with Ben on his own. I got the helper to watch Nat every time we were engaged, and even held him to nurse while with the older kids if he fussed.

But I couldn’t keep up. With the preparation of resources, that is. Plus, I am really not into crafting (which features a lot in the HoH curriculum) and frequently wondered if the curriculum was rigorous enough to prepare them for Primary One. The Western model is big on self discovery and exploration, and learning through your senses. Not so much practice. If you look at the tracer-printables in HoH and compared it with preschool assessment book-tracers from Popular, you’d be shocked to find that writing the letter (of the Alphabet) twice (at most thrice) is all there is in the former, while the ones we have published locally require the preschooler to trace at least 15 times! I’m not against self discovery and exploration, but I keep having the nagging feeling that what I have ain’t rigorous enough to prepare them for the real world they would be facing, that is, the Singapore Education System.

I still have every intention for the kids to be schooled in our system, and despite my gripes and bugbears about the system (having been born and bred in it and having spent some good 7 years as an educator), I believe that the kids need to go through it to know the competitiveness out there, and along the way, develop strength and resilience in character. Even with its flaws, the system has done well to produce brilliance in many aspects, albeit through examinations, KPIs and ranking.

So in other words, I am not sure if I alone, am enough, or good enough, as their teacher if I were to consider the end goal.

Thus begins the outsourcing. I figured the kids also needed opportunities for socialisation and to be nurtured (because I have the tendency to drive), and so we put them in a church kindergarten for three hours daily. It has been one of the best decisions I have made. The teachers there are so wonderfully patient, the kids are enjoying kindergarten so much for the songs they learn, the craft they do, the friends they make and the stories their teachers tell. Ben particularly adores his Chinese teacher, a middle-aged lady who has ignited his interest in the Chinese language. He remembers the games played and stories told in Chinese class, and returns home to repeat whatever his lao shi said in class that day. And I totally love the way the kindergarten is teaching their nursery kids – everything is learned through songs! They would sing familiar tunes every term but of different things – so far, Becks has learned about fruits, occupations and transport, all through singing and crafting. These are clearly things I wouldn’t be able to do with them. Also, it wouldn’t be possible for them to socialise in the most organic way – at kindy, they’ve made a couple of friends and are learning, with every opportunity to socialise, to navigate through emotions and the need to belong – all on their own.

Anyway. We quickly settled into a routine which worked for us with this arrangement. The kids went to kindy for three hours 10 weeks in a term, and I would home-teach them when they returned. Now that Ben is four-half, Becks is three and Nat is 20 months, we’ve found some things that work for us and parked aside things that didn’t. I don’t reinforce what’s taught in their kindergarten; I do my own thing – a mix of ideas gleaned from the HoH curriculum, printables from online resources and things I create on my own. I acquired what I thought are the basics for every preschooler – graded readers, story books, games, DVDs and preschool resources (aplenty from Popular) – and developed my own set for the kids, usually following a theme / an idea.

And since I get questions from readers of my blog – and friends – who often ask me how I manage with three kids and home-teaching them, I thought I’d just share some of the things I use and do, and our routines in a series of blogposts. Hopefully, I can also learn some things from you if you have any thoughts, ideas and success stories to share. Do watch this space for the weekly series!

The letter W introduced some very important things to us. We learned that…

W is for Water

I introduced water in a science lesson after we were done with our W tracers. We learned the importance of water through these activity sheets that taught us that all living things need water, as well as ways in which we can do our part to save water.

The worksheets are zapped from the book “Little Thinkers: Nurturing the Child’s Creative and Critical Thinking Skills | Water | Activity Book for Kindergarten One”, published by EPB

The kids practised their hand-eye coordination by pouring water from big containers to small containers, and learned about liquids and solids by freezing water in ice cube trays.

All we need: bottles, jugs, funnels and ice cube trays

Learning to pour water slowly with lots of control

And no W-for-Water is complete without a wild session of waterplay! Which we do at the comfort of our own home – with warm water! (I recycle the water and limit the free flow to only a few minutes.)

Water play with lots of empty containers

Getting ready to pour water!

W is for Weather

I did up a simple velcro board that described three kinds of weather: sunny, windy and rainy and got the kids to place the appropriate pictures under each weather condition. Ben learned to sight-read the words sunny, windy and rainy.

The kids match the appropriate pictures under each description of the weather

W is for the Days of the Week

I also did up a velcro board for Ben and Becks after reading (for the nth time) Eric Carle’s The Hungry Caterpillar that featured the days of the week. They know it by heart now and can recite them easily, but they don’t know the words. So as practice, they arranged the days of the week on the board while reciting to learn the words by sight.

