Homeschool: Week Two ETC ...

A friend of mine  ... Rachel Thomas ... aka Beena ... often said this 'Childbirth is how women enter the Kingdom of heaven'. I think she meant that the pain of childbirth was so much that probably God felt 'OK -- now you can come in'
I reflect on it and think ... its not just childbirth .... but the entire process of child rearing. For me I know if I can live a day without yelling at Isaac ... God may hopefully just give me entry!

It has been about a month now since we started the whole homeschooling bit. Not that keeping a 2.5 year old at home can be called homeschooling ... but the fact that I have certain goals for Isaac this year makes the term schooling appropriate. I think both Isaac and I have had fun. Some days have been frustrating when Isaac just doesn't want to sit down and listen to me read or when he dips all his fingers into the paint  or when he mixes all the colors in the palate to get what we can only call BLACK!  But we have had fun! Let me list out a few things we did together:

1. On about a daily basis Isaac and I go through A,B C ... both big and small. He already recognizes big alphabets and in the past month has started to recognize most of the small alphabets as well. It is a joy to watch him point 'e' in the newspaper. Apparently 'e' is his favorite small alphabet or it is just easy to recognize. The easy part about this learning bit is I can even do  it at the dinning table while we are eating breakfast and Isaac enjoys watching me write the alphabets out!

2. We are learning to count from 1 to 30. We occasionally miss 15 ... :)

3. Isaac has been listening to 'Mozart' uncle , 'Beethoven' uncle and 'Bach' uncle. He actually enjoys them and recognizes one song from the other i.e. You can ask Isaac 'Which uncle's music is this? and he knows it. I am surprised mainly because I am tone deaf. I guess Isaac gets his music genes from the other side of the family. It is our favorite nap time music!

4. Creativity : We painted egg shells, made a flag (Indian Flag), made a fan, made many boats, baked several cakes, made cake pops and ginger bread man ... among other activities.

5. During our errands run we had the opportunity to visit the local electrical shop. Isaac sat and intently watched the electrician put together a plug. I kept talking to him about it ... how there were three wires etc  and in the evening Dad got a 101 on Isaac's trip to the electrical shop!

6. We have been translating everything to Malayalam. At least everything within my Malayalam vocabulary. We have also been learning Malayalam alphabets. Isaac does a good aaa aaaaahhh  eee eeeeh!

7. We received a few flipkart.com gift cards and decided to use it on three of Isaac's favorite books : Big Red Barn, Its Time to Sleep and Drummer boy! Boy have we read those three a 1000 times now. Isaac also found the first book we ever read to him : Good night Moon!

A few unplanned progress notes. Well they say it takes a village to raise a child ... I did not realize how precise that statement was till the other day I heard Isaac telling his aunty (the maid) ' Aunty ethu cycle irruku maa ' roughly translated 'Aunty this is a cycle'. Thanks to constant effort from the maid Isaac has been learning a little Tamil! Yeah for a new language!
Quotes from Isaacland
Aunty to Isaac ' Athu enna Isaac?' (What is that Isaac?)
Isaac ' Blue'
Aunty was actually pointing at some animal in his book and Isaac misunderstood it for the color. Aunty repeats her questions
Aunty to Isaac ' Athu enna Isaac?' (What is that Isaac?)
Isaac ' Blue'
Aunty to Isaac: 'Illa Isaac. Athu enna irruku ma?' (What is that Isaac?)
Isaac exasperated:  ' Athu Blue iruku ma' (this is blue! )
Isaac assumed if he put 'irrukuma' at the end of his sentence she would finally get it!

I have learnt a lot of things these past couple of weeks
1. I love classical music and look forward to Symphony #40 , Fur Elise and Prelude !
2. I can actually draw!!!!!! OK ... I can copy stuff. I drew a horse and a cow and duck and now they actually look like those animal
3. I need a lotttttttttt more patience!

I think this post would go amiss if I did not mention that we start each day with a prayer. Being the mother in the family I have always desired to start the day with a prayer with the entire family. But with chaotic schedules I never was able to do it. Now that we are homeschooling, Isaac and I spend a few minutes thanking God for a lovely day, Isaac's friends, safe travel for appa, patience for Amma and to play well with Ziva! I can say that he listens keenly to the prayer!