October 6, 2020 (Tuesday, Day 2 of Week 1 S.Y. 2020-2021)


Dear Diary,
 
Today is the 14th day of homeschooling for my seven-year-old son. We missed two weeks of homeschooling due to business trips and family events. 

Even so, my son was consistent with his routine. He would make the bed, cook rice, and wash dishes after every meal. He also had the chance to play outdoors at the farm as much as he wants and live stream his video games every day.

Meanwhile, the first day of school started yesterday and we got his modules from his adviser. I was a bit overwhelmed with all the materials and instructions so I conditioned myself first. 

I decided to review everything today and just catch up with the schedule from today moving forward.

My son woke up at 10 am, made the bed, and ate breakfast. We started our homeschooling session today at 10:30 am and used some reading materials provided by the school. 

He took the time to read the Filipino poem with minimal errors. After an hour, he asked for a one-hour break. I let him live-stream his video games as I nap, after setting the alarm for an hour.

I was already sleepy by 11:30 am because I was already up by 3:30 am today, doing chores and preparing to free up as much time for his homeschooling since there is a schedule that we need to follow and tasks that we need to complete.

We were supposed to resume at 12:30 pm when the alarm sounded but I was still sleepy so I let my son continue playing. He stopped at 2 pm and ate his lunch.

We resumed homeschooling by 2:30 pm, starting with reading the Dolch Sight Words list given for Week 1. He was quick with these and showed little to no difficulty in completing the task. 

When I asked him to read the Filipino poem again, he completed it with less difficulty than his first tries this morning. I asked him to do his reading practice since the teacher said that they put emphasis on reading literacy. It is also another way of making him occupied as I prepare the lessons to be reviewed for today.

When I was ready to proceed to today’s review, I guided him in prayer. Afterward, I asked him about today’s day and date which resulted in my son automatically consulting the calendar. Just what I was aiming for! He also identified that even though today is sunny, it is also windy.

We picked up where we left off two weeks ago. I let him start his computer and resumed with Mathematics from Day 7, discussing the names of the days of the week in English and Filipino as well as the order they come in using both English and Filipino ordinals. 

He was intimidated with the ordinals in Filipino and we spent almost an hour on this. Thankfully, he was able to answer most questions but we really had to work on him familiarizing with ordinals in Filipino.

Before working on his ordinals in Filipino, I decided to give him a review of counting in Filipino. He already forgot 25% of the basic numbers. I then helped him remember his numbers in Filipino from one to ten and explained what comes after ten.

I also taught him rules on using "labing/labin/labim".  "Labing" comes with a hyphen and is used before a number whose name starts with a vowel such as "isa, apat", and "anim". "Labin" is used before a number whose name starts with a consonant such as "dalawa, tatlo, lima", and "siyam". "Labim" is used especially for "pito" while "labingwalo" is an exception to the rule.

Moreover, I explained that after nineteen, he doesn’t have to say “labinsampu” because there is no such word. Instead, he should use "dalawampu" and continue to count by saying "dalawampu’t isa" until he reaches "dalawampu’t siyam".

I continued to let him practice counting in Filipino until 100 by also teaching him the rules for counting with tens. We use "mpu" for numbers whose names end with vowels such as "dalawa, tatlo, lima, pito", and "walo". We use "napu" for numbers whose names end with consonants such as "apat, anim", and "siyam". We also change the "o " to "u" before adding "mpu" to numbers such as "tatlo, pito" and "walo".

Finally, he was surprised to hear that one hundred is called "isang daan"  or  "sandaan".

By 5:30pm, my boy was already tired so I let him play his video games again, setting the alarm for an hour. I told him that we will resume our homeschooling once the one hour is up. He was reluctant to agree to that condition but still hurriedly started his gaming. 

We resumed at 7pm and reviewed spelling words in Filipino from Day 7 where he got 80% correct spellings. He was still confused with English and Filipino pronunciations. It translated to his spelling capability.

I tried reviewing the Science part from Day 8 with my son but I guess it merits another day as my son and I were both exhausted from today’s activities.

I then decided to end our homeschooling session for today and let him rest. As usual, I still have a lot of other things to do but I just know I need rest at this moment.

Tomorrow, we will resume from the seventh homeschool day’s Filipino subject before we proceed to the eighth homeschool day’s Science and English subjects. We are also scheduled to join the online live reading exercise to be supervised by his teacher at 8am tomorrow.

After the initial targets for tomorrow, I am planning to start working on his modules for Week 1. That’s it for our 14th day! Thank you for reading until the end.