by The Happy WAHM
Me, oh my! It’s the end of the month and I only had one post for October. Not due to lack of interest, I assure you. Just the lack of time to sit down and write. So many things happened this month. My eldest daughter turned 12. Just one more year and I’ll have a teener! And then our school, not the Aberásturi Home Academy, but rather the St. Jude Science and Technological School, celebrated it’s 2nd Founding Anniversary. I danced, oh yes, I did! One folk number and a ballroom number. So I had to put in rehearsal hours on top of my already full daily calendar. My 12-year old, who attends SJSTS had a dance number, too, and Bea made a guest appearance, performed a piano duet with Ate Xia. And then I was given the opportunity to attend the 11th Educators’ Conference, where among the topics discussed were the Department of Education’s Program and Policies on the K-12 Curriculum, Dealing with Difficult Parents, Preparation of Instructional Materials and the 21st Century Learning Environment.
My favorite, of course, was the topic covered by Ms. Shirley Equipado, Preparation of Instructional Materials. Well, I only attended the second day, so I missed the K-12 Curriculum. It would have been fun to learn how to deal with difficult parents. I know I was, when my eldest child was still attending a traditional school. But hey, I’ll have you know that my being difficult was justified. Those years spent with that school were the most stressful for me as a parent involved in her child’s education. Solution: homeschool.
Soon, Jude will be starting first grade, and he’s going to be my biggest challenge in my homeschooling journey. Coming across Ms. Equipado’s presentation was heaven-sent. Just last week, Bea and I decided that we’re going to make bag puppets to show different feelings. Seeing Ms. Shirley’s puppets added some great ideas to my not-so-creative mind. Really learned a lot from her! And she is quite the storyteller! Take note of the punctuations… I really was very impressed, and inspired, and envious, of her talent in storytelling. I had a little chit-chat with her after her presentation. And proud homeschooling mommy that I am, it naturally came out that yeah, I’m homeschooling my little ones, although what got me in to the conference was my connection with SJSTS. And naturally, too, she does not approve of homeschooling. Oh, well… Just like being a WAHM is not for everyone, I guess homeschooling is only for those who were called to do it.
And guess what? Although Ms. Equipado does not really approve of homeschooling, her presentation actually reinforced my conviction in homeschooling my kids. She referenced Friedrich Froebel, the father of Kindergarten, when she said that children should not be in classrooms, and that children should be able to learn by experiencing. What better way to let the children experience life than to be able to apply theories right at the same moment that they are learning them? Froebel encourages us to “live with our children”, putting a coherent system in play activities. So let’s do maths at the supermarket, and learn science in the kitchen. Let’s observe changes in the clouds, bird formations when they fly and the differences in the way plants grow, doing away with the undying monggo seed that we used to sprout in school. Let’s make the world our children’s classroom.
Bea’s interest now is in drawings. And Jude’s play activities are centered in Hummer cars, the solar system and different flags of the world. If I send Bea to a traditional school, will she be allowed to draw the whole day while ensuring that she learns the day’s lessons? And Jude, will the school give him the opportunity to learn lessons using his interest in cars, planets and flags?
I don’t think so. Not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t. It will not be possible, nor fair, for them to take into consideration one child’s talent and interest and impose them on the next child.
But at home, Bea can learn directions by drawing and mounting her very own town map, and Jude practices reading using the globe as his reference. He’s not interested in reading Nat Has A Hat. He’d rather practice his phonics reading Ja-p-an, Ma-lay-sia and Ca-na-da.
Yeah, I know I sound like I’m advocating homeschooling, and maybe I am, but again, I know it’s not for everyone. After all, I sit on the Board of St. Jude Science and Technological School, so I also believe in the traditional school system.
by The Happy WAHM
Today has been really productive for me and my third grade homeschooler. I took time out from my regular WAHM routine and focused on working with Bea on her English lapbook. Since we are still waiting for our Science and Math books, we were able to finish our first quarter lessons for English last week, and as our output for the quarter, we decided to make a lapbook of lessons we have covered for the period.
Pictured below is our project we decided to call Bea’s English Garden. Remember that we have lots of left over flower cut outs from the Teachers’ Day cards? We originally planned of putting them to good use with this project, but like any other plan, changes happen. We stuck with the garden theme, but better ideas came up as we were working on the components.
