Teaching is hard!

Hubby commented that I need to teach my girl in a more structured manner. He suggested that I wake her up earlier to teach her for about 2 hours before baby wakes up! *Faints* He also mentioned that I haven't been reading to baby very much, at least not as much as I used to read to my girl at his age. Thats true. Poor baby. Hubby also said that I have time to read story books but not to baby! Ah! That man. Just because I'm not working, he usually feels that I'm not doing enough for the children when I do things for myself. Once he said to me "Why do you blog? It doesn't do anything for the family?" Aiyoh! I told him "I blog for me because it makes me happy." To me taking care of myself means I can take care of the family better.

Ok. So now he got me all hyped up about teaching my girl. The fact that I feel a little bit guilty for spending time on myself instead of the kids aside, I do feel excited about teaching her because she is at a ripe age for learning and very eager to learn. I am eager to teach her but I don't know where to start! Theres languages, math, science, social studies, arts, music. My goodness where to start?

I got excited reading about home schooling. I went to the bookshops to browse and was disappointed at the incomplete series of books available. I guess I need to do a little bit more research on this but for the time being we have started "lessons" at home. The "lesson" went well today. First we read a little bit (from the hand-me-down Peter and Jane Ladybird books), then we did some activities (a mixture of math and other things) followed by some writing practise. I wanted to start her off for just 15 minutes first since this is our first day but she seemed to enjoy it so we carried on for 45 minutes. Baby was very good too. He sat down at the table with us and watched us happily.

For now my objective is to get her into the habit of sitting at the same place everyday to "study" for a fixed period of time. I want to show her that learning is fun so she can experience the joy of reading her storybooks on her own. I want her to feel a sense of achievement as the words on her book begins to make sense to her. Hubby says he will leave it to me but I think he is of the opinion that I need to also show her that life is not all about play and sometimes we need to do things we don't like as well. I think I will leave that important lesson for a little later.

At the moment she can write her numbers as well as alphabets from A-Z both capitals and small letters. She can write her own name and some other simple words. So I'll just have to build on that. I'm very excited but at the moment the teaching task seem daunting. And I'm merely talking about teaching a pre-schooler! I need to give this more thought. Thats the benefit of staying home. My mind is not distracted by other things. And I hope to be able to establish a lifetime love for learning in her. I don't think its too early to start and I will try my best. I will try my best to show her that learning is not a chore but a joy.

But in order to do that, first, I must learn.....how to teach!