Homeschooling Nathanael

While big brother Gor Gor was busy with school, the little one has been asking to do school too. So now every day, I usually spend around 20 to 30 min with him.

Sticker dots, cut and paste, drawing and colour recognition are some of the daily stuff he's doing.

Sometimes I do number recognition with him, counting from one to ten.

 

Animal matching.

We have also done the alphabet puzzle. I'm quite surprised Nathanael can recognise some of the letters. I don't expect him to know much at this age but exposure is good for him and besides, he wants to and seems ready to learn.

Using the same approach with Zech, I leave Nathanael to learn the letters of the alphabet on his own though I read his favourite ABC book to him almost daily because he wants me to. He mainly learns his letters from his Leapfrog toy.

Nathanael's new Leapfrog toy. The Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set.

Realised that any Leapfrog product is great as my boys really learn from these electronic toys.

I've started Nathanael on some pre-writing activities as well. Besides drawing, he attempted do-a-dot pre-writing sheets.

In the afternoon, we usually have read aloud time. Zech will go through his word cards then read his reader. Then the boys take turns to choose books for me to read to them. Most of the time, they have similar reading interest. But Nathanael seems to enjoy reading concept and non-fiction books. His interest in fiction is rather restricted whereas Zech's reading diet is more balanced.

Some activities the boys enjoy doing together...

Dramatisation. One of the stories we have done was Moses crossing the Red Sea. The boys became the Israelites while Mummy acted as Moses. Here's a pic of them crossing the Red Sea. We dramatized the story a few times, as requested by the boys.

Finger painting.

Worshipping God during morning devotion.

The boys love using different instruments to sing. Besides the bongo and microphone, the other instrument they love is the ukulele.

So that's the beginning of Nathanael's homeschool journey. School sure starts early for the second child.

Singapore theme for homeschool pt 2

On post national day week, we focused mainly on present Singapore. We visited an exhibition by the Singapore Discovery Centre, which was along the Esplanade waterfront and for the second time, went to the National Museum for 'Singapura: 700 years'.

  

We read quite a fair bit on LKY. As a follow-up, Zech wrote a short paragraph about our first Prime Minister.

Zech also learned the names of our past and current Prime Ministers and of course the current President of Singapore. We watched an animated video as well. It was posted online by a friend. Really quite good as it follows a character from young till old to showcase the history of Singapore.
Do check this out -
http://en.rocketnews24.com/2015/08/07/history-crash-course-charming-animation-shows-80-years-of-singapore-history-in-16-minutes/

Crafts...

Made a windsock to add on to the SG50 mood.

Sponge painting. Dabbing and scrubbing were 2 techniques I've learned recently from a Art teacher. :) Easy enough even for Nathanael.

As Singapore steps into post-modernism, our landscape has changed rapidly. I showed Zech pictures of some of the significant landmarks such as the Merlion, Padang, HDB flats, MBS etc.

And of course, it's time to introduce the national anthem, Majulah Singapura, and know what it means.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdb_O91d92M

As Singapore has a reputation for being a clean and green city, I showed him the national flower and we studied some of the common trees in Singapore. This link is very useful.
https://www.nparks.gov.sg/activities/family-time-with-nature/recommended-activities/know-10-trees

Some of the activities Zech has done are below.

Drawing a tree and labelling its parts.

Experimented with puffy paint to outline the crown of a tree.

Used yellow food colouring for another tree but was messed up so had to throw away. Ran out of Elmer glue to make more puffy paint. :( Decided to try again another time. Check out this website - http://artfulparent.com/2015/07/diy-puffy-paint-for-kids.html

One of the most enjoyable activities was tree hunting. We hunted for the common trees around Singapore. Spent almost a week on this activity. Zech had to do some bark rubbing, collect a leaf for rubbing and measure the tree trunk using paper clips.

Bark rubbing on the trumpet tree just outside our block of flats. We have so many of these trees with beautiful pink and white flowers which often lays a gorgeous pink or white carpet beneath it.

