I have been actively surfing the net for activities for Darius after he turned 1 year old. Hoping to do some structured activities or routines together which isn’t stressful.

My first thoughts were doing a specific activity each day, incorporating with exercise or places to go, plus a set time for some reading. I even drew up a time-table of it which til now is only loosely followed because there’s just too many disruptive activities. Cooking, feeding him and busy with projects coming in.

I am also always following homeschooling mummies’ blogs with their interesting activities and recommendations but Darius is still too young at the moment. Charlotte Mason’s approach often come up in their posts and I really like her philosophy.

Charlotte emphasized treating each child as a person, not as a container into which you dump information. She believed that all children should receive a broad education, which she likened to spreading a feast of great ideas before them. Charlotte encouraged parents to have an active role in teaching and training their children in academics, fine arts, faith, citizenship, and habits of character. (read more from SimplyCharlotteMason)

She particularly advocates choosing good books for children so they are only exposed to ‘living’ books usually written in story form by one author who has a passion for the subject instead of purely factual textbooks.

I have been going to the library often with Darius but I often come back with only one or two books because I can’t find books that really appeal to me enough to read aloud to him. Books with good wordings, rhymes, nice illustrations and not too many words on a page. Most of the books for babies are either too simple, too much info, too focused on learning of shapes, words or numbers or belong to the commercial type – Disney, Barney, Sesame Street. I can’t read the words with much feelings if they are just, 1 apple, 2 birds, 3 cats… etc. There are certainly good books but I don’t know which.

So, I’m glad to have found back this site called Brightly Beaming Resources. I had seen it before when Darius was born but only found it recently when I read about how a homeschooling mom uses the curriculum from here with some adaptation on her own. It’s so far the only site I found with free curriculum for below 2 year olds and with recommended lists of books, poetry or music appropriate for his age.

I do not think this is truly ‘homeschooling’ however. I just thought he needs to learn something besides just playing with the same electronic plastic toys everyday and reading will be a good place to start. I’m glad he does like books and often walks over to the bookshelf to flip through them on his own.

Also for people like me who is lacking time, having a good schedule of things to do will help in keeping his learning in check. The activities she suggested are fun and non-stressful learnings too. That is, instead of learning alphabets, a letter a week like what he used to do at 10 months in Growing Up Gifted (GUG), the author does not begin to teach til he’s at least 2.

Not that learning alphabets is not good but he can’t grasp the words much at this age. Tell him, A for apple, aeroplane in a structured lesson and he’ll just lose attention very quickly. Now at age 13-24 months, all he needs is to be exposed to good literature (just read & read), music, poetry and a bit of all the other subjects with my help. I’m not sure whether the author uses the CM method but her lessons certainly look very similar to CM’s method of immersing the child in a broad spectrum of subjects.

The curriculum has two lesson plans for each month of the child’s age. Thus, each lesson plan will run for two weeks with us reading a book repetitively for a week. This is good for the child as they learn by repetition.

Instead of buying the books which can burn a big hole in my pocket, I decided that I’ll just borrow from the National library. From the online catalogue search, I’m pleased that almost all the books could be found in our library except for 5 of them. I’ll need to substitute them with something else then. I even owned 4 of the recommended books in her list which I bought for Darius since he was 3 months old and has been reading to him. “The shape of me and other stuff by Dr Seuss” ,”Goodnight Moon”, “Mr Brown can Moo!Can You? by Dr Seuss”, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle”. He loves these books more than those ’simple’ ones I borrowed from the library probably because I read with more gusto… ha and the illustrations are really good! Yup, good illustrations are something I consider when choosing a book.

I’m planning to buy some good books from The Home Library too to add to his collection. The owner is Angie, a homeschooling mom. If you have no idea which books are good books, browse her catalogue for her recommendations.

Well, enough said, but do I have the energy to carry the lessons out? I’ll really need to strive a balance and do up a detailed time-table so I can teach him and yet continue with my freelance projects.

More information for myself to read:

1) Nature Study With Children - Need to make nature walk a weekly routine
2) Toddler Activities at home – Indoor and Outdoor activities to do

Mummies’ Blogs that are my inspirations and sources of info:
1) Homeschooling Fun (Mamabliss)
2) Bottoms Up (Evelyn) – Little Kids Read
3) The Domus Academy
4) Brenmae
5) Kei: Love her Letter of the Week Lessons!
6) Tamarind Phonics

Resources for Free:

Starfall : Learn about phonics/alphabets using this wonderful Flash website, choked full of resources all free. I have been showing this to Darius sometimes since he was 2 months old.

E-resources from our National Library: For Children

Sites shared by Brenmae, a blogging mother

Literature Online : Children’s Books Online: The Rosetta Project – Scanned pages of children’s books.

Audio books: BooksShouldBeFree , LitToGo.

Other Free Sites:
1) DLTK : Printable craft worksheets for colouring or learning about alphabets.
2) Make Your Own Flashcards : Customise cards with real photographs from the World Wide Web.

Related posts:

1. New Books For Darius I bought four items from The Home Library Online...
2. About Reading Words Had been wanting to write a series about this but...
3. Tot School I found this fabulous homepage, 1+1+1=1 Tot School from MamaBliss’...
4. Darius Getting us More Involved in Reading Reading together is becoming the most common activity between Darius...