30 June 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 30 June 2009)

Den woke up early again. 9 something. I did lesson planning til 6am this morning. So I was still tired but not as tired as yesterday morning. I asked her to go and play while I sleep in for another 30 min or so.

We have breakfast at home today. Usually, Den's breakfast is milk with cereal or bread or Jacob biscuit and mine is oat with bread or just oat. Once in a while, we eat at the diner downstairs.

Before we started our lesson, I could not find the workbook that I wanted. So I ended up straightening my shelve for workbooks for 30 min. Now I organize them acc to subjects - language art, Math, Chinese, Science, Morals, crafts, and activities. Going to give away some of the workbooks that we only used one or two times and she has kind of outgrown them now. Let me know if you want them.

We practiced the Bible verse and read a true story from "Stories From Africa" about how a little girl's allowance has helped kids in Nigeria know about Jesus. It is a fitting story for we were going to learn about money today.

I challenged her to divide her weekly RM3 allowance this way - RM1 for spending, RM1 for saving, and RM1 for offering mission work. She promised to think about it.

In conjunction with that, we also read a book called Every Child Everywhere! It is a small and cheerful book about how God loves all children. There are lots of pictures of children from all over the world. I brought it in Cananland. A portion of the book's royalties goes to a kid's foundation.

After that, we read a story from "Stories from Around the world" It is a Chinese folk tale. We also read a short story from The Children's Book of Virtues. That finished our Sonlight program Week 22. Since I started taking a slower approach, we need about 11/2 weeks to finish a one-week program.

After that, I worked with her on her phonic workbook (Im not sure if I mentioned this, but we are using Phonics First Book 2 from Synergy Media, Popular RM8.50. I think it is a good book to practice phonic awareness). Previously she was quite good with the beginning sound but not so good with the ending sound. But today when we practiced, she did well with the ending sound as well, so I let her practice the vowel sound too. She did quite well too but still need me to say each word for her very very slowly.

After that, I teach her about money. Sen and Ringgit. Then I let her work on 2 pages of worksheet about recognizing/differentiating money (Maths is Fun by EPH, PopularRM4.90).

I also let her work on 2 Chinese worksheets from Odonata 幼儿学华语 1上 and 2 pages of subtraction worksheets.

She finished everything before I finished preparing lunch!

That's all that we study today since it was Tuesday.

29 June 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 29 June 2009)

First thing first, Atria is turning into another gold mine for kids' books and stuff just like Amcop Mall. So if you haven't checked it out, you should.

We went there last sat and came back with 12 new books for Den! Big bookstore warehouse in Atria was having a sale. Most of the kid books are 50% off! I have no idea when is the end of the sale.

I brought a series on Art appreciation for kids. It is called Adventures In Art. Some came with hard covers and some soft. I brought 6 of them. Big Bookstores have 8 topics. It is a great bargain! Amazon is selling at USD24 for one and I brought it at 50% RM4.50 - RM5 each!!! I can't believe it! Read more at http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel.

I also brought another 2 books in another series called Express Yourself!. I brought one on expressionism and one on surrealism. It is more for upper primary school kids. I'm using it as a reference. RM7.50 each ONLY!

Yes, as you can see I love art. I think everyone should learn to appreciate art. It is very sad that our school never teaches art appreciation. We teach craft, we teach painting but never teach kids how to appreciate art. I never enjoy art when I was younger. I like to draw even though I did not draw well (seriously, not being modest). But I never learn to appreciate any artwork. 

Then when I was in Form 3, my art teacher passed away at the end of our school year. A replacement teacher just came back from overseas and took over the class for the last few lessons. He never taught us how to paint, instead, he showed us great art pieces and told us stories about them. That was my first art appreciation class. I fall in love with Van Gogh on that day.

I did not have the chance to attend art classes after that. Science student. :(

But I continue to educate myself with books. I hope I can help Den to appreciate art since young.

There is also a new bookstore selling Chinese books from Mainland China on the 2nd floor of Atria. Most are translated books. This is the store where I brought Katie's Picture Show series (read about the series in my previous post 15 June 2009).

This time I bought a series of 3 books called "双把儿铁锅-卡琦娅". It is translated from a very famous German children's novel. I am trying to find out its name in German and English from my friend in Germany.

The setting is East Germany (communist time). A little girl call Ka Qi Ya moved from the city to stay with her grandma in the countryside because both her parents lost their jobs. She enjoyed the country very much because she loves animals.

Den loves this series because she loves animals too. I read one chapter for her in the bookstore to test the water so to speak. She liked it and so I bought it. It is a chapter book but each chapter is very short. Much shorter than Milly Molly Mandy. We already finished 4 chapters of the first book. I still need to paraphrase a lot...China's standard of Chinese language is very high plus Den's standard of Chinese is very slow! Haha!

Den loves these two series - Katie and KaQiYa. Tonight when I asked her what bedtime stories she want, "English or Chinese?" She said, "Chinese." That made me a very happy mom!

Back to what we did today.

