The great thing about homeschool is that it’s not schedule-bound. We dictate our own vacations or school breaks. We can even study on a holiday if we want, too. My little boy has no concepts of holidays yet so he still relies on me if we’ll do certain activities for the day even if it’s Christmas Eve (but of course we didn’t do that). Before the actual Christmas week, Timmy and I were still doing our letter of the week and it was one of the best weeks we had. 🙂 It also diverted my attention and lessened my stress from the holiday rush. So I was really thankful that we did it.
We were still in the process of spelling his name (TIMOTHY). Our goal was for him to be able to write his name after roughly six weeks. We were not in a hurry to write the entire alphabet. Quality is better than quantity. Plus, I want Timmy to ENJOY writing, which can be a challenge especially for boys. We had “O” as our letter of the week and boy was it fun! 🙂 Here are some of the activities we did.
Reading
We read books that have “O” words in it. Timmy loves Mo Willems and Dr. Seuss and to have books from his favorite authors be in our reading pile for the week made the little boy very happy. We try to read our “featured books” as much as we can within the week. But there are times when I just go with what he wants. What’s important is we’re reading. 🙂
Bible Character/Values
Instead of having a Bible character, we learned a particular value—something he’s very familiar with—OBEY. 🙂 Timmy has heard us say obey many times. He sure gets the concept and he follows but there are days when he just won’t do it. Our verse for the week was Colossians 3:20 and it was a good reminder to him that obedience pleases the Lord. Up to now, we still tell him, “O is for?” To which he will answer, “Obey.” He will then do what we ask. Of course, it’s not 100% compliance all the time. But reminding him of the importance of obeying his parents and that it makes God happy when he does, gives him extra motivation. 🙂
Arts and Crafts
We made Owl and Octopus crafts. I drew an owl and cut Oval foam shapes that he could use to decorate the owl. For the octopus, I drew the head and cut tentacles from a printed folder and asked Timmy to put the tentacles. He also doodles/designs his artwork after. We’re still working on the cutting-on-his-own part but I know we’ll get here. 🙂 It makes me happy whenever he feels proud to share his artwork to his daddy. He lights up whenever he gets affirmation that he did a great job. It also motivates him to do more! 🙂 Moments like these remind me how important it is to encourage our children. They need it, want it, and crave for it.
We also did a humongous “O” art using tissue roll and washable poster paint. We keep all our tissue rolls at home because there are a lot of creative things we can do with it. 🙂 I covered our center table with Manila paper, placed poster paints on paper plates, and put one tissue roll on each plate. I then asked Timmy to create an “O” art work by using different colors. He really had a blast doing it! It also kept him busy for a pretty long time! 🙂
English (and Reading again)
I made a poem for Timmy and asked him to color all the letter O’s that he saw. I asked him to read it out loud, too. I started writing instructions for Timmy to prepare him for his official homeschooling year by June 2016. I would ask him to read it and let him do the work on his own to check if he understood the instructions. Reading is one thing, comprehension is another. By God’s grace Timmy’s growing in his comprehension level. It also saves me from explaining too much because he understands instructions already. 🙂
Math
Using his wooden numbers we practiced arranging it in Order. Timmy also did the reverse order! This little guy loves numbers and we did this activity repeatedly. 🙂 We also had our usual less or more game. This time I used his Ocean animals. I would group the animals into two and he would place the less or more cards on the correct group. This is our modified counting exercise. 🙂 Since the wooden numbers and animals were out already, I extended our math time by placing certain numbers on the table and asked him to place the corresponding number of animals under it.
Writing
I never realized that “O” can be hard to write. At first, Timmy couldn’t stop going round and round. His letter “O” would end up being a spiral. Haha! I showed him that he should stop after one turn or after the first point meets the last one. He didn’t seem to get it. I was so tempted to force him to do it and learn it that week but God told me to just let it slide. Instead, I encouraged Timmy and acknowledged his effort to make spiral O’s. 🙂 And then I told him with a smile, “I know it’s hard to stop (I meant going round and round). So let’s just do this again when you’re ready, okay?” He said, “Okay!” A week or two later, he was able to control his own hand and he was able to make letter “O” by simply practicing on his own! Praise God! God has been teaching me a lot about this stepping back thing and so far it has spared us both from getting stressed over lessons that shouldn’t even be stressful in the first place. 🙂
A week or so later, the spiral “O” finally became a properly written “O.” 🙂
Science
This one was fun. I taught Timmy about Oil and water not mixing together because they’re two different properties. We made an Ocean in a bottle by putting water, oil, and blue food coloring. When you shake the bottle you will see bubble formations that resemble the ocean. When the Oil and water are separating, you have another image of what it’s like under the sea! I wanted to put some of his toy fish inside but I used a small bottle plus I didn’t want to waste too much cooking oil. Haha! Good thing he loved the handy bottle because it’s small enough to carry around and shake anytime he wants. 🙂 He would even tell me repeatedly, “Mommy! The oil and water separated again!” 🙂
We’re already done with “H” and will blog about it soon. I’m still catching up on my blogging backlog. It took a while for me to settle down and get back to our routine after the holiday and post-holiday get-togethers. See you next week! 🙂
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