When is it truly enough?

I am writing this more of a reminder for myself than anything else. In Singapore, there is a very famous singlish term - Kia Su which is loosely translated as "scared to lose out". Hence, there is quite a bit of pressure as a parent to want to expose your child to as many things as possible lest, they "lose out".

When I first started homeschooling, it was because I did not really believe that the child can only get that sort of exposure from school and I firmly stand by that. Because I believe that no one would know the child better than the parent (I hope!) and also, if anything, being a FTWM, being able to homeschool my child at night allows me to bond with her too, no matter how little or how much we do. Ultimately, I want to make learning FUN for her, where we are able to look at clouds on a sunny day and hunt for animal faces, laugh over the re-enactment of classic fairy tales and rhymes etc. I also wanted her to develop the habit of inquring, to observe and to deduce. In short, I wanted her to have a positive experience on learning and to carry that positiveness and enthusiasm with her in her life.

And since we are doing so much during the weekdays, I would limit her weekends to play based activities and a sports related activity - swimming. I started with swimming as I wanted Dumpling to have this "survival" skill. Additionally, I thought to start her on it when she is young so she has no water phobia. So far, it seems like she is doing good and most importantly, is enjoying it as she develops her sense of confidence and coordination.

Along the way, she also showed interest in music just like many other children as well as drawing and dancing (ballet in particular). So I signed up for a trial on Saturday morning (since her swimming was in the PM). We did not start the day off on a good foot as I did not prepare her for it (she takes quite long to warm up to strangers) and mainly because she did not have a good sleep the night before. So, during the entire session, she did not go to the front of the class but rather, participate from where she was seated at times, while at other times, she would complain that she was tired.

Unfortunately for us, the school wanted a commitment on the same day if we intended to sign up. This did not work well for us especially when you have a cranky and overly tired child. I contemplated a lot because I was not sure if one session was enough to see if Dumpling enjoyed herself. I also took a step back and thought if it makes sense to send her for 2 classes in one day - would it not be too much? Though they were spread out (since one was in the morning and the other was in the afternoon) I contemplated over this point a lot.

On the one hand, I wanted her to be exposed to more things and have more fun but on the other, I did not want her to be overly tired and stressed out especially since she is all bout 2.5. So I took a moment to gather my thoughts. In the end, I decided to sit it out. She is still going for her weekly swimming sessions which she seems to enjoy loads (proudly declaring to me "teacher sam said I did an excellent job"). However, I still find myself wondering if I am depriving her of anything especially when I see my mates signing their child up for some many other stuff. This is where I will gather my thoughts to return to the basics of why I wanted to homeschool her - to also teach values such as "perserverance", "patience", etc.

When I first started sending her for swimming sessions, I did not intend for this to be yet another "term" activity where we will stop after a few terms. I spoke to her about it and the hubs and I also discussed with her on what will happen at the session etc. After the session, I also took a whole week to speak to her and gather her feedback and thoughts on the class before signing on. This was because I wanted to cultivate the value of "finishing up" on a task / a project which we started instead of just giving up halfway or developing a habit of switching from classes to classes without really trying to settle. I also reminded myself that her weekends are meant for playdates, play based / sports related activities and not to be piled on with too many "enrichment/language" classes, speech and drama, etc.

A few terms into swimming, I am proud to say that she was strong enough to kick herself out of the water and surfaced to take in a breath of air and her water confidence has increased tremendously. I still find myself wondering at times if I am doing enough for her and if we are doing the right thing by homeschooling. But then there will be moments such as the silly fun we had together playing "Sim Sam" says (similar to Simon) or making a mock school bus out of an old cardbox and getting just about everyone, including the family dogs, involved.

Here, Dumpling is creating windows...

Creating wheels and decorating her bus :) Great way to reinforce shapes and numbers

Peekaboo!

The family dog as one of her passengers. :)

Lapbooking

In Singapore, I guess homeschooling is not entirely popular / common hence resources are not as wide and as comprehensive I wish it were. Some of my mummy friends have reached out to me in various stages of their parenting journey on how and how to start homeschooling, what can they do, how much to do, how often, etc.?

