29 Nov 2009

We did not study much on Sat. We planned to do quite a lot since we had the late afternoon and evening free.

We went for a buffet brunch with my DH family in the morning which continued to mid-afternoon. My sister-in-law, JY gave Den a very cute hello kitty key chain along with a pink fake key. Den was very fascinated with the fake key.

She came home and tried it on every door lock in the house and realized it won't fit any of them! (She really thought it might fit at least one or two!!) So she decided since it won't fit the real locks, she would pretend it would fit the imaginary locks.

With the key, she "locked" my walk-in closet (btw, it doesn't have any lock) and every time before I can go into the closet, I have to ask her to "unlock" it first.

After that, she declared it was the key to her cardboard house.

We got the cardboard house from our friends, the Yu family 4 years ago. Yu's family was moving down to SG and hired a mover to move their furniture. I fell in love with one of the boxes that the mover provided for them to hang their clothes. It looked like a perfect house for Den (1+ at that time). Our friend gave one to us and their kids decorated it and call it "Den's house"

We cut out doors and windows and Den used to spend a lot of time in it. She hid in there and pretended that's her house. But recently she had not been playing much with it. In fact, I have only been keeping it with us for sentimental reasons and also because it is rather popular with some of the younger kids who sometimes come to our house. I had been toying with the idea of giving it away.

Then out of the blue, because of the fake key, Den decided to play house. She pretty much dragged me along (I was not a willing participant at first... halfway reading the novel I bought from book sales...) and we ended up playing for more than one hour at the box. I did struggle in my heart and wanted to lead her to more "constructive" activities ---like study and homework....but then she was having fun, so I decided to continue to play. Honestly, the thought of "study" kept crossing my mind, and I had to keep rejecting it. :)

We went out for dinner after that and did some grocery shopping. Den also played at the Giant indoor playground.

We did a bit of study after we reach home. I found out we had not finished our history study for week 2. So we read two chapters from Living Long Ago (under History) - One on Ancient Egyptian clothes (makeup, jewelry, etc) and the other on the Ancient Egyptian villa.

Den decided she wanted to be an Ancient Egyptian because they put on makeup, and wore jewels, wigs, and lots of perfume (both men and women). :-)

The day before, she found out that one of the Pharaohs had three wives. It was a big shock to her since she always thought of 1 husband with only 1 wife. I explained that a long time ago (or even not so long ago), most of the kings married a lot of wives. She contemplate that for some time then she announced that since she is a princess, she is going to take 3 husbands when she grows up. :-)


For review & info --
For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK (updated 26 Nov 2009);
on Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

27 Nov 2009

Den was sick (suddenly) on Tuesday night - flu, cough, and slight fever, so we have not been doing much this week.

We have a new verse from Act 16:31

Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved - you and your household.

We had 2 Bible lessons using the Word and Song Bible (under Bible & Christian Stories) in which we learned about Abraham's surprise (having a baby at 100 years old) and Abraham's obeying (sacrificed Isaac) as well as songs that went with the lessons.

We also put Abraham(2100 BC) and Isaac(2066 BC) stickers into our Book of Time.

We finished our read-aloud for the week today - 3 pages of the Real Mother Goose & 2 pages of The Llama Who Had No Pajamas (both under Rhymes & Poem)

We also read a short story about two teenage American girls who volunteered in India in I Heard Good News Today (Under Bible & Christian Stories). My almost 5 years old dd, Den was deeply moved by the story (she had tears in her eyes) and wanted to do volunteer work when she grew up. I am very happy to hear that. That is a big change from a year ago. The last time I asked her, she said she did not want to be a missionary because she didn't want to stay in poor places and without the comfort of her home. I think she has a soft spot for little children and animals.

It was rather painful for her when we read about how the first people hunt for animals and used them for food, clothes, shelter, lamp, etc. She almost cannot continue the lesson until I told her the first people used every part of the animals (meat=food; skin=clothes; bone=veapon; fat=lamp; skeleton=shelter, etc) and they never just killed the animals for sports or for fun, then she kind of accepted it.