The angsana heritage tree near to Woodleigh Park, along Upper Serangoon Road.

 

 

Later I found an Angsana tree really near the AMK MRT station. Sigh. To think we went to the trouble of driving to the heritage tree along Upper Serangoon Road.

Tembusu heritage tree at the Botanical Garden.

Couldn't do any bark rubbing as it was all fenced up. But we were very lucky to find a small branch of leaves and budding fruits on the ground.

The boys had fun hunting for saga seeds at the AMK Town Garden East, opposite blk 126. So did I!

 

Zech counted the saga seeds. A total of 84 seeds! Planning to use the seeds for flower craft.

 

Some of the activity sheets for the tree hunting activity.

For Math this week, we started on the measuring book. Went through the concept of long and short, high and low, tall and short. Zech practised measuring different tree trunks using paper clips, with  help from me and his Papa as the girth of the tree trunks were wide.

 

 

Zech had so much fun with the Singapore theme he kept asking for more. Very informative for me too as I learned along Zech the history of Singapore. I've never taken an interest in the trees and plants around me but because of this, I've been pointing out to Zech the different trees we have by the roadside in Singapore. We really need to be appreciative of our garden city. That's my take-away after planning all these lessons for Zech.

 





Singapore theme for homeschool pt1

This week marks the beginning of my own thematic curriculum for Zech. With National Day just around the corner and all kinds of events around our island to celebrate the jubilee year, naturally it got to be the Singapore theme.  I've always wanted to infuse National Education in Zech's homeschool. Finally, here it is!

Day 1:

I've made my own slides on the history of Singapore, in chronological order beginning with Temasek ruled by kings for 80 years. Tried to make it simple for a kindergartener. Check out the following websites - http://www.singapore-discovery-guide.com/Stamford-Raffles.html and http://www.yoursingapore.com/about-singapore/singapore-history.html, which I've found to be useful.

For Zech's first lesson, I made a sensory tray, tapping on the idea of Temasek as a fishing village. Zech contributed to this by making one of the houses. The colored one is his.

 

What's in the sensory tray? Used pasta as green grass and sand, blue kinetic sand as the sea. Made some paper boats and paper houses. Lego people as fishermen. Some trees. Zech reminded me to put in some fishes since it's a fishing village. Forgotten about that.  We managed to find some fishes lying around and he arranged them himself in the tray. Realized the tray was great for pretend play.

It was only on day 3 that he messed everything up.

For Math, Zech played the fishing game. I gave him addition and subtraction sums on the whiteboard and he used his rod to catch the fish with the correct number.

Day 2:
The history of Singapore for day 2 focused on the founding of Singapore by Raffles and the town plan he drew up for the different groups of immigrants.

Zech sorted out the pictures on the four races in Singapore then pasted them onto the drawing paper to make a poster.

He played with tangram too. Printed out the boat and fish from this website.

 

Day 3:
We focused on the Japanese occupation in Singapore. This part of history is particularly interesting to Zech who kept asking me questions about the war. Never occur to me to visit Changi Prison till we did this.

After the slide presentation, Zech did a dramatization, pretending to be a prisoner of war (POW) who was sent to the Burma Railway. I wanted him to go through a POW 'experience'. Though it wasn't authentic, it made him think how it felt to be a prisoner with no freedom. This prepared him for the next activity on feelings. He was able to identify the different feelings a POW could have.

 

 

Downloaded free from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Feelings-Vocabulary-Cards-Social-Emotional-Development-752151.

As a follow up, he completed a 'My Feelings Book'.

 

This was downloaded free from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/My-Feelings-Book-Activity-752232.

We also spent some time talking about how blessed Singapore is and about how important it is to pray for Singapore. During our time of prayer, Zech gave thanks to God for Singapore while I prayed for God's guidance to be upon our leaders.

Day 4:
On this day, we read about how Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his Ministers formed the PAP, further developing Singapore to what it is today. Zech could not wait to start school and immediately after morning devotion, he asked me if we could start the lesson earlier. :)

We read the following books.

