The school year 2022-2023 has just started, and it’s my twins’ first time going to a regular school. They are Kinder now and they were excited to go to school even before the school year has begun.
I didn’t enroll them in a daycare center or preschool before because it was pandemic. Schoolings are either online or modular schooling, and I didn’t want to spend money and time that isn’t required to take. That’s why I decided to homeschool them instead.
So here, I listed the things that I did to teach my pre-schooler twins at home:
1. I incorporate lessons on our daily activities.
Before homeschooling, I was already teaching my twins to incorporate into our daily activities. I teach them while we are taking a bath or eating our lunch. I ask them for examples of words that start with the letters A, B, C, and so on.
I say random things that may teach them valuable lessons or I let them count the pieces of string beans on their plates, the plates and glasses on the table, and more. We also sing nursery rhymes and even songs with lessons such as “Count to 100 Song” by The Singing Walrus.
2. I try to answer their questions the best way that I can.
I know it’s hard, but I try to answer their Whats, Hows, and Whys the best way I could. Sometimes it really challenges me to create answers for them because I can’t think of any, or I just had to describe or give examples first before I could finally arrive at the right answer, or before they can understand it. I also have to make it simple for them to understand.
And sometimes there are questions that I really can’t answer, I just explain to them that they’ll learn them once they grow up, or I say that I’ll search for them later and I’ll get back to them. There are times also that I get my phone and search for pictures of what they are asking for, or find an explanation or answer on Google.
3. I use the resources that I have.
From time to time, I did spend money for me to teach them. But I didn’t spend that much. I just bought laminated tracing boards on an online shopping platform. I also won a three-month subscription to an online learning resource. A
s I’ve mentioned earlier, I also use Google to find answers to my kids’ questions. I could even find free printable resources if I need to. I also joined some homeschooling Facebook groups where they also share free resources for homeschoolers.
I am also guilty of letting them have their screen time. But I use it to my advantage too. I get free video lessons from YouTube. When we were progressing with their reading lessons, I had no idea how to teach reading more complex words. I was just stuck with the CVC lesson.
That’s when I use YouTube to look for video lessons related to reading for Kinders. Later on, I also let them watch Science lessons for kids like solar systems, body parts, and others on a YouTube channel that I found out. For me, screen time is only bad if it is excessive and unsupervised.
4. I create songs when I want them to memorize things or find one.
There are a lot of songs available on YouTube that let the kids memorize things such as counting 1- 20 or even up to 100, days of the week, etc. But sometimes, I had to create a song from the tune of another nursery rhyme if the song that I found is not that catchy or if I haven’t found a song at all.
I did that for memorizing the names of the planets of the solar system from the tune of “Happy Birthday”, and for the months of the year from the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”. I also reused the song that I learned from a Filipino children’s show when I was young about counting 1-20 in Filipino.
5. When I taught them how to write, I had to work on the fine motor skills first.
Before, I practice them to trace lines, shapes, letters, and numbers. But they seemed to get tired so easily. Yes, they know how to hold their pencils right, but they couldn’t follow the tracing lines properly. And when they wanted to draw something on their drawing boards, they felt frustrated because they can’t draw them as they want them to be.
But when I asked my sister, a preschool teacher in Vietnam, how to teach them how to write and follow the trace, she told me to let them play with clay or kinetic sand and to practice transferring water in different glasses or water containers. According to her, these activities could help improve the child’s fine motor skills.
Kinetic sand wasn’t a good idea for me because it is kinda messy. But I am also hesitant to let them play with clay because they still tend to bite their fingers and nails. That’s why, initially, I made them homemade clay out of flour.
They played with it almost every day in the afternoon. It is messy too and tends to harden when left outside the container for too long, but adding water still works to hydrate them until such a time that the flour is already too old and then we throw them. This assured us that they are not ingesting chemicals or non-edible ingredients.
I also let them transfer water using the glasses that they use for gargling after brushing their teeth while taking a bath.
And after just a few weeks of playing with their clay and transferring water from one glass to another, I was amazed at how they have improved their writing and tracing abilities. Their drawings also improved and now they have more elaborate details in their drawings. They even created more well-defined clay arts. It’s amazing how working on these activities (clay most of the time) can actually improve the kids’ fine motor skills!
6. And when I taught them how to read, I started with phonics first.
How can they even know how to read if they don’t know the sounds of the letters? I taught them the sounds of each letter first. I also gave examples of words that start with the letter while emphasizing the first letter sound, and later, let them give examples so that I was sure that they understood the sounds of the letters.
And when they learned the sounds of each letter, I then taught them how to blend the sounds of the letters. I had to emphasize again the sound of each letter and then show them how to blend the two or three letters. For example, in reading the syllable ‘ba’, I had to emphasize the sound of ‘B’ and ‘A’ before I was able to teach them how to blend the letters to make the sound of ‘ba’.
7. I let them practice what they have learned.
Sometimes they get tired of having the same lesson all over again, but I had to repeat it because they won’t get it easily in one seating. During the time that I was starting with the blending of the sound of the letters, I had to restart it, making it two to three rounds of all the possible letter blending.
But now, we have progressed and they know how to read CVCE words, some words with diphthongs and digraphs, words with long and short vowel sounds, words with hard and soft ‘c’ and ‘g’ sounds, and other basic sight words. I let them read their storybooks to practice what they have learned and also learn to read words that I haven’t taught. Through reading on their own (but with minimal guidance), they were able to learn how to read words that I’ve taught and the words that they first time to encounter.
Recently, they just memorized the spelling of their full names. It took time before they have memorized the spelling of their full names-about a year or two. I let them trace their full names first using the customized laminated tracing paper that I bought online. Later on, I let them copy their full names.
After several practices, I ask them to recite the spelling of their names. I assist them with the spelling at first because I also know that their complete names are long and they haven’t memorized them yet due to lack of practice.
But now, with several practices of reciting the spelling of their names, they can write their full names with correct spellings even before they have started their regular schooling. However, I believe they still need to practice writing them because there are letters that are still on the mirror image (which is still normal for their age).
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