This week's history lesson was not so hard on her. We read about :

• The first farmer - from hunters, humans had learned to plant with seed and progressed to become farmers. We look at the pictures of the early settlement Catalhoyuk in http://www.smm.org/catal/introduction/


• Ancient Egypt - We look at how they used to make mammies (I think it is a bit scary but Den took it in strick.) and hieroglyphs (Ancient Egyptian writing) in a very interesting site http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/history/egypt/makeamummy.asp. For the scrapbook, I printed out the hieroglyphs alphabets, and numbers for Den and asked her to write her name in hieroglyphs.


• We also learn about how the first people traveled. We use pipe cleaners and plastic bags to make a coracle.

We have not had the time for Chinese and Science yet. Hopefully, we can do it tomorrow.

For review & info --
For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK (updated 26 Nov 2009);
on Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

The New K Program Part III - Science

Finally, I am going to write about Sonlight K Science Program. It is not included in the Sonlight K core. I added in because I have been very impressed by Sonlight's science so far. Den and I enjoyed all the science reading in the PreK program (it was part of the PreK core program).

Sonlight science curriculum follows a spiral pattern of education which means it touches "on the certain topic once, twice, maybe even three times at different points in one year, then returning to the same topics two or three more times over the next several years. This way the basic vocabulary of science becomes ingrained not only in short-term but also long-term memory." (K science IG)

These are some of the main books we used in science:

1. The Usborne Internet-Linked Children's Encyclopedia - The same one we use in History. You can read more about this book in my previous blog The New K Program Part II- History and an additional review here (under Science).


2. The Usborne Book of Science Activities Vol 2 (Under Science) -This is a colorful book that is filled with interesting yet easy experiments for young kids to do. I already have quite a few books on science experiments but I have to say this is one most suitable for young kids (age 4 to upper primary). It has pictures to illustrate every experiment and none of them are too time-consuming. Den is very much looking forward to this every week.

3. Inquisikids Discover & Do Level K (Unders Science) Sonlight actually produced this to go hand in hand with the Usborne book of Science Activities Vol 2. It shows you exactly how to do the experiment. Good addition even though it is not necessary.





4. Science Worksheet - In the IG (instructor's guide), include worksheets for every week. I think it is great.

For the 1st week, in the Children's Encyclopedia, we studied a few interrelated subjects. True to its spiral education philosophy, we already studied some of the subjects in Pre K and now we are going deeper.

• Our planet - the atmosphere & what is inside the earth (in Pre K, we already learned this in How To Dig A Hole To The Other Side Of The World -Under Science 2)
• Day & Night - Earth spins at its axis; Eclipse & Shadows
• The Season - Earth travels around the sun thus season changes (In Pre K, we learned about season change in The Berenstain Bear's Big Book Of Science & Nature as well as in The Year At Maple Hill Farm - both under Science)

Through the internet links, we looked at some of the eclipse pictures and also animation on the way Earth spins at its axis and travels around the sun at the same time.

Air is all around us even though we can see it, so we did a few easy experiments from Usborne Book of Science Activities Vol 2 to prove that.

Before we did the experiments, we watch 3 short video clips from the Inquisikids DVD. In the DVD, it explained how to be a scientist:

1. Hypothesis (Guess): I told Den what we are going to do and ask her to guess the result;

2. Experiment (Activity)

3. Conclusion (Result): We are supposed to keep a journal on the conclusion of the experiments we did. So I decided to ask Den to draw the conclusion in her scrapbook.

It was a fun way to learn. Den has been bagging me to teach her every day. :)

For review & info --
For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK (updated 26 Nov 2009);
on Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel

the New K program Part II- History

One of the main reasons I choose Sonlight is that it emphasizes History. Starting from the K program, history makes up the main chunk of the program.

I think it is very important to know history because

• History is HIS(God's) story
• A person who does not know her history would not be able to understand the current situation fully nor can she foresees the future.

