The Cuddle Blog is a Mummy lifestyle Blog where I share my experiences trying to bring beauty out of the chaos and my journey learning to balance all my responsibilities with motherhood. I want to connect with you because, we mums need all the support we can get. Please, say Hi!

Introducing: The Homeschooling Conversations

August 6, 2019
The Homeschooling Conversations event was birthed to bridge the existing knowledge gap and create awareness in the areas of homeschooling and other effective alternatives to the traditional
mode of education.

When I first started to homeschool my son, as a naive mum who has no early years  educational background I had to do alot of research, talk to a number of people who were doing what I wanted to do, before I got on the right track. If I had an event like this in the early days of my homeschooling it would have been a time saver. 

This is why we the people at The Cuddle Blog decided to put this event together!



Our speaker

Chinyere Ogunbi

Mrs. Chinyere Ogunbi is an honors graduate of pharmacy from the University of Jos Pharmacy school (Graduated in 1996). She has had a career spanning over 18 years which includes pharmacy, banking, brand marketing and consulting in the education space.  Mrs. Ogunbi is happily married with 5 children whom she homeschooled in their early years. She currently has a Master of Education Leadership in view from the prestigious Roehampton University in the United Kingdom. Mrs. Ogunbi is a sports enthusiast who loves to read and loves singing. She also loves to teach and is a marriage counselor and catechism teacher. 
I decided to invite Mrs Ogunbi because she successful homeschooled her 5 children in this country and we can all acknowledge that is no small feat and the work she did with her children was enough criteria to earn her a master's admission in the UK isn't that amazing? She will be talking to us about her journey through homeschooling and the process of beginning the journey.

Seun Akinbola

Sheun is an early childhood educator and has worked with children for many years. An advocate of play guiding caregivers (schools, teachers, parents, nannies, etc) on ways to help children in their care learn through play because PLAY IS THE WORK OF A CHILD.
 She is a stay at home mum of two, currently homeschooling her 16month old son and enjoys being her 4year old’s first teacher. She is a lover of Montessori and full of creative ideas to keep the little ones busy with an energy to match it.

Oluwatomi Nweke

With a first degree in Biochemistry and a second degree in International Oil and Gas Management, the last thing Tomi expected was to develop a deep seated passion for educating young minds. Tomi was a teacher at a highbrow school in Ikoyi, Lagos for 4 years where she gained invaluable experience. After having her first child, she quickly decided to homeschool her children and did that for 4 years. She is a firm believer of learning through play and believes that there is much more to education than numbers and letters. She has managed to teach her children with countless materials easily found within our environment. She is the mummy in charge of The Tree House Play House, a play club dedicated to providing a fun, engaging environment for children aged 5 and under.




We decided to bring these amazing women on the panel to discuss the challenges of homeschooling most especially because they have experience teaching in traditional schools and have also homeschooled their children. 


If you've been curious about homeschooling or desiring to homeschool this event is for you.

The event is taking place:
14th September, 2019
10 a.m
On the Island (Details of the location would be sent to registered guests)

 We have limited slots available and we can't wait to see you.
Please register via this link

We are also looking for sponsors, we are calling on individuals and brands who want to help us to bring this event to reality. We would appreciate it. We have a proposal ready to send to you, please contact us at thecuddleblog@gmail.com or call +2347035362699


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Week 9: Personal Health || 52 weeks of theme-based toddler homeschooling activities

July 15, 2019
Hello People! This is week 9 of our 52-week theme-based activities 

Here was our plan over the week;

  • Numeracy:
  • Science: Plant a bean seed
  • Craft: Make a smile (paper plate)
  • Fine motor skills: Pom poms in a bottle, Brushing teeth
  • Gross motor skills: Play, Jump, run, ride bike
  • Cooking:
  • Books to read: Time for a bath, Germs are not for sharing,
  • Trip: Pool
  • Screen:
  • Music:
  • Bible:

What happened:

This week was supposed to highlight the importance of personal hygiene, washing hands, brushing teeth, bathing. I let him brush his teeth himself, bath himself, comb, dress himself (as far as he could) while singing "this is the way we..." and since then he's been wanting to do himself but there's so much we can allow him.

Showed him how to wash his hands;

Set up:

  • A Bowl 
  • A Towel
  • Hand Soap



Washing Hands


He had to clean up after the mess
 Science: Planting Beans


The book we use for science

What you need


Direction

  • Put the paper towel in the cup
  • Put the beans in the paper cup and wet the paper towel
  • Watch the seed grow in a couple of days

Days Later

Othe activities we did; 
Pool

Using flash cards - I don't recommend for 3 years and below. I don't use it again.

