Partial homeschooling

Many friends asked me why i dont homeschool Gordon myself. How to homeschool him when i dont know what to teach him to begin with. He's been going to school for almost eight months, and been through three school exams. I let him go along with the school education system for the first six months. Starting this school term, he made a little progress in his exam after i placed more effort into his studies. Being a non-chinese speaking parent with a non-speaking chinese kid going to a chinese vernacular school, it's really really tough. Add to that the autistic part, and i tell you, my hands and brain cells are fully occupied 24/7.

Since his tuition teacher gave up on him last week, i decided to take things back into my own hands. I made some changes to his studies, especially when it comes to school homework. I started off by cutting down on his writing. I wonder why kids have to write and write and write and write and write all the time. It's such a boring and repetitive task. It's very difficult to get Gordon to sit down and write. It takes a hell lot of patience to even get him to write a few words. Dont even mention lines and pages. Sometimes, i get so worked up that all the pent up the frustration ends up being lashed out on both kids. No, it's not fair to the three of us at all. Especially when it has to happen every single day, morning, school, night and weekend. My kids and i deserve to have some form of life other than school, studies, homework and writing.

Believe you me when i tell you i cut his BM writing assignments down by at least 75%. As he has to write the given words all the way down his exercise books, that translates to 12 times per word. Multiply that by10 words each time and you can see how much he has to write every other day.  And he still has other homework to finish. What i do now is i write all the words down onto a piece of paper and stick it onto the wall. I only ask him to copy each word three times on his exercise book, and that's it. "Oh, his teacher doesnt care?", you may think. Well, no. How can she when she doesnt even bother to mark his books. So, it doesnt really matter whether he actually finishes them or not. But then, he goes to school for a purpose, and that is to learn. Be it words, chinese or numbers. The important thing is he learns something at the end of the day.

Coming back to the homeschooling part. As i've said at the beginning, i have no idea what to teach him, i shall use the school homework as a guide. I got him to write after the reduction, somewhat willingly. I help him know each word and its meaning in three languages at the same time. I help him with his pronunciation. I teach him whatever comes to mind. I use whatever ways i can think of according to his mood. I even speak in three languages with my kids now so that they learn three times faster at home, lol. Malcolm is picking up super fast though. The good part from all this is Malcolm is also learning along with us. I believe by the time he starts Std1, he will have a good foundation.

Gordon is only interested in numbers. He eats, sleeps, reads, writes, draws, plays, sings and sees numbers all day long. His exercise, activity and text books are filled with number doodles. He's even learning times-table all by himself. In a way, compared to many other kids who has to struggle with numbers and maths, i'm indeed thankful that Gordon loves them so much. I cannot have the whole world. His weakness in languages will improve over time. But his affinity with numbers is a gift from God. Oh well, i dont know what tomorrow may bring. I just have to keep looking for ways to get him to listen to what i have to teach him each day. Who cares about the school and what other people think lah, horrrr. This is partial homeschooling the Myorganiclife way.