For Dumpling's homeschooling journey, we started with books and extending it to crafts when she was very young. It was mainly activities more for motor skills development and also as a FTWM, it gives me an avenue to bond with her through homeschooling. As she got older, we found lapbooking to be fun and yet a great method to "keep" all the resources properly - in a file.

Lapbooking may not be very heard off here in Singapore as yet but has far been a popular choice of homeschoolers in countries such as the US. Here's the lo down on lapbooking.

What is lapbooking?

As shared in Lapbooking 101, a lapbook is an inexpensive portfolio or collection of mini-books, flaps, and folded display material, that provides interactive space for drawings, stories, graphs, graphics, timelines, diagrams, and written work, from any topic, unit study, book you choose, gathered, glued, and creatively displayed in a coloured standard sized cardboard folder, often folded in a “shutter-fold” (though our family doesn’t), that fits in your lap.

What does it consist of?

It is a project book or folder, laid out in a creative manner, with many smaller elements such as "mini books", pockets, sleeves, etc. that are being pasted into a file folder and can then fit in the child’s lap, hence the name.

What does it do?

I do not know about other homeschooling mummies but personally, for me, lapbooking is a good way for me to organise and keep/preserve the resources as everything is being pasted / attached to the folder.

For me, in each of my lapbooking session, I would extend it out to cover perhaps writing readiness exercises or counting or even some bits on science activities. So with such a "format", it almost "trains" / "directs" me to research for materials / free printables systematically.

Where and how do I start?

I find working around a theme (e.g. a particular animal) / book easiest. Here's a link to a video to see how the various elements would look in an insects lapbook. The idea is you call the shots - if you want to add on more literature arts bit / math readiness and you plan out accordingly.

And if you are looking for some quick printables to start off, here's a good site to go to.

Wow, you are doing a lot...

I get that statement a lot where mummy friends would say that to me constantly. It usually would follow on with that they wish that they are doing more with their kids after seeing some of the facebook updates I have.

I just wanted to say that I seem to be doing loads because these would be some of the things your child would learn from their preschools. Just that in this case, the teacher is a separate being from the parent so as a parent, you do not need to do so much. For my case, I am both the parent and from 7.45 / 8pm, I am the teacher. I guess most of you who comment on that only see my role as a mum and not a teacher and hence there is the comparison.

Since Dumpling is being sent to a daily pure mandarin playgroup class, if I do not homelearn with her, she would have 0% exposure to English, reading, math concepts, etc. Hence we do what we do at home. I guess the point of this post is, there is no need to compare / feel guilty about the "lack" of activities. Added to the fact that Dumpling depends on me for the exposure, it also is to do with individual personalities. As you probably can tell, I have an immense interest in Early Childhood Education and so, it is "easier" for me to continue on with the homeschooling path. Added to the fact that Dumpling has a strong sense of inquisitiveness, I guess we keep each other on our toes with our homeschooling. :)

It is perfectly alright to start with reading / pockets of activities. With children this young, I find that reading a book and then extending it to craft / a physical activity helps a lot to break the monotony. Also, when you first start, it would be unrealistic to think you can get your child to sit down for a full hour! So, start small with pockets of activities.

Where and how do you start? Here's some resources:

Lapbooking resources:

1) 1+1+1=1

2) Homeschool share

If you are reading books from the BFIAR list, she has a whole list of resources which you can print absolutely free of charge from the site

3) Lapbook Lessons

This site has great bibilical themes too

Some great homelearning websites for cool and fun ideas:

1) Confessions of a Homeschooler

this is one of my absolutely favourite sites with great ideas and links

2) A to Z teacher stuff

3) PBS

fun online games and interactive stuff though some stuff are limited to only in the US

4) My Playschool

this is jointly developed by Pauline and Rachel, 2 very unselfish and encouraging ladies whom I reach out to constantly for ideas, resources and advice. They even have homeschooling exercises on Chinese!