Sonlight K program is called "Introduction to the World: Cultures". It aims to

• "acquaint children with the fascinating realities of other places, cultures, and times."
• help "children to sense that there is a great big wonderful world out there to discover."
• help children "to acquire an appreciation for what God has done through His people". (From K- IG)

In the first week, we look at dinosaurs as well as how the lifestyle of the first people. Mainly, we use 2 books:

1. The Usborne Internet-Linked Children's Encyclopedia (Under Science): I can't say enough good things about this book. Sweden is calling it our precious book because it explains so many things. We use it in History as well as in Science. It is in full color and it makes studying fun. The best thing about it is you can go to its website, key in the page number and it links you to all kinds of interesting sites.

For example, this week, when we studied Dinosaurs, it give us sites that have animation of T-rax, Pterosaurs, etc. It was really cool. When we studied about first people and cave painting, we used the link to look at the painting at the cave at Lascaux and did an Ice Age survival test. etc etc.

I highly recommend this book to any 4-5 years old to higher primary. It is well worth your money.

2. The Usborne book of Living Long Ago (Under History): It goes hand in hand with the Children's Encyclopedia. It gives more detail in the area of clothing, homes, food & transport. For example when we read about the first people in the Encyclopedia, then we read the detail of how the first people made their clothes, where did they stay, etc in this book.


3. Sonlight Book of Time (under History): This is a very important part of the Sonlight history curriculum -The timeline. It printed a timeline from 5000 BC to 2050 AD. It has two sections, yellow color paper for BC, and white paper for Ad.

It comes with pre-printed black & white timeline figures that we can stick to the book, see the example below: We stick Adan & Eve at 5000 BC.

This is a very good way to teach kids about the concept of Time. At first, I was thinking of making the book myself, but then I need one that can last for years. So after much consideration, I decided to order from Sonlight. I was not disappointed. It was printed on heavy-duty paper stocks.

Den and I are going to put our family history in there too - 1999 our wedding, 2005 her birth year, etc.

It is getting really "early", I need to go to sleep. I will have to write about the Science next time. Remember to check out the new book review site for more info on the books.

For review & info on Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel ;

For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK (updated 24 Nov 2009)

Nov Week 4 - the new K program Part I

We managed to finish the Sonlight PreK program two weeks ago. There are only two books we have not finished:

1. The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit (under Read Aloud 2): We finished the first 3 stories and then accidentally left the book in my mom's house and kept forgetting to take it home...so we have to wait to finish the last story.


2. New Toes for Tia (Under Bible & Christian Stories 2): A wonderful true story from OMF. We finished the first 2 chapters and have not gotten around to reading the rest. It is a very small book and easy to carry out, so I have been trying to save it for when we were out somewhere (doc office, grandparent's house, restaurant, etc), but so far we have not got around to finishing it.

We started our new K program last week. It was wonderful. Always happy to start new things.

Compare to the Pre K, Sonlight K program IG (Instructor's Guide) is much better organized and more in-depth. It came with discussion questions before and after the reading for most of the books.

Sonlight K focus on History. I added in the Science. So for the year 2010, Den's main focus of study is going to be history and science. I think it is a perfect combination.

K program comes with Bible and Bible verse CD but somehow or rather, I did not order that. Hmmm.. So anyway, I searched through my collection and found the perfect solution:

For the bible this year, we are using The Word & Song Bible (Under Bible & Christian Stories). It comes with a 5-pack CD. The CD narrates all the 116 Bible stories in this Bible (at least one from each book of the Bible) and also sings the 75 songs (lyrics and music score printed in this Bible). It is an interesting change from last year's Bible reading.

For the first week of the K program, our Bible verse is :

"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" ~ Romans 3:23

The bible verse for the K program is going to go from A to Z. So the first week starts with "A"ll and the second week is going to start with "B".

For Bible Reading, we covered Creation, Adam & Eve's Sin, and Noah's Ark.

