Finally, DD's Homeschool Curriculum is Ready

After 8 months of procrastination, I finally sat down one night and planned out DD's homeschool curriculum for the next 12 months. I had intended to start on some formal (read: planned rather than adhoc) homeschooling for DD since the start of this year, but somehow didn't get around to doing it. However, in recent weeks, DD has been showing great interest in reading some simple Chinese readers and writing/drawing. So I think now's the time to start. Here's what I have planned. By the way, if you come across any broken links, please drop me a note to let me know! Thanks!

Reading (English):

• Books to introduce the letters of the alphabet and their sounds: For example, Bruno Munari's ABC, 26 letters and 99 cents, and some books from Letterland.
• Letter lapbooks to reinforce each letter of the alphabet. Here's an example of a letter B lapbook.
• After DD is familiar with the letters of the alphabet, probably sometime next year, I'll start the Reading Made Easy program with her.

Writing (English):

• Tracing of letters will be incorporated into the letter lapbooks.
• Copywork, which is included at the end of every Reading Made Easy lesson.
  

Chinese:

• 我 会 读 Chinese readers
• I Read and I Learn series of Chinese readers
• DD also loves to read from DS's Berries class textbook, so we will continue to help her along when she wants to do that
• I intend to enrol DD in Berries from January next year, where she will join the Nursery 2 class.

Maths/Thinking Skills:

• First Step to Building Thinking Skills, followed by Building Thinking Skills @ Beginning.
• Mathematical Reasoning Through Verbal Analysis: Level A and/or Mathematical Reasoning Beginning either book 1 or jump to book 2
• Depending on what kind of learner DD is, I might use the Montessori method instead or in addition to the above. If so, I will use the Math activities in David Gettman's book "Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives".
• Maybe some local Maths assessment books. There are some very fun and colorful ones which DS occasionally pulls out to do, so I guess I should buy some for DD too.
  

Science:

• We'll start with easier books like Judy Allen's "Are you a ... (e.g. ant, bee, dragonfly, etc)" series of books
  
• We already have a lot of "science" type books at home, especially how-your-body-works books, for example, You Are Weird and See Inside Your Body.
• "Why? The best ever question and answer book about nature, science and the world around you" is also a great book
• And other Usborne books like Planet Earth, Weather and Living in Space.

Art:

• The kids have access to art supplies everyday (e.g. color pencils, crayons, marker pens, craft scissors, white and color paper, etc) and they do pull them out on a daily basis to do some drawing, coloring or cutting. But I would love to do a more "unique" and "creative" art activity with DD once a week, since DS attends Creative Art lessons in his preschool weekly and thoroughly enjoys the experience. I recently bought the highly recommended "Art with Anything: 52 Weeks of Fun Using Everyday Stuff" so we might try some activities from there.
• The Klutz books are also really good. They come ready packaged with the materials needed to do the activities so it's easy to pick up one of these books on a week that I haven't been organised enough to prepare materials for a more fanciful art project. Some of the Klutz books include, Chicken Socks Totally Tape, Hand Art, Super Scissors Book (yes, it even comes with 2 pairs of scissors!) and Paper Flowers.

Well, so that's my grand plan for the year ahead. We are planning to start DD in preschool only after she drops her mid-day nap, which I imagine wouldn't be before her 4th birthday. She currently naps from about 11am to 1pm daily.

DS Has Started Preschool

Well, it seems like eons ago since I last blogged, but it was actually about 1.5 months ago. OK, I seem to having less internet time than ever before! Now, who told me that I will have more free time when DS starts school?!? All this chauffeuring him to and from school (30-40 minutes away during peak periods and 15-20 minutes away during other times) is certainly taking up a lot of my time!

Anyhow, after about 3 long months of searching for a suitable preschool, we found a nice preschool for DS! After viewing more than 20 preschools, interviewing more than 30 principals, in a search which started in the East (where we live), then further expanding to the rest of Singapore excluding the furthest areas from us like the Western and Northern parts of Singapore, we are glad to have this over and done with. We were even contemplating homeschooling DS (a thought which has crossed our minds a few times before) if we couldn't find a suitable school.

Now, some of my friends (mostly without kids of their own yet) have asked me why I'm putting so much effort in looking for a suitable preschool for DS. "It's only preschool afterall, it's not like it's primary school already!", they would say. Well, the thing is, primary school would be easy. We're just going to send DS to the school nearest to us, just a few minutes walk behind our estate. But preschool? That's the place where DS is going to be spending 3 years (Nursery II, Kindergarten I and II) of probably the most vulnerable period of his life, in terms of health, behaviours and values. Since I am a SAHM (stay-at-home-mum), why would I want to spend money sending DS off to a preschool with an environment less ideal than his time spent at home with me?

Some have mentioned that all preschools are probaby similar anyway, so why all the trouble? Well, I can say for a fact that preschools in Singapore (and probably all around the world) are not made equal. The PAP kindergarten which most of us attended millions of years ago, now called PCF (PAP Community Foundation) Kindergarten, should not be a first choice if one can help it. Though they are very affordable compared to private kindergartens, they are less than ideal. For instance, they have high student-teacher ratios and their curriculum appears less than the average private kindergarten, according to a trustworthy source. A teacher I spoke to also mentioned that there are notable differences in knowledge between children who come from private kindergartens as compared to PCF ones. So I ruled out PCF kindergartens right from the get go.

Now, private kindergartens. Some friends have asked me how different they can be. Well, perhaps we (or rather, just me!) are quite fussy as parents, but these were the attributes I was looking out for in a kindergarten. Of course, I was willing to compromise on some of these if we found a good kindergarten which didn't have all these attributes. :)

1. Preferably non-airconditioned
2. No homework
3. Preferably Montessori-based teaching, or activity/play-based learning rather than using mainly worksheets
4. Small kindergarten (e.g. 40 students in total rather than 150)
5. Good exposure to Mandarin
6. English teachers speak good English
7. Located somewhere in the East
8. Preferably no school uniform
9. Teachers with good qualifications
10. Clean

How difficult would it be to find a preschool with the attributes as listed above? I mean, for example, shouldn't most English teachers speak good English? Well, I must say I did strike off certain preschools after the phone interview because the teacher or principal I was speaking to didn't speak good English. Or they replied to my email in broken English. :( Another preschool which I visited was almost perfect except for the fact that it had really dirty floors! The students there were all bare-footed (they had to remove their footwear at the entrance) but when I walked in, I was amazed at the amount of debris I could feel with my bare feet. And when I looked at the teachers' feet, they were all wearing slippers indoors!!!

And yet another preschool was almost perfect, except that it was located right beside a petrol station. Being non-airconditioned, the students were exposed to petroleum fumes for the 3 hours that they attended preschool. Now, DH was very uncomfortable with that.

Another preschool which I really liked actually turned down my application after I queried the principal more than once about the qualification of the teachers (amongst other questions). In his email reply to me, the principal stated that my questions "over-stepped boundaries". Huh? Seriously? If I was going to be paying $500 a month for a private kindergarten, I would certainly like to know in detail what was happening in the school!

Anyhow, we are just really glad to find a preschool for DS which he loves! He looks forward to going to school everyday. Even I find it difficult to decide which days he should only spend half day in school because the activities are all so interesting! We look forward to DD attending the same preschool too. Probably next year. :)