Homeschooling 8

Fawaaz became 4 years old on 13th April. I am writing this post after 4 months and I should say there are major changes in Fawaaz MashaAllah. Day by day I am coming to the conclusion, that everyday a child is learning and becoming ba adab.

Fawaaz has almost completed the books I mentioned in my previous posts i.e. homeschooling 7.

I have observed in these 4 months that fawaaz learning style got very different. He cannot write one letter for 10 times. After writing it 4 times, he is like I am tired or he starts his stories to kill time. His focus span is not more than 10minutes for any game, any book, etc. You might think he is very engrossed in a task but he will proof you wrong very soon. These type of kids are not easy to handle. I have to set activities for him back to back.

I don’t want to sound unrealistic by saying it is very easy. Yes, I do enjoy it a lot SOMETIMES but I admit it is very tiring and most of the time I want to quit everything. As a housewife, mother and a student of two full time degrees, I have responsibilities to fulfill. Every woman has some visions, so do I. Some quit and some try to achieve them somehow. I am the later one. I am not perfect in anything. I am not a perfect housewife cooking everyday delicious dishes, not a perfect student scoring A in all subjects and not a perfect mother but I am an average one trying to balance my life. Thanks to my supporting husband without whom it wasn’t possible at all.

Back to Fawaaz, by using the books I mentioned in my previous posts, he has completed numbers from 1-20 which includes writing the number, counting, what comes before and after,matching dot-to-dot and mazes game. Please keep this in mind that he never relied on books, I gave him the concepts through worksheets,activities or games too. Below are the books I am referring these days.

Numbers are easy to make him understand as we use it everyday. For example while cutting apples for him, we used to cut small pieces and then ask him to count before eating. It was win-win situation because he learnt counting and got so many apples too 😂

So once he got the hang of numbers verbally, we started teaching him how they look by showing him numbers written here and there like prices of things, some numbers on cartons, I also wrote numbers on a paper tape and sticked on his cars which helped him to recognise 12 number car, etc. Once he recognised how the number looks, half of the task was done. Then we moved to make him write. This took time but it is okay as long as he got the idea of it.

In English, he got hang of capital and small letters. I have already discussed the process in previous posts. After that, he got hang of beginning letters very easily. The next step was two letter words and three letter words. This was difficult for me to make him understand. We are still working on it. We are going with his interest. This is the activity with which I started teaching him words.

But this didn’t work for long. So we verbally told him spellings of easy words which he use almost everyday. We used his blackboard as he loves to write on it. He learnt spelling of cook, book, look, hood, cat, dog, etc randomly without any formal method. Then we came up with this activity and it was hit.

He learnt family words of “-OOD”, “-OOK”, “-AT” through it. Then we recently made the below activity just for change. He is not so interested as he was in the previous one. But something is better than nothing.

Moreover, we are also learning digraphs by these flash cards which I got from Clever Poppit Resources.

Once he got hang of them, we did some testing by these flash cards which I got from http://www.thisreadingmama.com. It was a big hit. He loved clipping and unclipping it (Probably this is the only reason he is sticking to it)

We are still on digraphs. I haven’t given him any worksheets yet. I want him to enjoy for now and grasp the concept.

He is enjoying reading more than before. Sometimes when he sees a word he recognise, he is over the moon. He is like mama see “look” is written. Mama see “in” is written, “cat” is written and then he goes like “dekhain mama fawaaz Ko ata hai na”

To summarise, he doesn’t have any proper path in learning things but things are going well though slow.

I started some science lessons following a book. There is not anything specific I am focusing. I started with the book but then I am going with fawaaz’s interest. There was a chapter about senses then about animals. So when I was giving him the concept about cows,goats and sheeps, he was taking interest. I showed him a minute video of how animals benefit us. Now he usually says I am eating hen’s egg. Recently we were eating mutton curry, he asked us “yeh cow Ki boti Hai ya goat Ki” 😂😂

Then we had a chapter about insects, birds and fishes. So I was telling him that insects has 6 legs and then I showed him caterpillar picture. He asked me some questions about caterpillar’s mama which led the conversation to the lifecycle of caterpillar. Again I showed him couple of minutes animated video of caterpillar life cycle while illustrating what is happening in it. The same day he was telling his baba the whole story how caterpillar ate his own egg and then so many leaves, blah blah.

The point to tell here is that sometimes you have to go beyond the books and syllabus to make a kid understand new concept. Every kid has their way of learning. I have observed that fawaaz learns fast when he is being illustrated about something verbally first then by some short animated video.

He has some fondness towards babies. For example, he has two bulldozers. One is big and the other one is small. So the bigger bulldozer is mama of smaller one and list goes on. So we were reading a book in which a frog and tadpole was drawn. I told him that tadpole is a baby of frog and how he gets big. Later I showed him couple of minutes video of life cycle of tadpole and he got it so well. So we need to see what works best with our kid.

Few days ago we opened this toy. It is very difficult for me and his baba to make it. It will take a lot of time for him to make a castle out of it on his own. But this is helping us to learn shapes. It is increasing his focus too. After observing how magnets are fascinating him, I am thinking to give him concept of magnets soon.

For Urdu, “buhat mushkil Hai yeh kaam, bas itna samjh lijye. Aik aag ka Darya Hai aur doob K Jana hai” 🤷

The progress is slow. But slow and steady wins the race 😉 I am still on same books shuffling to keep his interest intact. We are doing one letter in two weeks roughly. Stickers are our motivator. Thanks to the one who came up with the idea of making stickers 😂. He is done with writing ،ا-ز .But he isn’t perfect in any of these.

For Ramadan, we have started giving some concept that we fast and hence cannot eat and drink. Then we are having some colouring activities related to Ramadan to instill the importance of the month.

Apart from daily masnoon duaas, he learnt some duaas for the current situation which includes اعوذ بكلمات التامات… And بسم الله الذي لا يضر…He also learnt the way to do wudu. His play school played a major role in this one.

Moreover, he is more willing to help these days. I think this is because of his age factor. He wants to make roti , bread, doughnuts, etc. But sometimes for me, this help costs a lot 😝

Below you can see him helping me with hanging washed clothes. اللهم بارك له

Remember us in prayers. The journey is rough but worth it. The “terrible twos” has never left us but surely it has improved. Running is still the favourite sport. The hyper-ness is there. The stubbornness is there. Life isnt enjoyable everytime. But in order to live, we need to cherish these moments. Atleast try to. Remember no body is perfect. Every mother tries to give best to their child.

It is just that the method is different. At the end you don’t ask a man in an interview if you were breastfed or bottle-fed. Did you learn ABCD at age of 3 or 5. Were you potty train at age of 2 or 4.

So take it easy. Life isn’t about worrying for these things.

This is a reminder for me more than you 💞