On the Bride Side: Thirty-two Months After...

Himig is almost three! And so this year, we started to "test drive" the idea of homeschooling.

To be able to homeschool my kids has been a dream of mine. But with my MA, an online business, house chores and another baby (yep, Himig now has a sister named Hiraya), I'm not sure if it's realistic or wise for us to still pursue it. Also, I'm not sure if Himig will respond to it positively. Thus, we decided to do the test drive this year, a year before she qualifies for nursery.

Since it's just a test drive, I just came up with our own "curriculum." It's really just a set of topics a typical toddler starts learning, like numbers and letters and shapes. I also used this milestones checklist to set our learning goals and activities.

I made this schedule to involve the yayas in making sure that Himig and Hiraya spend the day doing activities that target the skills that they're supposed to be developing at their age.

We started the test drive last month, and so far, here are the topics we have covered:

1. Body Parts - I thought the concept of self was a good starting point. We breezed through this because we're already labeling body parts during bath time.

2. Color Recognition - This is another topic she learned early, thanks to the initiative of Ate Maribel.

3. Counting - We breezed through this as well. Ate Dea and Ate Maribel taught Himig how to count as early as when she was 1.5 years old - while learning how to climb up the stairs one step at a time. Right now, Himig can already count to 20. She still struggles with 13-20 though, frequently saying seven-eight instead of 17.

4. Number Recognition (1-10) - More on this later

5. Concept of Big and Small - More on this later

6. Shapes - More on this later

I'm also making sure that, at least once a week, she's involved in one "real-life" task and she gets to play with other kids.

AUGUST

3rd Week: Play date with kids from church

4th Week: Mall time where she rode the train and played arcade games.