17 July 2009

For review & info on most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 17 July 2009)

No school today. We went out for lunch and grocery shopping. After we came home, Den decided to play with two books that she had not been playing with for a long long time, both by Stephen T. Johnson. They are more like boy's books (if there is such a thing) but Den and I loved them.

The first one is called "My Little Red Toolbox". Inside the book, it has cardboard removable tools like a screwdriver, wrench, hammer, etc. The reader can take out the 'tools' and practice them in the book. Den was obsessed with the erasable slate. She used it to draw games for me to play. She drew a church on one side, me on the other side, and a road in between, then she asked me to find my way to church. :)

The 2nd one is even more extravagant. It is called 'My Little Blue Robot' and you can use the parts to build a robot that speaks! Read my write up about the books in http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

After that, she finished off her worksheets on money from yesterday. She did not finish the work and I did not realize it because I was chatting with SY. She also did another 2 worksheets from Sonlight Developing Early Learner Book 3 (finally!).

16 July 2009

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

Another good-for-everything-but-homeschooling day, haha! I slept at 5am and woke up at 6am to go to IKEA membership sales!! We wanted to make sure we get the wonderful dining set that matches all our furniture. It was RM599 but for a limited period today (7am-930am, while stocks last) the price was slashed down to RM199!! What a fabulous duel! Plus the delivery and assemble service, we paid a total of RM260 for a table and 4 chairs that looked right at home in our kitchen! So happy.

We finished our purchase at 730am and ate breakfast in IKEA. After that, we decided to walk around IKEA to avoid the morning rush hour. However, the IKEA delivery guy called us at 815am and said they will be at our house at 9am!! We were like, WHAT? We were still at IKEA! haha! So we asked them to come a bit later and at the same time, we rushed back home. Blessed, the traffic was not too heavy today.

By 1030am, our new dining set has been assembled and displayed in our kitchen. Then we picked up Den from my parent's place (she spent the night there so that she didn't have to wake up so early today).

We did some school from Noon to 1pm. We practiced the Bible verse and read 2 Bible stories - Jesus and His disciples and the miracle of turning water into wine.

Then we look at A Child's Book of Art and A First Word Bank. Today, we read about the opposite. This was the first time I introduced the word 'opposite' to Den. She was familiar with the concept of the opposite even though she did not know that's what it was called.

I tested her after that. I said something and she would have to give me the opposite. For example, I said, 'cold' and she replied 'hot' etc. She had no problem in doing that except for a few we can't agree on - I said, 'sunny day' (and expected a 'rainy day') but she said, 'snowy day'! haha!

We cant do Mother Goose today because ST was using the PC, so we read 2 poems from Animals Animals. One of the poems mentioned the word - an igloo. I taught her Igloo on 07 May 2009 when we talked about different types of houses. I was so surprised to find out that not only she remembered what Igloo was, she remembered it was for the people who stay at the North Pole!! She also remembered no one stay at the South Pole except for the scientists!

We also read a familiar poem/song "Over in the meadow" from the Children's book of virtue. Then she worked on her scrapbook (she was supposed to trace the word 'girl' and draw a girl from yesterday's lesson but she forgot all about it) and did her Yamaha homework.

We had lunch and then my friend SY and her bb boy came over for visit.

While SY tried to settle her son down for a nap, I quickly went through the Chinese flesh card with Den. She got most of the words now. Then before I can count how many stickers she got today, she started to count for me, in this manner - 2, 4, 6, 8, 10....all the way to 28! I was so surprised. That's the way I always count her flesh cards point (because 2 words in one card) but I have never taught her to count that way.

I told ST about it. He decided to test her and asked her to count in 3s. She did! 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and up to 18! She did it with 4 too! We were so amazed (at least I was! ST looked cool!) Then ST asked her, let said she was going to buy 3 sets of things, and in each set, there are 6 items, so how many things would she get? She said it was 6+6+6. She knew 6+6 =12 but she got 12+6 wrong! I was just so happy because she understand it was 6+6+6! Uh...is that mean I should start teaching her timetable?

After that I let her do 2 Chinese revision worksheets and 2 Money worksheets while I have a good chat with SY. Every time I talked with SY, I realized how my memory failed me. I can only recall very little of what I did with Den when she was her son's age (1+) which is why I need to continue to write this blog. I also encourage SY to start writing her own blog. It will be a good memory tracker as well as therapeutic. :) Those ten thousand words that you did not say every day because we are too busy with kids and life, now we can say them in a blog! :)

That pretty much summed up what we did for Sonlight week 22, there are still 2 stories that I am going to tell her as bedtime stories and also Mother Goose. I think we can do that either tomorrow or Saturday. We are taking a break from schooling for a while (so happy!). Shall resume the blog when we resume schooling.

