My New Goal for Educating my Children

Thanks to the disputable administration of my child's current school, my goals for educating my children have changed. It used to be finding a good school and delegating the responsibility of educating my children to them. Now it's  about finding a school that can help me act on the responsibility that is solely mine.

How can I say that I have been a good parent if the school I choose intentionally excludes the parent as part of the learning process? Is it not the main responsibility of a parent is to raise these youngsters and education especially in terms of academics is only a mere part of acting on that responsibility? And yet, the school is taking over most of their waking hours, bombarding them with facts then they call it education.

I've come to realize that parents' view of what they want their children to be become skewed once they enter the four walls of the school. It now becomes an unending race to achieve a somewhat deceitful goal, to be placed in a rank among honors, to be a valedictorian, to be attain the most number of medals, to win in the most prestigious national competition. What happened to the simple goal of raising your children to become a good person? To raise them in a way most pleasing to God so that when they grow up they may be able to glorify God through the things that they do?

I've heard of stories of parents menacing other people just so their children may achieve that deceitful goal. Others even resulted in physical violence that is simply contradictory to the supposedly ultimate goal. Have we as parents forgotten why we are blessed to have offsprings of our own? Have we forgotten what is important when the  end of our time has come? Do we want our children to value these pretentious things than be ready to face our creator?

I am scared of what I might become if I continue to travel this path. I've been that parent who meticulously goes over every test item to check for corrections. I confess to being frustrated when I force my child to study. I find myself in the faculty room questioning my child's grades. I stepped back and realize the horror that I've become. Is this what I want? Is this what I want for my children?

"I only have one shot at parenting and I want to do it right." I've heard this from someone and it almost brought me to tears. My heart is shouting the very same thing. I have to keep check my goals for parenting. Academic education is just a part of it and should not be the main focus. Now my aim is to educate my children about how to live their lives. A life that is God-centered, God-fearing, God-glorifying. Yes, I still want them to be good in Math, Science,etc but not because I want them to bag the highest honors, but because I want them to maximize whatever talent or gift God has given them.

3 Months' Progress

Since September I have been homeschooling my 2 year old son and, occasionally, my 6 year old daughter.

I'm happy to say that we've been making progress.

I've noticed that when my daughter and I make time to incorporate homeschool activities together with her school work, she manages to ace her tests. Now, we are trying so hard to find time after school to squeeze in some activities to help her strengthen her understanding of her lessons in school.  I try not to occupy so much of her free time so much so that she won't have time to relax and play. It becomes hard when she comes home drained and exhausted from school that most of the time I just let her take her nap in the afternoon instead. Hopefully, we'll have more time to do hands on activities soon.

As for my toddler, I am so proud of him for knowing his colors and shapes. Now, he is able to name and identify colors: red, yellow, blue, orange, violet, green, pink, black, white and brown. He can also name and identify the shapes: circle, square, triangle, oval, star, diamond, cross, rectangle (although he can't pronounce it very well) and occasionally hexagon. He can now answer the question, "what is your name?", in complete sentence. I can also see that he is a budding book lover since he always asks me to read to him his books and he enjoys our reading time so much that he even asks me to read his book thrice in a row. He can now count 1-10 without skipping any number and can count objects whenever asked to. He is now trying to count beyond 10 and reached up to 24. He can name the different animals in his ABC Book of Animals and can even give the sound of some of the animals. He can act out which way is up and which way is down. He is starting to identify whether the object is small or big and short or long. He can name and point to the different parts of his body such as: eyes, nose, ears, tongue, hair, armpit, lips, legs, arms, feet and hands. He can sing several nursery rhymes. He can make the sign of the cross and is starting to learn the prayer "Angel of God". He is also starting to identify the different letters of the alphabet. He can water the plants on his own. He can put away  his toys when asked to.

All these things make me feel very fulfilled as a mom. It is very rewarding to know that I was able to teach these things that they teach in school. I am happy to see their progress every step of the way. I am thrilled to discover their new capabilities. I am exhilarated to know that I am part of their journey to learning day by day.

These are things that I should be thankful to God for… for giving me the opportunity to experience these things with my children. I know that when they grow old, these are the times that I will remember, these are the times that I will cherish so much. Hopefully, they too will remember when they grow up.

Thank you Lord for these things!!!

...Only when ready

After 3 years of my eldest daughter in school, I noticed that the lessons are just constantly repeating and I wonder why this is so, Then I've come to realize that the schools now are not paying attention to the developmental readiness of each child.

I remember when my daughter was still a baby, I've read that not all babies develop at the same pace. Some may be early crawlers, or early walkers. Some may eat on their own by 1 some may be up and running at before a year old. We respect each child's individuality. we don't scold them, we don't reprimand, we don't consider it as a disappointment. We expect them to learn things on their own pace. Then parents put them to school at age 3 (others at 2 1/2 yrs) and all of this respect for their individuality gets thrown out the window. They are now expected to do what other children can do at certain time of the year. They're now expected to do what other children do at a certain time of the day. They become just a number in the statistics. A nursery student in a class of 20, for example.

