An accidental homeschooling mum

The world of Letterland

2012-02-29T01:16:00.000+08:00

I have been asked very frequently about the Phonics Program Dumpling and I use and why so I decided to post to share more here.

I am a pretty big fan of Letterland and this was shared in 2 of my previous posts here. When Dumpling was younger, we did try out some of the other phonics systems but we ended up with Letterland. Letterland is a synthetic phonics program which teaches letter sounds (rather than the names of the letters) and slowly building up to blending and spelling. We really love the program and here are some of the reasons why:

1) Stories based approach
Young children do have amazing absorbent minds but for a child to be able to remember well, it helps that it is interesting and fun. This phonics program, in my opinion, does just that. All the letters in it are assigned characters in a fictional land called “Letterland”. Each character then makes a sound which is also the starting sound of their names. For e.g. Golden Girl goes “guh guh guh” (the children are taught the hard sound first). While a lot of other phonics programs teach this, Letterland follows this through to digraphs. For e.g. “Sh” makes the sound “Shhhhh” because Sammy Snake’s (letter S) hissing sounds gave Harry Hat man a headache. So Harry Hat man turned around and puts a finger to his lips and says “shhhh”. Likewise, “Ch” has its own story too – Clever Cat’s nose was tickled by Harry Hat Man’s hat and so she makes the “Ch ch ch” sound instead of its "c c c" sound.

I personally thought that these stories are not only smart but also very engaging for young children.

2) Home support materials
Letterland has tons of home support materials. There are activity books for starting sounds, rhyming words, pre-writing exercises, spelling, etc. So for anyone who wants to do home learning, it is easy to follow through. Here is a quick look at the activity books but the program also offers cards, magnets. etc.

What worked very well for Dumpling was the song based approach: each letter has two songs (one on handwriting and one on letter sounds). The songs are short and catchy and in no time, Dumpling is singing to it.

Importantly, for the homelearning parent, the program also offers guidebooks for the teacher. This is great for new homeschooling parent who is clueless as to how to explain, what to do, etc. Here is a sample lesson on clever cat. So as a homeschooling parent, all we need to do is read it prior, prepare the additional materials needed (listed for each letter too) and make copies of the big picture cards.

3) Handwriting & letters recognition
Related to (2), the program not only teaches sounds but also handwriting and letter recognition. Even Upper and Lower case has its own story so the child is able to recognize that “d” and “D” are the same! This is taught very effectively through its CD Rom, Living ABC. I have previously blogged a bit about it here too to share how I used the program.

Some parents have also provided feedback on the child only recognizing the characters and not the letter shapes. I have also shared what I did to prevent that in the same link above.

4) The Queen’s English
Of course, there are many other programs out there which are good too but I wanted to have an UK phonics based system simply because that is what is being used here in Singapore. Some of the other US based programs or even DVD shows use American pronunciation and these could sound quite different from what we use locally.

5) Creative fun
Lastly, this program has a lot of fun craft ideas so it is almost like a total approach. For a young child, such craft and physical activities enable them to remember even better as it is simply so much fun! This is one of the activities from its craft book on Uppy Umbrella for a quick look. Here is another cooking activity for Munching Mike.

For homeschooling and home learning parents, this allows you to have the resources to almost teach letter systematically as each letter can be introduced on a daily basis with such creative and fun approach.

Quiet time

2012-02-26T16:41:00.000+08:00

Quiet moments are such bliss though hard to come by as my little busy Dumpling zooms from one thing to another. But once in a while, I do get my 10-30mins "me" time when Dumpling is busy with these...

Pretend Play - from Mother Garden's Doctor kit

We made this cupboard" on our own using an old cardbox. Here she is playing "shopkeeper"

I readily have A3 pieces of paper on standby as it is very useful when Dumpling wants to doodle or right since she is still developing her motor skills and her letters / pictures are usually quite large in size

This is what she did with broken crayons

One of her favourite quiet time activities - reading

I leave ready art supplies on her table - popsicle sticks, tape, playdoh, marker, etc. where she has easy access to them. Here she created a Pterosaur when I was surfing on my iPhone

Whiteboard and non toxic markers are also in close proximity. Am quite blessed that she has not drawn anything on the wall except twice when she was much younger

During snack time, I'd provide her with some odd and end food items and she gets to create creatures / monsters, etc., out of them. Makes snack time all the more interesting. :)

An Air Transportation Week

2012-02-24T18:36:00.001+08:00

I am not very good and have never been good with the "techie" stuff. While I do like cars, I am better with arts and other "stuff" such as nature. With the hardcore physics and "techie" topics, I struggle. It is also precisely when I first heard of the Airshow, I wanted to do an Air transport homeschool week just so that I can learn along with Dumpling too.

I want to take this opportunity to also add that if I were to get $5 for every time I hear someone say "you mean C can understand such a topic? I think it is much too hard for them!" , I think it would have made quite a substantial contribution to Dumpling's Uni fund by now. LOL. So to make it official, I will be collecting $5 for Dumpling's Uni fund from this moment henceforth from all of you kind souls out there. :D

This blog is meant to share ideas and to encourage parents like you to homelearn with your kids. Anything is possible for a homelearning unit, you just need to dissect it down to a suitable level and to research a bit on the web. Do not over analyse especially if you have a preschooler like I do, just read and learn along. If your child is not engaged or struggles with it, trust me, you will know. :) Then skip over that section and work on other stuff.

Frankly, I searched high and low for a printable homeschooling unit on Airplanes and it did not yield me many suitable options. I saw a lot of "Transportation" printables but nothing just on planes until I saw this by Hands of a Child. So, I decided to read a lot with Dumpling, work on selected "Transportation Pack" printables and then do a lapbook with the unit from Hands of a Child.

Half of the books we used (I accidentally returned some to the library and hence this is only half of what we read)

We got these printables as part of the Transportation pack from Homeschool Creations. This is part of a 2-part download so please ensure you have downloaded both

I really like this exercise. It reinforces "left" and "right" and uses a bit of critical thinking as the child needs to look at the direction the vehicle is facing. I always thought that Dumpling is quite sure of her left and right until I did this exercise. So, this was a great reinforcement for her.

Number sequencing using puzzle with a "bi-plane" (see! I learnt something too!)

The below is from Hands of a Child. The lapbook elements download came with 10 activities and frankly, it is a bit technical in terms of details. While I did not mind that as it is a good way to build up Dumpling's general knowledge (different parts of an airplane and its functions, differences between a helicopter and an airplane, etc.), I wished that it had more creative stuff in it - craft or even extending to Math.

How the lapbook looks after piecing the elements together

A few nights before the Airshow in the official Airshow Tee :)

One of the first few static displays we saw

That Sunday morning was really breezy and cool so it was a perfect for such an outing!

Dumpling busy taking photos of her own

We were queuing to sit in the cockpit of...

An Apache! (Dumpling chose it)

I thought she would fuss about with so many new faces as she often takes a while to warm up to strangers

But she was absolutely thrilled about sitting in the cockpit!

In fact, she did more than ok...

She was ecstatic with all the buttons and I secretly think she really likes pilots! (Ha ha ha ha)

See what I mean? Check out her smile!

OK, the pilots there were really great with young kids so kudos to them. They were patient and ever so obliging. This particular pilot had to listen to Dumpling's sharing of the difference between a helicopter and an airplane. lol

And with a click, she launched a missile?!?

She was having such a ball of a time that she refused to get off

Thumbs up to a well organised event, a team of really great "gor gors" (as Dumpling calls them) and of couse the amazing air show!

:) This was an air show by the Australian Roulettes. They were really good!

Aha moments 1

2012-02-19T23:22:00.000+08:00

I have been asked by many parents why I do it, why not let someone do it.

"Why make it so hard for yourself, just outsource lah" is one of the most common comments that I get.

This is why. The "Aha" moments: moments where I am privileged to be part of Dumpling's learning and observation process, to be able to witness that sparkle in her eye and that proud smile when she makes a new discovery and that joyous laughter when she is at her imaginative play.

I LOVE IT. I love being part of it. Sure, it is hard but even on days when it gets labouriously trying and "masochistically" punishing as I try to dissect a topic down to her level of understanding and thinking of new creative ways to engage her, we still enjoy it. I do regularly ask her if she wants to be enrolled in a bilingual school and stop homeschooling but her preference is still for us to do the things we do.

Yep, we would not have it any other way :)

Self discovery the "melting" process: ice and heat

Ahoy Matey! Her effort at being a nasty pirate. LOL

On senses and taste: SOUR!

Working out weight distribution on her own when building her dino robot

LOL, seriously, can one not laugh at this? :p

Lastly, my all time favourite. This is one when we started homelearning and we were painting with yoghurt. The toothless smile. That pure unadulterated joy on her face.

Still warms my heart and brings a smile to my face, after 2 years.

Calvert Home Curriculum - Ready lesson plans

2012-02-09T19:21:00.002+08:00

Being the homeschool junkie that I am, I am always on the lookout for homeschool curriculum to try out and I have also previously put up a post on Adventures in Learning where it is a ready-packed curriculum with daily lesson plans as well as lesson and basic art materials.

Calvert is the first homeschool curriculum I tried out last year when I stumble upon it reading up on the web. What attracted me was that it was organized (clear progression path for the child) and it is an established organization. Additionally, for a first time homeschool mum, I like that the website seems useful (can track your child’s progress, etc.) and it is accredited in the US.

When it ran a promotion then, without any hesitation, I shipped the set in. Here’s a quick look:

What the whole kit consists of

There are manuals for lesson plans, read aloud along with art supplies like modeling clay, safety scissors and even construction paper.

The lesson manual comes with clearly daily plans but the teacher definitely needs to read prior and prep the materials.

The materials are quite comprehensive as it includes Stories and Poems book, the lesson manual and even activity books as below

The inside page of Road to Reading Activity Book

The inside page of Math Readiness

The lesson plans are very thorough as it includes various areas from Discussion to Number Readiness to Stories and Poems to Games, etc. These correspond with the books that they have provided as part of the kit

However, I struggle with this curriculum a bit. The compilation of Stories and Nursery Rhymes, etc., seem to be designed for older kids or for read aloud because they are very wordy and the font size is small with hardly any pictures. So while the parent can point and read along, for younger children, this will definitely not be ideal since a young child would likely look or walk away. So, I did not feel that this would aid in early literacy.

