Simple guide to home schooling
Showing posts with label Simple guide to home schooling. Show all posts

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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Week 2: Me & My Home|| 52 weeks of theme-based toddler homeschooling activities

April 10, 2019


Hello People! This is week 2 of our 52-week theme-based activities 

Here was our plan over the week;

  • Numeracy: Count how many rooms, stairs, count everything countable in the home
  • Science: Where do I do what?
  • Craft: House with figures of everyone who lives in it.
  • Fine motor skills:
  • Gross motor skills: Playground, run, jump
  • Cooking:
  • Books to read: In a people house
  • Trip: Explore our neighbourhood, Talk about how to get 'home'
  • Screen:
  • Music:
  • Bible:

What really happened;

This week was a difficult one for me because I was really really exhausted and busy trying to deliver a job to a client but I took some time to go through what we planned. We did our circle time throughout the week and I was just trying to make it to the next day with all the tantrums I was dealing with. 

Our routine is very simple like I have shared in a previous post, after circle time we went ahead to look into all the rooms we have, counted it and talked about what we do in each room. 

e.g
Sitting room 
Guest room
Toilet etc. 

We counted the rooms(numeracy). We did this a couple of times during the week. Note that I don't quiz him to know if he 'got' it or not because that is not the goal. We just continue using the terms we have introduced which will already be in our daily conversations. (Vocabulary Building)

We 'read' in a people house and I loved it, it shows different things that are in the house and I just intentionally mentioned it, chair, window, table, tv, fan etc. are all the things you find in your house. Something along those lines.


As always we explored our neighbourhood, talked about our house. 
Holding a almond fruit

Activities we did - 

House with figures of everyone living in it - Which we also used for the next week theme "My Family" 


What you need
* Cardboard
* Scissors 
* Glue 
* Pencil or marker or pen
* Paint & brush (optional but fun)

Directions

* Cut out a rectangle 
* Fold the top into 2 to make a 'roof' (Triangle) - See Picture
* Use scissors to cut a line below the triangle fold but don't cut it all the way through, you are trying to form a door. - see picture 
* On another cardboard draw out the people in your home in stick figures or if you are an artist go all out. (if your kids are older they can do the drawing themselves. 
* Cut out the drawing
* Glue the drawing to the 'house' inside the 'door' 
* You can go ahead to paint it - we used foam for ours.







My 2-year-old could only put the glue behind the family and use the foam to paint. We now went ahead to talk about daddy, mummy and him! You can talk about names here, occupation, age and random facts about each person in the family. The age and interest of the child matters as to what information they will get. 






We went to ALC for our weekly mother and son class and the highlight for us was the sensory play

What you need
*Ice 
*Paint
*Shaving foam 

Directions
* Put the shaving foam and paint on the ice and watch it melt. 
Simple. 
You can use different colours, on different ice cubes and watch it melt. It forms beautiful patterns. That is the exciting part. 
That's pretty much what we were up to. 
Next Theme: My Family

What are you going to try out?




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52 Weeks of theme based toddler homeschooling activities || Homeschooling In Nigeria

March 19, 2019



When I started homeschooling, I was looking for a curriculum to follow and most of the ones I found were all about teaching numbers, colours and as time went on and my education philosophy started to evolve, I decided that I was going to do weekly theme-based activities.

The beauty of this theme based activities is they get to learn about all of these things but I do it without the pressure of “You must know it”. I would be sharing my weekly activities and what my 2-year-old and I get up to every week to inspire you and I really hope it does.

Some people follow the school year calendar (because it is a requirement in their country) but since my son is still 2 and I don’t plan on taking him to a school till about 4 I started from when he turned 2.

Week 1: All about me
Week 3 My Family
Week 6: Easter
Week 7: Holiday With Grandma
Week 8: Potty Training
Week 10: Colours & Rainbows
Week 11: Flowers
Week 13: Animal Habitats
Week 14: Zoo
Week 15: Ocean & Beach
Week 16: Gardening
Week 17: 5 Senses
Week 18: Feelings
Week 19: Break
Week 20: Break
Week 21: Hot & Cold
Week 22: Weather
Week 23: Rainy
Week 24: Hot
Week 25: Harmattan
Week 26: Snowy
Week 27: Cats & Dogs
Week 28: Bees & Butterfly
Week 29: Birds
Week 30: Independence/Nigeria
Week 31: Igbo
Week 32: Yoruba
Week 33: Hausa
Week 34: Trees
Week 35: Bears
Week 36: Community Helpers
Week 37: Doctors & Dentists
Week 38: Fire Fighters & Chef
Week 39: Police & Teacher
Week 40: Mechanic & Architect
Week 41: Cleaners
Week 42: Christmas & New Year
Week 43: Fruits
Week 44: Apple & Strawberry
Week 45: Grapes & Orange
Week 46: Banana & Mango
Week 47: Languages
Week 48: French
Week 49: Valentine/Spanish
Week 50: Shapes - Circle
Week 51: Square
Week 52: Triangle


How did I pick out the themes?
There was no science to how I picked out the theme, I checked online based on what people currently do, shuffled things around based on time of the year and the people I have access to.

How will I know what activities to do under each theme?
This is the format I use to plan ahead.
  • Numeracy:
  • Science:
  • Craft:
  • Fine motor skills:
  • Gross motor skills:
  • Cooking:
  • Books to read:
  • Trip:
  • Screen:
  • Music:
  • Bible:
Are the activities done daily?
No, we only focus on 3 times a week. The other days are to explore nature freely, free play and frankly plenty tv. If I had a sandbox already, I will add that to the other days.