Den woke up early at around 830am (I know, I know, but it is early for me!). I was very tired and wanted to sleep more. So I asked her to go and play and let me sleep in. She did. I slept for another hour. :) She was enjoying herself in her room - coloring.

We went down for roti canai today. We have not been eating that for quite some time. She chatted none stop throughout breakfast. She is definitely a girl.

We started school around 1130am. We practiced Bible verse and read 2 Bible stories - One on Nehemiah rebuilding the city wall and one on Archangel Gabriel announcing the good news to Mary. Yeah! We are in NT now.

After that, we practiced phonics. We did chapter 51 today! We celebrated because we finally finished half of the book! haha! Teaching your child to read in 100 lessons!:)

No new sound today and it was not a long lesson. She finished it really quick and earned 31-star stickers (for each word she read, she get a star sticker. Repeated words in the same lesson counted as one). We pasted the star stickers on cardboard, 12-15 star stickers per row. When she accumulates enough rows she can exchange them for Princess stickers.

After phonic, we read "A child's Book of Art". Today we looked at faces - one Egyptian painting, one Native American painting, one Aztec painting, one Japanese painting, and one from Picasso. :) It is like faces around the world.

After that, we read from "A First Word Bank" words that describe people. She knew almost all the words in there, so we went directly to practice. I asked her to describe me, ST, and herself. She did it quite well. I also reminded her to use descriptive language when she is referring to someone or something. She has this habit of saying things like, "you know the person/thing, you know, you know, you know...." As she continues to "you know", we continue to be clueless. Hopefully, she will learn from this lesson and be more descriptive.

There was no water supply in my place today (washing water tanks). So my mom brought us lunch. I was still tired. So I decided to let her watch Veggie Tales -Esther while I eat lunch. It is part of my plan to do with the Esther story anyway.

After lunch, we practiced Chinese flash cards. We have not been doing it for the past 3 weeks and she still remembered all the words that she remembered 3 weeks ago and not remembering words that she did not remember 3 weeks ago! haha! She still has problems with 很，这. Today, I taught her another 4 new words - 过，得，到，了. She did one page of worksheet on that and also practice writing 了。We read Odonate first 100 word book 6 -小花猫 together. She read most of it, I just need to supply one or two words.

After that we read 5 mother goose rhymes - 6 little mice, Queen Caroline, Little Boy Blue, Baa Baa Black sheep, and This is the house that Jack built. I also show her the pictures, music, and video I downloaded from the internet. Which means I need to do more research for next week's rhymes. :(

She also wrote a new rhyme acc to This is the house that Jack built. She said it and I wrote it down in her scrapbook. This is the rhymes:

This is the book Esther wrote.
This the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the little boy that pet the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the tiger that ate the boy that pet the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the hunter that killed the tiger that ate the boy that pets the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.
This is the fat wife that kissed the hunter that killed the tiger that ate the boy that pet the cat that chased and ate the mouse that ate the book that Esther wrote.

I did mention to her there are too many "ate" in the rhyme. However, that seems to be the reason she like the rhyme and refused to change it.

After the lesson, she did another 2 worksheets. One on addition and one on Developing the Early Learner Book 2. We finished book 2 and will start Book 3. She finished everything in record time, and actually have time to read before she watched Chinese cartoons on GoodTV. The other day, out of the blue, she said, "Dinosaur, 我爱恐龙." I was like WoW! Where did you learn this word 恐龙? She told me she learned it from her Chinese cartoons. I was so :)

allowance and kids

A few hours after my last posting talking about allowance, I read a few good articles about giving allowance and there is some very very good ideas I am going to adopt. ST, pls read:

http://life.familyeducation.com/allowance/jobs-and-chores/34438.html?WT.mc_id=FE_Your-Child_7-11_2009-06-24_email

26 June 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

Den stayed with her doting grandparents for the past few days. Finally home last night. She woke up around 930am after 12 hours of sleep.

We started our schooling at around 11am. We practiced last week's verse (she can say the whole verse, except Ephesians) and we also started a very easy new verse today -

"Children, obey your parents." ~Ephesians 6:1

Then we read about Esther. This is the first time she heard Esther's story and she was very excited because Esther is beautiful and brave and beautiful and smart and beautiful! haha! Ya, to her, beauty is very very important.

Then we practice phonics. We learned a new sound today - "CH". Her concentration was very good and finished it really fast.

After that, I decided to let her do some of the Sonlight worksheets - Developing the early learner book 2. 70% of the worksheet in there, she can do it herself. I just need to explain to her and then leave her alone. I will mark them when she is done and go through them with her if she makes any mistakes. However the other 30%, I need to accompany her when she is doing it. I have always delayed the 30% and only do them in one long session when I am free. :)

Today I decided we need to do the 30% because she finished the 70% in Book 2 already. :)

One of the things that I find the hardest to do is the training for auditory memory skills. It is designed to train kids to remember oral directions. In book 2, she usually has 4 pictures on her worksheet - today is a triangle, a circle, a star, and a box.

Then I gave her direction like this: Draw a line over the triangle, draw a nose in the circle, draw a line under the star, and draw a circle around the box! After that, she had to wait for 1 min before she started.