Additionally, one of my other gripes is though the lesson plans are thorough, but they seem very "dry". There are no crafts lessons mentioned (at least in the front part of the manual) and the activities are not as creative as Adventures in Learning. Rather, the art part is very "free form".

So I have to improvise and extend a lot on my own. With the help of another friend who also ordered the same curriculum, we searched for craft ideas and writing exercises online and shared the files.

Below are our extended sessions:

One good thing about this curriculum is that Music is included and it comes with a CD and music scores too so it is great for homeschoolers who are able to play instruments.

Below is a sample from "Poems"

Here, the free form art part from then lesson plan suggested for the child to paint based on her / his understanding of it.

I then extended to ask Dumpling how would she depict "fresh air" sandwiched in between and she chose a "happy colour" - yellow.

For me, I do not think that this is enough as a core and comprehensive curriculum. In fact, I stopped barely 1/3 through the curriculum and am struggling to start on it again. But for parents who want to supplement what the school is already doing and do casual home activities without having to research much, this may be enough especially if you are not really into craft sessions.

Here's Calvert's website: http://homeschool.calvertschool.org/. And for a limited period, they are offering 30% off their curriculum. :)

Edit:
I took a break from this curriculum for more than half a year because Dumpling was just not engaged when I read the stories from the book as the format is basically 1 page / story with only one picture and it is in black and white.

However, when I continued with the program earlier, she was more ready. She sat through the story and read out some parts too. We finished the session in 30 mins. The Math bit at the earlier part of the book is quite gentle, more to build readiness through sort, games, introduction of concepts. So for this area, I feel that it is a tad too slow for Dumpling. For parents looking for a supplementary program for like a 30-40mins session, I think this would be enough as it is quite direct and fast.

A moving masterpiece indeed - 清明上河图. 真的是走进了另一个空间。

2012-02-07T08:31:00.000+08:00

Halfway through the planning of the Art Appreciation week, I decided to add another dimension to it: a Chinese piece.

Incidentally, the famous 清明上河图 exhibition was here in Singapore. So, Dumpling and I had a playdate with one of her close buddies and boy, was it an amazing experience. I did read up and prep Dumpling on it prior to attending but nothing more besides discussions.

I just explained to her how the painting is famous because it took a decade to create and from just a painting, it depicts the economy and lifestyle in short based on the five chinese elements: Gold, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth during the Song Dynasty. (Here's a link for some worksheet fun for this exhibition to share.) As we walked through, I would point out the trade, lifestyle, mode of transportation, etc.

While I know that the elements in the painting were magnified 20 times in this exhibtion for clarity, I was just in awe when I first saw the screens. The intricate details and the lifeline animation simply took my breath away.

A "Gong" to start our journey!

Panels to explain the 5 elements displayed in the exhibition hall and how they are represented in the painting

Children had headsets too to listen to short narration at various stations

The start of the exhibit

The scene below shows the progression of the countryside to the capital

The day scene which later changes to...

The night scene

The famous rainbow bridge 虹桥 which depicts trade, mode of transportation and the difference between the wealthy and the poor

There was narration for 22 scenes in total if I am not mistaken just for this main panel

Below shows the busiest inn in the painting which a sign board on the left side indicates that it has licence from the government to make, sell and distribute wines

Dumpling hamming it up

Some basic facts on the production of this amazing exhibition. 2 thumbs up! It was one of the most beautiful things I have seen in a long while and I felt that I have stepped into another era, another dimension.

真的是走进了另一个空间。

A week with the Masters

2012-02-05T15:05:00.000+08:00

On a whim, I decided to try out something totally different from what we have done before for our homeschool sessions. I know, I am such a junkie. :p It was "masochistically" hard - loads of research and loads of washing and hands on guidance. (What was it again that I said in January when I was attempting two themes in the same month?)

I wanted to move away from an academic angle and instead have a week on Art Appreciation. Not just any type of Art but some of the most famous Impressionists.

"Dreams and Reality" was the field trip we went on just earlier today. Being a typical homeschooler, my immediate thought when I heard about the paintings a few months back was "oh boy! way coooooool! Now, what can Dumpling and I do on this?"

Then I was busy with X'mas and in January, with Dinosaurs and Chinese New Year themes and the next thing I knew, there's only one week left into the show! I was in a panic mode because I definitely would not want to miss out on this showing at the museum. Loads of late night surfing, last minute reservation for books through our library and I was ready to start with the first Master and who else but Vincent himself.

At Dreams and Reality, there was only one painting of Van Gogh and it was none other than the painting that inspired Don McLean's "Vincent". My challenge was how to make it fun and applicable for Dumpling?

Here are some tips if you intend to tie a field trip / visit to view some works with a homeschool unit:

1) Keep it simple. Choose 2 - 3 artists to work on

2) Hunt for appropriate books. In the photograph below, there are some good series we used. For more factual study, I like the "Smart About Arts" series while Katie was a great book to indulge in where we would get into some great imaginative play

3) Make it fun for your child - painting is bound to be messy so that's expected. Additionally, I made it into a picture hunt for Dumpling in the museum to look for works of the three Masters we chose

4) Ensure that your child is well fed before the viewing because Dumpling was hungry mid way and was a tad grumpy until we managed to bring her outside to feed her some snacks. :p

This was our journey:

Books

Simple Geography: where Europe is

Some sample works of Van Gogh which I printed off by doing a google search

(I encourage big pieces to be put up and in our case, on A3)

Here we were discussing on the brush strokes which Van Gogh is famous for.

Van Gogh painted Starry Night over three days and when he was hospitalised. Dumpling and I discussed things such as how the painting made her feel, what Van Gogh was possibly trying to tell with his painting, etc.

And off to work we go!

While I am definitely not an expert here and while I understand the importance of Free Style Art but for the first 2 artists, I wanted to guide Dumpling so as to expose her to "techniques" and "style".

The painting was about 65-70% done by Dumpling. I pitched in to help when she tires out or when the detailing is too fine. I would demonstrate the strokes and Dumping would model. At times, I would hold on her hand for another round.

Because I wanted to make the field trip meaningful and applicable for her, I decided to attempt the same painting with Dumpling. I printed off this template here

Working with different hues of blue and letting Dumpling experience the effects of darker and lighter shades.

Van Gogh's style was layering on of thick paint and that's what we did too, we did the base blue and then added on the dashes and swirls and we chatted about how this showed movement. I also let Dumpling use Acrylic paint (toxic free) to give it a thicker feel.

The end product. The painting looks much better in the photo than the actual piece where the strokes were raw and rougher. This was also the point that I wanted to show as only when one steps close to the actual painting, one would then be able to see the quick strokes. This essentially was what set him apart from some of the other Impressionist Masters where pointillism was very much the "style" then.

A bit of literacy work

Our field trip

I am still in awe that I saw this in person. An art piece so skillfully painted, viewed and crafted almost 200 years ago by a man that was so misunderstood and not appreciated for this talent.

You can almost feel that fervent hunger and passion - the colours and quick strokes were just captivating

The hubs caught us looking on and hard at Starry Night

Our second Master was none other than Claude Monet (pronounced as "Kload Moe-Nay").

I chose this artist because I wanted someone whose style was vastly different from Van Gogh. While Van Gogh favours thick quick strokes, Monet's strokes is less defined. In fact, if you were to stand really close to the painting, you can see the painting seems to be fuzzy. When you step far away, you can then see how the "blobs" of paint actually forms a picture.

Monet also favours painting outdoors and how light plays a part in paintings. In fact, the word "Impressionism" was coined after his painting "Impression: Sunrise".

So with Monet, Dumpling and I get to do the total opposite - we focused more on mixing and blending as compared to our attempt for Starry Night. I was inspired by this art kit: Master Kidz.

I like that the kit made it easy for kids but with such a short timeline, there is definitely no way I could have imported this in a week. (Having said that, I am still keen to buy this on Amazon so if any friends would like to share shipping, please send me an email, leave a comment, etc.)

So, I decided to use the same "stencil" concept and DIY it. I let Dumpling choose which flower painting she wanted to attempt and she settled on one of Monet's famous water lilies.

Our Monet wall panel

The famous "Impression: Sunrise"

DIY Stencil by cutting out the lily pads

As Monet has less defined strokes and outline, I let Dumpling explored using rollers and sponge applicators

Lily pads done!

Placed the lily flowers back on the paper and then let Dumpling put on the base colour

After the background green is done, she then added in the white base for the lilies. I was not hung up if the white would bleed out, etc and basically let her be.

Filling in the lilies (we had the print right in front of us for Dumpling to model of course)

Adding the outline

Then I let Dumpling sponge on different hues of blue to create depth and she really enjoyed this part as it was just plain messy fun

I worked with her on adding on the white outlines and black patches to create shadows. This is where we also soften the edges of the lilies by using the sponges to blend it into the green background.

You can see from the below that there are no defined strokes rather, it is a blend of colours and a mash of shades

Our final product: see how the different shades now look like reflections and shadows in the pond from far?

At the museum

One of the pieces that called out to me was Camille on her Death bed. It is a creepy piece for me as there is so much grief in the painting. Yet it was arresting in a way that I cannot help but return for a second and third look.

Camille here looks to me like she was waiting and waiting for that impending death to claim her. One can only wonder how Monet felt then as he painted this and watch his loved one fading away.

Dumpling said to me she felt sad too after looking at it as there was so more grey and dark colours

For our last artist, I chose Edgar Degas. It was partly because he was very into painting ballerinas and hey, all little girls like them and at the same time, he prefer to work indoors as compared to the 2 other artists we did. Importantly, it was also because I wanted Dumpling to work with a different medium and have more free play into what she wanted to create.

As usual, our "gallery"

Medium: Clay :)

Great for motorskill

I used the concept of shapes to work with her to make our Marie "sculpture"

LOL, her make shift "puppet"

She insisted on drawing the eyes and mouth

Our pieces. Not masterpieces but our works of art nonetheless. LOL

Dumpling looking on intently in the Museum

Of course, his famous ballerinas which Dumpling was very pleased at seeing

Here's a quote from Van Gogh to end off this intense arty week :)

A "beary" roaring good time - we' re going on a bear hunt homeschool unit!

