Summary

Since it is my CNY resolution to blog, I better start now...it is half way tru CNY.


Lets start by summarizing what we have been doing and our progress so far. 


(A) Sonlight - We finished Week 17 and now in btw Week 18-19. We detoured so much from the ReadAloud that we just dont follow the schedule any more. We still try to keep up with History and Science.


(a) History - We finished Wild Wild West and Victoria era and going to venture into World War I this week.
(b) Science - We finished animals and for the past few weeks we have been studying about plants. Expect to finish plant this week or next.




(B) Bible -Den has been doing devotion every night by her self. She finished a few children bibles already. Currently she is using God's Little Princess Devotional Bible (by Sheila Walsh) when we are in KL and The Children's Bible in 365 stories when we are in SG.
The Children's Bible in 365 stories is actually a gift from my dad when I was a teen. Now I give it to Den. 


On top of that, we continue to memorize verses from Sonlight schedule. This week verse is:

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. ~ Exodus 20:8-10

Even though it is quite long, she has no problem in memorizing them in just one setting.


Coincidently, today in our SG church adult Bible study we study John chp 7 in which Jews wanted to kill Jesus because they thought Jesus broke the Sabbath law by healing a man on Sabbath day. Jesus in turn asked them why they could perform circumcision on Sabbath and yet He cant heal on Sabbath. I intend to go deeper into this verse and discuss with Den about the meaning of this verse tomorrow.


I also continue to read to her I heard Good News Today (from Sonlight) and  圣灵水果屋 I (House of Spiritual Fruit I). 




(C) English

(a) Read Aloud (books that I read to Den) - My Grandma's Attic- I decided to skip a few books in Sonlight list to this book first because I think it would be much more attractive to Den and I am right. She really love the short stories about a little girl (Molly) growing up more than 100 years ago. We will go back later to read the books that we skipped like Doctor Dolittle and etc.


(b) Reader (books that Den read to me) - I mentioned we borrow Sonlight Reader 2 Intermediate from a friends a few months ago. At the time, I was very doubtful Den would be able to read them since those books are recommended for Age 7-9 years old. But she surprised me by finishing them all (except for one) in less than 3 months! Hmm...the next time I order Sonlight 1, I wont be able to order the core curriculum any more since Core 1 only come with Reader 1 or 2!


So for now we have no Sonlight reader to read instead we rely on SG library. Recently she is very into Horrid Henry (by Francesca Simon), Daisy (by Kes Gray), some Ronald Dohl and Enid Blyton. She is reading too fast for me to blog about her reading list. May be I should just write down the name and author.


(c) CLP Language Art 1-She is finishing book 2 this week. We both enjoy learning about all these language rules very much. Since English is not my first language, I actually learning along side with her. Yesterday we learned about when to use CK and KE to spell the ending K sound. CK goes with short vowel sound and KE goes with long vowel sound.


(d) Copywork - She continue copywork even though she doesn't do it everyday. We have detoured from what we downloaded from Teaching You Own (read about this at my previous posting) and I designed my own copywork to go along with what we studied. For example, yesterday, she wrote "photosynthesis produces sugar and oxygen". Her writing has improved significantly since we started in Nov 2010. I am very impressed with how neat is her writing now. I don't have an access to scanner now so I can only scan some of her work next time.


Just a word to my readers who complained about their kids handwriting. Don't push when they are still young, I have never let Den do any copy work until she is almost 6 years old. Very minimum tracing when she was 5. But I let her color (lots of princess coloring books!), lacing, playing with things that require eye hand coordination and all these build up her ability to write. 


(D) Chinese
Hubby and I are seriously thinking about sending Den to SG primary school next year for a year or two in order to broaden her social life (...she has almost zero friend here...). We have not make a decision yet and still praying for God's guidance. Any how, since there is a possibility we might be sending her to SG primary school, I really need to push her on her Chinese!!! 


After some survey at the local SG bookstore, I realized I need to start her on Nursery Chinese! ^^ So that's where we start. I use the nursery workbooks in conjunction with some of the things we have been doing like  字形画 and 字家族. I also making sure  I read to her in Chinese more frequently. Blessedly with my brother working in China, I can ask him to buy back lots and lots of Chinese picture books! We have "imported" more than 70 picture books from China!! ^^


Honestly, her exposure to the language is still not enough. I am still thinking how to expend her exposure. This year our focus is Chinese! (I've to remind my self that every other day...)


(E) Math
We progress slowly but surely on this, I think. She finally can grasp the concept of multiplication (I tried every half a hear or so), so we started last week on 2 and 3 time table.


Besides that, I also let her work on some of the more difficult questions from SG primary 1 math workbook. For example,these are the questions she did yesterday all by her self:


1) Complete the following:


    (a) 9, 11, 13, __, __, __ 
    (b) 10, 13, 16, __
    (c) 17, 19, 16, 18, 15, __, __, 16


2) If E=5 and J=10, what is N?


3) If D=3 and L=11, what is Q?


4) Kelly has 3 hairclips in her jewellery box. She put 1 hairclips into the box each day. How many hairclips will she have after 6 days?


On top of that, we continue to do sudoku, play lots of different logic games. She always asked me, "are you sure we are actually doing math, mom?" (She just cant believe playing game is math!)


That's all I can think of for now. Very long blog. ^^