W is for Watermelon

Watermelon, watermelon, On the vine, on the vine. Sweet and red and juicy, Sweet and red and juicy, Please be mine! Please be mine!

I chanced upon this little song online (sung to the tune of Are You Sleeping?) and thought it was so cute! I got the kids to paint a paper plate using watercolours and we made watermelons to “eat”, but not before teaching them some fractions. We cut our watermelon with a pair of scissors, and learned about halves and quarters.

Making a watermelon: we first painted red on the inside, green on the outer circle, and then dabbed black dots on the red circle

W is for Where’s Waldo

To train Ben to focus, I got him to sit down for at least 10 minutes to look for Waldo. I absolutely loved the series as a kid and relived it by searching for Waldo with him!

During my time, the series was called “Where’s Wally?” Now, Ben enjoys searching for Waldo and it’s been great fun for him!

We stopped the moment we started seeing stars! Hurhurhur.

W is for Whale

We wrapped up our homelearning for the letter W with a lovely story by Julia Donaldson.

The Snail and the Whale is a beautiful story about a tiny snail longing to see the world and hitching a lift on the tail of a whale. Together, they go on an amazing journey, past icebergs and volcanoes, sharks and penguins. The journey, however, made the little snail feel so small in the vastness of this big, big world. But when disaster strikes and the whale is beached in a bay, the tiny snail is the one that saves the day.

The book was a great resource to learn rhyming words. There’s plenty of rhyming in the story, and the kids got to listen to the rhymes again and again. I made these word cards of all the rhyming words for Ben and Becks to refer to when they listened to me read the story, and they had to identify the words whenever they heard the rhyming pairs.

Rhyming words found in The Snail and the Whale

Becks had the most fun with this activity. She is now three and finally understands rhyme. Now she frequently shouts words out loud to check if they are rhyming words!

The letter W has been great fun, but we’ll be moving on to another pretty pristine letter next month that involves pandas and prehistoric creatures!

We kick started our homelearning for the letter S with some Sensory Play. Why sensory play? Because children learn about their world by exploring and experimenting using their senses!

You heard that right: this mother doesn’t make her kids do tracers all the time.

I gleaned a couple of sensory play ideas from Simply Mommie and Playhood, two wonderful blogs written by mothers who share their very brilliant ideas for play and learning.

For our first sensory bin, I poured yellow mung dhal beans into an Ikea tray, threw a couple of farm animal toys in it, and let the kids run their own animal farm.

Sensory Bin: Farm Play!

I soon realized, after leaving the sensory farm bin with all three of them for two minutes, that it was a big mistake! They weren’t interested in creating any farm. Oh no no, that’s not what the Kao kids do. They were more interested in raining dhal beans on one another, shoving beans into corners of the house, in one another’s pants and making a happy mess!

It’s raining beans!

And let’s just scatter them everywhere, say the kids

Argh.

And so I learned. This farm activity is clearly not for the littlest one to participate in yet (at least meaningfully) – and I would have to create something for him on his own another time (and be prepared to do some major cleaning after). By the way, he was the one that started sprinkling beans on his brother’s hair.

So we gathered the beans, and I gave Ben and Becks half an hour each with the box to indulge them in some sensory pretend play, and that was more fruitful!

Making the kids pick up everything they’ve scattered!

I then concluded their play with some activity sheets of the uses of farm animals and sight words (for four-year-old Ben) for the names of farm animals.

Activity sheets for farm animals (from a Preschool Activity Book for Science I got from Popular)

For our second sensory bin, I squirted some shaving cream in a tray and got the kids to swirl some food colours in for some colouring fun.

Sensory Bin: Ocean waves with shaving cream and food colours

We used ice cream sticks and started with the colour blue. I threw in their sea creatures bath toys and they had some pretend play fun for a while.

Throw in some bath toys for some sensory and pretend play!

Then I mixed in the colour red. Ben and Becks swirled and were thrilled that their ocean had turned a beautiful purple. They started smearing their palms with the cream and went wild with it. We talked about textures and I got them to describe the feeling of the cream on their hands. We learned the words “silky”, “smooth” and “soft” – all words beginning with the letter S.

Ooh, it’s now silky, smooth and soft purple waves, they say

We stopped when Ben said, “I feel itchy.” Looks like I probably need to switch to whipping cream the next time we play.