Other than Bible reading, we also read a chapter each week from a Christian book called I heard Good News Today (Under Bible & Christian Stories). It is a book written to be read aloud by pastors, Sunday school teachers, parents, etc to the children. It has 96 short stories about mission work all around the world.

For week one we read about how an African boy Hosi accepted Christ and went back to his village to share the good news.

For read-aloud, we have 2 poem books:

1. The Real Mother Goose: ANOTHER MOTHER GOOSE! That's my first thought. We have been reading mother goose since Den was 2 years old. I was not looking forward to this one but Den loves it. She loves every mother goose book anyway. Compared to last year, we are reading at a faster pace. For PreK, it was one rhyme per day, in K, we read 2-4 rhymes per day.

2. In Pre-K, we have Animals Animals (Under Rhymes & Poem), and in K we have The Llama Who Had No Pajamas (Under Rhymes & Poem). We love this new book. It has 100 poems and so far we loved them very much. It is a great book to help kids to fall in love with poetry. To read one example of the poems, press here.

That's all for now. for the History and Science Lessons and Books, I will leave them for Part 2. I really need to go to sleep. :)

For review & info on Pre K books- http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 23 Nov 2009) ; For K books - http://www.squidoo.com/booksforK (updated 23 Nov 2009)

Scolding = improving?

Den cried in her ballet class yesterday. I did not know about it until one of the mothers sms me at night.

I was in the line dance class while she was in her ballet class. She seemed to be her active and cheerful self after the class and never mentioned anything.

Usually, I would ask her how was the class and did the teacher call her name (she likes to talk in class). Somehow, yesterday, I forgot to ask her.

After I received the sms, I asked her about it. At first, she denied it.

I talked to her for a few minutes and ST threaten to call her teacher and finally, she told us she cried because her teacher scolded her. When I asked her why her teacher scolded her, she claimed she had forgotten (whenever she wanted to avoid a topic, she always said she had forgotten).

After a few min more talking to her, finally she admitted teacher scolded her because she cannot remember her steps. She also claimed, half the classes didn't remember their steps and were scolded by the teacher too. She was the only one that cried though.

We were at Yamaha when we confronted her. So when we reached home, I hug her and talked to her more. I talked to her about why she cried and why she did not want us to find out what happened.

She admitted she felt shameful because she can't remember her steps. She wanted to be the BEST in everything she do (she has been a perfectionist since young, and I have been trying hard in changing that). She cannot accept she is not doing as well as some others.

I talked to her about how God gives everyone different gifts and how impossible and unfair it will be for anyone to be BEST in everything. She thought about it and told me she wanted to be BEST in ballet and Yamaha then (sigh!). She also claimed she wanted to teach ballet and piano when she grow up! (That's news to me! Not sure if that's just to justify her wants in being the best.)

I told her I'm the second to last in my line dance class. I'm really bad at anything physical. She must be taken after me. :)

I told her I understood how hard it can be in remembering steps. She felt better after she knew I'm the second to last in my class. Then she wanted to know who is the last. After that, she tried to comfort me and told me she thought everyone dance well in my class including me.

After that, she had enough hug hug and ran to play with her things, and left me pondering about what I really want to write about today -- can we improve kids' performance by scolding?

I'm not angry with her ballet teacher or anything like that. Sweden cried easily anyway. But just this made me think about how we use scolding in hope of correcting any wrong in our kids. Is it effective? Will it ever work?

I am really one of the worst dancers in my line dance class. Just imagine, if my teacher starts scolding me, will it make me a better dancer? Will it help to make me remember my steps? Off cause NOT! It will only make me more nervous and make more mistakes.

That led to self-reflection. Do I scold Sweden in hope that she will listen and improve?

I seldom scold her during her study. Whenever she has anything she doesn't understand or makes any careless mistake, I just make her do it again and again. I don't see the point of getting angry. The only time I scolded her during her study was when she was not paying attention. But then even that, I found it not effective. So nowadays, whenever she is losing her concentration, I ask her to run a few rounds to clear her mind and come back to study or change the subject and come back to it later. So I don't usually get angry when we study.

