My son is saying prayers when he feels like it. His prayers are serious and at times include words like sin! He will pray when he has no control of certain things/situations, when he is angry with me and will ask God to stop me from sinning! No kidding. Haha...
He is growing up and seems to understand a lot of things. Just yesterday night he was telling his dad about 9/11 and what the naughty men did and told him that it was TERRORISM. How did he know? He was listening when I taught my 9 year old student the word. Not too long ago, we read a short story about how a missionary escaped the Japanese soldiers with over 100 children. I went on to explain a little about the cruelty of the Japanese soldiers and later we went on to talk about World War II. Reese asked a lot of questions and at times I don't even know how to explain to him. Didn't want to reveal too much of human cruelty and a host of other bad things. I tried to focus on the good stuff.
We are learning about different religions of the world and yet it's not easy to explain why others worship different Gods when in our faith we believe in one true God. We had a lot of discussion and yet I still cannot fully explain to him because I still have my doubts and issues to deal with in my faith.
We bought a kid's bible for Reese and reading it to him everynight. Well, skipped a few nights because I was too tired. I would like to include some bible studies in our learning from now on and it is also a chance for me to be closer to God.
Reese has started Chinese lessons with my mother. He is interested and is willing to sit with my mom and learn for half an hour every Friday when my parents babysit him. Learning to recognise and write Chinese characters seems easy for him so far. He can orally tell me the strokes and how to write them. He is also motivated to learn because he is my teacher! He will teach me what he learned. :) I tried teaching him myself thinking that I can do it but even the basic sound following ping yin was hard for me and I taught Reese the wrong name for certain strokes! I am hopeless. Hehe... Glad that he allows my mom to teach him.
Our homeschooling is increasingly becoming unschooling! A lot of times I will let Reese decide what he wants to learn instead of following the program schedule! He messed up my schedule and we are like 2+ months behind schedule for certain subjects and many months ahead for others. The only constant is math. He still doesn't like doing math but he has no choice. Our schooling journey is not always smooth sailing. At times we had shouting match, tantrums and crying but we always kiss and make up in no time. We do not do schooling everyday. Usually 3 times a week but we read daily. Be it a comic or something serious. I have included more craft related activities since Reese has interest in them now. At times we do nothing at all the whole week! When I first started homeschooling, I was constantly worried whether my son was learning enough but now I know my son is learning a lot because he is motivated to learn from everything he sees and experiences. How much you learn is not determined by the amount of worksheets/activity books you do or being able to read, spell or write at an early age. We learn to enrich our lives and not to pass exams!
Sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that Reese is not even six yet. There is no rush in his learning. We should enjoy the process and have lots of fun.
