11 May 2009

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I have been sleeping very well at night...thus no blog update! Hahaha! :)

Ok, this is what happens on 11 May 2009:

We had a replacement ballet class again (the teacher is going to Beijing next week...thanks to Airasia, everyone can fly!).

I did not finish last week's target so we carry forward the things that need to be done last week to 11 May (Monday).

Last week we finished 5 days of Sonlight, 2 phonic, 1 Chinese, 1 math, 2 piano, and 1 craft. Not bad for a busy week. Den had 3 play days. :)

Anyway, last week we learned the "Happy are those whose hearts are pure for they shall see God" and I found a song/dance in one of the Praise Dance DVD (赞美操) my mom gave me that is about a similar theme - a pure heart. Psalm 51:10-12.

I wanted to let Den learn this but could not find the time. So finally we did it on Monday. It was a bit too slow and the steps were a bit complicated. She followed and dance twice but was not too interested.

We also did phonics and practiced piano. We learned a new sound, "V".

After that, we had lunch (Fried Rice) and went to ballet in MA's car. EE & Den were sooooooo noisy in the car.

Den is quite good in listen and following the music. She can remember the steps quite well.

After we came home, we had some bread and cold milk. I had a very very bad headache. Had to have a cup of coffee. I am trying to cut down my caffeine intake and was not planned to take any on Mon. :(

Afterward, she did 2 math worksheets while I cooked. She mixed up "+" and "-" again!!! hmm...other than that she did well.

After dinner, she played UNO with ST. Won again!

Since she looks quite alert and not sleepy, I decided to let her study a bit more.

We read "What's Under the Sea". We studied Fish. Interesting to find out that:

1. Fish can stay afloat because they have a balloon (called Swim Bladder) in them;

2. Most fish have a line along each side called a "lateral line". It's their 6th sense to sense movement.

3. Gill takes in the oxygen from the water and lets the water out.

Hm...I must not have paid any attention in Bio....since all these seem new to me!! I love homeschooling.

But then we had questions:

1. Since Sharks and Rays have no swim bladders and must keep swimming or they will sink, then how do sleep?

2. How do fishes swim down to the deeper part of the sea since they have swim bladders?

I can't answer these questions, so I sent an email to my friend SPY. She studied Bio at Uni, hopefully, she will have an answer for me!

I drew a fish outline in her scrapbook and she added the eye, gill, scale, and fins and label them accordingly. I spelled out the words and she wrote them down in a mixture of capitals & small letters! I was thinking to myself: should I correct her? Decided to let her be. Build up her confidence first then will correct her.

She was having so much fun studying that I decided to read another book to her. We read a new book this week - Stories from Africa. It is under social study but it is written by missionaries. Six stories of God 's faithfulness to His people in Africa.

We read the first story about a little boy who likes to grumble. Like us, he grumbled about all kinds of things, especially about "if Adam didn't sins we now don't have to pay for the consequences". His dad, a preacher decided to challenge him on it. His dad showed him a red box and told him, he didn't have to help out or work for anything as long as he didn't open the box. Of cause, he opened up the box at the end. He learned his lesson and asked God for forgiveness.

Den has always been sensitive to mood since she was little. She refused to listen to any stories that involved anyone getting hurt or got scolded, etc. I had to tone down stories and told them in a more casual manner and not so intense. We could never finish any feature film with her around.

Recently she was getting better. She can handle most of the stories and cartoons. Even though she cried after watching SHREK. She was sad because princess Fiona choose Shrek and now the bad prince is going to be sad.!!! At least she finished the movie! So recently I had not been toning down the story much. I pretty much read them out and dramatized them any way I see fit. Until I read stories from Africa.

She ran away when I got to the part where the dad showed his son the red box and told him not to open it. Den realized the boy will open it and he would get into big trouble! So she ran away. It took me quite some time to get her back to listen to the story and I had to promise not to make it scary! After the story, she wanted to color the pictures from the book. So I made a copy of the picture and let her color it.