Someday, it takes her forever to decode(read) the phonic paragraph (in Teach Your Children To Read In 100 Easy Lessons), to keep myself from being impatient, I read my newspaper while listening to her read.

Getting angry with her for other stuff is another matter. I scold her whenever I feel it is something she is able to do but does not do it properly. For example, taking hours to finish her meal, takes forever to get ready, is absent-minded, some character flaws, pestering, etc. One of the things that really get on my nerves is when she takes more than 1 hour to sleep on the bed before she falls asleep.

But then I asked myself, can scolding improve all that? The answer is maybe some but really not much. First of all, some of the stuff I put under this category of "things she is able to do but not doing them properly", is my assumption that she can be in control of these things, but can she really?

We all have sleepless nights, and we can force ourselves to sleep, maybe she has the same problem, even though I perceived as she doesn't close her eyes or she is playing with her fingers or etc.

Can scolding improve being absent mind? If yes, then maybe I should get someone to start scolding me.

It is much more productive and not to mention speedier when I continue to stay at the dining table with her after I finished my meal. Scolding or withdrawing privilege doesn't seem to work too well.

Character flaw? Don't we all wish we can scold our kids out of dishonesty, etc? We can always hope. :)

I supposed I need to find a better way than scolding. :(

It means more work on my part - more patience- but then the best thing about motherhood is making us more Christ-like! :)

Imprinting

ST, my DH of 10 years seldom gives me any presents. He is not stingy, just refused to give gifts out of principle. But that is another story. Today I want to tell you about what my 4 almost 5 years old dd, Den gave me.

But before I can tell you what she gave me, I have to tell you, what my DH gave me last year. After years of bugging, he finally decided to make an effort and bought me a heart-shaped porcelain box as my birthday present last year. Not only that, he printed out 10 massage coupons and put them inside the box. The idea was I can take out the coupons and claim massages from him. So sweet of him.

Den saw it and loved the idea (maybe because she saw how very happy I was). She also loves the box. Every morning, after she woke up, she would tiptoe into my closet and looks at the porcelain box. Of course, she also makes me promise to give her the box after I die. :)

For my birthday this year, she decided to imitate her daddy. She spent 2 nights in her room cutting and drawing and finally produced a few coupons for me! There are so cute!

She has things like - dancing together at night, foot massage, playing piano for me, etc etc. She didn't spell well yet, so she draw instead. She put them into a plastic bag, sealed with lots of colorful cellophane tape and stickers. She put the plastic bag into a nice box and gave it to me today. She told me I can take out the coupons and claim the presents whenever I want.

For this coupon: She will pick flowers for me.

For this coupon: She will pick berries for me!!! 

She got the idea from Milly Molley Mandy (Under Read Aloud).

She doesn't care if it makes any sense!

For this coupon: She will massage me.

Btw, for every coupon, I can use 20 times.

For this coupon: She will dance with me at night (Sunset on the right).

This is the etc coupon: she will walk with me in rain, walk on my back, etc etc.

She imitate her dad dad and did exactly what he did.

Once again, this reminded me --our actions every day are making a profound imprint in our children's lives. They imitate the way we talk, the way we act, and the way we respond. Even though imitation is the highest form of flattery, it scares me to death too.

Me! The imperfect Me! She is imitating the bad temper, impatient, imperfect Me! Everyday! Every minute!

I got panic when I pondered upon one of the reflection questions in the book that I'm reading (The mentoring Mom by Jackie Kendall). It asked, "In what ways do you want your child to grow up to be like you?"

Right away, all the answers that sprang up were negative: I don't want her to be as bad temper as me, I wish she is more gentle, more loving, more patient than me, tidier, more hardworking.....the list goes on. IT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE I WANT HER TO GROW UP TO BE LIKE ME AT ALL! Period.