2012-01-29T15:17:00.000+08:00

I love performing arts especially musicals and plays. I like watching stories come alive especially from my favourite books. There's so much going on in a play that never fails to engage me - music, lights and the punchlines from the actors.

Dumpling and I started going for plays when she was about 2 I think. As Dumpling loves books, I thought that it would be nice to bring her along to experience "theatre". To my surprise, she enjoyed it so much that she would cry at the end of every play!

So, it then became a habit to bring her for such performances whenever it reaches the sunny shores here. To make it more relevant and enjoyable for Dumpling, we often do a unit study on it prior to watching it. With "We're going on a bear hunt", our homeschool unit study was relatively quick as she has read the book before almost a year ago when we used some lapbook materials from homeschool share.

These are some of the pictures taken last March.

Story Sequencing

Learning about prepositions

The wonderful thing about lapbooking is that the elements can be kept and reused again and this is exactly what we did this year. However, as Dumpling is now older, I was on the hunt for more age-appropriate materials and I was blessed with more homeschool resources on this book from homeschool creations which had more preschool level elements. Additionally, between a few friends, we did an exercise called "homeschool swop" where each of us prepares a unit and we swop! One of the packs I was blessed with was on this very same story too. :)

We had loads of fun and inspired by Totally Tots, I decided to take some of the activities outdoors too. Here's Dumpling in action.

Picking up pebbles and making swishy swashy sounds :)

Our resources

Instead of using story sequencing cards, I encouraged Dumpling to build her own scenes

Uh oh! Thick oozy mud!

Stumble trip

Swirling whirling snowstorm!

Oh no! Its a bear! LOL

Literacy bit: beginning sounds

Literacy (reading and matching of sentences to scenes) and reinforcement on Ordinal Numbers

More math bit (this was part of the homeschool swop exercise). "Adding on" using number line

Numberline with a twist for some kinesthetic fun!

We caught the play earlier in the morning and it was extremely enjoyable. While it did not have as much adult humour as Gruffalo (which we watched last year around this time), the play was definitely entertaining and was very interactive.

While props were simple

Comic timing was great!

But the best part for me personally is the interaction the cast has with the audience. Here, Dumpling took cover under the poster. You will need to watch it to understand what she was hiding from. LOL

All in all, another GREAT homeschooling unit! Loooooooviiiiiiiiinnnnngggg it!!!!

Edit:

I forgot to add on a YouTube clip of the author narrating the story! Here you go:

Chinese New Year - 春节!

2012-01-24T13:05:00.002+08:00

Wow, this month has been a tremendously busy month for Dumpling and I. Besides our usual thematic HS practice, I decided to simultaneously work on a Chinese New Year theme. It has been challenging (yes, am a bit of a masochist) but I really did not want Dumpling to go through the motion of Chinese New Year without some understanding of the significance behind it.

In one of my previous posts, I wrote about baking pineapple tarts. On the morning of Chinese New Year Day 1, Dumpling, my helper and I made Dumplings: 饺子. Dumplings are traditionally made more in the northern part of China and it symbolises "prosperity" as the shape is similar to gold nugget/ingots.

I decided to make it with Dumpling as it was easy and also because we were visiting her Great Grandma. Cooked with Mee Suan 面线, it would be easy for Great Grandma to chew on. Besides, 面线 traditionally symbolises longevity so hey, what's not to like about the dish?

We mixed marinated minced pork (a dash of pepper, some corn flour and oyster sauce) with fish paste I bought from the wet market stalls (those that sells uncooked Yong Tau Foo). The mix we use is about 1:1 :) The Dumpling skin of course can be bought from NTUC or even from the same Yong Tau Foo store.

Dumpling helped with separating the Dumpling "skin"

Child labour :p

Dab the edges with either egg white or corn flour mixed with water to seal the edges.

Voila! This is truly a quick 20mins job!

Mum's belief is that the first meal of the year must be good and hence, I added slices of abalone with the dish.

大年初一：饺子面线

Craft wise, for the Chinese New Year theme, Dumpling and I made the usual lanterns, dragon puppet craft, etc. over the span of 2 - 3 weeks. However, one craft which I waited one full year to do which has been at the back of my mind is doing a painting of 梅花: Plum Blossoms. A tall task with a 3 year old? Absolutely not!

This is a beautiful, beautiful craft and is both fun and easy. Here's a quick look walk through!

What you need:

- Black poster colour diluted with water in palette

- Straws (shorter straws work better for younger kids)

- Finger paints

- Drawing paper

Sprinkle some ink splotches and blow on it with straws. These serve as the "branches" of the Plum Blossom tree

See how the ink is spreading out?

Using finger paints, dab the tips of fingers with red / pink paint and place it on the end of the "branches" to form the Plum Blossoms

In Art, I always try to remind myself that there should not be any "fixed" rules / be too focused on techniques especially when they are so young. But when Dumpling tried to make the prints using the entire length of her pointer (and with all of them looking to point in the same direction), I could not help but to redirect her to use only tips.

This did not sit well with her and so I backed off only to realise later that Dumpling's free form style of painting looks really good!

While I was so focused on being asthetically balanced, Dumpling's version had more depth to it. Well, guess what do I know huh? LOL

Can you guess which is Dumpling's?

And finally, to all readers of this blog and to all my friends, here's wishing you a Blessed and Prosperous Lunar New Year - 新年快乐!

Pineapple Tarts!

2012-01-16T18:51:00.000+08:00

In preparation for the Lunar New Year, I have been pointing out things (对联), Chinese New Year goodies and other decorations when Dumpling and I head out. And with all our homeschooling themes, I try to involve some cooking / baking activity whenever possible.

As many would know, for Chinese, the play of words and symbols especially for festive and happy occasions is a common occurrence. This is primarily to symbolize good wishes. For the upcoming Chinese New Year, Dumpling and I made pineapple tarts over the weekend. Due to the colour and the hokkien name of fruit (凤梨; fènglí), pineapples are known to symbolize wealth, luck and excellent fortune. I decided to make that with Dumpling because it is messy fun and primarily, it is yummy. :p

I downloaded a recipe I got from Phoon Huat but made some amendments to it.

Item

GOLDTREE Salted Butter 500 gm

RED MAN Cake flour 600 gm

RED MAN Skimmed Milk powder * 100 gm

RED MAN Caster Sugar * 50 gm

Egg yolk 4 nos

RED MAN Vanilla Essence 1 Tablespoon

Filling

RED MAN Pineapple Tart Filling 1kg

Method

1. Knead butter, sugar, vanilla essence, milk powder and flour together.

2. Add in yolk, blend into a soft dough, do not over work.

3. Measure 10-13 gm of dough to 8-10 gm of pineapple tart filling to form into shapes at your own desire, brush tarts with egg yolk

4. Bake at 190oC for 20 minutes

For my version, I reduced the sugar from 50 to 40-45gm. I also replaced Skimmed Milk Powder with Full Cream Milk Powder for a creamier and richer taste. (Indicated by asterisk above)

Lastly, I baked mine at 180oC for 16 minutes for the first batch and subsequently reducing the time by a min – 2 for the next 2 batches. For this, it is best to check on your tarts once you approach the 13 min mark.

As with most of the festive celebrations, C and I will pack it into as a small gift for her classmates. This is especially so since she attends a pure chinese Nursery class and the school usually includes a unit on such festivals. So with these baking activities, I hope to complement the good work her school does.

Adventures in Learning - Preschool Ready Packed Curriculum

2012-01-10T18:42:00.000+08:00

One of the challenges that I face once in a while being a FTWM is the shortage of time . The lack of time to research, prepare learning aids and materials for Dumpling, as well as the time to cut and laminate, etc.

With that challenge, I spent some time last year researching on homeschool curriculums which I can use with Dumpling. I first ordered from Calvert when I read some reviews on this curriculum and after plowing through their website. There were lesson plans and some prepacked materials in the kit. Thereafter I decided I wanted to order something which is easier and chanced upon Adventures in Learning.

Adventures in Learning is from the US and is apparently used in several preschools / daycare centres there. But the main selling point for me was that it is pre-packed into sort of daily packs. Craft pieces are precut / perforated, books and instructions are included along with some other learning aids. So basically all I needed to do was to read up prior and the deliver the session.

How you can place your order is to look through the various months they have and choose which topics you would want to do with your child. Here's the themes for 2011 / 2012. You will need to have a US suite / shipping address and have it shipped there before getting it sent to SG. I use Borderlinx because its via DHL and I have had only great customer service with Borderlinx so for me, it is worth the cost.

After researching and getting the backend shipping issues sorted out, I decided to then try this out and here are some pictures and thoughts on the curriculum (I will touch on Calvert in another post).

This is what the kit contains:
- a starter kit (this is with every first set of curriculum purchased) with some basic stationery
- a book (for my month, it was Humpty Dumpty)
- lesson plans
- daily activity sheets, craft materials, etc.

The monthly curriculum kit and the starter kit

Part of the starter kit included a felt calendar. Unfortunately, some months were missing from the kit hence my handwritten effort

For the "month/theme" I purchased last year, it was on "Homes and Family". So all the crafts and activities were centred around this theme.

Here we have Country Mouse and City Mouse story sheet and the paper cut outs. I think it was just meant to be a colouring exercise but Dumpling likes dramatization so we added popsicle sticks for that purpose.

Then there were cutting exercises. This activity focused on how many members there are in Dumpling's family where she counted, then cut out accordingly

For more Math bits, there was another sheet with printed figures which we were to attach to toilet paper rolls (included) and sort them according to size.

There was also a simple game with the "board game sheet" seen below as well as the figurines.

Included in the kit was also a simple "race" which Dumpling and I took turns throwing the die and then moving the corresponding number of steps with our representative figurines.

We also had a go at a "house-matching" game

There was also "discussion" time included in the lesson plan. For the below, it was a session on classification of homes which we can and cannot stay in.

The craft bit - G for Grandparents

We also had some discussions on family time and family activities.

Here the guide suggested for us to make something which can be used during family dinners and we made pizza toast!

And of course, some writing exercise.

