Mikaela's Activities - Homeschooling and Socialization

First and foremost, every time I open up homeschooling arrangement with my friends, they would specifically express their concern about socialization. Homeschooling is an exclusive arrangement.  It is schooling that happens at home but not exclusively that.  That is why Mikaela connects with a school named Think Preparatory Uptown as one of here venues for socialization.

The logo of Think Prep Uptown

From research, socialization need not be many people or kids.  In fact we adults, we do quality socialization with few individuals only.  Thus, one or two quality socialization with other kids will build them up well.

with her friend Carmela at the Church

With Mikaela, she goes regularly to one of SM's playhouses in the city.  She climbs, crawls, hops, shots balls, slides, connects with other children during play and  I could hear her giggles, shouts and laughter when she engages there. 

At home, I especially designed her work/study area so that she would be comfortable at performing her tasks during all academic and non-academic activities that we made her engaged in including her unlimited daily speech training/therapy (I made it sound like it is easy but it is not, yet we thought of doing it especially for the girl).

The study/activity area at home

Mikaela engaged in the activity

The Bulletin for academic practice

Mikaela also does Montessori type activities such the regular chores of folding her own clothes, putting plates on the table, eating by herself, brushing her teeth, fixing the bed and putting back toys in the bin,  a little of mapping the floor (hahahha we need to buy the smaller map) and sweeping the floor. 

Well, life is not boring with me around ha...we both dance together and I play the horse while she stays at my back with her giggles and shouts (unlimited ahahha).  She prays too...in fact, she can now memorize "Angel of God" with her sometimes twisted pronunciation sometimes.  She joins family prayer every night and even reminds us her parents of prayer time.  And ohhh the unlimited sketching that she passionately does (she is the amazing artist).

Starting to frame Mikaela's work

...a lot more to say in just a matter of 5 months (she did many things already) of this semi homeschooling...I will be sharing more about how we dealt with her when she becomes emotional in the house (well take a look at her sketches...you may notice how emotional intelligence has started to shape) ...

Homeschooling happens any time of the day (huhu sometimes it happens dawn time for the girl...she sometimes wake up 1am and sleeps 4am...books are made available on the floor for her to explore)

The Semi Homeschooling Arrangement

Someone asked me, one time, what semi homeschooling arrangement is.  Actually, I invented it.  I don't know if there is such a thing.  I only heard of homeschooling and the regular school arrangement where the kid has to actually go to school. The semi homeschooling was a concept that came out when we decided not to make our daughter proceed to grade 1 yet after her graduation in kinder last April 2018.

Crazy, right?  But I would say that I and my husband are not the regular parents that get pressured with what is commonly done (actually at first we were pressured thinking that what is, may not be the best for our kids).  Given our daughter's speech delay (not language delay) we had to explore all means possible so that she could be responded well with her need.  

So we started the semi homeschooling arrangement for our daughter.  Why semi homeschooling?  We integrated life skills and academics at home and her socialization with a preschool (owned by my friends Carla and Dennis Medrano)- Think Prep Uptown.  

The concept homeschooling started when I was yet pregnant with my daughter.  I happened to read and research more about it from the concept of homeschooling done by Bo Sanchez and his team together with their principles of practice in homeschooling and I loved it (to the bones hahahahah). 

The principle states of the following for the child :  be able to explore his / her passion, learning style, learning pace, does not use fear and punishment to motivate, use test to gauge child's capacity, nurture a love for learning, ordinary life events as classroom (so wide and smart, right), make work and service essential to the formation, strengthen family relationship and share one's faith and values to the child.  

I and my husband Michael are idealistic.  We know our daughter's shortcoming, and we found a way to best respond to her needs.  We saw her already with regular school. From our researches, we thought it would be too early to engage her with grade 1 competencies so she might as well go through with homeschooling yet find a school where she could engage in other activities and part of socialization.

Please note that this is an experiment while we wait for her to be ready for grade 1 (as I thought).  As an academician myself, I tried to :

1. name the  homeschooling (without yet registering it)
2. vision and mission
3.  Principles of Homeschooling
4.  Curriculum Guide (patterned after Dep Ed)
5. Daily modules aligned with the curriculum

I and my husband arranged the delivery of instruction (actually, he took professional education for this).  She also follows the daily schedule stated below (though not so strictly since Mikaela likes to really explore more by herself and we highly respect that.

From here, I would say that direction is on and has taken its toll since we started.  More to say for the next blog and the tasks that the girl does...:-) 

...truly, I find her so amazing...beautiful...etc. heheheh and God amazingly surprise us parents through Mikaela's responses and subtle transformation ..every single day...:-)  

Note :  Remember ...this is yet an experiment:-) Homeschooling is not common here in our place...Cagayan de Oro City..Philippines...