We climbed, ran, played in the playground

Souvenier


Screen Time

Identifying daily objects
Found him reading a book.
How's your homeschooling week going?






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Week 8: Potty Training || 52 weeks of theme-based toddler homeschooling activities

July 8, 2019
Hello People! This is week 8 of our 52-week theme-based activities 

This week we were supposed to start the process of potty training and I kid you not by the end of the week we were already done.

What we majorly did was play videos for him in preparation and I will share the videos we used below:







Our plan that didn't work was:

  • Talk about it
  • Watch Videos 
  • No diaper - bare bum 
Let's just say it took cleaning up poo a couple of times for us to say we were done and decided to try in a couple of months. 

What was your experience potty training? 
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Week 5: Transportation || 52 weeks of theme-based toddler homeschooling activities

July 1, 2019
Hello People! This is week 5 of our 52-week theme-based activities 

Here was our plan over the week;

  • Numeracy: Count toy cars
  • Science: Rolling down the ramp
  • Craft: Painting with tyre tracks, making an aeroplane with craft sticks, traffic light
  • Fine motor skills: Cutting patterns
  • Gross motor skills: Fly around like an aeroplane
  • Cooking: Apple boat
  • Books to read: My big book on transportation
  • Trip: Traffic light
  • Screen:
  • Music: Wheels on the bus, red light, green light.
  • Bible: Jesus rode on a donkey

What happened: 
This was probably my son's best week. From observing my son I knew that he loves cars, wheels and I was also excited for this week because I just wanted to see how he was going to respond to something he was interested in and I was amazed!

Let's see what we actually did, shall we?

Setup for Day 1
 As always, our routine stands we added "Wheels on the bus" to our circle time.

We counted his toy cars.

Craft: Painting with Tyre tracks.

Materials needed

  • A car
  • Paint
  • Paper Plate/Cardboard 
Directions 
  • Put your paint on a flat surface or paint the tyres of the car with a brush 
  • Give the car to your child and let them create a masterpiece

Traffic Light: 

Materials needed;
  • One Craft Stick 
  • Glue 
  • 1 Paper Plate
  • Coloured Pen/Pencil & Paint 
Directions 
  • Draw the 3 circles to depict the traffic lights 
  • Paint red, yellow, green
  • Glue the craft stick to the back of the paper plate 
  • Talk to your child about their creation. 
This activity can be used to introduce the significance of each colour in relation to transportation, can be used to colour introduction & identification. Your child is expressing themselves creatively and learning in the process.





We flew around the house like an aeroplane.

Book: We read my big book on transportation to identify all the modes of transportation. Car, Taxi, Cart, Boat, Aeroplane and he was absolutely mesmerized by it. He just kept opening and identifying it all. His Favourite is "Twuk" I had to collect the book from him as he tore some part of the book. 




We pointed at all the traffic lights as we drove past. 
Bible: We read the story of Jesus riding on a donkey - He didn't even sit to listen.
Other activities we did: 

Invitation to play
Pom Poms in a bottle

Using a tong to transfer

We reused out traffic light paper plate. Using a spoon.



Nature and Identification of what we saw in the book




Soap Water


Expression

It was so much fun to see him have so much fun. I was absolutely amazed as to how he was very interested in the activities. I learnt a lot from the fact that I have to follow his interest to have the maximum effects.

How did your homeschooling week go?


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Why I decided to homeschool || Homeschooling in Nigeria

June 28, 2019
I never heard of homeschooling until I had my child. I only knew we did home after-school lessons nothing more but in looking for activities for my son I was opened up to the world of homeschooling but I didn’t explore it. All I saw was that it was a whole lot of work and I wasn’t even qualified to teach. So, I put in the back burner. 

Fast forward to when my son became 18 months and we were ready to find a school for him. I had checked and seen questions to ask, what to look out for and asked for recommendations from friends and I was ready! 