And finally, Dumpling's first family portrait :)

From a curriculum perspective, my personal thought is that it is a fairly interesting program though the quality of some of the print outs was not that great. But I like that Dumpling is being exposed to a different set of curriculum as compared to the local system as there is clearly more discussion involved and it uses a mix of inquiry and multiple intelligences approach. So this is clearly not for a parent / homeschooler who is very academic driven - rote learning or needing to achieve certain literacy milestones.

The downside? The monthly box costs about USD55-60 (including domestic shipping) and the freight to SG costs about SGD30-35. However, even after conversion, it is still cheaper compared to sending our kids for enrichment since this has 20 - 23 days of lessons and materials packed in it. As a working parent, it saves me loads of time though I need to read up prior to the sessions and I also borrowed books to extend the lesson.

BUT, the main issue I have with AIL is customer service. There was not only missing "month labels" for my calendar but also one missing "lesson". Email replies are terrible (I think they have yet to reply to my last email a few months back) and customer service is quite terrible in that sense. Being an international "customer" I had questions on shipping and curriculum contents and after a few exchanges, there was no reply at all. I read from some forums that some parents / customers experienced the same thing as I did.

So, if you are not fussy about customer service, you can certainly give it a try. Be it for the experience or to have something on standby for weeks which you are too busy to create the lesson plans or even as a home based enrichment / home learning activity over the weekends. Enjoy!

Rocket, soccer, musical chairs and Math

2012-01-06T18:20:00.000+08:00

I don't know if any of you parents experienced the same challenges as me. See, I was a bit stuck some months back when Dumpling was not engaged with numbers. While Dumpling has quite a good memory, if it's anything rote, I have a challenge on hand as it bores her.

So far, my challenges have been:

1) Number sequencing
She tends to be distracted and bored after reciting the sequence and would end up missing a few numbers.

2) Counting down
Likewise, she'd get bored halfway and skip some numbers and walk away.

3) Number Recognition
With this, she stubbornly refused to accept why 11 and 12 had different names and 13 is thirteen instead of three-teen. This is primary because Dumpling is a very "conceptual" person so she basically thinks if 14 is four-teen, why should 13 be thirteen and likewise for 15.

Another part of the challenge was that Dumpling was not interested in recognizing numbers. On some days, she will entertain me by saying the correct answer - 27 e.g twenty-seven but on other days, she will go "2,7" Ha ha ha ha...

The funny thing is Dumpling cracked the patterning codes - ABAB, AAB, BBA, ABC sequence etc., before she turned 2.5 but for the above, she just refused to try. So, what's a homeschooling mum to do?

For (1), though I am not much of a rote learning person (oops, so maybe its my fault :p) Number Sequencing is one of the fundamentals since the child will need to know numbers and the sequence before they can even move onto the next thing.

So for (1), what worked for us was to use songs. Somehow for children, they recite much better when it's song based as it is catchy.

For (2), I wanted to teach her this as it will come in handy later when we do subtraction. While Dumpling understood the general concept of taking away and counting down = lesser, she was not engaged at all to learn to countdown by memory.

What I did was to play hopscotch and rocket games with her where after "1", we'd "blast" off!

Now, for (3), this took quite a bit of creativity. How we got over the 13 = three-teen and 15 = five-teen was I wrote out the word for her and showed her that while it is not the exact same word, it had the same starting sound - THirteen because it comes from THree, etc.

While one half of the problem was settled, it was the last bit which was helping her to identify how to read 2 digits place value i.e. 27 is read as twenty-seven. Dumpling argued that twenty-seven should look like 20-7 instead of 27. No matter how hard I told her to ignore the last "0", she refused to accept that explanation.

Conceptually, I understand her argument of course, after all twenty is 20 so shouldn't twenty-seven be 20-7? But believe me when I said I was close to pulling my hair out. :p

This is where soccer game and musical chairs came in. I first reinforced how the number "10" looks like. Then we played musical chairs. And I explained how there's only 2 chairs and because "0" means nothing, it didn't need a seat and hence was kicked away by the last digit.

The game instructions:

Reinforcing the number sequence / order

Then we made "10"

I will then shout out a number - 14 and Dumpling will then need to hunt for the number "4" and use it to "kick" away "0" and take its place since "0" means nothing and it does not need a seat.

Our goal post was easily created using an empty tissue box taped to the desk

The great thing was once the concept was understood, Dumpling was able to read all the numbers up to the hundreds value. I hope this works for you all. :)

四季树 - 4 seasons tree

2011-12-29T15:44:00.003+08:00

This is definitely a first for me; a new post daily (here's last evening's post). The joy of being on leave and having the time to share more. :)

After this post, I will try and share more on Science and Math. Math is definitely an interesting journey for Dumpling and I as she is bored with any form of rote learning which makes it challenging at times.

The beauty of homeschooling is that you are able to change course, speed and even the "subjects" if your child is not ready or when you wake up suddenly one morning and have what you think is a great idea! :)

That's sort of what happened to me last week when I woke up having suddenly remember a post I read on My Playschool and, decided to introduce "seasons" to Dumpling but in Chinese using "craft". Though she understands the concept and can read the words in English, it was another story altogether trying to expose her to and have her recognise " 春、夏、秋、冬". Even as I am typing this, we are still working on the words "季节".

What I used for this activity are:
1) Craft using 四季树: 4 seasons tree
2) 梅花与小鹿
3) A sticker activity book: 玛蒂娜的四季

Basically the 四季树: 4 seasons tree has 4 panels where each panel shows a different season using a tree. You can then embelish the tree and work through how each panel is different from the next with the change in season.

I first saw this tree in a post from My Playschool where Pauline shared her experience working on it with both English and Chinese resources. Like her, I worked on this with Dumpling using a literature based approach. In Pauline's post, she also shared her lesson plan with a mindmap / diagram of the various disciplines - Geography, Social Studies, etc included in her sessions. I found the post informational and most definitely useful.

In the same post, Pauline has also listed a link to download the template for the tree. I did not attempt to do the trunk hence my tree looks a bit different as compared to hers. (Maybe that also explains why my tree is not standing properly now. :p). Pauline also uses a different storybook from me and it is definitely worth your while to borrow that book too. I am definitely going to reserve my copy from the library.

To start off, I used an old cardboard box to prep for the tree and cut out some leaves with construction paper and added some flower punch outs with punchers from Daiso. I then read the chinese book with Dumpling (item 2 above where the 4 various seasons were very briefly mentioned) and discussed how the pictures / 梅花树 (tree) look different from one season to another. I also paid attention to the adjectives used to expose and build up Dumpling's vocabulary.

Dumpling then helped to draw some veins on the leaves and stick on to the correct "colour" for the tree cut-out for Spring (we used Blue for winter, Green for Spring, Yellow for Summer and Brown for Autumn).

Thereafter, I worked with her on word recognition as well as adding on more words to the tree by asking her simple questions such as: "冬季是冷还是热?", "在冬季时,那些白色的东西是什么? 是雪花", etc.

I complemented the lessons with a sticker book (item 3 above). I find this series fairly useful as Dumpling is at an age where she still likes stickers and the series seems to have a book for everything - home, school, park, beach, etc. In addition, the stories in the book are kept very short and it also introduces us to new words and reinforces some vocabulary.

What I also found useful was to explain the formation of words. For e.g. for the word 秋, we printed the leaves using our thumbs with red and orange poster colours to show the changing colour of leaves. I specifically used these colours as they are the colour of 火 (fire). As Dumpling recognises the word 木, it was easy for me to draw the connection between the 木 and 火 and how in Autumn, the colour of the leaves are liken to fire hence the word 秋. I further elaborated that the top stroke above the 木 in 秋 resembles falling leaves. This is what I did for the rest of the "seasons" words too.

Montessori Chinese (Preschoolers) 新蒙氏阅读 Part 2

2011-12-28T17:38:00.002+08:00

Dumpling and I have slowly moved on to Section 2 of the Montessori Chinese set.

I started off with the thought that it would be simple but boy, was I wrong! It was not as quick and simple as identifying body parts but it links the words to our "senses" and forming phrases and short sentences.

In this second section, I placed more emphasis on Word Recognition 认字 hence I tried the word matching exercise without any picture aid. :p

Here's the link to download the simple activity.

How we used this was, I first taught her how to recogise the words by comparing the similarity of the cartoons / pictures with the shape of the words (page 1). These are what worked for Dumpling so do improvise / change accordingly to whatever works best for your child.

Thereafter, I read the rhyme with her placing more emphasis on the words we just learnt (Page 3, left side). The next exercise is to then do a word matching exercise (Page 2, left side).

Finally, you can use page 2 (right side) for memory game, word hunt or 排字. We also extended to 手 and 摸. This is where I bought my set from.

Chinese Characters and Radicals

2011-12-19T23:30:00.000+08:00

I was searching for a guide online because while explaining to Dumpling at times, I realise that I have forgotten some of the radical terms!

Here's a part of table share. Due to formating, I was not able to paste the table down so I saved the below as a picture file as a "preview".

For the full list, you can get it from this site: http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Radical_index.htm
Alternatively, I have also saved it into a document and coverted it into a PDF file. Click here to download (6 pages in total).

Storybox - a great tool in our Chinese Home Learning

2011-12-18T17:02:00.003+08:00

I have been out of action for a while because Dumpling had high fever but I am happy to say that I am better rested this week. :)

One of the earlier "craft items /projects" I did with C is to make a story box for retelling and the "acting out" of Chinese stories. This was when Dumpling was about 2.5 where she started babbling more in the language and I knew that I had to participate more in the Chinese front to encourage her interest.

The challenge I had was, how to make it fun and engaging? I did not want to take on the role of serious learning such as word recognition, etc., then because I wanted to leave that to her school. My focus was more on getting her exposed to the sound / tonation of the language, just reading loads with her and perhaps do more craft related things.

I came upon a blog entry on someone using an old box as a theatre and that triggered a thought that I can get Dumpling to do this up as a storybox based on "丑小鸭" - Ugly Duckling.
This is also a great way to recycle an old box. We spoke about what materials to use and how we were going to use each of them.

I had help from her in cutting.

Thereafter, Dumpling pasted this to resemble the tall grass at the riverbank.

Thereafter, we discussed which panel to use to create a 'pond'.

I precut the ducklings and had her fill in the missing parts - great way to understand spatial relationship.

