While some schools wait until the second week of January to resume classes, our homeschooling routine after the holidays started on January 3. It was the first day of our Level 3 class. One of the first lessons Jed had was the introduction of Cursive Handwriting. I was almost sure that it was going to be a challenge since this homeschooler has gotten used to handwriting in manuscript and is already pretty comfortable with it.

Just to give you an idea how well our 6 year old son is doing on his manuscript writing, above is a sample.  The School of Tomorrow’s curriculum has such well-designed program that my son’s progression to this kind of good handwriting was not pushed at all. As with most of his subject’s approach to every lesson, mastery plays the important role to retention and the child’s improvement on every given lesson.  We seriously could not have chosen a better homeschooling curriculum for our son.

I was pretty impressed at how my son fared on his first few pages of learning cursive handwriting.  Photo above was the first page he finished.

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Yes, we have been on blogging hiatus for the holidays. The days are crazy busy but fun! From the moment we stepped back to Manila from Hongkong on the second week of this month, our schedules are practically packed to the last hour.

It was yet another fun Christmas Eve celebration at my folks’ place together with my sister’s in-laws. It has kind of become an unplanned tradition. Our son, being the youngest of the bunch received the most gifts from his family and Ninongs and Ninangs.Aside from his usual “hotwheels” gift request, we thought we’d surprise him with his very first console, A DSi XL. It was his reward for finishing Levels 1 and 2 in 2011. We thought of giving him more than the usual chocolate birthday gifts for him because he’s been extra good this year. We chose the Nintendo DSi XL instead of a PSP or any other console because of the many educational games that he can play in it. To date, his favorite is Mario Kart and Need for Speed Shift. But he switches from that to the Spelling and the Brain Age game. We just thought he was ready for it and with how he manages to stop playing when he needs to affirms just that.

These homeschoolers just got back from a much needed getaway. We just flew back from Hongkong to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary! Indeed, time flies when you’re having fun. And because one of our itineraries include a trip to the happiest place on earth – Disneyland, there was no way we can leave our little guy at home.  He celebrated with us as we roamed the different places in Hongkong.

As always, my husband was again able to surprise me with three different cards throughout the day which he strategically placed first thing in the morning (before I slept), midday and just before I sleep on December 8, 2011. As I was reading through the cards, our little guy would curiously look at each one and vowed that he’s going to make us a card as soon as he gets his hands on a piece of paper. I saw him have this look of awe on his face when he saw me happily reading through his father’s messages for me written on the cards. It makes me almost sure that he’s going to be a great husband himself when he grows up.

Our 6 year old son’s Happy Anniversary card for us

To: Mama and Papa

From: Jed

“Mama, did you know that I love you and Papa?”

“Thank you for inviting me to your 10th anniversary.”

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Our homeschooler is officially done with Level 2 last November 18, 2011. We are just proud of how he fared. Especially towards the end of the Level.

From the beginning of Level 2 towards the middle of it, there were instances that our son dreaded his Math subject. But as we went towards the end part of Level 2, it was even the first PACE from all his 7 subjects that he completed first! He actually got the hang of Math and began looking forward to it. I so love the mastery approach of The School of Tomorrow curriculum. Read this article »

I was browsing through our digital albums when I chanced upon this photo of our homeschooler when he was two years old. While I’d say it is the computer age that got him to be tech savvy so early, it just amazes me till now how he can figure things out for himself techie stuff more than I can.

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Last month, our family went to attend i-Shine at Acting by Promil Preschool, Trumpets Playshop and Philippine Association for the Gifted. Our homeschooler had a real fab time with the rest of the kids who attended. We called our class off that day to be able to attend the workshop.

Teacher Irene Delarmente mentioned that nurturing a child’s love for acting or performing is a process. Parents who were present were also encouraged to be creative even as we conduct playtime at home. We saw how the teachers conducted their workshop that made it very interesting for the kids. Read this article »

The lovely thing about homeschooling is that we are able to have week days off at our whim. Not that we abuse it. We really just love the liberty that goes with this kind of system. Like the Trumpets Playshop Workshop that we got to attend last Wednesday. It was an event sponsored by Promil.

Enrolling our homeschooler to Trumpets has been a part of our plan. It was my husband’s idea. As opposed to having our son train in a Pop Music school, he really would rather that he is exposed to learning the “proper” way to sing. Our son really enjoyed the workshop. I will blog more about it later. I still have to download the photos and videos from the cameras we used.

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As I have mentioned in my previous post, our Boracay vacation was postponed when my homeschooler had a Dengue fever. It doesn’t really matter. I mean missing our family vacation, since our child’s welfare is always our primary concern. Anyway, we still have a lot of vacations to plan as long as we are always in a good health, right?

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I confess, if not for a very efficient, parent-friendly homeschool curriculum, our homeschooling family would not have thrived beyond a few months in this alternative education system. I am happy to report that we have been homeschooling for two years and we cannot be more glad to have chosen School of Tomorrow’s homeschooling program. I have time and again emphasized in my homeschool blog, Christian Homeschooler, that the curriculum you choose has a lot to do with a family’s success in homeschooling. This explains why I would rave on and on about the effectiveness of School of Tomorrow’s curriculum. Nothing beats vouching for something that you have experienced for yourself on a firsthand level.

What amazes me more is what the people behind this curriculum have also managed to put up, a not-for-profit organization called Basic Literacy Education & Support System (BLESS). Its design is to reach out to the community as it penetrates through its network of organizations. BLESS makes use of the School of Tomorrow system and they put up BLESS Reading Centers to teach children how to read in 18 to 20 weeks. As someone with a child who actually learned how to read with comprehension through the SOT system at four years old, I know for a fact, that this is very doable given the right tool. Our family is beyond sold out when it comes to the SOT’s system.

BLESS kids graduating from the program

Four main goals of BLESS:

1. Lead souls to Christ (children, parents, siblings and relatives).
2. Teach children how to read.
3. Teach children rudimentary math.
4. Instill godly values by teaching of God’s creation and plan of salvation through Christ. Read this article »

It has been more than a month since our homeschooler took a break from attending his karate classes. After his dengue episode early last month, he had to rest for a week longer. This took from him half of the month of September.

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