For crafts:

1) AHC Arts & Crafts

this is a superb site if you are doing thematic stuff as their crafts ideas can be filtered via themes, alphabetical order, etc. So, if you were for e.g. reading "The Gruffalo", you can extend this to include the various animals mentioned in the book mainly: fox, owl and snake. So you can search under themes->amphibians-> snake.

2) First School Preschool Activities

3) DLTK Kids

Even for kids as young as 1, you can start letting them play around with paints through craft. The idea is to start small and do small pockets of activities.

Even when your child is very young, they are still able to just play with finger paint. Dumpling started doing craft word when she was about 8+ months old. I realise that helped her in being less fussy about her fingers being dirty and she is more adventurous when it comes to tactile play.

These are some old pictures of Dumpling when she just turned 1.

Me guiding her to dab the various colours onto the paper plate

Thereafter, she did it on her own

The finished product. You can download the template here.

The Ocean, the ocean

I've always loved writing, not so much for work (though I was doing communications and PR work for a telco for almost 4 years and another 3 odd years with an IT company) but just for the joy of it and being able to air out my thoughts and possibly link up with like-minded people to exchange ideas and resources.

I have been toying with the idea for a bit as to how often I am able to sustain the updating of my blog especially when I am a FTWM (full time working mum) and a HS parent. But I will try and see where this lead us. :)

With that, this would be my first official post on homeschooling. :)

I did this theme with the little one quite a while ago and our style has since been improvised along the way but I believed the 2 of us enjoyed this theme a lot and hence, I wanted to share this.

With such a young child, I like the concept of lapbooks as it is thematic. I like that with a theme, it is easy for me to research on materials (easy for googling and for searching for books at the library). I also like that with a bit of creativity and web search, I am able to introduce to Dumpling, the concept of Science and Math.

Signing to whale

Pretend play - fish

Creating our own Ocean scenes from an Evan Moor eBook

Memory card games.

And I placed it all into a lapbook. Some of the books we used for this theme are in the background including a phonics reader from Usborne "Shark in the Park". Ocean is an easy theme and you can get many resources just by googling for it. But you can also locate some printables and craft ideas here and I printed a lot of them here.

What's salt to do with this theme? This is the science bit...

Learning about "sink"...

and "float"!

It seems like a simple exercise but this actually provides the child with good foundation for "Math" as it teaches the child about "differences" and "similarities". With an older child, you can start to encourage the child to think deeper by asking questions such as why things float, the difference between fresh water and sea water, density, etc.

And of course, with most of our homeschooling activities, a field trip!

Enjoy!

An accidental homeschooling mum

This was written in my facebook (FB) notes recently which I thought it would be apt to share:

It has been almost 19 months since Dumpling and I started doing home learning. I am actually an accidental homeschooling mum. I did not start off having any intentions or grand ideas of homeschooling (hey, even I would like to have a life!) and do not consider myself maternal (I had such severe PND that in the initial months I wanted to chug my kid down the chute!) or hardworking at all. The entire thing was and still is a slow progression. We started with signing which really encouraged her to communicate to us, the crafts and then adopting a more "thematic" approach. Then the daily sessions took on a life of its own where with a thematic based approach it was easier for me to source for books and craft materials.

Then slowly we added on more dimensions to our sessions as her attention span became longer and longer where she now can easily sit through more than 90 mins of home learning (with regular water, snacks and toilet breaks of course) and I have to make a hard stop many a time which are unfortunately met with tears as she does not want to stop! Yup, that's right, she wants to continue to paint / read 2 more books or watch another episode of "Cat in the Hat".

When I first started uploading pics on my FB, it was and still is meant as a platform to share. I still hope to do that 'cos I wish that other parents would share with me too - the websites they visit, free printable downloads, good reading resources and of course, good teaching resources. Then I realised that unfortunately some would view the progress / journey as "showing off" and there were also strange experiences with parents who were really uncomfortable chatting to me about our kids and just brush off the conversation by saying "ai ya, am sure your C is able to do much better lah" when we are just chatting generic stuff and not chatting about schooling! Or that I get judged and labelled as being very "competitive" / "KS". I also get a lot of comments such as "oh, we don't really want to push our kids as we want them to enjoy their childhood".

