August 2, 2020 (Sunday, Family Day)

Dear Diary,

Today is the third day of homeschooling for my seven-year old son. He slept in late today. He woke up at 11:30 am even though he slept at 9:30 pm last night. It was good that he slept in late because I was able to do a lot of house chores today before we had to start his homeschooling.

After we ate lunch together (it was brunch for him), he volunteered to make the bed. I was delighted and boy, was I so proud of my son! When I saw that he was done with making the bed, I asked him to wash the dishes as I hang the laundry. He decided to take a bath after washing the dishes since his clothes were already wet from the task.

While my son took his bath, I finished washing the bigger items in the sink. I also cleaned our stove and cooked rice for the dogs. Then I realized that everything was so quiet so I asked him if he was done bathing and he said ‘yes’.

I decided to postpone cooking dog food and to start homeschooling with my son. He turned on his PC and he noticed one recurring topic (self-introduction) and asked me about it. I decided to evade his question and praised him instead for voluntarily making the bed without being asked, therefore making it a habit. This decided our first subject for today: THELE.

We talked about sweeping and street sweepers. He was able to learn how to help lessen their burden and the benefits of sweeping every day. This took us 10 minutes to finish.

The next subject we tackled is Computer and we discussed how to use the Calendar app on the dock. We also discussed the days of the week for Math. This included how many days there are in a week, which day comes before, which day comes after, which day comes in between, which day is n days before a day, which day is n days after a certain day. My son got the hang of it in time. Both subjects were finished in 40 minutes.

While we were discussing Computer and Math, I was multi-tasking and preparing his Habit Board. I hope this would make him stick to his good habits more. My son noticed it and got a little bit distracted and asked to use it. I promised him that I will share it with him once we finished discussing the calendar. So when my son asked to take a break, I proceeded to discuss his habits board for five minutes and he was happy to check all the accomplished habits after.

After almost an hour of studying, I allowed my son to have a 15-minute break as I take notes of today’s experience. I also gave him a separate whiteboard where he could doodle to his heart’s content. But then I noticed that after 15 minutes, he was now in front of the TV. I called him back and resumed our homeschooling.

We started with Values Education by 2:15 pm and I let him watch a video of a fable with a moral lesson for 10 minutes. We discussed right after and this took 15 minutes. I then asked him if he likes to plant and discussed the backyard garden with him along with what plant he wants to grow. He chose to plant pechay in the vacant plot.

After discussing gardening, he felt hungry and asked to eat. I told him we have to cook the rice first and so I showed him how to cook rice. He was able to actually measure the rice and the water. I know he felt good knowing how to measure rice and water, and also knowing how to cook rice.

While waiting for our rice to cook, we went back to study at 3 pm and learned how to sing the Philippine national anthem, Lupang Hinirang, by first watching a YouTube video and then singing together. This took us 15 minutes. He wasn’t able to master the song so I gave him two options: either he masters it today or we practice every day until he masters it. He chose the latter.

We moved on to English as the last subject today. We brushed up on self-introduction and this took us five minutes for all four tries. I even got to record a video for his dad. I just learned how it feels to be accomplished by seeing the fruit of my teaching efforts for my son to master self-introduction.

The second part of English was reading and spelling. He did quite well with reading and finished the drill in five minutes. We had difficulty proceeding to the spelling activity as he was so hesitant to do the task. He does not want to do it so I gave him options and negotiated. In the end, I was able to convince him to do the spelling drill. He was really dragging his feet to do it. But he did it anyway. We had a spelling quiz and he got 8 out of 10 wherein two correct words were compound words. I feel happy and proud. We finished this in 30 minutes.

Today’s subjects included:
- Technology, Home Economics, and Livelihood Education
- Computer
- Mathematics
- Values Education
- Civics, Culture, Geography, and History
- English (Reading, Speaking. Spelling, and Writing)

I finalized “his notes” for today and prepared the lesson for tomorrow in an hour. That’s it for our third day!