I visited the first school and the next and the next and the next and here are the reasons why I decided to homeschool;

  1. Quality of the schools I found: I wasn’t very excited about the schools I found. It was either too dark and gloomy or I was worried about the number of children in a classroom, hygiene, curriculum, security. I just wasn’t satisfied. When I eventually found one school I loved, it was pricey and other recommended schools are too far - I don’t believe in waking up a child at 5am to go to school. 
  2. Cost vs value: My son was 18 months at the time and school (the one I liked) for that age runs from 8 - 1pm and my son is on a routine where he takes his afternoon nap between 11 - 1pm and I decided to weigh the options. Considering the cost of the school, which was very high, being that he would only be awake for about 4 hours, didn’t make sense to me. 
  3. He couldn’t talk: At this point, I dragged my husband who wasn’t so excited to see some of the schools but after our search, he said he wasn’t very excited about him going to school yet because he couldn’t talk very well. With the increasing rate of different issues on child abuse (In different forms) one can’t be too careful. He mentioned that when you put him in a school and anything happens to him, he won’t be able to say what happened. 

With all of these, I really started to think about my son’s education. 

  • If he was going to go to school, what will they be teaching him? 
  • If I am going to keep him at home until he can fully express himself, what should he know to prepare him for that time? 
  • Are they even going about education the right way in Nigeria?

I started my research and little by little got immersed into the world of homeschooling, discovering that it is actually something that is beginning to take off in Nigeria as more parents are deciding to take on the responsibility of home educating their children which is an amazing thing. 


In the course of my research I have been forced to think about my own journey with education  and how I don’t want that with my son. In my our day and age, your worth was tied to your report card, your level of intelligence was tied to how many As you had and growing up you discover that it not how life works and this seemingly little thing has formed how you see yourself as an individual. 

This journey has helped me to see that I don’t have to ‘mindlessly’ do something because it is the natural next steps to do it but go deeper into asking “why” and knowing if it is the best decision to make for your child. Example, it was the natural next thing to send him to school but exploring homeschooling helped me to think about my educational philosophy and now while I may not know all what I want for him, I know exactly what I don’t want for him.

This short journey has led me to meet so many amazing people e.g Damilola & The ALC family (KeyAcademy ), Sheuntunde who have made a difference in my journey. 
It has opened up my world to learn more about education, our educational philosophy, my son’s approach to learning and deciding to document my journey to also help more parents who want to do the same. I may not have initially set out to homeschool my son but I am glad the journey had led me here! 

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Week 4: Around the world || 52 weeks of theme-based toddler homeschooling activities

June 14, 2019
Hello People! This is week 4 of our 52-week theme-based activities 

Here was our plan over the week;

  • Numeracy: List and count the continents in the world
  • Science:
  • Craft: Passport & Suitcase, World
  • Fine motor skills: Make a passport, where I live
  • Gross motor skills: Playground
  • Cooking:
  • Books to read: How to make an apple pie and see the world
  • Trip:
  • Screen: Continent Video
  • Music: Continent Song, He's got the whole world in his hands
  • Bible: Tower of Babel

What really happened: 
We follow our routine for the most part and this week wasn't any different.  We begin our homeschool time with circle time, we included "He's got the whole world in his hands" sing-along time.

I wasn't particularly excited about this week because I know that one will not be able to exactly explain the world to a toddler but I knew that it is important to still introduce it all to him and that is what we did!

We listed and counted the 7 continents in the world.
- Africa
- Europe
- Asia
- North America
- South America
- Australia
- Antarctica

When he is older the plan will be to create an activity that depicts a culture or anything from each of the continents.
We counted and named them! He didn't repeat after me. Lol.

Crafts! The world and me - The idea of this activity is a pictorial representation of where they are in relation to their world.
Materials
  • Blue/green cardboard
  • Paint
  • Scissors
  • Pen to label each circle
  • Stapler/Glue
Direction

  • Draw 6 cirles on a cardboard - The next circle smaller than the last one (as pictured)
  • Paint each circle to represent World - Continent - Country - State -Local Government - Home
  • Use a stapler or glue to hold it together
  • Talk about the world, continent, country, state, local government and where your home is.


My son decided to paint his truck. Expression. 

Different captions



 Book we 'read' as you know I still read books from Youtube, I've still not found a convenient way to get books that I want, till then I will do it like this till we do. The book was an interesting one, helps you see different countries and what is peculiar to each country to all form the ingredients of an apple pie. Such an adventure.

Screen time: I played him the song of the continent, find below (I didn't find the exact one we used as someone gave me) :

Bible Story/Story: We read the tower of babel showing that there are different languages all around the world.

Other things we were up to: We practices our fine motor skills with foam and water, threading (which he refused to do btw), leaves from our nature walk and some good old water play.





You see that some weeks with our best planning intentions we never really get to do so much. I hope this has been helpful.


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