I would share by Wednesday our “All about me” activities we were up to last week. Just to note that my son is 2 and most of our activities are on the basic level we do a lot of conversation about these things more than actually doing anything and based on the age of your child, you can tweak the activities to fit their level.

What do you do for homeschooling with your toddler?
Follow me on Instagram @thecuddleblog to see our homeschooling journey

If you'd like to have all in one place you can purchase here: 40 weeks weekly theme
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My evolving educational philosophy: Why I am homeschooling || Homeschooling In Nigeria

March 12, 2019


I never saw myself as someone who would homeschool my child. Looking back I would say I found myself on this path mostly because I like to challenge the status quo. I listened to a TED talk many years ago about a man who started asking questions till they changed the way they worked in their organization which led to them asking more questions and they decided to rethink the way education is done today but at the time I didn’t think too much of it, little did I know that a seed was sown.

When my son turned 1, it was the natural order of things to having the ‘school’ conversation and I had already started school shopping. I went to different schools in the area to plan for him when he is 18 months to start. I only saw one Montessori school that I really liked but when I got the bill I just couldn’t understand. I just kept wondering what is he going to school from 8-12 (Which included nap time) to learn for almost half a million naira per term? We had been doing activities at home since he was a baby and my first thought was, I can do this till he is about 5, this led me into the journey of research on homeschooling.

I quickly began to feel insecure and inadequate because almost every mom I saw online sharing on their homeschooling journey had an early years education background. I didn’t have any knowledge and here I was thinking I could take on this huge responsibility of educating my child at home. I decided to continue my school search but I didn’t give up on my homeschooling research, one of the things I felt was working against me was my country. In Nigeria, there is little public information about homeschooling in this country, the approach to take, how to start, what needs to be in place and I relied mostly on bloggers and youtube channel of people who lived abroad and of course everyone wants to sell you something so it was back to the drawing board.

I am the kind of person who loves structure, I love to know what I need to do so I can arrange it neatly in my head before I execute it, so when I found someone on youtube who detailed how she was going to use Abeka curriculum to homeschool her preschool daughter, you could’ve imagined my joy! This was the beginning of me forming my philosophy on education. I took screenshots (She shared some part of the lesson plans on her youtube), wrote down everything I saw her doing and after that, I incorporated “Circle time” into our daily routine.

Based on the article (A simple guide to homeschooling) that was posted on this blog from an early years educator I formed a ‘curriculum’ but I noticed something, my son - it felt too much for him, I know he was over 18 months at the time but I knew he couldn’t handle it (you know how it feels when they give your child a lot of homework and you have to call the teacher? That’s how I felt). He had his style of learning that was not the conventional sit-and-listen like I expected, while he surprised me by what he could repeat back to me, it didn’t feel right. I have always had the ideology that children will naturally learn to do things at their developmental pace as against forcing them to learn when they are not ready, it might be successful but you had to go through a frustrating process to get the results e.g sleep training, potty training etc.

My son knows the alphabets, numbers, colours all from watching it on youtube because it was always on repeat and he watched every day. I realised that if I kept repeating it, he will know it but will he really learn it? Will he have a love for learning? These are some of the questions I had that I didn’t have answers to. I needed to still cure my insecurities about not sending my child to a traditional school, so I found Popp Lagos and Alternative learning centre. I missed my appointment for Popp but I went in for a free session at the alternative learning centre and I was sold! I still had the strong desire to homeschool my son but by now, I was too sure he wasn’t going to a traditional school till I got a hang of this education thing.

I cured my guilt by enrolling into alternative learning centre once a week and was stuck up in looking for the best curriculum to fit my child’s needs or even find out what he needed at this stage and I always came up short and I kept sinking in a hole of activities and supposedly free resources that ended up useless.

2 events have been a pivotal part of where I am now in learning about homeschooling. Because I am a very structured person I really wanted to get a hold of exactly what I needed from an ‘authority’ so to speak like a “Tell me what to do exactly” but I just came back with much more confusing information which led me to talk to Damilola, one of the founders of the learning centre. She cured me of my guilt of thinking that I was going to damage my child for life by not taking him to school and showed me that I was actually on the right path, she made me see learning for my son in a different light. While I could have activities, schedule and routine but all I needed to do was involve him in our everyday life, the things I do mindlessly e.g climbing the stair are learning opportunities for him all I needed to do was speak to him about it and involve him. I started researching in that direction.  

I listened to that TED talk again and other speaking engagements Ricardo Semlar had made and I knew I had to build a play-based foundation of learning for my son. I have seen online in various forms how ‘play-based’ is like making academic work fun to some people but in my research, I have seen that it is not supposed to be about learning academic work in a fun way but actually learning through the play (as simple as that)

I found a blog that encouraged people who want to homeschool to first understand their educational philosophy as it plays a very important role in you defining how to educate your child. Which also led me to ask myself what I think about education and what it means for my children. I looked back at my life and see how red marks on my report card defined if I was intelligent or not, I see how it affected myself-esteem which in turn didn’t even make me want to make the effort in school but I don’t want that for my son, so I had to let go of the type of play-based learning that was about academics and trust the process of what play-based learning is really about. I am not an education expert nor have a degree in early years education, I have gained knowledge by painstaking research, asking questions and feeling inadequate and I know there are people who are out there who might not be able to do what I do but also have the desire to homeschool their children. I have something in the works that will cater to those people and I really cannot wait to share.
My education philosophy is evolving but I do know what I do not want for my children and it’s the traditional education system what I do want is not set in stone yet but roughly here it is “I want to raise a curious, lifelong learner who is willing to express himself without inhibition” I know that it will still evolve as I gain more knowledge but till then, I am trusting the process.

What is your educational philosophy?   
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