Preschool Homeschool | July Lessons and Activities

Hi everyone! In my last post about our homeschooling journey, I have mentioned that we have learned about our son's learning style: auditory. This meant that he learns best when he hears the information.

Knowing our son's learning style made our July homeschool activities even MORE relaxed than in June. In fact I can actually call it a lazy month. Why lazy? Because we saw that Little V prefers watching videos (err.. more of listening actually, he doesn't look at the screen) and learn from them than us sitting together with a workbook. He also enjoys playing with his toys while we learn about phonics rather than me showing him flash cards. In short, we were studying through our daily conversations. I teach him phonics even if I was ironing the clothes!

Nevertheless, we still had to make time for visual learning at least once a week with each session lasting no more than 30 minutes. We are enjoying this approach because it works for the both of us. He learns while he listens, and I don't get rattled working on visuals and manipulatives. 

Phonics and Reading

We still use Sing Spell Read and Write (SSRW) as our guide in our lessons. In June, my son learned about the letters A to C and the sounds they make. In July, we were able to add the letters D to H. I also make sure that we review the sounds of the letters when we play with his toys. For example, I will ask him what is the beginning sound of car toy, he will giddily reply by spelling it phonetically! Interestingly, only the word 'car' is what he's interested in spelling. Now you know what his favorite toy is!

This is how my son reviews the sounds of the letters

When we use the workbook and identify which of the pictures have the beginning sounds of the letter we are focusing on, Little V would normally get his tray of magnetic alphabets and place the letter on top of the picture corresponding to that sound. 

To help him remember the lower case alphabet, we used this ice cream matching activity using a free printable I got from Homeschooling On a Dime. 

I made a DIY reading pointer so he can identify the words as I read from his books. At the moment, he can identify some sight words like - the, of, here, a, and I. 

Most of the time I stay at home but whenever I have the opportunity to go out and visit a bookstore, I try to get some books to add in our collection. For July, here are the books I got for my son.

His favorite at the moment is Corduroy.

Science

After watching the movie, Turbo, my son had an increased interest in garden snails. We were lucky to find some outside our building! Too bad though they were up the wall and we weren't able to examine them at a closer look. We checked videos instead from YouTube and learned about how garden snails look and how they eat. 

Snail on our building's wall. I had to rotate the image ;)

Art

Our monthly subscription from KaHone ended last June and I was unable to renew it due to budget issues. Little V still had his art activities which were mostly painting. 

Daily Chores/Activity

We started using a visual daily chore chart for our son. Lately it's been raining a lot and it has become a burden to ask him to take a bath. After looking up at inspirations from Pinterest, I created our DIY magnetic chore chart using Microsoft Word. Since he can't read yet, I had to look on the net for clip arts that would catch his attention. For the magnet strips, I purchased online some rubber magnetic sheets from Magnet Manila.

The trick worked! Now, Little V monitors what are the items on his list and removes them when he has completed them.

Math and Fine Motor

Counting is not his favorite activity. However his counting to 10 has improved this month. Yay! I let him listen more to his CD of nursery rhymes that included counting rhymes. Being aware of his learning style really helped!

He has also improved on his fine motor skills. He has started to grip his pen properly but still needs more practice in controlling. Have I told you he likes building blocks? This is his favorite activity aside from cars. And now that his collection has increased thanks to some purchases we did and gifts from friends, he has been building a lot these days. And of course, I am always included in the creation of those structures. Never thought I would enjoy playing with his toys! Ha! Ha!

The Avengers are eating pizza!

This coming September, a homeschooling conference will be held here in Manila. I'm excited to join my first ever homeschool conference! I am very much thrilled to learn from fellow homeschooling parents and experts. Fast forward to September, please! :)

Let me share again what we learned from a workshop we attended a couple of weeks back:

If they can't learn the way we teach,

we teach the way they learn."

- O. Ivar Lovaas, Child Development Expert

I feel so blessed that God has led me to understanding my son more and this has helped us in our homeschool. How about you, have you rediscovered your child's learning style? What activities work for them? I would love to learn from you.