Our Homeschooling Journey: Philippine Studies

Some of the things I was anxious to teach my daughter about was History, Geography, Social Studies, and Culture. For one, I wasn't that good on those subjects back in my schooldays. I hated Social Studies. I just relied on memorization and just focused on the goal of achieving just the right grades enough to keep me in the star section and keep my scholarships. But if you ask me anything about Social Studies now, we won't have that much of a conversation (except for Rizal studies, which piqued my interest so much.)

My challenge last year was How to make a toddler interested in Philippine History. I remember when I was a kid, I was full of questions even from the very beginning. We were given terminologies before about datus, alipins, barangays, but really never a story I could connect with. After those sea of words I had to memorize, we were then taught about the Spanish colonization. Most probably that was what made me disinterested with Philippine History.

Start from the very beginning

I had in my mind that if I am to teach Philippine History to my daughter, we should start from the very start. Around March this year, I asked around if anyone of my professor and teacher friends have any book recommendations for Philippine History from before we the 300++ years of Spanish occupation. Unfortunately, we all just have no reference whatsoever about the time when Philippines still has her freedom.

Around that time, I have already found the homeschool provider we have right now. It so happened that time that they have a free downloadable list of book recommendations for kindergarten to Year 10 students.

One of the books that caught my eyes was the book A Lolong Time Ago. It was perfect for kids, I read it to my daughter when she was 5 years old, and we practiced oral narration with it. The book discussed how exactly the migration of our great great great ancestors happened, it happened all because of the search for food. It even has the Earth's geography from a long long time ago.

This book is great for children because although most of the pictures are black and white, most of them are cartoonish and has a lot of comedic approach very much suitable for kids and kids at heart. It was a great starter for our homeschooling journey towards Philippine Studies.

Introduce Great Filipinos one by one

As our studies progress, we move on to the great Filipinos that lived before. Our first brush at this is the book First Around the Globe. Yes, the first person to travel the entire world was a Filipino slave bought by Magellan. Though he was not aware of it at the time because all he wanted to do back then was to get back his home to the Philippines. Because back in those days, what's not to love about our dear country?

We then moved to the next book collection I stumbled upon. The Great Lives Series. We started off with Gabriela Silang which actually was about her and her husband Diego Silang. Gabriela further inspired my daughter's feminism. She has always believed that girls can also do stuff that most people think are for boys. While I encourage her, Gabriela empowered her.

We are now reading about Jose Rizal. She was so delighted because she found out that someone can indeed be a lot of things when they grow up. (When we ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she always says she wants to be a doctor, a teacher, a builder, a mom, a cook, an astronaught, and so on and so forth.) While reading about the life of Jose Rizal, not only does she discover so much about the Spanish occupation, she also learns so much about the different countries that Rizal travelled to.

We have a couple of Biographies lined up already, some of them I've bought, some of them waiting on my cart. I just have to pre-read everything because evidently, I wasn't taught this way when I was young, so I also have to teach myself about these great lives before I pass on the book to my little one.

Geography

For our Geography lessons, we used the book My First Atlas of the Philippines. So far, the little one has enjoyed every single bit of lessons we had in Philippine Geography. I printed out a blank Philippine map where she would color each region we studied. And while she's at it, she would write down or draw what she remember about any of those provinces. It has been such an amazing activity for her.

Recently, our country was hit by strong typhoons. My daughter has always been afraid of storms, we even had lessons on what she should do in case of calamity. I have discussed our go to bag with her along the way. I used these typhoons not only for our calamity preparedness lesson, but also in our Philippine studies. She learned about the mountain ranges in Region 3, making her appreciate nature even more. She is very much thankful for Sierra Madre for blocking out that storm last September. I also used it as an opportunity to discuss the purpose and importance of each land formations. When typhoon Paeng made landfall from one province after another last October, my daughter was introduced to more regions as we watch the news updates.

Baybayin

My daughter's first language is English. She doesn't understand Tagalog before. But now, while she is learning to speak tagalog, she is also learning our Baybayin. She got interested when she sa how to write Baybayin. Now she knows and appreciates reading and writing baybayin. It also helps that she learned about how the Filipinos lived from A Lolong Time Ago. We used the Baybayin book I bought from Shopee for this lesson.

Culture

We make it a point that we go to parks as often as we can. We do nature studies whenever we can. We so happened to go to Paco Park in Manila and there was an event they were preparing for. When I found out that it was a cultural dance presentation, I insisted that we wait to for it to start so that my daughter would be introduced to the cultural dances of the Philippines. It was a very happy coincidence that we visited that park that day.

Everyday, during our study time, I often play music while my daughter does her copywork or sketch narrations. Most of the time, we have Vivaldi or Mozart in the background but I also make it a point that we learn filipino songs. I choose Lea Salonga's collection of Filipino folk songs in youtube.

It's More Fun in the Philippines!

There is so much to love about the Philippines. Hindi mahirap mahalin ang Pilipinas. Whenever we finish our Philippine studies, be it Geography, Biographies, Music, or anything related to the Philippines, my daughter would say "Wow! That was so interesting! or "I really love this book! or When I grow up, I want to be like...." I feel a sense of fulfillment seeing that she is learning to love our country not because she was told that she must. Her patriotism roots from her knowledge of the beautiful past our country has before all of the ugly things that happened here.

Our Philippine studies curriculum may seem to have too much information, too many books, and too many activities. It is, and it has. But my daughter is enjoying this feast of knowledge that I am serving her. Patriotism isn't something that should be imposed. Just like when we love someone, we should get to know her, learn about her past, admire her beautiful landscapes, be in awe at her rich culture, understand what she went through right from the very beginning.

I hope your kids enjoy learning about the Philippines through the books I shared in this post. There are still a lot of books lined up for our homeschooling journey but those are going to wait until her older years.

If you would like to introduce Philippine studies to your little one, start with one book. Once you catch their interest, add another, and another. Just make sure to take your time in reading through all the books. You don't have to finish them all up right away. Let your kid fall in love. Let yourself feel that love. And enjoy your learning!

Mabuhay!