Just a little more than a year ago, my daughter and I started our homeschooling journey. I mean we've been learning about a lot while at home way back whem she started saying her first words, or maybe even before that, but a little over a year ago, we started taking it seriously. And by we, I meant me. I did all the stuff, I googled learning aids, looked for benchmarks by which I would base her progress, searched for modules online, subscribed to emails that send daily/weekly activities, bookmarked websites that would guide me how to teach my daughter at home. I have always wanted to homeschool her. And I wanted our homeschooling journey to succeed so that I could convince my husband and everyone around us that looks at me crazy when they learn that I am homeschooling my kid.
Before the pandemic, everyone around us thougjt that it was impossible to homeschool a child. Now that they've experienced it firsthand, some of them are still not convinced and thinks that classroom setting is the best form of education. I think they're just being stubborn, but nevertheless, they still got to see the benefits of homeschooling. At least before everything goes back to the way it was.
Throughout our first year of serious homeschooling, I was surprised at how much we have learned. One of the first challenges which is actually the first lessons: reading and writing. And prett myuch I had no idea how to start. We have a goal back then but the path to achieving that goal looked confusing and overwhelming.
I was stressing myself out with the targets. I wanted our homeschooling journey to be perfect. I wanted our homeschooling journey to be fruitful. It wasn't perfect, but it was very productive.
Soon, she learned how to write. But not through the meticulous process I had in mind. I learned that writing, for kids, comes natural while the bones in their hands are fully forming. And that instead of forcing her to hold the pencil, trace letters in an organized and orderly manner, I should just let her go crazy with the markers, crayons and water colors. I understood that even though we are taking this thibg seriously, I should not take away the fun of it. As a matter of fact, fun should be the center of it all.
Here we are now, more than a year after, she already knows how to write the alphabet and so much more. It's her Tatay's birthday so one of our activities yesterday was birthday card making. I am surprised at how she was able to write the entire card by herself. Of course she needed some help with a few spelling but all in all, I am impressed.
It was supposed to be a surprise but since she can't lie, there goes our surprise. One of the values we taught her is honesty and so as soon as she saw her father, she immediately told him about the surprise. Even so, we still got the reaction we wanted to see from her father. And I am very much happy that she is applying all the lessons we are teaching her.
Right now, she's on a roll. She made another card for her aunt which is fine because it's my sister's birthday too. But she also made another card for me, her grandma, and her cousin. I guess I have a stack of birthday cards we can hand over four their birthdays this year. Lol. As a bonus, I am a witness to the evolution of her drawing skills. I asked her if she wanted to draw her tatay on the card, she did one better, she drew the three of us.
For the entire year, our homeschooling journey has been full of lessons not only for her but for me as well. We started out clueless, we had a lot of bumps on the road, but we found our groove and now, we are moving forward with more exciting lessons.
@romeskie is a full-time stay at home mom juggling homeschooling, crocheting, and homemaking. A Business Administration graduate with a major in Marketing who ended up in the contact center industry, on the frontlines, climbing her way up to Workforce Management where she found her passion in real-time analysis and management. A once self-proclaimed careerwoman who soon realized homemaking was her real calling. Her passion varies from reading, writing, photography, and most of all, crocheting.
Connect with her through her Facebook Page: The Leftie Crocheter and on Instagram. Feel free to subscribe to her Youtube Channel: The Leftie Crocheter
