Homeschooling Preschoolers in (central)Cumbaya

Hi, I just came across your message. Were you able to create a homeschooling group in Quito? We have a 2 1/2 year old that we want to integrate into a group of kids who are being homeschooled.

Thanks,

David

Hi, David!
This is a great idea. Where in Quito? We live in central Cumbaya, as I've mentioned before. I don't know Quito well yet. But we can discuss the options ant possibilities to homeschool together our kids.

Thank you,
Diana

newinquito wrote:

I am a mom of a preschooler and I'm looking for parents, who would like to create/support a homeschooling group for the preschoolers (3-4y.o.) or even Kindergarten age home schooling group (4-5y.o.).

I would look in "exchange" some professional parents in (geo-)physics, math, English, French, American history, general literature, music, art, dance, sports, logic and, and, and (you could continue the list of interests).
!

I wouldn't be surprised if you scared off potential homeschooling parents with such a comment. You don't need "professional" parents in relevant subjects to educate preschoolers. Many preschool teachers simply have an early childhood degree with minimum credits in maths, sciences, etc.

A good program, competent parent(s) and accountability will suffice. To clarify accountability, I mean testing the progress of the children to see where they are academically at their grade level compared to other students in their state/country.

Hi Diana, sorry for the late reply I was in the states for a few weeks. I am back now and was wondering how old your children are and what you are currently doing in terms of education. For us right now we are looking at just having her play with other kids and do basic learning activities to prepare her for a more structured pre-school curriculum.

Also, have you met any other people in the city who are interested in this?

Thanks,

David

Vsimple: I think she just meant that having parents with certain skills and experience might be a good way to exposed kids to those subjects. In any case, are you in Quito and do you homeschool your children?

Thanks,

David

Thank you for your answer.

My daughter is 4y.o.
In the morning she goes to the Pre-K to at local school in Cumbaya.
After school and lunch I have set up some routinely activities for her: playing piano (just the simple piano ABC), reading books, painting (color, water, chalk, etc), learning letters and numbers, cutting activities, etc.  3-4x a week she is playing outside in the park in our neighborhood for 2-3hrs. hours before gets dark.
On Thursday I have a children group, age 3-6y.o. who come to play with my daughter and actively learn German. It is an "academic" setting, where I speak only German and children learn to sit and do some activities for some time, then they play with toys, and then we play in our community park. While they are busy doing something, I take individually each child for 5 min. either to play (teach) piano with them or we go over some numbers, letters, forms, colors, etc.
Most German parents do not like to occupy children at the age of 3-5 with letters and numbers, so I have some other things to practice individually for them.
So far I did not run into any English speaking family and vise versa, who would express a desire to have an English playmate to their child/children or to have them homeschooling at the age of 2-6 y.o.
So, no English speakers are at my play group even I have offered my service at the British school as after school activity for the young ones.
To my big surprise, no one of the English speaking schools in Cumbaya, Tumbaco, offer after school activities for the youngest children. All of them are coming for after school program to the German school (Colegio Aleman). I;m talking about the toddlers.

So much information about our daily homeschooling program and the activities.

vsimple: You might be right with your comment. 
I did not want to scare some potential homeschoolers with such comment. That was more the idea, how the David expressed it...
Sincerely,

Hey d_Focil, yes I'm in Quito and homeschooling the kids.

newinquito, looks like you're doing quite well.

vsimple,
thank you for the encouragement.

The last Friday and Saturday, the USFQ (University of San Francisco Quito) was running Open House on Campus. I took all my German speaking ( "wanna-speak-German") children (4-6y.o., I had total 6 children with me) on the field trip to the USFQ.
First, we visited the chemistry labs. They had some projects on display and explained children what those projects are about, since they had some toy cars and trees glued to it. Then our friendly assistant showed all the different forms of the lab glassware and some chemical cleaning processes en short. However, the most existing thing for kids was the "safety first"  introduction: They could put googles and supersized glows on, they could touch the emergency shower cord etc...
After wondering thru the campus, we relaxed feeding fishes at the fish pond. We played a little "volley-ball" on the sand too.