I find it hard because even I can't remember so many directions. She is very very good now with 3 directions but sometimes will fail with 4 directions. I don't know how to make her remember it better since I am sucked at this.

We also did 1 worksheet on visual memory and 1 on auditory similarity. Before we can do more, W&W were here. So we stop our schooling.

She was screaming when she heard the doorbell ring! W&W had not been here for a while.

They played for an hour before we had porridge for lunch. Den and WH finished real fast, but WE took quite some time to finish his...must be the veggie in his porridge. He doesn't like veggies and fruits. In the end, he still finished all his veggies though...and without complaining. :)

After lunch, we played playdoh. We make alphabets for about 45 min(read more on the 09 June 2009 posting). WH had some problems knowing some of the letters but she followed others' examples and enjoyed herself. Of all three, WE knew his letter the best.

After that, we also make silly things like bows, nests, cups, chairs, houses, etc. WH made a bird and a donkey! :)

They took bath together and played in the water for 30 min. Then they watched Chinese GoodTV cartoons together while I cooked dinner.

After that, they played UNO and Happy Family (following Den's rules, since I don't think she knew how to play herself!)

We had dinner at 7pm and W&W left around 8pm.

Sweden and I continued to work on her Sonlight worksheets. We almost finished book 2, all except for one. She claimed she was too tired to do that. So far, she scored a perfect points in Visual, Auditory, and Comprehension Skills. Her weakness- is motor skills. Her eye-hand coordination and left-right movement are a bit weak. Need more practice.

She also did 1 worksheet on math addition.

I'm contemplating teaching her money next week. Since she has pocket money -RM3 each week to buy things that I don't approve of but she likes - like toys (non-educative), princess on ice, play in MV Jaya Jasco kid corner, etc, she kind of understands the value of money already. She is still a bit confused about the coins and paper money though. Now that she knows addition, I think it is time to teach her more about money.

I realized some parents don't give any pocket money to their kids. Even some of the 7 & 8 years old students in Sunday School don't get any pocket money. Their parents prearranged meals with the school canteen and they basically just have to show up at the canteen and eat whatever they provide on that particular there.

Reason? Parents think it is safer this way, as in they won't be spending the money on junk food and they don't have to carry hot food themselves.

ST and I think it is better for kids to have money to spend at the early stage and make whatever mistakes they need to make when they are younger. When we first started to give Den money when she was only 3 plus, she was so happy and pretty much spend it all every week. But the phase is over now. She is very conscious of it now and keeps saving it for bigger things like Princess On Ice. She saved RM45 for that a few months ago. 

Another good reason to give pocket money is to teach kids the concept of offering. Getting money from parents for the offering is not an offering from the heart. The best offering is when they know the value of money and yet are willing to give it to God.

Every 3-4 weeks, when Den has about RM10, I will ask her to give RM1 for the offering. Tonight, I asked her to do that and she said she wanted to give more than RM1. She is offering RM2 this Sunday. I'm very proud of her and I'm sure God is too.

23 June 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 23 June 2009)

It was a big day for Den -- Her Yamaha class concert. It is the first time she performs solo. She had a concert last year at the end of Yamaha Music Kids but it was a group performance. This one is different because she had to introduce herself and the music that she was going to play and then played them on the teacher's piano. I was very excited to see how would she respond under pressure.

When the teacher first announced the concert a month ago, Den cried. She thought the concert was on the following week and she didn't think she was ready for that. But when I explained to her it was 4 weeks later, she relaxed. I thought she would be nervous again when the time got near, but she never did. In fact, she was rather excited about it and wanted to be the first one to perform.

To prepare her mentally, I went through with her the whole process and what she was going to say in the concert. She even added her own idea of welcoming the guest to the concert at the beginning (that's why she wanted to be the first to perform so that she can welcome the guests).

I make her say her introduction to me again and again, then to her daddy and then to her grandparents, and finally to her uncle too. At first, she was really reluctant and spoke in a mousy voice that nobody can hear. But slowly and slowly, she gained confidence and started to speak up.

I also prepared her for things that might go wrong. What if you can't be the first one to perform (she ended up being the second person to perform)? What if you play it wrong? etc.

It paid off during the concert. She was really confident. She spoke up in a loud and clear voice to welcome the guests and introduced herself and the songs that she was going to play. Then she proceeded in playing 2 songs without any mistakes. It was a long way from the girl who cringed at us and refused to let go and shy away from any new experience. Thank God for that.

Most of her classmates spoke so softly that no one can hear them. One little boy even cried and refused to play.

I think there is pro and con to making kids so young to give a solo performance. If it was not handled properly, it might be a frightening experience for the child.

That was the highlight of the day. :)

As for the study, hmm.. we had about an hour this morning. We finished reading What's under the sea? (Thank God for that too!) today and it was about how we use the sea - fishing, mining minerals, etc.

