BACOLOD City – A Negrense locally stranded individual (LSI) is making quarantine a fun learning experience for his two small children by turning the classroom that serves as their quarters into an improvised kindergarten.
Photos and videos of 29-year-old father Mitchelle “Bon” Silaya teaching his young ones the basics such as the alphabet, numbers, colors, and shapes made rounds on social media in the past days, with netizens commending him for being resilient and a survivor amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
“We don’t want this quarantine to bring a traumatic and stressful experience to the kids. Instead, we want to make them feel that everything is fine and that they can still play and learn,” he said on Aug. 11.
Bon, his wife Shera Love and their kids, three-year-old Alfonzo and one-year-old Brianna, were among the thousands of LSIs who came from Metro Manila. They arrived in this province on July 31.
He hails from Barangay Sum-ag here but his family proceeded to neighboring Bago City – hometown of his spouse – to undergo the mandatory 14-day quarantine in a facility inside a public elementary school.
Bon thought of setting up a class for his toddlers while waiting for their swab results. After all, they were staying in a classroom filled with blackboard and chalk.
The children started learning the alphabet and numbers on Aug. 1, the first day of their two-week quarantine.
On the second day, their father taught them how to write.
On the succeeding days, they learned how to count and write more, identify shapes and colors and draw different shapes and figures. At night, he also reads them bedtime stories.
“Alfonzo will not be able to go to school this year due to the pandemic, so we want to help him as parents acquire advanced knowledge despite the challenging situation,” said Bon, who worked as a technician in a hotel at the country’s capital.
His wife takes pictures and videos of him and the kids to document their two-week quarantine experience, which also reveals the artist in the young father as shown in the sketches he does on the blackboard.
Bon said their family members and those who have read their story sent boxes of chalk so they will have enough supply while still in quarantine.
He does a countdown every day of their journey by writing the remaining days of their stay on the blackboard.
On Tuesday night, he posted on Facebook a cheerful photo of him and his children sitting in front of the board where he wrote “Aug. 11, 3 days left” beside a sketch of a popular storybook character he drew using colored chalk.
He also wrote: “Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. Dreams are forever.”
Bon said the kids’ daily lessons will go on until the end of their quarantine on Aug. 14, and he will continue teaching them once they are home.
He and his wife committed to being hands-on parents when it comes to teaching their children, especially that face-to-face learning is still not allowed.
“We did not expect our story to go viral. Our situation seems ideal for learning. We are staying in a classroom with our kids. Since they have no class to attend, we have an opportunity to help them learn,” the father of two said
In the course of the quarantine, Bon said they received their swab test results yielding negative for COVID-19.
“We thank God we were not infected by the virus, especially our two children, despite being stranded in a port with so many other people,” he added. (With a report from PNA/PN)
