Going back to school (physically) during the current pandemic is still not totally allowed. There are some few exceptions that are being considered like limiting to 20 students per class but it is still subject to discussions and lots of debates. Just recently (as of writing this post), President Duterte expressed his disagreement about students going back to school until an effective vaccine is already on a roll -- which in my opinion is the best route to take during this health crisis. I am also glad that the government is providing several options for students to continue studying without putting their lives at risk. A couple of the plausible options are online schooling and studying through modules for those who are not capable of doing online study.

Our daughter is just 2 yrs old so I'm not really worried about the schooling matter. But before COVID happened, we did plan on enrolling her to a summer workshop, nursery or a playgroup (whichever is available) this summer. Considering our location, the best one is KUMON from the neighboring city which is just 20 mins away from our municipality. We also planned on joining her in our Church's Summer Pre-Kindergarten Program which did not also push through because of the said pandemic.

I had to change some plans. I wanted my daughter to continue learning despite of being quarantined at home. Yes she is just 2 years old but I'm happy that she somehow already has some basic knowledge about shapes, colors,  numbers, letters and reading. She's on a roll and I don't really want to lose the momentum especially when she's obviously enjoying our learning activities at home. I did some research here and there and stumbled on several helpful sites and social media groups that share ideas and printable materials for home schooling. I have no plans on home schooling her, but that's what I had to do at the moment while being quarantined. 

I ended up buying school supplies to pursue our learning endeavors at home. I'm one kuripot momma but I do splurge on some things that I consider worth my money and investments. Or should I say splurging "the kuripot way" - HAHA!

Supplies and materials that I had to buy:

1. Bond papers

2. Scissors

3. Cartolinas

4. Colored papers

5. Construction papers

6. Double sided tapes, glues and different types of adhesives

7. Plastic covers, envelopes and folders

8. Whiteboard and permanent markers

9. Ring binders

10. Printer

11. Laminating machine and laminating films

12.  Clear books

12. Pens, pencils, crayons and shapeners

 I have created a lot but I can't post them all here. Below are just some of the learning materials that I made:

All of the sheets were covered in scotch tapes to "sort of" laminate it. I didn't have an A4 laminating film because I can't really order online (quarantine and shipping issues) and I can't go out either. This momma got to be resourceful. Thankfully, the scotch tape works just fine! I put a double sided tape at the back so Izzay can stick the small pieces to their corresponding colors and shapes. 

My daughter liked these so much that we still use these until today. I don't really pull out the same materials everyday so that she won't get bored. Which is why I had to create a lot of different color-and-shapes-related worksheets to use different ones everyday.

Since Izzay is already familiar with the big and small letters, this alphabet ice cream activity was a total hit for her. She liked the idea of creating an ice cream by putting the lower case letters to their corresponding uppercase letters. "Lowercase" and "Uppercase" are too hard to pronounce for a two year old. So I decided to call them MOMMY LETTERS and BABY LETTERS instead which was very effective. She was able to memorize them easily. The sheets were also covered in scotch tape but the ice cream pieces were laminated. Putting on scotch tapes is a bit of work but it's worth it for someone like me who doesn't really have that much of a choice :D 

After teaching my daughter the sounds of each letter, we moved on to blending sounds of two letters then to three letter words. I wrote the words in plain bond paper and laminated each of them to make them look like flash cards. We created different kinds of games for this sort of reading activity that it has actually become one of Izzay's favorites. 

After several CVC reading practices, Izzay has gotten pretty confident in reading simple three letter words with short vowel sounds. So I decided to proceed practicing reading simple sentences consist of CVC words with common sight words. These are just written on colored cartolinas then I covered them with scotch tapes. They are still thin like papers but they are very sturdy that Izzay can't even tear them apart. Told you, laminating them with scotch tapes is a wonder!