It also talks about in some hot countries, seawater is collected in flat pans near the shore. It dries up in the sun, leaving the salt behind. So we did an experiment. We dissolved salt in hot water, then put it under the sun. A few hours later, all the water was evaporated and only the salt was left. Den thought it was so amazing. :)

We also read one 2 poems from Animals Animals and 4 poems from A treasury of Mother Goose. To enhance her learning, I spent a whole night researching and downloading origins, pictures, and music, and even video that goes with the mother goose poems. (all the work only for this week and next week's lesson...Im not sure I will be able to continue this way....). These are some of the good sites that you can check out if you are interested in knowing more about Mother Goose:

1. (Not Working) http://www.teach.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm Teaching phonic using mother goose: 30 downloadable well-plan lessons with Rhymes cards and more. I tried this with Den when she was only 2+ and failed. But I think she is ready now. I will do this with her again at the end of the year.

2. http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=heh It comes with different pictures that go with the poem and also some music. However, some of the music do not work.

3.http://www.rhymes.org.uk/ This is a very interesting site. You will find out the origins of most nursery rhymes reflect events in history. Some of them are too difficult for the kids to understand but some are interesting for them to know.

For example, we read "Girls & Boys come out to play" today. At first, I thought the kids were very naughty because they went out to play at night and did not want to sleep but after I read on this site, then I realize that it was because at that time kids had to work 16 hours a day and had no time to play at all!!

4. http://www.kididdles.com/ is a very good site for all the popular kid's music. You just have to type in the title of the rhymes and it will give u the music. But it is not downloadable and it is without singing.

Another good source will be Youtube. Just type in the title of the rhyme and you won't believe some of the stuff that people put in there! Btw, all the things that I got for this week and next week's lesson can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/mglessonresources/Home (for followers only).

We read twinkle twinkle today, so I let Den work on one of her favorite books of all time My first nursery rhyme activity book. After each rhyme, there are like 7 pages of activities for her to do. That's how I got time to cook. :)

19 June 2009 & more

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

We only study in the morning because we go kai kai with SD yiyi in the afternoon! :)

Still, that gave us about 2 hours of study time. Not bad.

Den woke up at around 1030am. We started with the Bible verse then we read a missionary story from "Stories from Africa". This true story is about how a missionary and his African friend have a narrow escape from the fierce lions.

After that, we read a poem from The Children's Book of Virtues and I wanted her to use the poem as a base and make a poem of her own. She did it last week with a silly mother-goose poem but she can't do it this time. I think she didn't quite get this week's poem. (read the detail in the previous post 08June2009) The metaphor is much harder in today's poem. It talks about how God made my life like a little light so that it will glow in darkness or a little flower so that I can give joy to others or a little (shepherd's) staff so that the weak can rest on me...

I didn't push her after a few tries. So we continue our study in A children's Book of Art instead. This week's topic is boating - we looked at 1 Japanese painting, 1 Ethiopian painting, and 2 European paintings. I tried to point out the differences in styles...not sure if she get me....but she is getting quite good at discussing the paintings. She would ask me, "mommy, which one do you like?" Then she would tell me which one she like and the reasons. Sometimes we also take turns in guessing which one she/me like.

Afterward, we read about ways to travel in A First Word Bank. New words we learned - Spokes, mudguard (bicycle parts), skim, and hurtle. Hmm..not sure we would be able to use these words in our conversation...you are supposed to use the new word 10 times in your normal conversation in order to "own" the word...

After that, we finished book 6 of the Cosmotot math. Today we learned to do addition in a different way. Instead of the normal 1+2=? today we learned 1+?=3. Den had no problem understanding the concept but needs more practice.

While having lunch (with SD) and dinner (with ST) in the curve, Den did 3 pages of math worksheets.

I brought a few new math workbooks in Popular for her. 2 from a Malaysia publication (easier, just for practice because it was on sale - KB Mathematics Book 1&2) and 2 from a Singapore publication (harder - Creative Math, preparing for primary 1). I especially like the Singapore workbooks because they covered the basic concept of graphs. Since I'm following the USA assessment (download from https://sites.google.com/site/djhomeschoolsite/Home/assessment if you are my followers) , I need to teach graph concepts in K.

I don't think we study graphs/charts when we were in primary? I think they still don't teach that in MLY primary. Anyway, Singapore does. So I'm going to introduce the concept to Den soon. I found one in the Internet that is quite interesting, it ties in with Goldilock's story. If you are interested, you can download a free copy here https://sites.google.com/site/djhomeschoolsite/Home/math (for follower only).

On Sat, 20 June 2009 Den did another 4 math worksheets while visiting ST's mom. One is to arrange numbers from the smallest to Biggest, one from biggest to smallest. The other 2 introduce the concept of < & >. Besides that, I continued reading stories to her every night before she sleep. That covered part of the Sonlight program as well as Chinese stories.

16 June 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 16 June 2009)

It was a usual busy busy Tues. So we did not do much school.

Den woke up at 1030am. We hug hug, ate breakfast, and only start studying at 1130am.

We started with a new Bible verse:

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. ~Ephesians 4:32

Then we read 3 Bible stories (Den was so happy) - all about Daniel and his friends. The first one is about his 3 friends who were thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 1-3); the second one is about God's writing on the wall (Daniel 5) and the last one is about Daniel in the lions' den (Daniel 6).

