Homeschooling Frustrations

It's the best and the worst day. We started as usual today but I was stone tired. Really, mums try to do too much, and still feel they don't do enough. Miraculously, today was one of those Montessori days. Umayr and Sofiyya were already working on the Geometric Solids and rough and smooth boards at the foot of my mattress as I laid half-awake.

After breakfast, Ihsan got on with his workplan , Umayr, by some miracle, moved from one work to another that we even missed the morning outdoors hour. By noon, Umayr was back to his toys, I managed to persuade him to do a presentation though, with the promise that he can play his toys later.

By some twist of fate, he found a long lost album which kept pictures of extensions with the sensorial materials. He chose one of the most elaborate projects and Ihsan strangely chose the simplest. Umayr, my dreamer who whines in frustration when he can't do something and Ihsan the careful strategist. I ended up doing the extension, cause he refused to let me dismantle it for him to try on his own. Ihsan also did another extension which was more complicated.

I do get irritated with constantly having to remind them to clean up after themselves though. After a year of homeschooling, the Montessori discipline of returning things you take after finishing with them is still not embedded in my children. Of course once in a while I'm lucky, but I'm still awaiting for that day when I don't have to do this every day, for like a million times.

How do you homeschool, in the Montessori way at that, when you're not a tai tai like most homeschoolers here are? You use what you have and try to make as many extensions as you can. It's amazing how the kids got into the geometric solids for instance this past few weeks.

We had just half of the number in natural wood from pieces I found at Daiso. No matter, we had fun making playdoh models and even paper pyramids yesterday which extended to the Egyptian pyramids.

It is such a miraculous day. The boys have cleaned up on their own and are now continuing with their extensions on the sensorial materials and its 7 p.m. Wow, if only every day is like this I can rest...However, that is a misconception; because the method requires a prepared environment, you've got to knock yourself out before the actual day and you have to always be prepared for a diversion that the child might take.

I think I'd reward them with some real materials soon, God willing... for now, I think I can take a break.

The Shell by Ihsan Sujuandy

I found a shell
It had a smell
It smelled like dump
Because I found it on a hump
I wonder if it's trash
Because I made it crash

Fractions not?

Ihsan is tiring me out. His quips start from the moment he awakes to the moment he falls asleep. He wanted to find out the definition of the geometric solids close to bedtime. Lucky for me he forgot about it. He must be finally tired.

Today, he convinced me on the science behind the Montessori method.He was working on some fraction manipulatives, which were not Montessori by the way, and started to see the point behind equivalent fractions.

What surprised me was how he managed to translate it to numbers beyond units to billions. So there it was, four pages of equivalent fractions of half from units, tens, hundreds, thousands, millions and billions.

Number placing is taught in Montessori preschools after the child has gained the quantitative and ordinal concept of numbers. Then, they are taught only to thousands and in elementary level to billions, which ashamedly I've not done, due only to my lethargy and lack of resourcefulness for material making. Ihsan has been shown the manipulatives only to thousands and have learnt only the abstract numbering to billions from a casual conversation with me.

God gives us strength in the strangest ways in the most fitting time: )
Alhamdulillah.....

Juicy Rain

Today the kids learnt how to use the juicer, the manual one, they enjoyed it so much they did it again int the afternoon. Umayr tried to juice an apple:) Earlier in the day, we also managed to make geometric models from playdoh. Of course, it ended up with me doing most of it, so unprofessional. Umayr made snow kings instead, from the Harry and the Snow King story we read before the playdoh session. Oh, well....


Their friends didn't turn up today, much to Ihsan's chagrin. His brother stopped playing just a few minutes after we arrived. He threw a bit of a tantrum before strangely asking me if we can take a nature walk. Oh, ok, also after I threatened to leave the playground by the count of ten.

Here are the kids enjoying their raisins after our soda and raisin experiment. My kind of experiment; just soda, raisins and a glass. It's a plus that they can consume what they were working on, just like the orange juice this morning.

Wanted to go to Lot 1 to; sigh... buy printer ink again. It's raining outside though, so I might have to shelf it and ask dh to get me my stuff instead.

You choose for me

In Montessori, a child is supposed to build up his will by his choice of work. Umayr's answer to work period used to be 'No!'. I had to then persuade him to choose something to do. On my lucky days, he does choose something. I'm happy if he gets past one piece of work: )

Now, he has moved on to 'Ummi choose for me anything'. I'm hoping the next stage would be where he's going to choose his work himself.

Today, after storytime ( which is our usual circle time), we did cutting of carrots. The children absolutely loved it. I had to give my baby gal a spreader cause she wanted in too. After that we ate, told them they'd get rosy cheeks and bright eyes and made carrot prints- a natural progression I guess.

While I made lunch, Umayr did his penmanship and Ihsan was into his Dinosaur and Paleontology Dictionary and did his vocabulary recording. Lunch was chicken curry and soup. The only difference between the two of them was the curry paste: ) Ihsan and Sofiyya don't take hot food.

While waiting for lunch to cool, I introduced Umayr to the number placing; units, tens and hundreds with the golden beads. After that, I managed to present Addition with the Small Bead Frame to Ihsan.

We had a nice quiet lunch as everyone was absorbed with the chicken after having seafood for three days. I had my break and they had their free games after that. After Zuhr prayers we had Quran reading and memorisation lesson as usual. Thereafter, it was outdoors for soccer and cycling.

The kids have now showered and we'll be saying our Asr prayers soon. Then, it'll be some quiet work - written work of the lessons we have covered or if the kids want they'd do shelf work. Sometimes we'd do other languages like Malay or Arabic. Just had Mandarin yesterday, so we're taking a break on that.

After dinner, the kids usually do their reading or sketching while waiting for Maghrib and more of it before Isya' after which is blissful sleep. Need to get back to school now.