童书非童书 Book Review

(This is a review of a Chinese book...and I was contemplating if I should write this in Chinese or English...finally I decided to write it in English so that those who can't read Chinese can at least read what I have learned from this book. )

童书非童书 (book title direct translation: About children's books and yet not a children's book) is a good book in introducing how to choose and read children's books to children. Even though most of the book the author introduced in his book cannot be found over here in MLY, the principle applied. I believe our church library carries this book.

After these 2 years of homeschooling, I have to say the best way to teach a child is to read to him/her. One of the reasons I choose Sonlight instead of another homeschooling program is because it emphasized on reading aloud. In fact, parents are expected to continue to read aloud (until Lever 7, which is around 13-14 years old) even after the child learned to read. The child will read at her grade level but will listen to stories that are way above her reading skill. That way the child will continue to improve on her vocab.

Sometimes I see parents wanting to teach their kids to read as early as possible so that they can read book themselves independently. I think that is very sad because then they lose out on the fun and enjoyment of sharing a good book together.

Of cause, reading takes lots of time. It can get rather boring when you have to read the same old story again and again and again. Isn't it better if the kids can entertain themselves with their books while we as parents can do something more productive than reading to them? I used to think of it that way too but after using Sonlight, I changed my mind.

The books that I have been reading to Den are in the reading level of std 2-5. Yet, she has no problem understanding most of them. I might need to paraphrase some or explain some words but most of the time, we just enjoyed the stories together. There was so many time, after reading a great story, Den and I just looked at each other and enjoyed the magic moments together. Those are the moment we will treasure forever. I never want to miss out on those moments.

The book has listed lots and lots of benefits of reading books - learning to categorize, logical thinking (event sequencing), observation skill, EQ, practical skills, etc, just to name a few. It also explained which type of book can help to improve which type of skill.

It also helped answer some of my questions about reading aloud:

1. should I read straight from the book or paraphrase? - depending on the books.

2. Den always cried after a sad story, should I stop reading stories with sad endings for her? -No. The author thinks the beauty of reading is it can provide different emotional experiences for kids, so let her laugh at humorous stories and cried at sad stories. A relief to me, since the next level of Sonlight includes 2nd world war stories.

3. Den refused to tell story even though I kept encouraging her (she claimed she can't 'read' the words). I even bought books without words to encourage her to tell a story and yet she refused - telling a story actually only comes in a later stage when she is 6-7 years old!! Ok, now, I understand.

That's all for now. Read the book if you have not. Every chapter is very short and very easy to read.

15 July 2009

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

It has been an eventful day. :)

I started the day thinking it was going to be slow and steady, just nice for homeschooling...so I took about an hour hug hug Den after she woke up at 10am and then another hour practicing piano after her breakfast.

Then when we finally settle down for school it was 1230 already. We had a new verse today:

"A wise man restrains his anger." ~Proverbs 19:11

To explain the word 'restrain', I held Den tightly and asked her to struggle to get away. Then I explained to her, a wise man restrains his anger, even when he really really wants to get angry, he can still hold his anger tightly and not let go. I think I need this verse more than her. :)

After that, we read two Bible stories - one on Jesus' baptism and the other on Jesus being tempted by Satan. It is very interesting to note that in the Bible that we used (Family-Time Bible In Pictures,p art of Sonlight preK program), it pointed out in the 2nd story the reason that Satan tried to tempt Jesus. This is what it said,

"Do you remember how Satan tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God? and when they did, it caused all the rest of us to have sinful hearts? Well, when Satan saw that Jesus had come to give us new, pure hearts and to make us good, Satan tried to stop him."

I have never thought of why would Satan tempt Jesus. I just kind of thought, it tried to tempt anyone who wants to get close to God. :)

After that, we practiced phonics. Before we can finish the lesson (it was a long passage for her to read today), SE called and asked if I could take care of W&W for an hour. Of cause, I said yes, Den is always happy when her friends come over to play. I had to stop the lesson halfway and get her to eat lunch right away, or else she won't be able to play when her friends arrived.

That motivated her to finish her lunch faster. But still not fast enough. W&W came before she can finish lunch. They played by themselves while Den finished off her lunch.