Den claimed she knew all three stories (must be from Sunday school, since I never told her the stories before) and she can tell me most of the stories before I read them to her. Of cause, she still wanted me to read to her. The funniest thing was she claimed the last story was different from the one she heard before because, in my story, Daniel did not pray!! haha!

After the stories, we only have time to do the Phonic lesson. We learned "ar" today.

She practice her piano while I cooked lunch. She was getting so bored with her Yamaha primary one book and so she started playing songs from my book like row row row your boat, are you sleeping, etc. The Yamaha class concert is next Tues. We can't wait. She is really good with reading notes too. I'm pleasantly surprised.

After that is the usual rush for ballet and Yamaha.

One last note, Den's ballet teacher has invited her friend to come and teach line dance for the mommy and I decided to join in. I know I know there are lots of places that have free line dance but this one I don't have to take extra time out. Instead of watching Den dance, now I'm dancing myself.

The only :( thing is I won't know if Den has been behaving well or not and also won't be able to point out some of her mistakes later on. I plan to skip the dance lesson once a month so that I can see how she is doing. I know I know I'm a hopeless control freak.

15 June 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

Last week we only have like 2.5 days of school and we took it really slowly and we ended up not doing too badly. We did:

4 days of Sonlight, 1 phonic, 3 crafts, 3 math worksheets, 1 writing worksheet, 8 language art worksheets, 3 Chinese stories, 4 piano practices, and 2 swimming. On top of that Den spent 3 whole days playing with EE when I run the kid's camp in church. Overall, I have to say, GOOD! :)

We continue at a slower pace this week. On Monday I was still very tired from last week's camp, so we were on a very very relaxed pace. We continued last week's Sonlight, so we practiced last week's Bible verse and I told her 2 Bible stories - King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34) & the end of Israel & Judah (2 Kings 24-25; Isaiah 53; Micah 5).

Den was a bit shocked when she heard about what happened to Israel and Judah. She knew God punishes those who were disobedient but she never thought the punishment would be so severe. It was a hard lesson to teach but at least it came with a promise - Messiah -if God's people turn back to Him. There is hope. I starting to like this Family Time Bible more and more.

After that, we read Stories from Africa chapter 3. This time it is about a missionary pilot who helped save a little boy's life.

A missionary couple's youngest son Billy was very sick. Their two-way radio hasn't worked for the past two months, but in desperation, they decided to try it one more time. It reached the pilot!

The pilot made it to their house before the storm and darkness took over. They prayed that God would look after Billy that night since they can't fly out until morning. They also prayed for a miracle because the fog usually covered the sky from morning to afternoon. It was a clear day when the pilot woke up in the very early morning. He managed to get Billy to the hospital asap. After 2 days of struggling, finally Billy was getting better.

It is a wonderful story. I am contemplating sharing in Sunday School.

After that we had lunch. Porridge. Den's request.

Then Den helps me to snap the lady's fingers for dinner. She is getting really good at that.

We have free time after that. At least free time for her while I checked my email (I have not checked my mail since last Thurs -- over 100 new emails....) and also plan this week's lesson.

We went swimming 5-6pm. There were lots of kids swimming in the pool. A clear day without haze must be the reason. Den choose to play with the youngest - a 1 plus baby girl. A cutie. She can really spend time talking to her, carrying her around, played with her. I think the little girl's mom wished Den is her daughter. :)

While I cooked dinner, she did a few worksheets - 1 on subtraction, 1 on writing, and 1 on Language art.

After dinner, I decided to start this week's lesson (since she can't play UNO, punishment for destroying her water bottle). We read from What's under the sea? This time it is about Drilling for Oil from the sea. She is going to bring the book to Sunday School this Sunday and ask Uncle Job exactly what did he do. Hopefully, she will see Uncle Job.

Then we read a Chinese book. One of the things I'm going to change is to learn fewer Chinese word cards and read more Chinese books to her. I think it is still the best way to improve her Chinese (or any language).

Recently I found this set of books that I absolutely love. Unfortunately, it is a translated book (English Author). I hate to buy translated books. Much prefer the original text. But it is really cheap compared to if I get it from Amazon....so what to do....read the Chinese version loh. :(

I love this series because it is about a little girl called Katie and she has a special power to go into all the famous pictures in the Art museum and interact with the people inside the pictures!!

There are 7 books in the series ( I think there are more in English) and we read the first one last week, it is called 凯蒂的画中历险(Katie's Picture Show). In this book, she went into The Hay Wain by John Constable, met Madam Moitessier by Ingres, played with the little girl in Les Parapluies by Renoir, saw the tiger in Tropical Storm by Rosseau and almost drown in Dynamic Suprematism by Kaimir Malevich.

