Feb
26
2018

Homeschooling Ayden | Mathematics | Addition

I homeschool elder brother Ethan during his preschool years. I’m doing the same with little Ayden presently.

I wonder how other young children aged 4-5 years old are able to learn in a classroom seating environment as from my observation, both my boys require tremendous individual attention during their formative years.

What I love about homeschooling is they can learn at their own pace, anywhere and anytime of the day. This way, Ayden gets ample of time to indulge in many other beyond classroom activities.

But I am also a firm believer that once they’ve completed their preschool years at home, they will have to eventually attend primary school in a school; not at home. It will be good for them to be exposed to the ‘real world’ equipped with serious competition and challenges as these will prepare them to deal with the working world in the later stage of their lives.

My role when they start attending school is to support them morally; be involved yet distance myself enough to let them grow independently.

Anyway for now, Ayden is still very much under my guidance at home. I make sure to spend several minutes each day for each subjects such as Math, Science, BM and English. Ayden loves Mathematics but he is not good in writing yet.

Yesterday, we did addition and the video below shows what it looks like in a typical homeschooling lesson with cheeky little Ayden. Sometimes, a simple lesson ended up being stretched longer due to his many questions yet at times, a difficult lesson can be solved quickly when he really puts effort into it. Whichever it is, a lesson with Ayden (or Ethan) is always fun and never once boring.

These boys bring such joy and happiness into my life ♥

Ayden @ 4Y5M

Tags: homeschooling

About the Author: Merryn Tan

4 Comments + Add Comment

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Rose February 26, 2018 at 2:50 pm

I salute you for your perseverance. I don’t have the patience to teach my kids, not to mention full-time home schooling.

Kudos to you and your boys. They are doing well.

As for me, different kids have different learning level. Some are fast, some are slow. For the time being, Jamie has spellings in all 3 languages every week in kindergarten. One thing I don’t like about kindergarten. More learning and stress for younger kids than them having fun. Sigh. I also stress guiding him at home. Lol

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  Merryn February 26, 2018 at 11:50 pm
  
  That’s the thing about kindergarten. I taught in kindy before I have Ethan. We teach a classroom of little children and put a note in their message book for the homework to be done at home. In the end, the parents are the ones who have to guide their kids with homework, spelling and all.
  
  That is why I forego kindy for both my kids as I know in the end I’ll be doing most of the work after all. Another thing I disagree is having spelling tests for 4 and 5 year olds. Most of these children are not independent readers yet so I find it defeating the purpose to force them to memorize spellings when they should be guided to read first. I know some will say, learn to spell first then they’ll be able to read but from my experience, I find that kids read the entire word better rather than scrutinize the spelling. Just like us adult, sometime we can read an entire word without knowing how to spell it out.
  
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Twilight Man February 27, 2018 at 11:30 am

I really salute your determination and excellent knowledge about good parenting and this home schooling before they are enrolled into normal schools. I could actually write many pages about this topic as my wife was a lecturer and now an educationist who works closely with MOE as the whole syllabus would be changed to “Computational Thinking” soon. You can google that word. I often hear from her about the progress of our education system and all the problems faced locally. This Thursday she would be in US to visit selected schools for observation.

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Mun March 1, 2018 at 7:59 pm

The way Ethan is enjoying his studies now shows that home schooling worked for him.

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About Me

Home is where MY heart is.
I am a mother to two boys; Ethan and Ayden and a wife to Darling William. I'm a stay at home mum who blogs to break the monotony of life and to avoid feeling jaded. Would love to get to know all the Super Mommies and Daddies and Babies or Singles out there with the hope that we can learn more from each other. Most of all, I am a happy person, and I hope YOU are too.