Homeschooling my preschooler

I get 3 different reactions whenever I tell people I'm taking H out of preschool next year.

1. The concerned and the "are you sure" look. I guess I can't blame them cos I still have a pinch of uncertainty about this decision of ours. What if he misses out? What if he can't catch up? What if he ends up sitting in front of the TV all day? What if... ? 
2. "Wow you're homeschooling him". I wish I can say that but I'm a full time working mommy so I can't really be homeschooling him. When I get asked that, my answer would be "well not really cos I'm working" and then I'll get the first reaction, i.e. "are you sure?"
3. Extremely supportive and thinks it's a great idea. There's probably only one person in this category, who is none other than my dear sister, who's a strong proponent of play (which I totally agree) and thinks that children shouldn't be taught reading and writing until the age of 7 (which I don't quite agree) :-)  Ok there are perhaps 1-2 more who don't really count, i.e. my young colleagues who are fresh out of school with remarks such as "wow this is really cool, I wished my mom did that"

Homeschooling is quite a general term. I guess when we think of homeschools (at least I do), we think of structured lessons done at home instead of in school. Perhaps with your very own timetable for the various lessons, etc. and the curriculum of your choice. Sounds like a lot of work and commitment to me. But homeschooling in a "looser" sense is what we're already doing with our kids at home on a daily basis since birth. That was how they've learnt and is still learning, and all done through play and interactions with the people around them. I read this concept about teaching moments and I can totally relate. You can teach kids so much without actually seem to be teaching them. Here are some teaching moments with H which I like to cite as examples:

• Sports, countries and flags. It's amazing how watching the Olympics can turn out to be such a great learning opportunity. H got interested in the different sports being played and wanted to know about the rules of the games (here's a teaching moments - talking about different sports and their rules). He also wanted to know about the flags (another teaching moments - we talked about the countries and flags). And for a few weeks following the Olympics, he would invent his own games. He would be representing one country and would make me represent another. And he would draw out the flags with the initials of the countries under them on his doodleboard to be used as the scoreboard. All self initiated. During the course of play he will ask "Mommy how do you spell Russia" or "Mommy how do you draw China's flag", etc. These are all teaching moments. To H, he's simply indulging in play, but he's actually learning so much from his simple play.
• Words and spelling. H used to be crazy over the Wordworld programme on Disney Junior. After watching each episode, he'd recap the story to me enthusiastically and ask me questions relating to the story (a teaching moment). We'd then play word building games just like in the programme, sometimes he'd invent his own games, sometimes I'd suggest the games to play. For example we'd play "Dog's Letter Pit", "Frog's Rhyming Machine", etc. Again for H it's all  play but he's unknowingly also learnt how to spell.

I can cite many more examples but long story short, kids are naturally inquisitive. By latching on to their natural curiosity we can teach them so much, and they don't usually take much time nor require any special teaching materials. Most of the time, these teaching moments happen between dinner time and bedtime for me (since that's the only time I have with the kids on weekdays) and weekends of course. And you'll be surprised by how much teaching / learning you can do in such a short time.

So I guess the next time people ask me if I'll be homeschooling H, I should say YES I am!