It was soooooooooo fun to read! Only problem - the Chinese is kind of difficult for Den, so I pretty much paraphrased everything. Besides that, I also spend almost a whole night last Tuesday trying to find out all the painters and paintings' names in English. Still not done yet. :(

On Monday, we read the 2nd book - 凯蒂和蒙娜丽莎(Katie and the Mona Lisa). In this book, she met the really lonely and unhappy Mona Lisa. In order to cheer her up, she brought Mona Lisa out of her painting and in search of friends. First, they were attracted by the handsome knight, St. George in St. George & the dragon by Raphel. Then they danced with the goddesses in Primavera by Botticelli. After that, the lion from The Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccio flew them to Venice and have a nice tour on a gondola while eating spaghetti and gelato.

After the book, we looked at some of the photos ST & I took when we visited Venice. Den and I want to go to Italy now. We want to eat gelato. Not the yucky one you can find here in the shopping complex but the really good one in Rome!!! I also want a cappuccino!

Dream on. :)

10 June 2009

We ended up did not do any school today!

My AC guy was late, I need to clean the house and prepare for tomorrow's camp and MC and the kids will be coming over to swim later! So there, life happened, and no school! haha!

We only ate lunch at 3pm! Simple Egg sandwiches!

Anyway, Den did 3 LA worksheets and 1 subtraction worksheet while I vacuum and that's all! Maybe I will read a bible story and a Chinese story for her tonite, we'll see. :)

09 June 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

We started late again. Den woke up at 1130am. I can't complain since it gave me some precious time to do my church work.

We started school at 1pm. We repeated the Bible verse and read Jonah's story.

Then we read a ridiculously difficult chapter about Seabed in "What's under the sea?". It talks about Plates, Mantle, Magma, volcanoes, hot spring, and how to measure the depth of a sea!!!! It was hard! Even for me! I hope I explained it right. I'm not sure. You look at this and tell me it is too much for a 4-year-old or what? I think it is too much for a 37-year-old as well!! Tomorrow we are going into Drilling for Oil and I'm not looking forward to that!

After that, I was supposed to read a story from The children's Book of Virtues. It is about how Genghis Khan killed his bird in anger. His favorite pet hawk kept knocking down his silver cup whenever Khan raised it to drink the water he gather from the dropping of a brook. Finally, he was so angry that he killed the hawk. Only later he found out there was a huge poisonous snake laying dead at the pool (where the water came from), then he realized that his hawk was trying to save him. But it was too late.

I hate to tell any story about dead animals or people. Den will definitely cry. Last week, during the holiday, I read a story about a farmer saving a bird and the bird took the form of a pretty woman and married the farmer. Later on, the farmer realized his wife is actually the bird and so she left him. Den cried and cried after that story. So you can imagine how much I dread today's story. Remember? This is the girl who cried after watching Shrek because the evil prince did not get the girl. She wants a happy ending for everyone.

Blessedly I don't have to finish the story. Halfway through the story, Den told me to stop. She asked me, "is it about the dead snake?" I said, "yes, and how do u know?" She told me her popo already told her this story and she would not want to listen to it again. She usually loves to listen to the same story again and again but today she refused. I'm glad too!

I am a bit worried because Sonlight K program (the next step, we will start maybe next year) has books about WWII and people & animals ending up dead, how are we going to get through?

Next, we did our favorite books - "A child's book of Art" & "A first Word Bank". Today we look at Meals. We loved one of the pictures from A Child's Book of Art. I promised her I will scan and print it out and put it in our kitchen.

After that, I want to teach her to differentiate between Glass, Cup & Mug. So I draw in her scrapbook and she colored them.

When I cooked lunch, I let her cut out our craft work today - Dolphin (you can download the template here). Jonah was swallowed by a big fish, I would like to believe it was a whale and a dolphin was the smallest type of whale! So there, the connection! haha! :)

It took her 2 hours to eat her lunch and that really drove me crazy! I clean up the kitchen, hand washed some of the clothes, checked and replied to my mail and yet she was not done.

We finally started school again at 4pm! As punishment, she did not get to watch her Chinese cartoon today.

We assembled the dolphin. Then we used play-doh to make letters. We made A, B, E, F, H, L, M, N, T. Btw, Den took the photo too!

Afterward, I bathed Den and gave her 3 worksheets on LA (language art), 1 on handwriting without tears, 1 on shapes and coloring, and 1 on maze while I cooked dinner.

She could not finish her LA worksheets because she did the wrong chapter! I had to help her out after dinner. I wanted to read a Chinese book to her today but did not have the time. Will do it tomorrow.

08June2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

I decide to go slower with Den and that's what we did. After a long break, we were reluctant to start school today. It was hard to start at the beginning but once we get the ball rolling we had fun.

Den woke up at noon and we only start at around 130pm. Our new verse today is:

"It is wonderful to say the right thing at the right time. "~Proverbs 15:23

She haD no problem understanding the verse and memorizing it. We read 1 bible story about King Joash (2king 11). Then I asked her to retold the story. She did it with my help.

Then we did "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" chapter 48. We learned a new sound today "P". It took us close to 1 hour to finish the lesson. She has no problem recalling most of the phonic sounds (just took her longer to read) but had almost forgotten all the sight word (words that are not phonically correct are taught as sight words like for example - was, said, etc.)

