Heart of Homeschooling

Oh wow, I can’t believe this just happened.

I’ve always thought as a kid how wonderful it is to be an anchor on the news, or a reporter. This fascination eventually led me to take up Communications in college – a course I genuinely had fun doing.

However, life sometimes takes you to different places and somehow, that fascination didn’t find realization in my life. Instead, I went into early childhood education and play: causes that I am so passionate about.

Fast forward to 2021 – amidst a global pandemic, we find ourselves with a situation and an opportunity. As for me, it’s also an opportunity to merge these two interests of mine – talking/hosting and children’s causes. Enter the Heart of Homeschooling Show. It came up during a brainstorming session on how we could possibly promote the homeschooling program we were launching and over shared experiences on the challenges in finding the right content that’s relevant to our local setting,

It was a quick move. Parties involved felt that we should just go for it! So I listed down a set of topics for us to talk about and drew up a list of who we could invite as guests. Then we set up a date for our first batch shoot (1st and 2nd episodes) and agreed on a launch date! That’s today, Sept 11 and we premiere at 8pm!

We’ve obviously had mistakes and a lot of realizations after the first 2 episodes. But these are something we can just laugh about and work on improving in the succeeding ones.

So, join us tonight at the Heart of Homeschooling Show. You can catch the show here:

Facebook
YouTube

Till then… happy thoughts everyone!

Printables are heaven-sent!

As a mom to 8 kids, 5 of whom I homeschool, it’s quite a challenge keeping up with what each of my kids are learning at a specific moment. For my homeschooled kids, since I pretty much have shared activities, it’s easy to keep track for those subjects. As for their individual work, I just get updates from the homeschool center they go to. They are so organized that they prepare a journal for me to check on a weekly basis to get an update on what they have accomplished for that week. Homeschool settings really allow for parents’ involvement in their kids’ lives.

I feel somewhat of a challenge for my kids who go to regular school though. This especially is true for Math. Sometimes, I take a look at their book only get a brief introduction of the topic they are learning. From there I often wonder how on earth did their teachers teach the topic! Of course I teach from memory, and I use my own way of teaching it. However, I noticed that there are differences of terms, and sometimes I just get a blank stare from my kids.

Anyhow, thanks to the internet which provides a wealth of information  on matters I don’t know much about (yep.. math being one of them!), I am able to bridge that gap and manage to get the concept across to my kids and they eventually understand it.  

But Math in particular is a skill that needs to be developed and practiced. One thing is to understand the concept, it is another to be good at it. It goes the same for spelling and other mastery-oriented subjects. This is where I find worksheets to be really helpful when you’re on the skill-building phase. One of the sites I have come across is education.com where I am able to print worksheets that fit my kids’ ages and grade levels.  You can choose from the different worksheets made available for you. 

The biggest holiday in our country is coming up and although I am aware that we have many gatherings and reunions to attend to, I also feel that it would be a good time to work on some skills even for just a worksheet a day. This way, our kids don’t have mental blocks on the subjects they were studying when they go back to school. I have attached a sample worksheet here for your use parents. Just download it to your local drive. But for more activities and worksheets, please visit education.com for more activities and resources that fit your specific need!

spelling_games_scramble_mittensDownload

spelling-gamesDownload

Homeschooling … (part 2)

Hello friends!

     In an earlier post, i mentioned that i was about to explore the world of homeschooling again. After about 2 months of seriously exploring, interviewing, reading about and watching other homeschooling families on how they homeschool, my husband and I decided to take the plunge last June. In that post, I also mentioned that I had a plan and I promised I would give some feedback every so often on how i was doing.

     So since that last post, here I am now writing about how I did the past 2 months.

SCHEDULE

So far, I am still trying to manage with the schedule. I was aiming for an 8:00am start for the kids, but we always seem to end up starting at 9:30am. I did some analyzing and I think it’s because the kids sometimes also sleep later – 10pm in fact. So the past two weeks, I had been really working on getting them to sleep at 9pm or 9:30pm latest. This is also because I have 2 smaller boys who go to a brick and mortar school nearby and they still badly need their 8-9 hours of sleep (as with everyone!).

This is a work in progress really and since I’ve never been one to nag (I hate nagging myself, but I can be quite persistent on certain matters), I am thinking this is going to take some time till i get it into their system.

CURRICULUM

Ok.. this I must admit is where I kinda find myself torn between me as a playworker and me as a teacher.

I do believe in letting children get their fare (and much needed) share of playtime but the teacher in me worries (and perhaps largely influenced by some OCD traits) if we don’t follow the schedule according to the syllabus sent by the school. We use Kolbe curriculum and what I really love about it is that it has a weekly, and even daily, plan which I simply need to follow. However, getting my kids to follow (especially when I am out) is still a task I have to hurdle. I guess it’s a discipline that still needs some work.

I have also since reduced some of their load. After the initial few weeks, i felt overwhelmed with what I felt I had to cover: 4 language subjects, math, science, history, religion, geography. I simply didn’t know how i could cover all those multiplied by 5 kids! I thought I was slowly digging my own grave.

I decided to send an email to my advisor Dianne and expressed to her how could i possibly cover all topics and still have time for play and other stuff (field trips, discovery activities, etc). She responded by saying that in elementary (that’s 4 out of my 5 kids), the only really important subjects are Language, Math and Religion. Wow,  I thought that’s already down to 3 out of 6 subjects. And for other subjects, I could easily combine – like my 3rd and 4th graders could have the same Science class with me! She stressed that part of the Ignatian education and training is really to make the kids more self-active – to be able to do things on their own and with little supervision, especially as they get older.