On Saturday we went back to the USFQ because the Veterinary School had Open House. Children were thrilled to touch the animal bones. They were introduced to the puma, little kitty, tigrillo, "Bambi", sloth, and horse bone structures.  Then they listen to an introductory of the hen's digestive system and the pig's respiratory and digestive system. It was a hands on "lecture". Children were exited to  touch using the gloves those terrible smelly, jello like organs...
Of course, we could not skip the parasite department, since they had displayed a conserved tiny horse fetus in an amniotic sack....

The most surprising moments were for me and children, that the professors and students of USFQ explained them everything in German!!! We were not expecting it at all!

All in all, those two afternoons at USFQ were very attention-catching, surprising for all of us because at the Chemistry department most of the students and professors talked to us German and the students form the Veterinary School" taught" the children about the bones and parasites in German.

By the way, many USFQ students spoke also perfect English too.

I'm back  with my preschoolers' report. 
It is kind of interesting time of year to make quite a few (thrifty) field trips with the little ones. The field trips that we did in the past and I'm planning to make in the near future includes only the car/taxi costs.  If you are planning to have a nice ice cream time after a field trip, it adds to the costs.

Yesterday we went to visit the fire fighters and to "check" their equipment. I planned this field trip in advance, so I took time to visit them prior I went there with my play group children. It was nice to see, that the fire fighters and the administration took our interest very serious and they did prepare for it. A fire fighter lady, who assisted us, showed few different cars for the different rescue purposes, showed to the children informative, big wooden pictures "Melissa&Doug"-style, only  they were huge. They had ready for children fire fighters uniforms and helmets. That was impressive! Children could play with different kind of hoses, see and touch water and fire extinguisher foam.
Of course, children could push all possible buttons on the cars and sit down inside of ambulance and other rescue cars.
It was a blast! I thought, it would take about 30min. at most for this field trip. It was about an hour and nobody was bored 

HI I am looking for home school group my email is ***
Thank you

Hi everyone!

I am stil in Cumbaya and continue doing the afternoon homeschooling to my now-5-y.o. child.
I still have a group 2x a week for kids 3-6y.o., most mixed german-eciadorian families.

Some up date on homeschooling activities 2016-2017. I was happy to be aknowledge, that two of my students passed the kindergarten entrance tests into Colegio Aleman. One of the "pure" ecuadorian girls advanced her German language and speaking confidence in the German classes. The teachers really noticed her advancement in German and was reporting to the parents, how good and confident she speaks German in comparison to the other ecuadorian kids, who just hear German in Pre-kinder, Kindergarten and 1st grade. Yes, yes... I have three girls from begining of my homeschooling, who are in the 1st grade now and doing academically great in the school. I am happy, that the afterschool "homeschooling" helps my daughter and other children to advance without difficulties academically.

In the meantime, since my daughter is at the Kindergarten, 1st grade entrance level now, I encourage her and her friends routinely to play with numbers, cognitive games of "miniLueck", which are specific and traditionally used in the German/Austrian/Swiss schools since 40 year.   Children love them! We continue a lot time spending in nature on the mountain Ilalo, near Cumbaya. The kids have a blast and a big hunger there. Hence, if some of them were bad eaters at home before they came to my homeschooling/play time hours, they are really good eaters now and tired when they come home.

Through out this 2016-2016 homeschooling/playtime year I came to a "discovery" and a conclusion, of course, that playtime/homeschooling in the nature setting, in our case - Ilalo mountain - was more productive in many ways, than to run a homeschooling in a house, even we have a garten. Reading in the nature, many times became a small theater piece for us. Children  used more expressively their imagination being in the nature. Re-telling stories, counting, letters, painting, playing with/using leaves, stones, sand, trees, mountain streem was a lot of fun. My home-schooling year is slowly coming to the end. We are finishing this year with the Midsummer party (Johannesfest) on 24 of June. We are opening next year in September back.