When nursery students are expected to trace the names of the colors and your child simply doesn't want to, your child gets a low grade for that. What if the child simply isn't ready for writing but he is very artistic and likes painting and coloring instead of writing the names, wouldn't that be a more appropriate way of teaching colors. What if a child doesn't like reading the words in the flash card but gives his full attention to reading books with lots of illustrations, wouldn't that be enough to enrich his vocabulary skills. What if a child seems to be lazy when answering loads of worksheets but actively participates in games, wouldn't the lessons incorporated in games be more appropriate in  teaching that child. In school, it isn't. Because what is accepted and deserves an excellent grade is a child who can do whatever the teacher tells him to do, with no respect to his character and individualism.

The schools now are so focused on academics that they move more and more topics and more and more subjects to a lower year. It seems now that the trend for schools is whoever teaches the most subject is perceived as the better school. And subjects taught are only those that can be graded, how about life skills, how about habits and values. If they can't be graded then it is at the bottom of the priority list of things to teach.

Why would they include the names of the continents when a child hasn't even memorized the letters of his name? Why would you teach the parts of a grasshopper when he doesn't even know what insects are? Then they teach colors and shapes for three consecutive years with the same objectives each time?

In school, it's all about following a certain syllabus at a certain time. The child's interest, developmental readiness, learning style, basically his individuality is not given importance. Sad but true!

I believe that teaching is most effective when the focus is on the learner. You teach what they are ready to learn. You teach when they are ready to learn. You teach in a way they learn most. You teach what is important to learn. You will be able to teach well when you learn about the one you are teaching.

Teaching a 6y/o and a 2y/o together

How do you teach a 6y/o and a 2y/o at the same time? This is how I manage…

Late this morning while taking their breakfast, we started our Saturday homeschool sessions. I asked my 6y/o to pick any plant from our pocket garden and try to draw it (Nature Study).

While she is doing this I gave my little boy a place of his own to draw and scribble as well. He is now practicing his fine motor skills to prepare him for writing. Here he is proudly showing his work.

Just as expected, the 2y/o was just at it for a few minutes. Then he started to become restless. So, we moved on to the next activity: "Big and Small". I showed him drawings of objects that are big and small. I drew the objects using crayons because I noticed that colourful pictures get his attention longer than just plain drawings. Plus, it gives us a chance to review lessons about colors. (Colors and Sizes)

Meanwhile, the 6y/o just finished drawing so I asked her to label the different parts of the plant (Science). Since the 2y/o was now all over the place looking for something else to do, I asked him to water the plants (Science: taking care of plants). It is an activity that he likes to do all by himself.

After awhile the 2y/o was again distracted and wanted his picture taken.

After the 6y/o finished labeling the parts, I asked her if she wanted to color her work, and so she did. (Arts) While waiting for the6y/o to finish coloring, the 2y/o now moved on to the next topic: animals. He pretended to be a dog, down on his hands and legs while barking.

Finally the 6y/o is done.

So after their morning activity, they had a break and let loose. (P.E.)

Then they're off to take a bath while I prepare for lunch. And that's a wrap of our morning session.

Lazy Monday

It's early morning and Aia just didn't want to go to school. So instead she came with us to the store and we had our lessons there.

Topics discussed for today:

1. Other things animals use for protection (Science)

              -Aia saw a video of a snake eating a rat.

2. Writing "fifteen" & "sixteen"

Aia went to the wet market with me. She was my little assistant. She was naming the vegetables that we saw as we go. Then she requested for bananas. I bought a kilo, which was all gone by the end of the day.

Review Sunday

We just had a  short review about the things that studied the past week. The topics are as follows:

1. Body covering of animals (Science)

2. Numbers 11-15 (Math)
3. Parts of the house (English)

4. This is, That is, These are, Those are (English)

Again her cousins came by and had lunch with us. After which, I believe they played "model model" until late in the afternoon. HAHA!

Saturdays are Homeschooling days

This is what we did today:

We discussed about body covering of animals.

Using the paper mosaic technique, Aia tried to resemble the scales of the snake.

Aia's snake with scales.

 

After doing our activity, she wanted to make a card for Daddy using what she learned about mosaic.

After our activity, Aia cleans her study area while singing the Disney Junior song, "..let's clean-up the mess!"

For our culinary class, Aia makes Buko Pandan Jelly. Here she is measuring the water.

The little chef, stirring the jelly powder in the water.

Aia blowing the steam from  the jelly.

Here's the excited little connoisseur.

The first one to taste...

 

After our culinary lesson, mommy teacher had to cook lunch but not before another real life lesson. Coincidentally, we were having milk fish for lunch but before I clean and cut the fish I just had to show Aia the actual scales still attached to the fish. I let her touch the fish and its scales. She even helped take the scales off. Here is the picture below. Later, Aia observed some scales under a magnifying glass. She made a brilliant discovery, and so did I.

After our lunch Migui and Aia ate the tasty jelly. They both loved it!!!

Hooray for lil chef Aia! 

After lunch, Aia practiced writing "thirteen"&"fourteen".

Later that afternoon, her cousins came by and we had dinner together. She played with them till they had to go home (can't remember what time but it was late)