Home-Learning: The Very Beginning

We started the children's studies according to the plan we'd set up, two weeks before school reopening and a month before my own semester begins. The excitement and motivation about the approaching school/kindergarten start made buttoning that first button a bit easier, but beginnings are always transitional periods. Rather than ambitiously setting goals and rushing to meet targets, it's better to approach the first two weeks with the mindset of finding errors in the plan. And as expected, the plan underwent many changes once we actually ran it with the children. M | The Shepherd Girl Lost in Numbers Initial plan: e-ako, Korean math workbook, literature reading, Self-Directed Learning Project. What worked: Reading continued steadily. What didn't: Struggled with new math concepts. Found the self-directed learning format unfamiliar—confused about how to allocate time and organize her research. Claimed to have finished e-ako when she barely touched it. Adjustments made: Added YouTube tutorials and basic practice for math in advance to do the workbook. Temporarily broke the Science project into daily sub-topics with immediate checks. Changed e-ako verification from verbal reports to photo submissions. Added daily Duolingo missions for the whole family. H | Full of Enthusiasm, Lack of Vocabulary Initial plan: e-ako, stepsweb, daily reading, Sentence Structure Study, Basic Workbook. What worked: StepsWeb, daily reading, e-ako. What didn't: Initially planned for 3 pages of workbook daily. H insisted she wanted to do 6 pages, then confessed a few days later that 6 pages was a bit too much. Her main project, Sentence Structure Study, progressed slower than expected. Despite the level not being particularly difficult, she didn't know many words and couldn't interpret the meaning. Adjustments made: Set the workbook back to 3 pages as originally planned, with any additional pages left to her discretion depending on her daily condition. Temporarily suspended Sentence Structure Study. Since her vocabulary was weaker than expected, I modified the routine using sight word workbooks we had at home: daily word search - understanding word meanings - writing each word 5-10 times. I chose this method of short workbook repetitions because she found sitting down to memorize words too difficult. This approach can be reinforced through her ongoing StepsWeb, independent writing, and daily reader book reading. Like M, added daily Duolingo missions to her routine. J | Turning 5, Playing Around Initial plan: Korean, Writing, Words app, Booklet, Focusing. What worked: Korean workbook, Words app, focusing. What didn't: J quite dislikes writing English letters and numbers. She brings the Korean workbook every day asking to do it because it includes different fun activities daily, but the How To Write notebook seems boring to her—monotonous and repetitive with just writing practice. Adjustments made: Eventually found cute alphabet writing practice templates on Canva and printed them separately. Rather than reading the booklet regularly, I repeat the phrases inside through conversation throughout the day. She also follows along well with English study through the app. While the length of time she sits and focuses hasn't increased yet, the intensity of her concentration seems to have deepened. The greatest advantage of home learning is the ability to modify methods and plans anytime according to the situation. This doesn't mean postponing things for convenience, but rather changing strategies according to the challenges at hand. If we discover vocabulary as a weak point, we can temporarily set aside sentence structure and build up word power. If we face a short-term goal like a project, we run through it together by researching and organizing. Even in those moments, the children are moving forward anyway. That short sprint is, after all, part of a long race.