All the papers we used in this project were from our binder of printed lectures and activity notes from the past years. We really have used so much bond paper in the past two years that I promised to just re-use them this year. And do you know how much broken crayola can accumulate in 6 years? That’s another item that I’m not buying this year. And maybe in two more years. Ha ha! I collected all the broken (and some still whole) crayolas around the house and I was able to fill Xia’s old lunchbox with them.
Bea worked so hard on this project, staying up late in her excitement to finish the whole thing. She applied the trick she learned from Ate Xia, that of rubbing off the color with tissue paper after applying it on the drawing. The effect is a glossy finish and really even coloring. It really helped that she is ambidextrous, as she had to cut out all the mango fruits, 48 of them, and then writing 5 examples for each of the 8 types of nouns we have covered. She would start to say, “I’m tired,” but she would still push herself to work on it, simply transferring the pen from her left hand to the right.
In creating this lapbook, we went through the process of agreeing on a theme, and then brainstorming on the components that would form part of that theme. After deciding on the garden theme, we listed down all the things that we’d like to see in our garden. The mango tree was the first to be put up, and so I thought, “there goes the garden, now it will be just a tree.” I was thinking that maybe we’ll just put everything in different branches. But then she wanted to have the clouds and the butterflies and the flowers. So I made her line drawings of everything and she took care of coloring and writing down the topics.
I’d say that mounting the garden has been a resounding success and really quite a great way of completing our first quarter for English.
by The Happy WAHM
It’s World Teachers’ Day, and last night, the girls and I made Thank You cards for Xia’s teachers at St. Jude Science and Technological School. We just used whatever material we could find at home since it was already late when Xia told us we’d be making those cards. Good thing that I had left over board papers from my desktop publishing biz, and I have a collection of craft scissors and punchers. We had fun making them. And although the cards were for Xia, Bea volunteered to help. Oh, Jude helped, too. Mostly by saying “Ganda n’yan a.”
So here are some of the 12 cards we finished last night. The left over flower cut outs will be used for Bea’s lapbook, which she’s always excited to work on. She’s the artistic member of the family.
by The Happy WAHM
It’s my third year, and I’m still learning.
For the first two years of our homeschooling journey, each time someone asks the name of our school, I just tell them we’re with The Master’s Academy (TMA). Until I met Tina Rodriguez. We met online, via Facebook, and she was in need of some pre-school materials, and I was just about ready to let go of some of mine, and so we agreed to meet so she could buy my old curriculum. And it was during the course of our conversation that she mentioned something about giving her homeschool a name.
Of course, I’ve read from other homeschooling blogs that they do have names for their homeschool. I just didn’t care much about giving ours a name. Or I was too lazy to think up of something that I would actually like, long term. So I just left it at that.
And then came that A-HA! moment yesterday morning, as I was writing my status update on Facebook, and out came the Aberásturi Home Academy. So simple, and it sounds so right. Because every day, as I teach my children, I learn something from them. Our homeschool will always give me A-HA! moments.
Project for the kids… make a banner for the Aberásturi Home Academy, with logo, to be accomplished before the school year ends.
by The Happy WAHM
Before starting your business, one question that you need to have an answer for is: Where will you work?
Your home office may be an unused room in your house, or a small corner of your dining room, or any space that can be used exclusively for your business. Pictured above is my office in a corner of our living room. I’m planning to make our garage my domain, but that will come later, when I have the budget for remodeling. For now, I have to make do with the space that I have. And this is where everything happens. Right next to my kids’ study area. I can put in some work while they do their seatwork. And it’s very handy when I need to show them pictures. (Like this morning, while Bea was working on combining two words to form a new word, the example given in the book was silkworm, and she has no idea what it looks like. So with just a few clicks, she was able to appreciate what’s written in her book.)
Having a work area that you can call your own will help you establish your business as a serious venture. It also puts boundaries. Like my family respects that space as my office, and they do not just get anything from it without asking for permission first.
Determine what basic equipment you need and invest on it. You can either purchase your equipment new, or if you’re on a tight budget, you can buy used equipment and upgrade later when you can better afford it.
Make sure that you have a business phone line separate from what your family uses, especially if you get or make a lot of social calls on that line. You will lose business if your customers cannot reach you at the time that they need you. With me, mobile phones work best. It allows my clients to reach me anytime, anywhere.
Working from home may take some self-discipline, especially in the beginning. You may find it hard to remain undistracted by household chores, or the children’s chatter, so setting up your own official office or work space will help you establish a mindset of “going to work”.
