The direction for homeschooling 2011: literature-based learning!

I had been sitting on homeschooling for quite a long while – we took a break since Dec 2010 and it took me a long time to get my rusty engine going again. For the first two weeks of Jan 2011, I was really pondering what direction to take for the year and without any direction, I felt totally unmotivated and lost.

While I was still searching for my direction, I started with simple activities to warm up the old bones, which I shared earlier here, here and here.

I finally decided on the direction for homeschooling when I spoke to my dear friend Pauline from myplayschool.net a couple of weeks ago. It was then I decided that I’d take the literature-based approach for this year and I started reading up more about what to read with Alicia!

I’ve read about the literature-based approach before but I shelved it earlier on since I had my own ideas about what to teach Alicia at the start. Now that she’s familiar with alphabets and concepts of colours, shapes, body parts etc., I felt that it was quite timely to embark on literature-based learning where she could really see how all that she’s learnt so far come together in books (and not to mention life)! This approach also enables me to instill what I believe to be quite fundamental in a good learner – the love for reading. Apart from teaching literacy, I find that it is easy to weave in other disciplines, which makes it perfect for a homeschooled preschooler!

I’ve since tried it out with Alicia for a few books and it has been truly lovely! She enjoys the books and the activities and asks to read many times a day! 🙂 Stay tuned for updates!