Having fun feeling cream on their hands

P/S: Find out more about how to create sensory bins and the importance of sensory play for young children from this blog, here. Plenty more awesome ideas!

It’s been a simple affair with the letter G. We did mostly good ol’ tracing. A lot of tracing and practicing, in fact; cos’ the letter’s been tough to conquer for both the upper and lowercase.

We also drew a giraffe with the Dot to Dot activity sheet for Dear Zoo, and met the most lovable giraffe called Gerald!

Giraffes Can’t Dance is an awesome book about Gerald the Giraffe, with rhymes aplenty, examples of alliteration, descriptions of movements and a beautiful lesson about finding your own rhythm to dance to your own tune. The kids also learned the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at someone and the importance of empathy. They love the book so much, they make me read it to them again and again.

For a counting exercise, I gave Ben and Becks some round labels I bought from Popular Bookstore and got them to arrange a bunch of grapes in descending order, beginning with 6 grapes. They had fun watching the circles “transform” into their favourite fruit. To complete the exercise, Becks learned to count to 20 and Ben learned simple addition.

G’s been a golly good letter to learn. We’ll be moving on to the letter S in September, and reading two more exciting books!

Three of the hardest words my two kids have learned so far begin with the letter Y.

Can you believe it that both Ben and Becks had trouble calling a yak, a yak; a yacht, a yacht; and yarn, yarn?

They called a yak a yorn; a yacht – yuck; and a ball of yarn, a ball of yet.

Totally hilarious.

This month, we covered the letter Y. We did our tracers, met some woolly yaks, looked at colourful balls of yarn and pretended to sail in a yacht. That got our tongues twisted pretty much.

For the letter Z, we read and reread Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo. I managed to get the super huge edition of this well-loved book from the Book Depository for 28 bucks, and the kids enjoyed story time with the book and opening the flaps. The book also amused Nat, who’s now 17 months and always ready for a story.

One of the things I am also trying to do as part of our homelearning is to thoroughly exhaust a book by learning as many things as we can from the story, and revisiting it consecutively for at least 3 days to a week. This was something I learned from Chengzhu Mandarin Centre, when Becks attended their holiday programme there last month. With Dear Zoo, I found this set of free printables which included a spot-the-difference activity, a colouring sheet, making a lion mask, a dot-to-dot worksheet and pathways activity sheet. We had lots of fun learning about zoo animals with these activities.

I also made a simple A4 sized “storybook” using powerpoint slides to reinforce the adjectives used to describe each animal that the zoo sent. Becks learnt the beginning sounds of each adjective and animal, while Ben learned how to spell simple words like ‘big’ and ‘tall’, as well as to blend sounds and identify words from the same word family.

We’re moving on to another letter next month, and looking forward to reading another well-loved story about a clumsy giraffe who can’t dance!

We naturally assume that we should begin with the letter ‘A’ when teaching our kids the letters of the alphabet. I certainly did, and since I stayed home in March, we’ve covered the letters ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E‘ and ‘F’.

In the book, The Art of Teaching Reading, by Lucy McCormick Calkins, she suggests that the easiest letter to learn is the first initial of your child’s first name. She then goes on to recommend teaching the letter ‘M’ next. Her reason? The name of the letter contains its sound, we can stretch out the M sound without necessarily making sounds that don’t belong to that letter; plus, the uppercase and lowercase are almost the same. I learned this whilst reading an e-book titled I Can Teach My Child to Read: A 10-Step Guide for Parents by Jenae Jacobson, who quoted Calkins, when she shared how to introduce simple phonic rules to kids.

So since I’ve already covered the letter ‘B’ with Ben, I skipped several letters of alphabet line and explored the letter M with the kids last month.

Apart from our usual tracers (you can find some free printables for the letter M here, here and here), which they found extremely easy to do, and learning the sound of the letter (as sung by Pig in Word World) by going Mmm..mmm… Milk, we practised our pincer grip with M&M’s

And made lots of music last month with the keyboard and xylophone.

I wanted to train the kids to sing in tune so I introduced them to the notes C, D and E. We spent the whole month tuning our pitch and learning to sing the notes accurately whenever we played them on musical instruments. Trust me, this has to be taught and repeated till it becomes second nature for the kids to sing their do-re-mis at the correct pitch. They actually need to be trained to listen closely so they can assign the right musical tones to their relative positions on the scale – in this case, the Middle C, D and E.

And that was all there was for us for the letter M! A pity we had to miss the whole Children’s Season thing at the museums because of the haze, but we’ll definitely revisit this letter at the museums next year!