Coming up with an idea for our “U” letter of the week was pretty challenging. We didn’t have books that highlighted the letter U nor did we have a Bible character that we could study that starts with U. Then after much prayer and a little research here and there, ideas began to come in! A lot of my homeschool eureka moments have come during my alone time with the Lord. 🙂 And it has been a constant reminder for me that as homeschooling parents we should be completely dependent on Him as we educate our children. 🙂
Here are the things we did that week:
Bible Lessons
We focused on the importance of UNDERSTANDING God’s Word. We watched the story of Philip and the Ethiopian leader. This influential man wanted to understand God’s Word and Paul helped him do that. In the same way, we parents should also help our children understand the Bible so they can learn how to apply it in their lives. 🙂 We learned about helping others in the story of the Umbrella Bird and perseverance in the story of Unkie Unicorn using our phonics over-sized storyboards. 🙂 Not having U-themed books didn’t stop us from our reading habit. There were still words that started with U in the books we read. 🙂
Writing
Around this time, I was able to buy a lap desk for Timmy! 🙂 It was only P599.00 at Play and Display! 🙂 Since then, we’ve been doing most of our homeschool work on the bed. Haha! When we did this letter, it was the peak of summer heat in Manila so we’re always stuck in the room with the air conditioning on. In my succeeding posts, you will notice that my little man is doing most of his work in the bedroom and in his jammies. 🙂 We so love homeschool!
Timmy already knows how to write and he writes fast. We’re at the stage when we need to refine it. 🙂 That week, I finally found our flashcards! Praise God! I got this for him when he was a year old and kept it for future use. We have moved houses twice since so it was hard to look for it. Finding it around this time was also great because Timmy was already at the stage when he was starting to get interested in tracing. 🙂 He learned writing the alphabet by copying my strokes. Now, he already appreciates tracing although he still prefers to write without it. 🙂
Math
For math, we did a counting exercise and I just emphasized the word UP to fit our letter of the week. Haha! Sometimes you just have to make do with what you have! What matters is you’re able to teach the concept and your child understands it. 🙂
We also did a greater-than exercise. I drew umbrellas and asked Timmy to encircle the group that has more objects. We interchanged the words “more and greater” when we were learning this concept so that he would know that it was synonymous. The mistake he did in the end was he encircled both groups. 🙂 I told him he could only have one answer, he couldn’t go for two just to be sure. Haha! 🙂
Arts and crafts
We did two sets of crafts. Timmy created “UNDER the sea” and “UP in the air” scenes. 🙂 For the Under the sea, I cut out some foam shapes for fish and seaweeds. We used white sticker paper for bubbles and placed googly eyes on our sea creatures! 🙂
For Up in the air, I cut out foam clouds for him and gave Timmy airplane stickers. He laid out his plane-filled, traffic-looking sky. Haha! 🙂 I was telling him to spread out the planes but he said he wanted them close to each other. Well, it was his sky anyway so I allowed him. 🙂 But then as a parent-educator, I still had to explain how it really works like they need to have space to fly around and all that. 🙂
What started as a challenging week became a fun and creative one for me and my little man. 🙂 Don’t be discouraged if sometimes you feel stuck and you don’t know what to do. Take some time to just pray, think, and look for inspiration around you. Ideas will eventually come in. 🙂
Watch out for more letter of the week ideas in my next blog! 🙂 Ciao! 🙂
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