It has been a full year since DS has been home
schooling. At 4 years old we uprooted from the city of Riyadh where we have
been living and became familiar with for the past 8 years to start a new life
in a new city in Saudi Arabia, on the east coast where all the beautiful sandy
beaches are and calm seas. DS4 first impressions of our new home after a 16
hour flight from the UK, tired and barely awake, ran into every room on the
ground floor then ran upstairs into the bedrooms and yelled joyfully, "Mummy
I LOVE my new house!!!" His words relaxed me and his happiness gave me
happiness and giving me a positive outlook to our new beginnings.
During unpacking, and setting up our classroom, the
children were very excited to see their books that they had missed whilst been
in the UK over the summer. They would eagerly want to write in their workbooks
I had brought for them, although I wasn't ready to home school as I was still
unpacking and getting familiar with the neighbourhood and the neighbours, the
kids funnily enough were happy to sit at the table and work through a few pages
at a time. My inner thoughts was "wow what good kids I have I hope they're
always to enthusiastic when it comes to home school." DS did amaze me at
that time as it was he first time to be disciplined enough to do four to six
pages of a workbook, not that I made he do it, he loved the activities so much
he made me do it with him. Oh, I should mention the workbooks that was a winner
with him... Gold Stars Big Workbook I have been using
most of their collection this year and they have worked well with him.
Aside from workbooks we did a lot of hands on
activities to teach new concepts in language arts, maths and science.
Language Arts
This is the year he learnt to read. We continued
from the year before, using our Jolly Phonics program starting again from group
1 working our way to group 7 until we finished 7 months later, there were many
times he wasn't fond of doing it, so on those days we would Montessori style
activities by matching sounds to objects or picture cards, then moving on to
pink series matching word cards to its picture cards. He preferred these
activities a lot more than Jolly phonics. His writing is neat and controlled
for his age and he tries his best to copy letters and words. The letters that
he struggles with he will write its capital, for example A and B. He started to
read level 1 Biff and Chip books by Oxford Owl by the time he was 4 years and 7
months. He struggled to remember repeated words in the book and always blended
every word he read except for sight words which he read with ease and
proficiency. We stuck with the same book for one week, by the end of the week
he read a little bit better and got a little bit more confident, but he didn't
enjoy to read, only when he was asked to. At 4 he would rather play and move
about than sit down and read a book, although he would enjoy looking at the
pictures and making sense of the story or intently go through activity books
like mazes, or finding wally.
Math
DS had learnt his numbers from 1 to 100 and had
learnt basic concepts like addition and subtraction, sharing, place value and
skip counting in 2s, 5s, and 10s. It always amazes how much a child is able to
learn within a short period of time, from not knowing to knowing and
understanding. At 4 my son knew his numbers up to 10, but couldn't count
vocally in order he would miss out numbers often like 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10,
though he was very capable of using manipulatives and placing them in order
then placing the correct amount of counters on each number. We then moved on to
numbers to 11 to 20, and introduced addition and subtraction using
manipulatives, such as loose counters, 20 beads abacus, Montessori math beads,
Montessori number cards wooden numbers and one hundreds board. DS enjoyed Math
and found it a lot easier than phonics and reading. Although he picks up Math
concepts a lot quicker than Language, I took it slow and didn't cover
everything I wanted to this year.
Quran
This was DS first year to memorise Quran, the
reason I started late was because DS didn't show he was ready to memorise as he
did find it difficult to even follow 3 step instructions, or he show enthusiasm
or interest to memorise when his sister learnt Quran or when we would do our
morning and evening adhkaar. When we did start, we began with suratul
Fatiha, I didn't know what to anticipate and I didn't expect my son to only be
able to learn a few words at a time, we probably learnt one ayah every 1 to 2
weeks, only finishing the surah after 2 to 3 months. My thoughts were that I
wish I had picked a shorter surah which I did after and he may have took so
long because I never actively exposed to him Arabic phrases and encouraged him
to learn his dua's or follow the Quran whilst we listened to it in the car, I
assumed he would pick it up naturally or subconsciously being exposed to it day
in and day out or copy his sister whom he admires so much. But no, we had to
start from scratch, as his pronunciation wasn't strong since he barely spoke
any Arabic words, and his memorisation skills was almost non-existent. Ten
months later he had memorised ten surahs from juz amma, he would often admit
that he had forgotten previous surahs, since we didn’t revise mainly because of
how much time we had spent trying to memorise and revise the current surah, it
would frustrate him to spend additional time to review old surahs. Often, when
he did independent revision by listening, he would get distracted and play with
his toys until I would have to remind him. He needed a lot of encouragement and
I did have to offer incentives for him to complete a surah, but that didn’t
sway him as must as I thought.
Science
This year I prepared many science projects as they enjoyed the hands-on crafty side of things in our home school last year. DS learnt about the human body along with his sister and electricity, we also subscribed to the Mystery Science membership which they always looked forward to. Since every science project has a craft, I’ve noticed that this is the only time he has full concentration, he’s fully engaged and loves to understand exactly what’s going on from start to finish, this is where I see my son shine. This subject does indeed compliment his personality, now it has a place to grow.
His personality
He loves to play with certain types of toys for a period of time than move on to the next. At 4 years old he started with puzzles, ranging from easy to hard for example 20 piece to 78 piece puzzle, he had the patience to do them all and feel very accomplished when he had finished, then he would pack it away and take another puzzle out and another until I had to stop him because it was either, lunch time or dinner time or bedtime. Then he moved on to anything that has an endless play element alongside construction he enjoys it, such as his construction kit, Legos, tangrams, wooden construction bricks and magnetic building blocks, oh and he absolutely loves his transformers. Seeing the pattern in his choice of toys, it seems he likes problem solving and being comfortable in independent play. This also reflects when he plays outside with the neighbourhood kids, when we first came to this neighbourhood, we met a couple of families, and I sent him to a small home school class he attended daily for 4 hours all other 7 students were also boys his age, so he befriended them and played with them outside of lass time. But he was generally the quiet one amongst them and felt more comfortable to do his own thing not really minding if he played together with his friends or not. The friends that he has now are more carefully selected, he gravitates towards gentle children in character and speech and averting away from highly energetic and generally aggressive personalities, as he tends to fall victim to their behaviour. Which has been a developmental process this year, that we are still working on. He had also had the courage to learn how to ride a bike without the training wheels which was a huge feat for him and me.
His relationship at home is another story, he still helps me and his father as much as he can, as smiles a big wide proud with a slight hint of embarrassed smile, whenever we’re telling his being helpful or like the man of the house. He was especially helpful when we travelled abroad he made sure he wheeled the carry on suitcase side by side his father who was pushing the stroller, whilst my and his sister were hands free strolling carefree behind them. He has an innate sense of responsibility towards taking care of his sisters when we are out of the home and is well behaved when we are out. Some differences this year between him and his sisters are that he fights back more frequently than before and likes things to be fair otherwise he will feel great injustice and get in to a quick temper but calm down once he’s hugged or gets to explained what has happened. Although he does play a lot with them nicely too. He is a lot more affectionate towards me and his father out of the his siblings and he is well mannered with the aunties and uncles that he meets.
All in all this year has been a lot of growth for him.
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