Letter of the Week Curriculum - My Attempt at Homeschooling

I would love to be a preschool teacher.  I love kids.  I love teaching them. Then my reality sinks in, I don't have much patience.  At the first sign of a tantrum, I would retreat.  Then, I would return the kids to their parents, and that's about it.  So much for my preschool teaching dream.

Then I had kids of my own.  My teacher instinct kicked in.  I would read stories, sing, dance and play with them.  I wanted them to learn their letters, numbers, shapes and colors from me.  But I wanted more.  I wanted to bond with them so they could associate me and Ramir to happy, positive learning experiences.

I attempted homeschooling with R.  But a first time mom wasn't really sure what to do.  I wasn't able to find a good source of information about homeschooling.  So I entrusted her to a school at the age of 3.  I would follow her school's curriculum and re-enforce lessons at home.

My second daughter S is now 3.  And although she goes to school two times a week, I'm more inclined to supplement her education with a homeschool curriculum that would interest her.  I feel that if I piqued her interest, I'll engage her more and lessons would be stickier.  But I don't want to be her teacher.  I wanted to be her playmate. I believe that kids learn more when they're enjoying. So I think, if I give purposeful activities in guise of play, they'll likely to absorb better.

I browsed the net.  And found two very good and useful sites - http://www.letteroftheweek.com and
 http://www.abcjesuslovesme.com.  I made them my default resource.

My top priority is reading. I wanted to be S's first reading teacher.  I learned from R's experience that reading isn't just about memorizing letters, it's also about committing to memory each letter's sound - phonetics.  So with this in mind, I injected activities that would enhance her reading skills.  I also would like to teach values and bible lessons. Since S loves music, I made sure that this is a part of our curriculum.  Mathematics and a little Geography would also be taught.  I also find it necessary to improve her motor skills. And the medium of "instruction" should be bilingual. But everything is freewheeling. S would dictate her pace, she's also expected to direct me as to how she wants to do each activity.

Honestly, I feel that a traditional school scenario isn't quite attractive to a three year old. So I set-up a school of my own.  Only, I have S as my only student, our whole house as our area and everyone in our household, especially R, as my assistants.

I also came up with our own lesson plan. I decided that we would do a letter theme per week. Since it's our first week, we had the Letter A to start with. All "lessons" on the subject areas we identified above started with, you guessed it right, Letter A.

Let me share with you our lesson plan for LETTER A.

So far, I'm very happy with the results. I hope to post our lesson plans as we go along. As a working mom, my time with my family is very, very important.  I would want to spend it with them, the best way I know how.  I hope they'll cherish every minute as much as I do.

Teaching Tips and Tricks:
1.  The following materials are useful to us... papers, index cards, pens, coloring materials, scissors, glue, strings, popsicle sticks, double sided tape.
2.  The web has tons of free materials. Research on Google images.
3.  You may use Youtube videos to teach songs.
4.  Try not to spend much on materials.  You may utilize whatever it is that can be found in your home.
5. Let your child do all the activities.
6. Try to "test" the lessons even outside the home.  This may be a nice Q&A game any time, any day.
7. Play. Have fun.
8. Be creative. Explore. Vary your activities.
9. There's no right or wrong way. Be flexible. Adjust according to your child's competency.
10. Seize opportunities to discuss related topics. Example, APO Hiking Society has several songs, instead of introducing just one happy song, you may listen to other songs with similar tempo.  You might be learning the lyrics of The Ants Go Marching, but you may also discuss in passing how ants prepare for rainy days.
11. Let kids ask questions.  And please, answer them.
12. Prepare in advance.  Have all your materials ready before you start.  This way, activities will play out smoothly.