After that, the 3 of them kind of entertained themselves and no supervision was needed. I cleaned the kitchen, and straighten up the rooms (is my weekly cleaning day again). They played UNO, dressed up, and finally read books in the study room. Last week, Shu Teng's aunt gave Den lots of books (her grandchildren recently migrated) and they were having fun reading them together when SE came over to pick up W&W.

After W&W left, I started school with Den again. We finished off the phonic practice and started to read Mother Goose. Halfway through, ST came in and told me something wrong with the car (now, fixed) and also he need to use the study room for teleconferencing. Everyone had to be very very quiet while he was at it.

So I ended up letting Den watch more Chinese cartoons from 430-545!!! She is really hooked on Chinese cartoons nowadays. Today, I gave her the choice of watching Goodtv Chinese cartoons or Disney playhouse (Astro 613) at my mom's place (She is spending the nite there), and she actually choose Goodtv.

So we kind of like did not do much with school today but I think it is alright. Schooling is a long-term process.

11 July 2009 Understand Homosexuality

I just attended 2 Sat of classes in Church on Understanding Homosexuality. The speaker is an ex-lesbian Pastor from an organization called PLUG (Pursuing Liberty Under Christ). The course was very good and very informative and it left me with both hope and fear.

Hope for those who are currently involved in homosexual lifestyles. Fear for the challenges our kids are going to face.

There are so many pit holes waiting for them and the evil one is like the roaring lion waiting to eat them up.

At the end of the day, the root of all problems started in the family. I think it is very important for all parents to learn about some of the basic skills to raise their kids with healthy gender identities. Honestly, there are not so hard for a healthy family.

These are the roots and causes of male homosexuality:

0-18Months

-Need touch; if lacking, the child will get confused as in need touch so much that he/she can't differentiate between good touch and bad touch anymore.

18 months - 5 years old:

-A boy needs to receive gender affirmation both verbally and physically from his parents, for example, telling a son: "You are so handsome/strong, etc, just like your daddy!" Keep affirming he is like a boy, he is like his dad. (A boy should not hear things like this from parents: "Why are you more like a girl than a boy?" or "Why do you cry/play/fight like a girl, not like a boy?")

-A boy will notice he is different from his mom, he needs to dis-identify with his mom and connect to his dad.

-Parents must team up to assist this boy in this transition phase. Mom has to help her son to identify with his dad. Instead of saying things like, "playing football with your dad is too rough for you, come inside and bake with me." She needs to say, "when you play football you look just like your dad! What a wonderful sight!"

-If parents are not in a good relationship, then when a mom says "You are just like your dad!" It is more like an accusation than an affirmation. This would bring the opposite effect.

-If dad is cold and the boy experiences hurt and rejection. He will try to seek acceptance somewhere else when he is older. The boy who grew up did not know how to have a healthy relationship with other boys/men, thus craving more for their acceptance and affirmation.

5-12 years old:

-Need to build up healthy same-sex friendships. This plays an important role in the development of secure gender and sexual identity.

-Those who did not de-identify with mom and connected with dad might have a "Pre-homosexual" tendency. "Prehomosexual" boys are very polite, responsible, clean, neat, sensitive to others (ESPECIALLY their mom's needs), aware of what other people expect of them, and tend to deny their own needs and wants and would rather make other people happy. Homosexual behavior is a way of being bad.

-"Prehomosexual" boys are usually taunted by same-sex peers and usually not picked for sports. They craved same-sex friendship and yet were once again rejected.

-If nothing is done, they will become homosexual.

ROOT & causes of Female homosexuality:

1. Physical trauma - sexual abuse, incest, rape, neglect

2. Emotional trauma- abandonment, rejection, unmet needs for love, acceptance, gender identification, and validation, lack of protection, verbal abuse

3. Unhealthy parental roles:
a. Girl sees her mom as "non-nurturer": break down relationship with same-sex parent lead to gender identity crisis.

b. Girl sees her dad as a "non-protector": girl needs a dad to affirm her femininity (his opinion provides affirmation or disapproval in a way that a mom cannot). Poor male role models inhibit a woman from effectively relating to men.

Infancy:
-Perceives mom as nurturer, and comforter and trust her to provide life's basic need = feel safe n secure = identify with the mom

Toddlerhood

-Girls need encouragement, boundaries, and continue involvement with their moms.

-How a mom perceive life will have an impact on her child (all mom are bad, etc)

-When intimacy and identification with same-sex parents are obscured in some way = distrust of same-sex parent = defensive detachment = girl will reject/pull away from a same-sex parent even if love is offered.