So since I had my math outsourced, I thought I could focus on really just the 2 subjects: Language and Religion and still have time to do other things that needed my attention too: attending to my husband, the household and our businesses. I decided to not be so demanding of myself and instead focus first on the important things as I slowly get the hang of homeschooling.

HOUSE CHORES

Oh this is what I am loving about homeschooling!

In the past, since the kids come home tired from school, they take a nap till almost dinner time and, after that, still do their homework. So there is really no more time to take part in the “school of life” – learning the tasks of running a home – cooking, setting the table, washing the dishes and housekeeping. With homeschooling, we have the time to integrate all of those into their schedule. Plus I think it helped that my helper went home for a vacation for about 3 weeks so it was a good time to introduce chores into their schedule. It’s real life after all!

What happens is every night, the kids take turns doing a house chore. After dinner, one of the older kids take turns washing the dishes (Anya on Mondays, Sabin on Tuesdays, Santi on Wednesdays, etc.) and each of the smaller kids have to help in packing everything else away: Amaya collects the bowls, Pio collects the glasses and Sal takes care of packing away the placemats. And I make sure they do it. As one homeschooling parent says, “you can’t expect what you don’t inspect!”

FAITH

This for me is also another progress in our homeschooling life. As I mentioned, I have always wanted our family to pray the rosary regularly. But because some of them end up doing homework even after dinner, it’s almost difficult to expect them to join me in doing the rosary!

However, with the schedule now, i introduced praying the family rosary at least twice a week: Wednesdays and Saturdays. It’s still not perfect but at least we are taking the steps.

I also like the fact that I can discuss matters of the faith with them in a more relevant manner. They have questions that I answer and give examples for.

FAMILY

Since I handle their subjects, I have to spend time with each one of them especially since I also do one-on-ones with them. I am cherishing the moments I get to spend with each of my children now – I am getting to know them better, listen to their stories and thoughts more and just hanging out with them. We are not going to be with them forever – there will be a time that they’ll live life on their own, explore the world and create their own paths. And when they do that, I would like them to remember the chats we had, the adventures we took and the happy memories we created when they were younger. And most of all, to know that they  have a family they can always run to… wherever they may be.

Happy thoughts everyone!

Homeschooling… part 1

    I have always been an advocate of the many benefits of homeschooling. I homeschooled my eldest child Anya when she was in first grade and did the same for Seve, my second child. I pulled out my daughter then from her school and my third child Sabin who was going to toddler class because I could see my son Seve feel bad every time I would drop off Anya and Sabin at school and fetch them later. I saw in his eyes – although I knew he was trying to be strong that time – that he was feeling the pain of not being able to go to school and play with his friends.

     Seve was already diagnosed with Leukemia at that time and because of that, the doctor advised my husband and me to take him out of class while he was in treatment. This was of course to avoid him catching any other illness that could make the road to his healing more difficult. So although he was a toddler at that time, when it was already back to school time, I know that he felt bad that he couldn’t go back to school yet.

     As a mother, I know deep inside me that i couldn’t bear the thought of leaving one child “behind”. So, with a little more courage and encouragement from friends, I decided to homeschool everyone so they would have a “shared” experience. I think it was a pretty much good year – Anya and Seve learned to read that year and we had many trips to the local city’s museums that I felt somehow enriched their childhood more.

     After that year however, we felt it was a good time to let Anya go back to school and focus on Seve’s treatment instead.. as it turns out.. that year became one of the most challenging years in our family. We almost lost Seve to complications of Leukemia.

     Anyway.. fast forward to May of 2016.. yes… now..

     As I write this post, I am again contemplating on homeschooling 5 (and possibly 6 later on) of my 8 kids. I have spent the past 3 weeks really digging into the homeschooling approach, read many blogs, consulted friends and even wrote directly to people I didn’t know about how to go about it. Of course my challenge now is, I am homeschooling them midway into their elementary and highschool years.. And this time, they’re 5 instead of 2. Why now?

     Well.. for a number of reasons but more importantly, it’s because as an educator, I have always had this personal conviction that learning for children should be a positive experience for them. It should be something that they would like to do and eventually love to do. In the years that my kids have been going to regular school, i saw very few moments of that. It always seemed that homework and schoolwork was a burden for them. I would literally drag them to the study, sit them down and do the work with them. On some occasions, I would have to – ok yes, I admit – have to do some of the homework for them just so they could pass something the following day. I hated that I had to do that, but I also knew that if I didn’t, they wouldn’t get a grade for it, or i would get a little note from the teacher asking them to submit it the next day. I had to wrestle with the thought that I was doing it for them. However, I couldn’t help but ask myself why do some kids enjoy learning and going to school, while my kids did not. To me,  as an educator, it was like a slap on the face. I began to think – was i doing something wrong?

     Anyway,  i decided to explore homeschooling again after meeting new friends who were into it. Among the friends I have talked to, I have only talked to one who claims it didn’t work for her simply because she was always out and not able to actually do the homeschooling properly. But the others could only say good things about it. In fact one of them said, had she seriously explored homeschooling much earlier, she would have done it for her children while they were much younger. One of her kids now is on a scholarship abroad and the next one is soon to follow.

     So I have just started exploring different homeschool providers. I have done in-depth research on about four. I attended the orientation of one yesterday and after doing my research, it’s pretty clear to me that I am inclined to get the same provider I got for Anya in first grade.

     So Paul and I gathered all 8 kids this morning to talk to them about our plan to homeschool. Anya and Santi were very open right away and were even excited. The others were still a bit uncertain. I think also because they probably don’t fully understand what it entails yet. So maybe I will need to do some video showing for the younger ones so they can see how it really works.

     Anyway, so I continue my research and getting as much information as possible. I will most probably blog about the progress of my homeschooling plan as time goes by. So stay tuned! The adventures of homeschooling is just beginning!