Our little scene from Ugly Duckling - 丑小鸭! :) After the storybox was completed, I would then read out the story where she acted out using the various duckling cut outs (we also had "eggs" too) for the various scenes.

Home made mee hoon kueh 麵粉粿

2011-12-07T18:03:00.000+08:00

I only made this once loooong time again and I had the urge to cook it over the weekend since these days, I try to cook at least a meal for her on either Saturday and Sunday.

Here's the recipe to share:

The dough

500 gm of plain flour + 2 tbsp of corn flour
2 eggs
200 ml water
Pinches of salt
2 tbsp cooking oil

Mix 2) to 5) in a bowl and stir well. Then pour slowly into the flour and knead it. It took me perhaps about 10 mins to knead by hand. The end result should be a bit of a sticky paste and has a bit of "springiness" to it when you press it in. Cover with either a damp cloth or cling wrap. Leave aside (not in fridge) for an hour.

The soup

200 - 300gm of ikan bilis
A can of whole mushrooms
A can of button mushrooms which I down to slices
A packet of baby chye sim (or you can substitute with spinach, etc.)
Oyster sauce and fish sauce to taste
Minced garlic (1 - 2 tbsp depending how much you like it)
300 gm minced chicken with a dash of pepper (I am not a big fan of pork so I used chicken instead)

Heat up a bit of oil and stir item 6) till golden brown then add in 2), 3). When fragrant, I added it to a pot of water (I used a medium size pot) and made the stock with item 1) adding 5) to taste. I added 4) and then 6) by rolling them into small chicken balls only after everything is simmering over the stove for at least half an hour.

Roll and flatten the dough with a rolling pin (the best option) use your palms to flatten it till paper thin then tear the dough into small pieces and add it to the boiling soup. It is important to get it as thin as you can because the dough bounces back a bit once it is in the soup. If it is not flatten well, it will be a tad hard and too chewy.

When the dough is cooked, add in vegetables. I cannot live without my fried shallots which adds a wonderful flavour to the soup. Then top off with fried anchovies and other condiments which you like (spring onion, coriander leaves, etc.). Serve warm. I add chili padi and a bit of soy sauce to mine. :) Enjoy!

A tiger mum in all of us?

2011-12-04T17:08:00.000+08:00

Intrigued by the response towards the book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mum", I decided to pick this up from the library last week.

I admit that when I started off reading the book, I was somewhat biased. Afterall, which parent would not find Amy Chua's methods a bit extreme? This is a famous excerpt from her book.

"Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

- attend a sleepover
- have a playdate
- be in a school play
- complain about not being in a school play
- watch TV or play computer games
- choose their own extracurricular activities
- get any grade less than an A
- not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
- play any instrument other than the piano or violin
- not play the piano or violin."

I remembered thinking to myself "wow, this woman is a bit extreme" when I first read some online reports and reviews of her book.

So, it was somewhat of a surprise that as I read on, I was entertained. Throughout the book, she openly compared the different parenting styles between a Western mum and a Chinese mum. Some of the statements are downright outrageous and provoking. Here's one:

"If a Chinese child gets a B — which would never happen — there would first be a screaming, hair-tearing explosion.The devastated Chinese mother would then get dozens, maybe hundreds of practice tests and work through them with her child for as long as it takes to get the grade up to an A." (from Chapter 10, Teeth marks and bubbles)

Though I find her methods extreme, I do know for a fact that many parents do pack in many many hours of assessment papers, etc., for their children. Hence I have to concede that this Tiger Mum really has the and determination to drive and direct, guide and many a time, force (lol) her children to excel.

Here's an excerpt which I like: (From Chapter 22 (“Blowout in Budapest”):

Here’s a question I often get: “But Amy, let me ask you this. Who are you doing all this pushing for – your daughters, or” – and here always, the cocked head, the knowing tone – “or yourself?” I find this a very Western question to ask (because in Chinese thinking, the child is the extension of the self). But that doesn’t mean it’s not an important one.

My answer, I’m pretty sure, is that everything I do is unequivocally 100% for my daughters. My main evidence is that so much of what I do with Sophia and Lulu is miserable, exhausting, and not remotely fun for me. It’s not easy to make your kids work when they don’t want to, to put in grueling hours when your own youth is slipping away, to convince your kids they can do something when they (and maybe even you) are fearful that they can’t. “Do you know how many years you’ve taken off my life?” I’m constantly asking my girls. “You’re both lucky that I have enormous longevity as indicated by my thick good-luck earlobes.”

Though I do not think that this is my parenting style, there are some parts of what she shared in the book which sounded familiar.

Amy Chua shared that even during vacations, her daughters were expected to practise their instruments. Being a homeschooler, I take every opportunity to share, guide and teach Dumpling. Even when we are out for playdates / dinners, I will always have some books in my bag to read with her. During our holiday in Perth, I brought along books and lapbooking resources so I can homeschool her every evening instead of watching TV.

While it is easy for many mums to snub or say that they do not subscibe to Amy Chua's methods, as I read on, I realised what she is doing is not far off from some parents I personally know as they ferry their children from enrichment classes to classes every weekend and packing in many hours of tuition on weekdays. So are many of us that far off from her (minus her extreme "rules" mentioned above)?

While it is not a method that I will adopt, I do respect her efforts (and in case you do not know, one of her daughters did rebel against her) and that unrelenting focus. Both her girls are unbelieveably talented and I do believe if she did not push them the way she did, they would not have achieved as much. When her youngest daughter decided to lay off the violin for a while, I felt sad for Amy Chua and to my surprise, thinking about what a shame it was for the younger daughter to "throw" the gift away.

I also felt sad for her, from the perspective of a mother, that the very same drive (ok, narrow-mindedness and forcefulness :p) which pushed her girls to excel, backfired. I also recalled finishing the book with the thought that I hope her daughter would, one day, pick up the violin as her love for it is renewed. The only difference is that she pursues it on her own accord and based on her own motivation.

Montessori Chinese (Preschoolers) 新蒙氏阅读

2011-11-25T18:09:00.000+08:00

Being the HS junkie, I stumbled upon this set quite by accident while surfing on some FB shops.

What attracted me to the set was that it is thematic and this makes it easier for me to use with Dumpling. The activities in this series seems to be short which is great for kids at this age.

There are 8 sets in this series with each consisting of some picture/word cards and 2 books. One book is story based (a few short stories) and the other is mainly poems / rhymes with some simple activities designed for the parent / teacher to have some quick Q&A with the child and to encourage the child to discuss the story.

The word cards complement the poems as they are the key words which are presented in the poems (though not all are listed).

I saw firsthand, how simple rhymes and songs help Dumpling with her grasp of the Chinese language and that primarily was half of what contributed to my purchase.

In her class, the children are exposed to songs being play softly in the background (sublimal programming perhaps?) and each week, the children learns a new rhyme / song (at the minimum).

From such activities, Dumpling's grasp of vocabulary has improved. I personally felt that this also contributed to her speaking in short sentences more and very naturally.

How we use this at home was that I would scan and print an enlarged version of the poem / rhyme so its easier for Dumpling and I to share. After going through it, we would then play some games. This is usually either a picture / word match or a word hunt game.

On the left is how the word cards look like.

The downside of this set is that I wish the word cards were printed on thicker art card though it did have perforation which makes "tearing" easier (I shudder to think how much cutting is involved if they are not perforated!). Additionally, to play the picture match game, you will need to make a copy of either side because the cards are printed back-to-back with pictures on one side and the words on the other. So you will need the extra set to match the words with the pictures. Hence for Dumpling and I, we needed to prep a bit before using the set. I bought this set of materials from this facebook seller: http://www.facebook.com/#!/unikidsbabies

Here, Dumpling attempts to read the short rhyme (read to her on 2 occasions prior and she was able to grasp it quite quickly so I do think the rhythm and early exposure are seem to be useful).

It consists of word / picture match. The next page can be a memory word game where you print 2 copies with the next page on stringing the words together which forms some of the sentences in the rhyme. I have also included some writing exercise. Please leave a comment if you have the set and find this useful or have other suggestions to share. :)
Lastly, I also prepared some very simple learning aids to help with word recognition (so that I know she's not just reciting / memorising) and for her to build short sentences together. I have uploaded the learnings file here.

More Free talks!

2011-11-22T18:43:00.000+08:00

Wow, seems to be the season of free talks.

1) Workshop: How To Teach Your Baby To Read, A Glenn Doman Approach

Come join us in our monthly workshops. Here we discuss techniques, trash out different myths about teaching children, go crazy with our revolutionary methods and at the end, hopefully, every parent goes home eager to teach their children to read. If you have a baby who is not reading single words aged between 3 months - 3 years, you should consider attending this workshop.

Speaker: Daryl Ang (who is certified from Institutes for the Achievement of the Human Potential IAHP in Philadelphia)

Date: 26th November 2011

Time: 11 am to 12 pm

Venue: GD BABY PROGRAMS (S) PTE LTD 28 Sin Ming Lane #03-131 Midview City Singapore 573972

(Registration is closed for 26 Nov 2011 session)

Limited to the first 10 parents. Every set of parents that participates will receive a free trial class at our school, GymnAdemics worth $88. Parents who had already attended trial class before are not entitled for another trial. Trial is only available for 1 attendance.

To register please send in your name, mobile number and number of attendees to:

Tel: 6456 3526
Email: gdbabyprogram@gmail.com

2) "How to prepare your child for primary school mathematics"

The seminar session will last about 1 - 1.5 hour.

Date: 3rd and 17th of December, Saturday at 1pm.

The agenda for the seminar is as below:

• Introduction to Singapore Maths-MOE curriculum
• Concepts on Primary Mathematics Syllabus
• Processes and Skills to solve Mathematics Problems
• Activities to Solving Maths Problems

Venue: 28 Holland Grove Road, #01-28/3, Singapore 278805
Organiser: S.A.M (Seriously Addictive Maths)

Email: enquiry@seriouslyaddictivemaths.com.sg

Arts Class

2011-11-21T12:32:00.001+08:00

Weekends are somewhat a tad tight for Dumpling and I, especially on Saturdays. This is because Dumpling has Arts in the morning and then swimming in the afternoon after her nap. I started her on Arts because I do not want to do anything “academic” during the weekends. Additionally, from PTM and our HS sessions, this seems to be one area she likes very much. I also wanted her to have exposure to different mediums and techniques (not just drawing or painting) and more importantly, to expose her to a drop off class and build her confidence.