Childhood

-Building up healthy same-sex friendship = affirm feminine identity

- Need to hear from Dad, "I love you, you are my precious little girl."
NOT "I wished you are a boy!"


I decided to skip the adolescence stage for now. I think that is already a lot of information to digest...at least for me. :)

As you can see, it is really not so hard for a healthy family, as in a family in which the parents are having a healthy relationship. However, for a dysfunctional family, a lot of things could go wrong.

I also bought a book called "Raising Gender Confident Kids" by Melvin Wong, Ph.D. Hopefully, when I read it I will have more to share. For now, I need to get some sleep. :)

09 July 2009

For review & info of most of the books I mentioned here, please goes to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 09 July 2009)

Ok, maybe I pushed her too hard today...Den fell asleep on the car ride back from Subang Parade...she had not done that for a long long time...

I have not been giving Den any fever medicine since yesterday morning (Wed) since she only has a slight fever (around 100F, slight to us, we only give medicine when the fever goes up to 102F). She is still on antibiotics though :(

I thought since she has kind of recovered and slept 11 hours, we should go back to our normal schooling today. Maybe I should have to take into consideration that even though she slept 11 hours, her sleep was very restless. Her nose was stuck through the night. I wanted to get more done these few weeks because we are going on vacation soon.

She woke up late, around 11am. After a simple breakfast, we started school with Bible verse. She can get the whole verse now almost without any help. Then we read the last story from Stories From Africa. We loved this book. It is well written for read-aloud. Very simple and yet touching. Today we read a real story about a little girl name Dija who had leprosy. She ran away from home so that she can get help in a house of medicine (for leprosy). There she met a kind Christian lady who also has leprosy. Dija accepted Christ and she was healed too. I almost cried when I read about her difficult journey in searching for the house of medicine. We really enjoyed the book. I will definitely tell some of these stories in Sunday School. I think it is very important to tell good stories to kids. They might forget the theories or teachings but good stories and good songs stay with them throughout their lives.

Last month, during our holiday kids camp, we told 6 stories in 6 sessions. The kids loved the stories. They can identified with the stories and they remembered the stories. The problem is that it is hard to get a good story.

After that, we prayed and then we read another wonderful book called Is A Blue Whale The Biggest Thing There Is? It is under Science. It is a short little book about...not whale...but UNIVERSE! (Read my review at http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel)

This is the first time I introduce the topic to her. Thanks to the book, she seemed to enjoy it very much, we talked about planets, stars, the solar system, the milky way, and finally the universe. I also took out the book my friend Meg gave her last year about planets - it has photos and pictures of each planet.

My parents are getting a new dog soon, I asked Den if she wanted to name the dog after one of the planets. She agreed and chose "Pluto". I kind of like "Jupiter" or "Mercury".

After that, we drew on her scrapbook. We drew a tiny Sweden, a whale, a tall Mount Everest, a bigger Earth, a huge Sun, and finally a huge milky way.

After that, we practiced Chinese flashcards, and she almost get all of them correct. I let her work on 2 revision worksheets.

Then we had lunch. ST cooked! Yes!

It took her one hour to have lunch. Her sore throat made it hard for her to swallow.

After lunch, we read a story from Stories From Around The World. This time is a story from Persia. It is about a girl who tried to escape arranged marriage by hiding in a lamp. Finally, she fell in love with a prince and married the prince. I talked to Den about arranged marriages in the past. She did seem interested. :)

I also continue our study about money. I took out a 50-sens and asked her to give me different ways to make up 50 sen (for example, two 20sens +one 10sens; five 10sens, etc). She did very well but took a lot of concentration.

Later on, I let her work on 2 worksheets about money and 3 from Handwriting Without Tears. After that, she watched her Chinese cartoons.

After dinner we went out to Subang Parade, Den and I went to MPH while ST went and bought some stuff. After an hour or so, Den requested to go home! It has never happened before!! So we knew she must have been exhausted. True enough, she fell asleep in the car.

Maybe we should not study tomorrow.

8 July 2009

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

Den has been having a high fever since Sunday. Almost did not respond to normal fever medicine - still went up 102F with medication. Finally, when we get her to a doc on Mon night, and got an antibiotic (I hate to use that but doc insisted) and a stronger fever medicine (didn't realize there is a stronger medicine!). She responded well to the stronger medicine but had to take it every 6-7 hours or else the fever is up high again. Finally this morning, she only had a slight fever 100 F even though her last fever med was 8 hours ago. I decided to wait and see and did not give her any fever meds. Her fever never goes up above 100.5F. Thank God for that. If she is still running with a high fever, we need to send her for a blood test tomorrow morning.