Then we had lunch. ST was off work this morning, so he brought back food for us. Ya! No need to cook. :)

After lunch, we read books. We read a poem about peacocks from Eric Carle's "Animals, Animals" and we decided to paint a peacock on Den's scrapbook and that's what we did!

I drew the bird, then we color it together. It took us quite some time but it turned out rather pretty, if I may say so myself!

After that, we read 4 poems from mother goose and wrote a poem for ST.

The original poem said,

"If I had a donkey that wouldn't go,

would I beat him? Oh no, no.

I'd put him in the barn and give him some corn.

The best little donkey that ever was born."

Then we changed it to "If I had a doggy that wouldn't bark", "I had a baby that wouldn't sleep", etc but our favorite is this:

"If I had a daddy that wouldn't go to work,

would I beat him? Oh no, no.

I'd put him in Den's room and give him some UNO cards.

The best little daddy that ever was born."

Haha!

After that, we read a chapter about underwater machines like submersibles, submarines, bathyscaphe, and ROVs from "What's under the sea?". I'm impressed with myself. :)

Then I remembered a song about submarines from Fun Song Factory (VCD), and I wanted to search for it. We ended up watching and dancing to 2 episodes of FSF (less than 15 min for each episode), but still could not find the song! We had fun dancing though. We used to watch this when we homeschool Den, EE, W&W together. They loved it and still do.

After the dancing, it was time for her Chinese cartoon on Goodtv. I worked on Sunday School camp stuff (this weekend) while she watched. Then when she finished, she ate a cake that her dotting grandpa brought last night while I prepare dinner. She did 2 worksheets - one simple addition worksheet (less than 10) and one clock worksheet and practiced piano while I cooked.

We finished at the same time. Then we took bath and play UNO while waiting for ST to come home. He was really late today because of the traffic jam.

ST came home, we ate dinner together and after that Den and I continue playing UNO. We also played Brainstorm. A very interesting block game my uncle brought her when she was 2 years old! She finally can play now. :)

I think I love playing it more than she does. haha!

Then we dance some more. Practice dance steps for my camp.

We did like half of what we usually do during a school day but instead, we go deeper into the lesson like drawing peacocks and making poems, and had fun. So far I like it and she enjoyed it. Let's see how it goes.

(NOT WORKING) Downloadable materials suitable for toddlers

If you are my followers, you can check out

https://sites.google.com/site/djhomeschoolsite/

to download materials. I will continue to add in more materials, so pls make sure you sign up at the site, so that you get regular update.

If you are not my follower yet, sorry, you have no access yet.

Update 2023: Its no longer working. I have no idea why...

holiday thinking

Ok, another reason I want this time off is...(it starting to sound like 101 reasons I need a holiday) because I want to rethink our schooling schedule.


After following all the things that everyone said in my regular homeschooling internet group, I kind of worry I am pushing Den too hard...hmm...


This is what I think. Since I only homeschool her like 2 1/2 days a week, I try to put in as many things as possible in that 2 1/2 days. The rest of the week, she can play in po po (maternal grandma) house, play with daddy, etc.


Problem? I have not been playing with her. I have not given her enough outdoor and physical activities. I make sure she has time every week to play with others but it seems like all that I did was work with her and take care of her basic needs. I am no fun! :(


Am I making homeschool another school, after all, I asked myself....:(

Den is getting rather bored after 2 weeks of holiday. haha! We are going to start school next Mon. (She is looking forward, great!)  I'm thinking of cutting back on some serious school work we do each day and more play and outdoor time. Hm...I hate to sweat. Prefer to read... maybe that's got to do with it too...Let's see how it goes.

03 June 2009 - all about Ruth

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

EE came over today, so we had our own VBS (Vacation Bible School!) just kidding! haha! But it is a school day during vacation and it was all about Ruth!

I decided to do Ruth because Den & EE are both very much into Disney's Princesses. I'm a bit worried that might somehow twist their view on marriage and love. Ruth is a down-to-earth love story.

I used the Pray & Prayer Bible to tell the story. I paraphrased a lot since I want to emphasize the LOVE STORY. I pointed out that neither Ruth nor Boaz is pretty on the outside but kind and gentle and loving on the inside. Den caught on pretty quickly since we had been discussing this at length. She quickly pointed out just like Shrek! Hmmm...not sure Ruth & Boaz are as ugly as Shriek but ...that's the general idea!

After the storytelling, I asked them to retell it back to me. They can't do it as well as David & Jonathan's story. I have to ask some prompting questions to keep it going. Both of them still don't quite get the mother-in-law, and daughter-in-law relationship despite my explanation. :(

Then we sing songs and play games. Most of them were taken from the Play & Pray Bible.

The first song (tune: my bonnie lie over the ocean)

Wherever you go, I will follow
Wherever you stay, I will too
Your people will all be my people
and your God, I'll worship with you.
Fol-low, fol-low
I'll follow wherever you go today
Fol-low, fol-low
I'll follow you and there I'll stay.

I dressed them up in some clothes and we role-played. Naomi asked Ruth to go home but Ruth sing back and say no. Naomi hug Ruth and said, I love you. The lyrics were too long for them, but they had fun playing.

