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! 

Read more

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.


Read more
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)
© The Cuddle Blog • Theme by Maira G. Studio