As Zech was painting the Singapore flag, I explained to him the significance of the crescent moon and five stars.

As a closure, we prayed for Singapore progress and for ourselves as Christian Singaporeans who need to love Singapore and stand up for the right ideals.

We also did the usual every day such as calendar, time, Math, sight words and readers.

History is really very crucial for our young ones to understand how we should not be complacent and not take things for granted. What our precious kids see today did not come easy. Through history, they can trace the path our ancestors have taken and see how Singapore gradually develop to what it is today. It is a very important learning curve not just for Zech, but for me too. As I shared with him about the Japanese occupation, I could tell him real stories from my grandmother (his great-grandmother). The most poignant I guess was sharing with him about the Burma Railway. It strikes a chord in my heart as my own great-grandfather was sent to the Death Railway and he never made it back. Stories like that make history come alive.

For the next few days, we are going to learn more about Singapore outside our home. Field trips are really important for kids to see first hand the relevance of history. The National museum is a great resource I feel. A month ago, we visited the exhibit on Singapura 700 years. It's very likely we are going back again for a second visit. Other places worth checking out are Changi Airport SG50 trail (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/changi-airport-goes-big/1988612.html), Heritage Bay at Clifford Square (exhibition at Clifford Pier) and SG50 exhibition on Singapore's past, present and future at Esplanade Lawn (http://www.sdc.com.sg/special-promotions.php).

The 2nd homeschooling year

How's homeschool like for Zech now?

We've completed the Kindergarten curriculum from My Father's World. As we were nearing the end a few weeks ago, we had lots of fun doing crafts and not forgetting, our book picnic (my boys love this to bits!) at the park next to our flat.

This is our favourite spot where the boys have their breakfast, read their books and watch the trains and the world go by.

Quail, flower and rainbow crafts...
You see double now as recently, Nathanael is able to join Zech during craft time.

 

I've bought the first grade curriculum but I'm holding on to that for a while. Currently, I planned my own lessons. Here are some stuff we have done.

Bible
I'm using a Mandarin big book. Ended up sharing the story once in English and on another day in Mandarin. Zech listened to each story with great interest. Maybe he's one of those who simply loves stories. What I like about this set of Bible stories is how easily I can teach character building based on each story.

 

One of the stories of Esau and Jacob allowed me to focus on the individual identity. As a follow-up, my boys made a handprint and after brainstorming with Zech, I wrote both his and Nathanael's strengths on their handprint.

For the subsequent follow-up, Zech drew a self-portrait with a mirror in front of him. Then he wrote a short paragraph about himself.

 



English
I've chosen words related to the story as Zech's new vocabulary. Other new words include sight words or words from his readers.

Using the Melissa and Doug magnetic letters, I taught Zech to use the CVC format to make words. With a set of sight word cards below, I showed him how to construct simple sentences using pronouns, verbs, nouns or adjectives. To my surprise, he could create more complex sentences like the following.

I'm also focusing on phonemic awareness. I know I should have done this earlier but with the K curriculum, there really was little time left. So it's like back tracking. Still, better late than never. We've just practised sound discrimination between beginning and ending consonants and revised short vowels. Moving on to rhyming and long vowels next.

Math

Zech is learning to use different strategies to add and subtract. Usually, manipulatives are used to develop his conceptual understanding and to link from the concrete to the abstract.

In the picture below, he's using the 'make ten' method to add.

Other than addition and subtraction, he's also doing patterns (below) and learning to tell time.

Zech is now 4 years 7 months. Homeschool is beginning to look more like school. Sometimes I feel guilty for giving him too much work and for insisting on neat handwriting. After being advised by more than 1 concerned friend, I decided to let it go if effort is put in.

As much as possible, I try to take the boys outdoor or to the playground more than just once a week. Play and field trips are a major part of learning for them. This is one important element I've incorporated in the upcoming unit I've designed based on the Singapore theme. Will be sharing that soon in my blog.