August 1, 2020 (Saturday, Sabbath)

Dear Diary,

Today is the second day of homeschooling for my seven-year-old son. It seems that my efforts to make him sleep at around 8 pm last night was worth it because he woke up early at 5 am today. Well, he actually woke up because he had to poop. XD

After pooping, he stood there at our kitchen looking at me while I was washing our drinking bottles. I asked him if he wants to start our homeschooling early today and he said ‘yes” so I asked him to turn on his computer as I finish refilling our water bottles for cooling.

When I came to his study nook, his computer was already set but he was holding his mobile phone and trying to play Mobile Legends. I asked him to turn it off and focus on learning. He obeyed and we started today’s lessons. 

I actually planned to review his Computer lessons yesterday if he fails to properly turn on his PC, log in, log out and shut down. But he seems to have absorbed it fully yesterday as he effortlessly did it today. So we moved on to his English subject review of self-introduction.

He struggled to complete the task of self-introduction because he was intimidated and hesitant so I went first and did the exercise. He followed suit but it took him a full 20 minutes to successfully do it due to a lot of stops and hesitations. In the end, he was successful to complete the exercise and learned his birthday and address in the process.

We then proceeded to his Math exercise for today. I really did not know what the online Math quiz has. I found that it uses Tagalog in the quiz so my son had difficulty answering the quiz because he needs to learn Tagalog more. It took him 30 minutes to complete the quiz with an accuracy of 86%. All other metrics were unimportant as my goal is to get him to improve within himself and not in relation to others. My takeaways from this online Math quiz, which turned out as some kind of a mini diagnostic test for him are the following:
- My son already knows how to tell time. He finds it “easy peasy”.
- My son doesn’t completely know the days of the week in both English and Tagalog and the order they come in.
- My son doesn’t know how many days there are in a week and in a month and, how many weeks there are in a month.
- My son doesn’t know how many months there are in a year and the months of the year by order in both English and Tagalog.
- My son needs to learn Tagalog words such as “matangkad, mabigat, magaan, mataas, malaki, maikli, mahaba, ilan, pagitan, alaga, hayop, ibon, kuneho, pusa, laso, lapis, pets, kalendaryo, hula, katumbas, buwan”, and ordinals in Tagalog.
- My son needs to learn comparative adjectives in Tagalog such as “mabait, mas mabait, pinakamabait.”

We took a break at 6 am today for breakfast and came back at 7 am.  We discussed Tropical Cyclone Wind Signals and its manifestations, the importance of clean drainage canals, and planting trees as well as the rainfall warning system. He requested to see a video of flooding so I showed him Yolanda videos to demonstrate the might of a super typhoon. We also got the latest update about Tropical Depression Dindo today. This took us 40 minutes.

Our next subject was MAPEH. We first had our Music and Health topic by listening to DOH’s Covid-19 jingle. He learned that it is good to take a shower, wash hands, stay away from sick people, and cover your face when you sneeze and cough to fight CoViD-19. This took us 10 minutes.

We moved on to Filipino to practice reading in Tagalog. He was having difficulty in reading Tagalog words. We did the suggested activities in the DEPED resource like writing his name since he needs writing practice anyway. My son has a lot of catching up to do. He was absent for a total of almost 3 months during Grade 1. I noticed that he takes time with unwanted topics by making excuses and using delaying tactics. He was wishing for a break and seems procrastinating. We finished the material in 45 minutes.

We took our second break at 8:30 am and resumed at 8:45 am with Pagbabaybay at Pagbabasa in Filipino. I asked him to read the Tagalog words and spell them out. This took 30 minutes. After reading and spelling out 20 words, we proceeded to the quiz which took 10 minutes and gave him a score of five out of 10.

Everybody was up by this time so I asked him to make our bed by 9:25 am and he did it well in just 5 minutes! I am so proud of my son.

Our next topic is Art as part of MAPEH. We watched “How to Draw a Monster” by Art for Kids Hub on YouTube and my son drew his own monster. He was such a “perfectionist” about it and  with every mistake, he would say, “I told you I’m not good with it.” I ignored him and showed him how to do it by simply following the directions in the video until I was able to completely draw my own monster. He was encouraged to do it on his own after that. He was able to finally finish his own version and it took him 18 minutes for that.

The last subject for today is Other Languages: Nihonggo. He took the Hiragana 1 training for beginners via DuoLingo.com. He also felt that this was “Easy peasy! Give more!”. This took him 22 minutes and he enjoyed it the whole time. He actually took 5 lessons in one sitting! I just hope he can absorb the lesson today. :) 

And finally, we watched a YouTube video on how to play Piko for his Physical Education part of MAPEH. We also tried to play the game. This lasted for 10 minutes. At first, he did not like it but as we went along and he was getting the hang of it, he was totally enjoying himself and even said that he liked the game.

 Today’s subjects included:
- English (Reading, Speaking, Spelling, and Writing)
- Mathematics
- Science and Health
- Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health
- Technology, Home Economics, and Livelihood Education
- Filipino (Pagbabasa, Pagsasalita, Pagbabaybay, Pagsusulat)
- Other Languages: Nihonggo

I finalized “his notes” for today and prepared the lesson for tomorrow in one hour and 40 minutes and asked him to shut down his computer. That’s it for our second day!