After that, we played "follow the leader". We took turns being the leader and did silly actions, and the others had to follow.

2nd song: (Tune: farmer in the dell)
Ruth picks the grain x2
Ruth hopes in God
So Ruth picks the grain.

EE was the planter first. She took a bag of straws (pretend to be grain) and dropped them on the floor. Den was Ruth. She sang and picked up all the straws. Then they switched roles. They played so many times that I lost count. :)

3rd song is actually the Bible Verse rhyme with finger play:
A friend loves at all times. (Proverbs 17:17a)

Den & EE faced each other. I said a statement and they have to answer with the Bible verse while touching each other index fingers.

I said, "A friend will love you when you are sad."
They answer: "A friend loves at all times."

I said, "A friend will love you when you are mad."
They answer: "A friend loves at all times."

I said, "A friend will love you when you do something wrong."
They answer: "A friend loves at all times."

I said, "A friend will love you all along."
They answer: "A friend loves at all times."

After that, they did some worksheet on Ruth (I downloaded it from the net) while I cooked lunch. Today we had bread (from grain we can make bread) with Burger Patti, egg, fried button mushroom with onion. I also let them prepare their own salad. They tear the veggie and mixed in the carrot sticks, tomato, raisin, and thousand island sources.

They had fun eating but it took them more than 1 hour to complete their lunch. :(

After that, I showed them a short but very cute video clip about Ruth I found on the net before they proceed to watch Veggie Tales.

This was part of Den's passing motion reward! haha! Den has always had problems with passing motion. When she was younger, her bowel movement was not too good. She would go for days without passing motion.

It improved with age (and lots of encouragement, scolding, and veggie & fruit intake) and now she is just too lazy to go to pass motion. She seldom feels the urge to go. So she only goes when we ask (or force) her to. She has no problem once she is seated in the toilet bowl.

In order to encourage her to go (and foster the good habit of daily poop), we give her stars if she passes motion every day (before this she used to get stars if she passes motion every other day). Once she collected a certain amount of stars she can exchange rewards likes going to the book store or Ikea, long cartoon, etc.

She had this "long cartoon" award more than a week ago but she wanted to wait for EE to come over so that they can watch together. I'm rather happy with her choice since I need to watch this particular Veggie Tales for my next Sunday Sunday School lesson. Haha! One stone killed 2 birds.

Den loves Veggie Tales but I find it too difficult for her. It is more suitable for primary kids. So I have to sit around and do some explanation.

MA came to pick up EE right after they finished their cartoon. As usual, lots of drama and tears when they said goodbye.

Den asked to go swimming in the evening. I said ok since the weather was so hot (and no haze). She had fun swimming while I read the newspaper and prepared her for next week's lesson at the sides. She was learning to go under the water. A great improvement. She usually doesn't like water to touch her face.

I think may be one of the reasons she is trying out is that when she took bath with W&W, she saw how W&W didn't mind the water touching their faces. Great!

activities during holiday weeks

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

We had too much fun on holiday! haha!

I decided to give us some break time these two weeks for 2 reasons:

1. Giving Den some breathing room. I think I might have pushed her a bit too hard, she needs some time off to play and just be a silly 4 years old;

2. I want to take time to rectify and catch up on some of the things that we usually don't have time to do: like practice piano, etc.

One of the thing that I want to take time off to do is writing. I have never taught her how to write. She did a lot of coloring on her own (sometimes a few pages a day) since she turn 3+ because she loved it. I also let her write some Chinese words but that is all. I have never really taught her how to write ABC or 123.

Recently she has made a lot of mirror image mistakes when she wrote, I know it is a command mistake among kids her age, but I still decided to take some time to teach her how to write, starting basic.

I brought "Writing without tears" from Sonlight but I never seriously looked into it until this week.

I realized that I should have done it earlier!

This is the way that Den holds her pencil (Left Pic), and I always thought she hold it wrong and I wanted her to hold it this way (Right Pic):

Handwriting without Tears ensured me that both ways are the correct ways of holding a pencil. What is even more surprising, when I told my dear hubby ST about it, he said he has always held the pencil the same way Den holds hers!!!!! Hmmm...and we were celebrating our 10th anniversary this year!!!

Anyway, I also start with the basics -using wooden blocks and mat man like what the book suggested. I did not want to spend money buying the wooden blocks, so I use the template in the books and use cardboard paper to make the blocks. Ok, it took me the whole night but saved a lot of money and they looks pretty good to me!

The idea is before a kid learns to write, let her form the letter with the block first. This will help kids to form each letter correctly, systematically, and without reversals.

Besides that, we can use the block to make mat man which will help kids to develop body awareness, drawing, and counting skills.

So far we had fun with this and the best thing is Den did not realize we were studying! haha! She thought we were playing a game! :)

The other thing the book suggested is to use the play-doh to form letters, we have not tried it yet, and that's our activity for tomorrow.

Besides that, we also did some reading at a very slow pace like one story per day. That's very enjoyable.