I never thought that my dream of becoming a preschool teacher will actually come true when I started homeschooling Timmy. 🙂 I have come to admire parent teachers and preschool teachers all the more because of the hard work and dedication they put into their kids/students. Mind you, it’s not easy to keep a toddler preoccupied! Letter of the Week is just one of the things we do at home. We have lots of free play and reading time, too. 🙂
For me it’s very important that Timmy enjoys what he’s doing especially when I’m trying to teach him something. So far FUN has been pretty much the key to his LEARNING and COOPERATION. Timmy gets really excited when we have a new letter to explore. While he was looking forward to our “Y” week, I was dreading it. Haha! Homeschooling truly humbles me and makes me dependent on the ultimate Teacher of all. And during those times when I felt that I couldn’t find anything Y-related for Timmy to do, God has led me to different sources and gave me some cool ideas to work around with. 🙂
Reading
We really didn’t have any books with “Y” titles on them so I settled with books that emphasized the word you, your, and you’re. It was an opportunity for Timmy to learn the differences between those three words, too! But we have huge story cards which I bought from the Homeschoolers in the Philippines South Hangout event. I actually got an entire set of phonics-based stories covering the entire alphabet! Special thanks to Teacher Felichi for this awesome material! We enjoyed reading the story of Yalta the Yak who got a yarn, yearbook, and yoyo for his birthday! 🙂
Bible Character/Values
This one was pretty challenging. My husband suggested the phrase “young man” and I realized how apt it would be for Timmy to learn about this verse on keeping his way pure. He’s now on his way to becoming a young man so this verse really came at the most opportune time. 🙂
Arts and Crafts
I asked Timmy to fill in the big Y and small Y (in the word yoyo) with yellow foam. We also explored using yarn in our crafts. I drew a tree and a house and asked him to fill it with color using yarn. I realized that it was hard to glue the yarn! My poor boy got frustrated but good thing he didn’t give up and still finished his craft. So for our next activity I placed double-sided tape on the word YES and asked him to fill it up with yarn, too. This time it was more enjoyable for him. Talk about hit-or-miss moments! 🙂
We had so much fun doing another yarn art this time using paint. I saw this activity on Pinterest. Anyway, I taped yarns on an open box and asked Timmy to change the color of the yarns by painting on them. For example, he made the red yarn yellow. It was a good practice for fine motor skills because painting on yarn was challenging. I was pleasantly surprised that he was so focused and determined to repaint the yarns! After which, we placed a bond paper on top of it, pressed it, turned the paper in another direction, and pressed it again. The result looked amazing!!! 🙂 So proud of you, Timmy for making this! 🙂
Writing
We had our usual writing practice, which was always fun for Timmy. 🙂 He also practices in magnetic boards and white boards. I encourage him to doodle and we also bring papers and colored pens when we go out as part of his boredom buster bag. 🙂
Math
For math, we had some basic addition practice with a twist. We used yarn again! Haha! We were able to maximize the use of that material and we still have a lot left! 🙂 Timmy counted the yarns, placed the correct number, added them, placed the right number of yarns at the end (I helped him tape it), and he placed the corresponding number. 🙂
I created some Filipino cards for him but I couldn’t find it. Anyway, we’ve been more intentional in speaking to him in our native tongue and so far he’s been improving a lot in terms of speaking and understanding Filipino. 🙂 Sometimes he even surprises me with his statements like, “Mommy, malamig itong tubig.” meaning “Mom, the water is cold.” 🙂 One time he said, “Mommy, baligtad!” meaning “Mommy, it’s upside down!” 🙂
My dreaded week turned out to be one of the best ones we had so far. 🙂 Sometimes you just have to explore and try different activities even using the same material because you’ll never know which one will be a hit to your kids!
For my next blog I’ll share with you the activities we did for letters J and O. 🙂 Till then! 🙂
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