The first few sessions were tough because she cried and did not participate much. I also went through a short phase of having to sit on the “yellow chair” (fellow mummy friends would know what I am referring to!). After having gone through 2 terms, I am happy to share that she enjoys her class once she reaches there (can’t say much about her “complaints” before she leaves the house for class) and has better focus and does her pieces happily.

How the school based their art work is using a story theme which spans over 4 weeks. For this term, it was on Gingerbread man and the children painted a glove and also on some “dough” which they helped to knead and cut using a cookie cutter. What I like most for this theme was the oven. During her first lesson, the children were taught to make some textured paper which they used in the last lesson for the “oven”. Here, Dumpling also had the chance to use a metallic paint for her oven as well as decorate it with some embellishments. I love the mix of colours + materials and the various techniques used.

The piece is not finished yet. The teachers are to add on a box behind the door to create the depth of an oven and there's where Dumpling can place the pink gingerbread man

The below is based on the story "Stomp Chomp Dinosaur"

Like the other pieces, this is also story based. I think it was something to do with 3 little owls and the teachers also taught them the various owl breeds, etc.

Though she does enjoy her Arts session I have decided to take a break for a term or 2 and perhaps let her try something else. For myself, having seen the artworks for the past 2 terms spanning over 4 different stories, it gave me loads of new ideas on some extension activities during our homeschool sessions. Here’s to share on what we did at home for an ocean theme recently.

Dumpling used a mix of colours for her jelly fish and strings for the tentacles. She also decided to add on eyebrows. lol

And for the record, I just want to list down some of the items I want to share in this blog over the next few weeks as a personal reminder. Haha…

- Storybox

- Feedback on a new Chinese resource set which Dumpling likes for me to work with her on some evenings

- Our Science journey

- Math games

- Arts

Hope I make it through the list! :)

Reading for Sure Seminar

2011-11-20T18:22:00.001+08:00

Received this in my email yesterday. For parents who want to learn more about "reading", you can give them a call to find out more. Its FOC for teachers too! :)

======================================================================
Hi,

We are proud to invite Dr. Julia Solomon (Australian Clinical Psychologist; Teacher Educator; Founder & Director of ‘Reading For Sure’) to Singapore to conduct seminars for Teachers and Parents on how to make English Literacy achievable using ‘Reading For Sure’ programme.

Ø For Pre-School Teachers
Date: 14th December 2011 (Wednesday)
Time: 10am to 12pm (Registration starts at 9.30am)
Fee: Free
_____________________________________________________________________

Ø For Parents
Date: 15th December 2011 (Thursday)
Time: 7.30pm to 9pm (Registration starts at 7am)
Fee: $10 per pax (redeemable on purchase of “Reading for Sure’ products)
* Participants will receive a FREE COPY of the ‘Reading for Sure’ sample book. *
_____________________________________________________________________

Ø For Primary School Teachers
Date: 16th December 2011 (Friday)

Time: 10am to 12pm (Registration starts at 9.30am)

Fee: Free
_____________________________________________________________________

Please refer to the attached or log in to the website for more information: http://www.worldliteracy.com.au/index.html

For interested Teachers / Parents, you may RSVP via email. Kindly state the following for RSVP.
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4. Contact number(s).

As seats are limited, do register with us early.

Do help us to disseminate to your friends/colleagues.

We hope to see you here.

Thank You.

Best Regards,

Catherine Tan
Education Resource Consultant
Mobile : +65 9777 2458
Email : catherinetan@big-tree.com.sg For the above seminars, venue will be at Big Tree Edu Aids Consultancy Pte Ltd (Office cum showroom).

Letterland ABC Trilogy eBooks on iPad and iPhone now!

2011-11-17T10:19:00.001+08:00

Wow, just when I just shared Dumpling's experience using Letterland Living ABC Software and the company came up with this! :)

Click here to for a preview!

右3圈左3圈

2011-11-15T18:25:00.000+08:00

While working on Part 2 of Literacy Readiness, I wanted to do a quick post on how Songs and Music helped Dumpling with her grasp of Chinese.

While I am certainly not a big fan of rote learning, I do understand that for Chinese language, a fair bit of rote is expected as the language is as such. Because I technically “outsource” the Chinese part of Dumpling’s “education”, I do not really know what and how much the school is doing for that language until she comes home and starts chatting to me in bursts of mandarin and is suddenly singing / reciting a poem or rhyme.

It was then that I appreciate the flow of the rhyme and the musical approach. From 健康歌, she now is able to tell me which is her left hand and which is her right (左右手). That is certainly much better than me when I was her age! :p

From such an exposure, children are also exposed to better pronunciation. Here Dumpling did a Mandarin version of Itsy Bitsy Spider (which I have never heard it in my life prior).

Here, Dumpling acts out a rhyme. From cute rhymes as such, Dumpling also gets introduced to some vocabulary, etc. For English speaking environment, this is certainly something which you can easily incorporate into your home. There are quite a few children DVDs and audio CDs from Popular bookstores.

At home, I also put up simple small rhymes like these and read with Dumpling. Over time, through repeition, she is able to recall the words (much like readers) and we also act out for some added physical activity.

Tongue Twisters are also great fun too. Here's something I picked up from Popular some time back.

Literacy Readiness

2011-11-10T18:36:00.000+08:00

Following the Chinese homelearning sharing below, I thought to share a bit on literacy readiness. Incidentally, I was having a chat with one of Dumpling’s classmates’ mum who is an Australian and she has very rightfully pointed out that in other countries, children are not expected to be able to read when they are in Primary school but that does not seem to be the same for Singapore.

And she is right of course. Just look at all the “reading” and “enrichment” centres sprouting across the island. I had a personal experience where I left my details because I wanted to visit a fairly reputable preschool as I was contemplating in the earlier days if I will homeschool Dumpling all the way through preschool. Interestingly, this school has a reading program where they were giving away complimentary reading assessments where you can then assess your kid (starts as young as 3) and see which “level” your child is at.

I only have 2 issues.

1) At 3 YO, where / which level would you expect most kids to be at? So why this unnecessary pressure?

2) The promoter could not answer / advise me when I asked how the school teaches and what methods it uses with its program. Is it pure phonics (and if so, what “system”) or whole words (how then do they attempt to teach this – flashcards?) or if the school has its proprietory program.

Needless to say, I did not turn up for the “assessment” and did not take up any of their repeated offers despite many follow up calls. Experiences as such, thus, prompted me to homeschool.

When I first started homeschooling, I did not sit down and analyse how big a task it is. I just jumped right in and the enormity of my decision only hit me much later when I suddenly realised that I alone, am responsible for her preschool years! Everything from reading to numbers to motorskills. I must confess that I freaked out a bit then. Ha ha ha…

Similarly, many mummy friends shared with me their worries, fears and how daunting it is to “teach” their child. It is just “safer” to send to the experts. It is absolutely alright with sending your child to enrichment centres but I wanted to also dedicate this post to how you can be part of the learning journey with your child, regardless if you are doing just 20 mins a day or 30 mins in 2 days.

Since “reading” seems to be such a hot topic and concern, I thought it would be apt to share what Dumpling and I do and how we do it at home. Each child’s learning style and interest is different so please adapt accordingly to best suit your child.

I have simplified the steps as below:

1) Letter sounds

2) Letter names

3) Beginning sounds

4) CVC Blends

5) Whole words

There are of course more “stages” after this – decoding of digraphs and word families, etc but I feel that once you have done the above, the rest should be much easier to catch on.

Just for today’s, I will share on points 1 to 3 otherwise; this post will be a tad too long.

1) Letter sounds

I did not teach Dumpling the letter names at all and still do not teach her now (more on that below). I started with just letter sounds for her to build the association where each letter makes a special sound. I also made a conscious effort not to teach similar looking shapes – e.g. b with d. A good reference to for the letter groups is using what Jolly phonics as a guide.

Letter sounds, to me, are more important than letter names because words are built according to sounds. For e.g. “cat” is sounded out as “ker / a / ttt” instead the child memorizing it as the letters C / A / T.

Though whole words are important (especially recognizing those on Dolch word walls), the main advantage of phonics for me is it aids Dumpling in being able to sound out words she does not know and it will definitely be useful for spelling.

For letter sounds, I only used one resource which is Letterland as I have initially shared. The CDROM is mainly song based which I personally feel is great for children.

It teaches a child the letter sounds through songs and not forgetting upper/lower case match through games and activities.

The writing of the letters is also taught using songs.

Some parents are concerned that the child will not be able to identify the letters as a standalone when it is paired with a character like that. For Letterland, I did not have such experience with Dumpling but what I did from day 1 was to also have letter tiles with us and I will get her to place it over the Letterland letter so that she can identify the standalone letter too.

I bought my Letterland items from an online seller which is not selling them now I believe. However, you can view some of Letterland's items from this seller. Two key things I like about Letterland is that you can buy other activity books and materials to support what you have learnt from the CD ROM. Additionally, it also uses the Queen's English which is what we are taught here in Singapore.

2) Letter names

I actually did not teach this at all but after learning all the letter sounds, Dumpling then learnt it via Leap Frog videos. A good place to get these DVDs at a reasonable rate locally is here.

3) Beginning sounds

Once Dumpling was able say the sound when I hold up the letters, I started building awareness of the starting word / beginning word sound. This helped her in being more aware that all letters make a sound and they then form a word. Additionally, this also set the basis of CVC blend for us.

If you like, you may wish to use the ladybird key words series C (starting from book 4). A seller at Singapore Motherhood Forum sells them here. However, what I personally did was to read a lot with her and using popular readers like “Oxford Reading Tree” and as we read, I would prompt her by placing my finger under a certain word and then emphasize the sound. For e.g. “I am kkkk /ipper” (I am Kipper).

I also read series such as the songbird phonics written by bestselling author of The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson, amongst many orders.

As you can see, we read a lot in this household as I strongly believe that the key to reading is reading. More than that, it’s a wonderful way to bond with Dumpling as we act out parts, improvise on the story and discuss alternative endings. Nothing is as magical as going on a imaginative journey with your child and viewing her world through her language and interpretation.

