28 Aug 2009

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

Today our homeschooling was a bit unusual. We woke up at 10am and it was a great weather day ... as in no sun and no rain! So we changed, ate breakfast and packed, and went to the park across from our condo.

Before we moved here, we said we wanted to go to the park more often (since it is basically just across the road) but....we did not! :(

Ideally, I would love to let Den spend most of her time outdoors. Ideally! First of all, I hate the sun. I hate to sweat. Secondly, we always sleep late and wake up late and by the time we wake up, it is too hot out there that it is quite impossible to go to the park. So today was a very good day.

We spent about 2 hours at the park. Den played with a Malay girl and an Indian boy (both 7 years old) at the playground. When I saw them playing together, I was thinking, "this is the true muhibah!" How nice if all of us can play together without bias, politic, etc etc.

After the park, we went out for lunch with my mom. Then we went back to my parent's house. I homeschooled Den there.

Instead of our usual Bible, I decided to read a book I bought yesterday from the Chinese Christian Book Fair (RM20). It is written by 2 kids. They are siblings from Taiwan. They followed their parents (dad-doc, mom-teacher) to stay and serve the minority people in West China.

It is a very simple book that is filled with photos and pictures. From the book, you can tell how much they enjoyed their stay in the mountain. Instead of feeling deprived, their lives were amazingly enriched.

I choose this book because I wanted to show Den as long as we follow the calling of God, we will live abundant lives - with or without all the luxury or should I say, the conveniences of modern society.

I have been asking Den if she will be willing to be a missionary if God ever calls her to serve as one. Her answer was always 'no!' Reason? No AC, no toilet, dirty, etc etc. Even after we read all the wonderful works that the missionaries did in Africa from "Stories From Africa"(Under Bible & Christian Book), she still says 'no!'. So I have been wanting to show her a child's perspective and when I saw this book, I knew I have to get it. We read about 16 pages today. She likes it so far. I hope the book will be able to change her perspective and help her to see beyond her physical comfort.

After that, we continue our phonic lesson with Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons (under Language). She was getting better and better. I tried to write down some of the words she knew by sight in her Homework Helper Lapbook (For detail about this lapbook, pls read my 27 Aug 2009 posting).

After that, we decided to make a craft. I found this wonderful book from the book fair yesterday (only RM20!!!!). It has all the pre-cut paper for you to make 6 houses in NT time.






Today we make the first house which is from the Bible lesson we learned 3 days ago -Jesus healed the paralytic (Mark 2). It was quite hard. I did most of the work but Den was having fun helping - holding on to pieces, blow dry glue, etc. She did the easy part too - pasting all the people and plants.

That's all we did the whole afternoon. By the time we finished making the paper house, my dad - Den's "toy" came home. So I thought that was all for today.

However, in the evening, when we went out for dinner with my parents. We were caught in a massive traffic jam for 45min! Den was getting restless (me too!) so I decided to teach her Odd and Even numbers since I have her Homework Helper Lapbook with me.

With the help of the chart, she can pretty much differentiate all the odd and even numbers from 1-100 by the time we reached our destination. I love homeschooling! You can teach anywhere, in any situation!