I have always been a driven person with high levels of energy since young (typical type A). I get bored with routines and always need to be challenged. Hence even at this age, I still am looking forward to taking up courses and learning new stuff (hence I became a certified Baby Signing Time instructor last year).

This essentially became half of the reason why the homeschooling worked for us so far - being able to homeschool my child also means that I , too, am able to learn along the way. The other half of the equation is C's interest. And this is where unfortunately, I have to dispel any notions you have of me holding a cane (I do not beat C) or forcing C to "spell" or memorise the multiplication table. Ha ha ha... C's interest is really what drives most of the topics for our homelearning. I get annoyed when people get very judgemental and pass on comments such as why I would force C 'cos she is only 2 and that they do not homelearn with their own kids because they do not want to force them and would like for their kids to have a very enjoyable childhood.

Errrrmmm... What's your definition of an enjoyable childhood then? How did you conclude that a child needs to be forced in homelearning sessions or that it must be direly hard / boring? At least for my case, I can safely conclude that C and I have great time together. May I also ask how was your childhood? Mine was lots of hard work driven mainly by my aunt but I also got to head down to catch grasshoppers, shoot rubber bands at lizards, slide down on a steep slope in a cardboard box and almost all but broke my neck. From the first exercise, I learnt to anticipate how far the grasshopper can leap / hop and prepare a plastic bag large enough to contain it (and of course speed matters here as well). From the second exercise, I learnt to hone my shooting skills (haha!) and I never have a fear of lizards and from the last (which was one of my absolute favourite activities), I learnt how to steer the box (which I can attest to my "grand prix" inspired driving skills now), the angle to to lean in order to gain more speed and who to partner which led to me winning many of such races.

And just how much does C get to explore from homelearning? Well, how many children get to head down to the park / grass slopes to dig out earth worms and go on a snail hunt just to confirm the theory that both do not have feet and are invertebrates. Why a marble is able to roll faster across a smooth surface versus that on a tarmac (inquiry based learning)? We also learnt about how ice is formed and why it melts through coloured ice-cubes painting (magic school bus helped too :p). We homelearn because we have loads of fun at home. It also adds to the entire bonding process and I love it when she is able to tell me / apply theories based on new things we learn and most importantly, I understand her "attempts" to test the theory and we get to share some good laughs over these attempts.

We homelearn because I am able to encourage her interest in learning and this is possible only because we have FUN. I would like to add on for the record that I am not expecting her to be or expecting myself to raise a genius. Whether she gets that snails are invertebrates at the first or fifth attempt is not important. It is the process and journey of digging the soil, finding, experimenting, touching, learning and laughing together that matters to me (she all but "threw" the darn snail at me when she realised that it was a bit slimy). Since the attention is on a "one-on-one" basis, I am also able to match her pace and topics of interest accordingly and thereby encourage her inquisitiveness and interest in learning. So, if I do not judge your parenting style, please do not judge mine as each child is different; I do not appreciate being labelled and I am sure you do not like to be labelled too. Also, bearing in mind that while most kids attend a bilingual playgroup and learn from school, C goes to a pure mandarin playgroup during the day and so if I do not expose her to english and all, she has 0% exposure.

For friends who asked me about a "method" for homelearning, there is no pre-fixed method as I think it still is best to be child led. What I would perhaps recommend is to do it either "literature-based" or "thematic-based" to start off so it is easier from "research" standpoint.

I am sort of mixing literature + inquiry + lapbooking depending on topics. So for e.g. if your child loves reading, then read read read with your child. But you can also look into the extension of just story books to factual based books to increase general knowledge. For e.g. Katy No Pocket can be incorporated with reference books from the library on Kangaroos. You can even extend it to learning more about marsupials and if Koala bears are really bears and why do they sleep so much, etc. The sky is the limit when you homelearn. And I highly recommend craft. Craft helps them to improve their motorskills and also with creativity I think. You can always start small like what C and I did when she was younger - 20 mins per time. Good enough for 1 book and then extending it to painting / tearing and pasting (collage) or just head downstairs for a nature walk (if it is nature theme driven).