Next post: should be on something math / science related? Or leave me a comment if you have a special request?

Note: I would like to add that I am not getting any commission or payment of any kind from the links provided above. I have purchased things from these sellers at one point or another and my experience has been quite positive hence the sharing.

2011-11-08T18:06:00.000+08:00

One of my greatest love is cooking. I love cooking as much as I love eating :p so I love to try out new recipes and find myself glued to Masterchef on cable whenever it is on TV.

Before Dumpling came along, I used to cook very frequently but between juggling a full time job and homeschool and weekends being so precious, I admit I have not exactly cooked much for her.

I was thinking about pies recently and incidentally, I saw a recipe in Young Parents for pies. I recalled how much I used to enjoy making cottage pies since it does not require any pastry. So with some potatoes, onions, root vegetables, mushrooms, cheese and minced beef, I was ready.

Here's the recipe to share:

What you need:

1. 2 medium to big potatoes, diced

2. 1 to 2 diced black mushrooms (I used the canned types 'cos Chinese mushrooms takes very long to soak well)

3. Minced beef (Pre-marinated with a dash of pepper, corn flour and light soya sauce / oyster sauce / A1 sauce. I used about 150gm of it but it really depends on how much you love your meat!) * you can substitute with minced pork or chicken and marinate accordingly

4. 1 stick of carrot, finely diced

5. Half a rice bowl of chopped pumpkins

(I used root vegetables because these bake well)

6. 1 big onion (I used yellow)

7. 1 slice of cheddar cheese / a handful of shaved mozzarella cheese

Steps:

1. Preheat oven at 210 degrees for about 8-10 mins

2. In the meantime, steam potatoes and carrots and pumpkin till soft

3. While the items are being steamed, heat up about 1 table spoon of oil and add in the chopped onions. Fry till fragrant and lightly caramelized then add in mushrooms and minced beef. Stir fry till cooked

4. Mash the potatoes with a bit of butter (if you prefer richer taste, you can add 1-2 table spoons of cream)

5. Mix the carrots and pumpkin with the minced beef, mushrooms and onions

6. Lay the base of a casserole dish with the mixture above

7. Then lay strips of cheddar cheese / shaved mozzarella cheese (as above picture)

8. Spread the layer of mash potatoes

9. Finally lay some more cheese as the top layer

10. Place in oven for 3 – 5 mins at 210 degrees. As all the ingredients are basically cooked prior, this last step is to melt the cheese so do check to constantly to ensure that the top layer is baked to a light golden brown

11. Serve warm!

Chinese Homelearning: Story box, fairy tales and pictograms

2011-11-07T09:13:00.005+08:00

Chinese is an especially hard area for me to homelearn with Dumpling when we first started off as that is not a language that I am comfortable in. I did well in school but I did not really like the subject because it was hard hard work and frankly, a lot of rote learning which was boring for me.

Since Dumpling goes to Mandarin N1, I thought I can have a break and just opt the easy way out - outsource to the school. But as Dumpling becomes more proficient in the language, she will engage me in that language sometimes and wants to read Chinese books and do some Chinese homelearning activities.

Dumpling is a visual-audio learner so the best way for her case to teach is to read with her and get her familiarised with the words. These are some of my resources that I use with her.

I started reading classic tales with her and then extending it into something fun. With Dumpling being so young then, my aim is really to get her interested than for her to recognise the words. This works for her because the pretend-play gets them running and "playing" as she acts out the parts.

So I made a story box using a old empty cardboard box. The one on the right was what Dumpling and I did for "The Ugly Duckling".

Add on: Please leave a comment if you wish for more information on storyboxes and I will share in another post how we made ours.

Then I printed these out from here and we made toilet roll crafts and used them for as a "puppet theatre".

After the interest is established, I bought fun activity booklets and will bring them out with me whenever we head out. In the series below, each set comes in 6 booklets and are theme based - colours, numbers, on the farm, etc.

You can find a good series of classic tales here at Happy Cottage's website. She has 2 series and you can find part 2 on the right of her page under the navigation links.

Dumpling likes stickers so this was fun to do plus because each book is thin, it is light to bring out with us too.

The titles are according to age group and I bought the first set 2 - 3YO locally (sorry, but I cannot recall where I got them from). For theses 2 other sets, I ordered via http://www.dangdang.com/

During a PTM with the school, I understood that Dumpling was picking up on words quite quickly and so, the teacher encouraged me to do more with Dumpling at home. I chanced upon these titles also from "Happy Cottage" and I love the pictogram approach. You can view them here

Chinese words evolved from drawings from a long time ago.

So it made sense to help Dumpling make sense of how the word came about and this series does just that. From the pictures below, you can draw out each "stage" and discuss with your child.

Now, Dumpling can recall how the word looks like because there is a story behind the words.

Depending on the child's age and learning style, you will have to decide how many words you wish to teach at one go. For Dumpling, I do not teach more than three per time and I definitely do not do this daily but as and when we have extra time for Chinese homelearning or when she requests for it.

I also came across this activity book from dangdang too which further complements the approach. The only gripe I have about this title is that sometimes the stock from dangdang are very old and so, the stickers from this book do not stick anymore and I have to use a roller double sided tape to stick them on. But Dumpling does not seem to mind as she finds it fun to roll the tape on.

Dumpling and I are also using other materials and approaches to Chinese in addition to those mentioned above but I will leave them for another post. :) Please post a comment so I know that there are people reading the blog!

Useful homeschool resources

2011-11-05T08:06:00.009+08:00

Eversince I have homeschooled for a while, I have had some good and some bad buys. However, I have been very blessed to have been gifted with some good and useful homeschool resources too.

Here's a quick sharing of items which came in useful for me.

1) My cannot-live-without Whiteboard / Chalkboard

Gifted by a dear GF, this is especially useful ever since Dumpling has been able to trace letters and such and for me to elaborate the formation of Chinese words as well as using it for illustration / explanation of anything from Science (examples on how we record our journals) to Math readiness (introduction to number line etc.) This board is also magnetic and its good for magnetic letter / number titles and even any magnetic pieces from books we have which I can then use as manipulatives.

2) More is great when it comes to craft!

Tub of markers / crayons, etc.
Gifted with this tub of colouring pens from ELC recently. As a box of 100, there is no way I can miss them or lose them as we only take out what we need and once its done, it goes right back into the tub. With such a big container, it cannot be easily misplaced.

Of course, other colouring and craft resources from Crayola (finger paint, water colour, etc.) are great and safe resources for craft too.

3) Reading readiness

Phonics - Letterland Living ABC
I did not HS Dumpling with a said target of the achievements of certain milestones. While I am certainly thankful that Dumpling really liked books when we first started HS, I wanted to show her the basics of phonics so that she is able to sound out any new words on her own and the skill will aid her in spelling I believe. And that was all I did for phonics. With this CDROM.

For each of the letters, there are 2 songs: one for the sound of the letter and the other, a song which teaches you how to write out the letter. 1+ years on, when Dumpling gets stuck at writing, I will sing out the song and it helps her recall how the strokes should be "drawn" out.

To familiar the child with the letter sounds and the letter shapes, there are games and activities for each letter.

We will use this as and when Dumpling wants it though initially I started off with a more structured plan but it did not work for us as her attention span would differ daily and there are days when she prefers not to do phonics.

Whole words

I will publicly announce that I dislike flashcards. I use flashcards to stick on walls and boards but that's about it. I am sure I am flaunting every rule that whole word gurus advocate but it is not something which I am personally keen on because I find it boring to be flashing cards in front of my tot day in and day out.

Instead, we read. A LOT. With a whole mix of books. There are good readers out there which I do have some sets but I do not rely on them. In fact, Dumpling and I read a variety of stories, fairy tales and non fictional titles from the library.

Through the vast amount of words she is exposed to daily, she taught herself how to read. To be frank, it took us by surprise because she did not indicate that she was retaining the words. She was about to read some words here and there but before she turned 2.5, one fine day, she opened up a book, put it in her lap and sat next to me and she pointed to each word and slowly started reading. She finished the page of 3 sentences.

From there, she went through a language explosion where Dumpling is now able to read for e.g. fun stories such as Elmer and Curious George independently.

But if you are keen to encourage your child to start off with some sight words, here's a link which is both useful and fun. The key is really to read a lot with your child. If attention span is a concern, then start with short simple stories and bright pictures. You do not even need to finish the whole book but perhaps 2 pages to start off.

Dumpling likes word tracing and colouring and I downloaded a set of printables from here. Dumpling really likes colouring by number and the creater of this pack provides a simple reader in each of her unit along with activities such as "Read it, Paste it, Trace it pages", Picture/Word match and my favourites - "Word Sort that works with the new word families and CVC box printables" for word blending exercises.

Additionally, you may wish to use good readers such as these box sets from Now I'm Reading which provides rewards stickers for the child too. The sentences are kept short and through ryhmes and simple repetition, the child should catch on in time. I personally find that readers can be a tad boring but children usually do very well with repetition. And it is with this repetition that helps them gain confidence as they are able to "read" thereafter.

A lot of time, I hear my friends sharing that their kids are memorising and do not really "read". But that to me, is one of the first steps to "reading". The next step is then to help the child associate the word (by sight and placing finger under the words) to the sound of it (according to what he / she recalls.) You can look at these readers here

4) Sid and The Frizz

I am sure many of you are going "what science? Our kids are so young?" And that's the fun of homelearning as I am very sure that if Dumpling were to be in a bilingual preschool, she would not have been able to dabble as much as she can in early exposure to Science.

We use mainly 2 "series" at home: Magic School Bus and Sid the Science Kid.

While The Magic School Bus is more "serious" in tone, it is nonetheless digestible for children with its exciting field trips with their teacher, Ms. Frizzle as they fly their way from the Artic (and learn about heat / insulation) to rivers (where Dumpling learn about migration).

As for Sid, its more contemporary with 3D animation. What I like about it is that it shows real life examples / clips and encourages children to conduct the same experiments and shows charting / recording in journals which I feel is a great way for children to detail down / doodle / draw the observations.

The show also has catchy songs and funny jokes so Dumpling enjoys these tremendously too.