She has been like a monkey despite the fever, so we were not too worried. Thanks for all the prayers!

We did not do much when she was sick. I read 3-4 Chinese stories, and 1 chapter of Milly Molly Mandy for her, and she also spent more than an hour playing/reading Dr. Seuss's ABC. Most of the time, she just wanted to read by herself. So we set her up in an AC room comfortably and let her read.

Since she only had a light fever today, I asked her if she wanted to study. At first, she said no, she just wanted to play. I let her be, even though I knew she would get bored soon, and asked me to study with her. True enough, at 1pm, she begged me to study with her.

We practiced the long verse together, and surprisingly, she can almost say out the whole verse without much assistance. Maybe because I have been quoting this verse quite often in our conversation throughout the week to remind her not to make a cutting remark, especially to her friend (she like to tease EE).

After that, we read a Bible story about Jesus going to the temple in Jerusalem when he was 12 and also a short wanted ad titled "Boy Wanted" from The Children's Book of Virtues. In the ad, it pointed out the right attitude of a boy. I might not agree with everything (too conservative for my taste, but then the ad came out in early 1990, so what can I say?) but quite an interesting read.

We prayed and then we start the phonic lesson. I was debating if I should do phonic lesson with her since she was sick. I decided to go ahead because we had not had any phonic lessons this week. It was a wrong call. She can't concentrate well and got upset when she can't get the words. She still finished the lesson but was tired after that. I think it was too stressful for her.

After phonic, I switched to something lighter and something she enjoyed. We looked at paintings from A Child's Book of Art and a poem about a frying fox from Eric Carle's Animals Animals.

We had porridge after that and then we hug hug for about an hour. She was bored with hug hug and asked me to read her mother goose and I did. We read 5 poems and looked at the stuff I found online - How many miles to Babylon, Lavender's Blue, Hector Protector, Ladybird, and Bells of London. The only one,  I can't find anything about is Hector Protector, the rest I have pictures and music and some with movies. I even found a Disney version of Lavender's Blue and she loved it. Watched it twice and begged me to let her watch it again. I loaded as much as I can to this site for you to download (if you have no permission to access it, pls contact me)https://sites.google.com/site/mglessonresources

That's all the time we had before her Chinese cartoon. We might do some worksheets together in the evening. Let's see how is she doing first.

2 & 3 July 2009

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

Den has been having a very high fever since Sunday morning. We had not been studying. Don't think we should stress her brain now. :)

However, I continue to read to her whenever she wanted it.

This is the write up about last Thursday (2 July). I had no time to update it until now. Hmm...I hope I still remember what we did...

Den and I both woke up early because of the reno downstairs. It has been on and off for a while now. Wonder when is it going to be done.

We started school at 11am. We had a very difficult new verse today:

Some people made cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. ~Proverbs 12:18

As you can see, there were lots of explanations - cutting remarks, words of the wise, bringing healing, etc. We took some time to discuss and gave examples, etc and we prayed that God would help us to be wise and always bring healing and not hurt.

Then we read 2 Bible stories - Angel appears to Shepherds and The Wise men visit.

After that, I decided to let her do one more lesson on phonics (even though we did one on Monday). We learn a new sound for "e" (end). We already learned one "e" (eat) sound a long long time ago and now is a new one. I get confused sometimes but Den seems to be doing fine. She had no problem differentiating the sounds.

Then we work on her Chinese. I read her a story form 中国童话大师经典丛书 -葛翠琳童话(Popular RM27). Then we did Flashcards and 2 worksheets. I also let her write " 过" today.

She also worked on 4 money worksheets and 1 worksheet on Auditory Memory (for detail check out my 26 June 2009 blog). She had a perfect score on the auditory memory worksheet today, even with the 4 directions given. :)

We only schooled in the morning because this was the day for our quarterly house cleaning day. :)

After lunch, we cleaned the house together. I vacuumed and cleaned the house and Den helped to dust the entrance gate, shoe cabinet, and the main door. After that, she watched Chinese Cartoons on GoodTV while I finished off.

On Friday (3 July), W&W&EE came over to play. We spent the afternoon painting cards for MA. Is her birthday next week. I draw the picture for them and they used watercolor to paint. Den and EE went one step further (they did it before W&W arrived). They painted their princesses with colored pencils and background on water color. Then I cutout the princesses for them and paste them on their paper.