It took me some time before I can stop all those negative thoughts and focus on the good quality in me. You see, I can wish she is a lot better than me but most probably she is going to turn out a lot like me. So I force myself to think of some of the good things I wish her to imitate:

• Dare to be different


• Be a critical thinker; don't follow blindly


• Love, obey, and seek God


• Willing to be changed by God


• Optimistic by putting my trust/hope/faith in God


• Love reading.

I don't usually fill with self-doubt. I know my value in God's eyes. But somehow, when I think about Den going to grow up like me, it really freaks me out! Praying hard for God to cover all my shortcomings. :)

10 Nov 2009

For review & info on most of the books I mentioned here, please go to http://www.squidoo.com/ahomeschoolingmomjornel (updated 10 Nov 2009) & http://homeschoolingmombookreview.blogspot.com/


We finished week 34 yesterday and most of week 35 today. We started a new verse, Philippians 3:1 -

"Whatever happens, dear friends, be glad in the LORD"

We also finished reading the Chinese book we started last week -顽皮一夏 (direct translate: Naughty for the One Summer)

I had a meeting last night so we went out late in the afternoon. So we were a bit behind what I planned. But then that is usually the case. :)

We went to the Time bookstore in Hartamas Shopping Center before meeting to look for Wee Sing Cd for a friend in SG. The bookstore has recently been renovated and it no longer carries Wee Sing Cd. That is sad. Den love Wee Sing. We have 5 or 6 of them. It usually has 60-100 plus songs on each Cd and it comes with a book with lyrics and a music score.

We had our 1st Wee Sing CD -We Sing Animal Animal Animal (under CD Book) from Trisha & Sasha (a very good children's bookstore that closed down last year) when Den was 2 years old. We fell in love with the CD right away. Later on, we got a few more titles from Borders and Times Book Store.

If anyone sees these CDs in any place please let me know.

Today was the busy Tuesday. We only had time for two writing worksheets - one Chinese and one Handwriting Without Tears before Ballet, since Den woke up at Noon! But then she slept at 1am last night.

After we came back from Yamaha, we managed to read 4 stories. We almost finished all the Sonlight Pre-K books. It was hard for us to say goodbye to some of the books that we had been using since July last year. But then at the same time, we are very excited about the K books. If it goes well, we are going to start some K books next week.

I planned to sell off the Sonlight Pre-K book after we finished. At least that was the plan at the beginning so that I will have the fund to buy the new books. However, we love the books so much so much that we can't imagine selling them. So we are keeping all our books...for now.

Week 1 Nov 2009

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

We finished week 33 last week.

We have a new verse from Proverbs 11:1-

"The LORD hates cheating but HE delights in honesty."

It's an easy verse. Den memorized it right away.

The Bible reading is about the Last supper and Easter. So I decided to read 8 chapters in one sitting. From The last supper to prayer in Gethsemane to arrested, judged, crucified to resurrection. I think it is easier to get the big picture that way. However, it was quite a long read.

We also continue on the science book, Why Do Tigers Have stripes? (under Science) Very good book. Den loved it very much. So far we enjoyed Sonlight's science books very very much. Too bad our local bookstores do not carry any of these books.

Den also continued to work on math, phonics, and writing worksheets.

We read 1.5 Chinese books today. Our friend lend us a few Chinese books that are published by China 南京师范大学. There were meant to be used in China Kindie. We love the books and have been reading them. For every book, there is a theme with stories, poems, games, facts about plants or animals, and even songs that are related to the theme. This is an example of one of the books we used:

This is the story of this book.

One of the many poems in the book. Some are modern poems like this one and some are 文言文

I like this part very much, it always has a section on plants or animals.

Sometimes it will include a song. With the music score, I can play it on the piano and learn the song.

I don't think we can buy this locally. I wish we can.

We are going very slowly with our Chinese flash card but her vocal vocab seems to improve a lot. So I am trying not to panic. :)