HOME - THE FIRST SCHOOL:
A Homeschooling Guide to Early Childhood Education
by BARBARA BLAKE HANNAH


Dear Readers,
I have been fortunate to receive funding from the C.H.A.S.E. Fund to print copies of my book of homeschooling experiences and advice. Jean Lowrie Chin published her comments in her JAMAICA OBSERVER column, Monday November 16.
a href="http://jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20091115T200000-0500_163870_OBS_BLAKE_HANNAH_ON__UNSCHOOLING_.asp.

I share below an excerpt from the book.

CREATING YOUR OWN CURRICULUM
As your child grows, you will automatically be creating a curriculum. The story books you read daily to your child are its earliest lessons in English and Literature, as well as other subjects. You probably have a special time for reading, maybe after you have tidied the house in the morning, in the quiet time before the afternoon nap, or before bedtime. As simply as that, you have started your home curriculum. As your child grows, you will add to this curriculum in the very same way and as you know exactly what your child knows or wants to know, you will develop your lesson plans and gather your textbooks and workbooks as you go along.

To provide the basic lessons, you may choose to teach just one subject a day, so that –say – Tuesday is History Day, then think up creative ways to make that subject day interesting and fun. Your child may be enjoying playing with a science kit and wants to spend most of his time doing only that. Don’t restrict this interest, but find ways to expand it further into exercises such as Spelling Science Words, Writing Down Information, Measuring Amounts, Recording Ideas … you get the picture.

There is no set matrix for how you fill that small mind with information, and if you set achievement goals, you are free to explore ways to accomplish them. You will find that children like to explore one subject as far as they can understand, before moving on to something else. Makonnen would read an entire Science book in one go and then return to it every day for weeks, digesting bits of information he was specially interested in. Go with the flow – your child will better retain that information if he
sought it out himself.

SIMPLE TIPS
The results of these simple start-up practices will surprise you and will encourage you to continue teaching your child at home full time. When you take your one-year-old with you to the doctor’s
waiting room, why don’t you bring a little book to read to him? Or her toy -- the one that jiggles and rattles and is difficult to put together -- to prevent her becoming bored and restless? Why didn’t you put 10 pretty seashells into an empty margarine tub and pass the time waiting by counting them out into his little hands – one, two, three – his first Maths lessons.

At home, where is that cardboard box of discarded wood pieces from the nearby lumber yard, in all shapes and sizes that make wonderful building blocks that can be stacked in myriad designs and that make such a nice noise when tumbling down? No need to buy expensive plastic toys that break apart. What about making a scrapbook book by pasting leaves collected from trees you pass on your daily walk. Writing the names of the trees from which they come, observing the blossoms and fruits that follow and learning about their uses, is a practical and fun way to teach natural science.

And where are the pictures on your walls that teach? Do you have pictures of the Planets, common and exotic animals, the world Atlas, the photos of people of other cultures, of foods and flowers? Stick them up on the wall and you have turned your entire home into a classroom.
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COPIES ON SALE at bookstores and pharmacies islandwide.
FURTHER INFORMATION: jamediapro@hotmail.com