Why Home School Our Children: Aidan's Milestone

Is there a right age to start giving your child some structured learning? Are there any benefits if you start your child early? How early is early? Just like many moms out there, I also struggled with similar questions. My first son was enrolled in a whole day pre-school program when he was 3.5yo. My youngest one is almost four and he hasn't been in a "regular" school setting. Did I regret sending my eldest one that early? Part of me says yes, especially when I remembered him being so tired at the end of the day. He used to start school at eight in the morning and by the time I picked him up from work, it's usually three or four in the afternoon. On the other hand, was the education that he received then gave him an advantage now, in terms of gaining knowledge and developing life skills?
The way Anthony (my eldest) and Aidan (my youngest) started their pre-school years are totally different. My youngest son Aidan never attended day care or pre-school and this is his first year to have some sort of structured instruction. He is currently enrolled in Seton Homeschooling Pre-K Program. When I read his curriculum, I am encouraged to start it with him because it has a lot of suggestions and fun activities on how to approach teaching especially in such young age.

When we learned about God's Creation, we went around the neighborhood and took pictures of the different things that God made. We later printed the pictures, cut, paste and label them.

To review a letter that we've been learning, Aidan will go around the house with a post-it paper (written on it is the letter we are reviewing) and find items around the house with the beginning letter sound. In these pictures, he labeled oven and onion for the beginning letter O. If you have an older child, he or she can do this activity with your pre-schooler.

I made lily pads (out of green construction paper) and wrote a word that starts with letter F on each lily pad and a couple of fillers. Aidan pretends to be a Frog and hops only on lily pads that has the beginning F sound.

"Aidan feeding the Lion and the Tiger." This is a fun way to teach beginning sound. The pattern for these adorable bag puppets are provided by Seton. If you want to make your own, you can print a picture of any animal that starts with the beginning letter you want and glue it in front of a paper bag (brown sandwich bag is a good alternative). I cut a hole in front that serves as the mouth of the animal. I make the puppets first and then I print various pictures that have the beginning sound of the letter we are learning. You can add pictures that have different beginning sound to make it challenging.

Aidan practicing his letters on a tray with flour. You can also use oatmeal, sugar salt or sand to write on. I love doing this exercise when I introduced a letter or number to Aidan.

One of the things that the Pre-K curriculum stressed upon is developing the fine motor skills of the child and we've been incorporating that in our daily lessons. As we learn the alphabet, sounds, numbers, or Religion, Aidan do activities that also help him develop his fine motor skills. Manipulative such as blocks, LEGO, playdoh, puzzles are great tools for Aidan's fine motor skills development. It is amazing to see the changes in how he grasp the crayons or markers when coloring or tracing lines; he is now more confident in the use of scissors and even showing less frustration when writing on papers. I remember when we first started. He would not color the pictures at all, or if he did, it will be the whole page without any consideration on staying with in the line. What line? hahahahahahaha
He stills doesn't enjoy coloring or tracing broken lines but now I am running out of paper and tape because he loves to draw and make me pictures. His imagination just flourished as he make up story about his pictures or as he pretend play with his stuff animal friends. In addition, I have to constantly clean the floor for small pieces of paper that he loves cutting.

Aidan with his friends, Bear, Eyeball and Bear

I realized that you can't expect them to write directly on papers that is why I love Seton's idea of introducing the letter strokes using "heavenly writing" first, then having the child use his fingertips to write on sand or any sensory materials (finger painting, use of 3D blocks) before you can even proceed to have the child write on a board or paper. These progression really eliminates the frustration in Aidan's part as he learns how to write.

The curriculum has suggested lesson plan each day but it always emphasizes that the phasing will depends on the child's ability, interests and motivation. We are now in ninth week but I am not embarrassed to say that we are still doing week 7 of his Math and Early Literacy units. The Seton's curriculum gave me the confidence to tackle Pre-K curriculum because in each lesson, it explains where should I focus on and the importance of the "focus" to my child's development.

In the short time that we spent homeschooling, Aidan grew and developed so much. Besides "school", he is enrolled in a swimming class. We are so proud of his progress in swimming. Aidan can now swim a couple of feet without a floatie and he is not afraid anymore to put his face in the water. We've been spending a lot of times outside as well, going on trails with our homeschooling group and oftentimes with the whole family during the weekends. He loves to collect things as we go on these

walks.

Aidan's nature art from the twigs, leaves and rocks he collected in one of our walks... ooops is that a whooly caterpillar? (Pratts Farm, Middleborough MA). Below is the Cardinal trail within UMass Dartmouth's Living Classroom initiatives.

Below are some of the investigation lesson that we did- Math, Science and Literacy Pumpkin mini-lesson by Ms. Cara Carroll, http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Cara-Carroll, Making Sugar Crystals (http://chemistry.about.com/od/growingcrystals/ht/blsugarcrystal.htm), and Walking Water activity (http://royalbaloo.com/the-walking-water-experiment/); and the different places we visited for our field trips.
As Aidan's mom and teacher, I am proud of his accomplishments and I can't wait to continue to explore, investigate and learn with my free spirited little guy!
BTW Aidan's name means "Little Fire".... Fits him well!