Both series have books and DVDs and we use a mixture of each. :)

So are preschoolers too young to know more about Science? Of course not? Dumpling understood "Reversible Change" and can explain to me in simple terms the process of photosynthesis.

How do I bring these concepts alive besides books? These very same two resources :)

Enjoy! Please do share any of your resources too!

When is it truly enough?

2011-04-18T13:02:00.007+08:00

I am writing this more of a reminder for myself than anything else. In Singapore, there is a very famous singlish term - Kia Su which is loosely translated as "scared to lose out". Hence, there is quite a bit of pressure as a parent to want to expose your child to as many things as possible lest, they "lose out".

When I first started homeschooling, it was because I did not really believe that the child can only get that sort of exposure from school and I firmly stand by that. Because I believe that no one would know the child better than the parent (I hope!) and also, if anything, being a FTWM, being able to homeschool my child at night allows me to bond with her too, no matter how little or how much we do. Ultimately, I want to make learning FUN for her, where we are able to look at clouds on a sunny day and hunt for animal faces, laugh over the re-enactment of classic fairy tales and rhymes etc. I also wanted her to develop the habit of inquring, to observe and to deduce. In short, I wanted her to have a positive experience on learning and to carry that positiveness and enthusiasm with her in her life.

And since we are doing so much during the weekdays, I would limit her weekends to play based activities and a sports related activity - swimming. I started with swimming as I wanted Dumpling to have this "survival" skill. Additionally, I thought to start her on it when she is young so she has no water phobia. So far, it seems like she is doing good and most importantly, is enjoying it as she develops her sense of confidence and coordination.

Along the way, she also showed interest in music just like many other children as well as drawing and dancing (ballet in particular). So I signed up for a trial on Saturday morning (since her swimming was in the PM). We did not start the day off on a good foot as I did not prepare her for it (she takes quite long to warm up to strangers) and mainly because she did not have a good sleep the night before. So, during the entire session, she did not go to the front of the class but rather, participate from where she was seated at times, while at other times, she would complain that she was tired.

Unfortunately for us, the school wanted a commitment on the same day if we intended to sign up. This did not work well for us especially when you have a cranky and overly tired child. I contemplated a lot because I was not sure if one session was enough to see if Dumpling enjoyed herself. I also took a step back and thought if it makes sense to send her for 2 classes in one day - would it not be too much? Though they were spread out (since one was in the morning and the other was in the afternoon) I contemplated over this point a lot.

On the one hand, I wanted her to be exposed to more things and have more fun but on the other, I did not want her to be overly tired and stressed out especially since she is all bout 2.5. So I took a moment to gather my thoughts. In the end, I decided to sit it out. She is still going for her weekly swimming sessions which she seems to enjoy loads (proudly declaring to me "teacher sam said I did an excellent job"). However, I still find myself wondering if I am depriving her of anything especially when I see my mates signing their child up for some many other stuff. This is where I will gather my thoughts to return to the basics of why I wanted to homeschool her - to also teach values such as "perserverance", "patience", etc.

When I first started sending her for swimming sessions, I did not intend for this to be yet another "term" activity where we will stop after a few terms. I spoke to her about it and the hubs and I also discussed with her on what will happen at the session etc. After the session, I also took a whole week to speak to her and gather her feedback and thoughts on the class before signing on. This was because I wanted to cultivate the value of "finishing up" on a task / a project which we started instead of just giving up halfway or developing a habit of switching from classes to classes without really trying to settle. I also reminded myself that her weekends are meant for playdates, play based / sports related activities and not to be piled on with too many "enrichment/language" classes, speech and drama, etc.

A few terms into swimming, I am proud to say that she was strong enough to kick herself out of the water and surfaced to take in a breath of air and her water confidence has increased tremendously. I still find myself wondering at times if I am doing enough for her and if we are doing the right thing by homeschooling. But then there will be moments such as the silly fun we had together playing "Sim Sam" says (similar to Simon) or making a mock school bus out of an old cardbox and getting just about everyone, including the family dogs, involved.

Here, Dumpling is creating windows...

Creating wheels and decorating her bus :) Great way to reinforce shapes and numbers

Peekaboo!

The family dog as one of her passengers. :)

Lapbooking

2011-03-28T18:00:00.006+08:00

In Singapore, I guess homeschooling is not entirely popular / common hence resources are not as wide and as comprehensive I wish it were. Some of my mummy friends have reached out to me in various stages of their parenting journey on how and how to start homeschooling, what can they do, how much to do, how often, etc.?

For Dumpling's homeschooling journey, we started with books and extending it to crafts when she was very young. It was mainly activities more for motor skills development and also as a FTWM, it gives me an avenue to bond with her through homeschooling. As she got older, we found lapbooking to be fun and yet a great method to "keep" all the resources properly - in a file.

Lapbooking may not be very heard off here in Singapore as yet but has far been a popular choice of homeschoolers in countries such as the US. Here's the lo down on lapbooking.

What is lapbooking?

As shared in Lapbooking 101, a lapbook is an inexpensive portfolio or collection of mini-books, flaps, and folded display material, that provides interactive space for drawings, stories, graphs, graphics, timelines, diagrams, and written work, from any topic, unit study, book you choose, gathered, glued, and creatively displayed in a coloured standard sized cardboard folder, often folded in a “shutter-fold” (though our family doesn’t), that fits in your lap.

What does it consist of?

It is a project book or folder, laid out in a creative manner, with many smaller elements such as "mini books", pockets, sleeves, etc. that are being pasted into a file folder and can then fit in the child’s lap, hence the name.

What does it do?

I do not know about other homeschooling mummies but personally, for me, lapbooking is a good way for me to organise and keep/preserve the resources as everything is being pasted / attached to the folder.

For me, in each of my lapbooking session, I would extend it out to cover perhaps writing readiness exercises or counting or even some bits on science activities. So with such a "format", it almost "trains" / "directs" me to research for materials / free printables systematically.

Where and how do I start?

I find working around a theme (e.g. a particular animal) / book easiest. Here's a link to a video to see how the various elements would look in an insects lapbook. The idea is you call the shots - if you want to add on more literature arts bit / math readiness and you plan out accordingly.

And if you are looking for some quick printables to start off, here's a good site to go to.

Wow, you are doing a lot...

2011-03-23T13:30:00.007+08:00

I get that statement a lot where mummy friends would say that to me constantly. It usually would follow on with that they wish that they are doing more with their kids after seeing some of the facebook updates I have.

I just wanted to say that I seem to be doing loads because these would be some of the things your child would learn from their preschools. Just that in this case, the teacher is a separate being from the parent so as a parent, you do not need to do so much. For my case, I am both the parent and from 7.45 / 8pm, I am the teacher. I guess most of you who comment on that only see my role as a mum and not a teacher and hence there is the comparison.

Since Dumpling is being sent to a daily pure mandarin playgroup class, if I do not homelearn with her, she would have 0% exposure to English, reading, math concepts, etc. Hence we do what we do at home. I guess the point of this post is, there is no need to compare / feel guilty about the "lack" of activities. Added to the fact that Dumpling depends on me for the exposure, it also is to do with individual personalities. As you probably can tell, I have an immense interest in Early Childhood Education and so, it is "easier" for me to continue on with the homeschooling path. Added to the fact that Dumpling has a strong sense of inquisitiveness, I guess we keep each other on our toes with our homeschooling. :)

It is perfectly alright to start with reading / pockets of activities. With children this young, I find that reading a book and then extending it to craft / a physical activity helps a lot to break the monotony. Also, when you first start, it would be unrealistic to think you can get your child to sit down for a full hour! So, start small with pockets of activities.

Where and how do you start? Here's some resources:

Lapbooking:

1) 1+1+1=1

2) Homeschool share

If you are reading books from the BFIAR list, she has a whole list of resources which you can print absolutely free of charge from the site

3) Lapbook Lessons

This site has great bibilical themes too

Some great homelearning websites for cool and fun ideas:

1) Confessions of a Homeschooler

this is one of my absolutely favourite sites with great ideas and links

2) A to Z teacher stuff

3) PBS

fun online games and interactive stuff though some stuff are limited to only in the US

4) My Playschool

this is jointly developed by Pauline and Rachel, 2 very unselfish and encouraging ladies whom I reach out to constantly for ideas, resources and advice. They even have homeschooling exercises on Chinese!

For crafts:

1) AHC Arts & Crafts

this is a superb site if you are doing thematic stuff as their crafts ideas can be filtered via themes, alphabetical order, etc. So, if you were for e.g. reading "The Gruffalo", you can extend this to include the various animals mentioned in the book mainly: fox, owl and snake. So you can search under themes->amphibians-> snake.

2) First School Preschool Activities

3) DLTK Kids

Even for kids as young as 1, you can start letting them play around with paints through craft. The idea is to start small and do small pockets of activities.

Even when your child is very young, they are still able to just play with finger paint. Dumpling started doing craft word when she was about 8+ months old. I realise that helped her in being less fussy about her fingers being dirty and she is more adventurous when it comes to tactile play.

These are some old pictures of Dumpling when she just turned 1.

Me guiding her to dab the various colours onto the paper plate

Thereafter, she did it on her own

The finished product. You can download the template here.

The Ocean, the ocean

2011-03-20T16:10:00.000+08:00

I've always loved writing, not so much for work (though I was doing communications and PR work for a telco for almost 4 years and another 3 odd years with an IT company) but just for the joy of it and being able to air out my thoughts and possibly link up with like-minded people to exchange ideas and resources.

I have been toying with the idea for a bit as to how often I am able to sustain the updating of my blog especially when I am a FTWM (full time working mum) and a HS parent. But I will try and see where this lead us. :)

With that, this would be my first official post on homeschooling. :)

I did this theme with the little one quite a while ago and our style has since been improvised along the way but I believed the 2 of us enjoyed this theme a lot and hence, I wanted to share this.

With such a young child, I like the concept of lapbooks as it is thematic. I like that with a theme, it is easy for me to research on materials (easy for googling and for searching for books at the library). I also like that with a bit of creativity and web search, I am able to introduce to Dumpling, the concept of Science and Math.

Signing to whale

Pretend play - fish

Creating our own Ocean scenes from an Evan Moor eBook

Memory card games.

And I placed it all into a lapbook. Some of the books we used for this theme are in the background including a phonics reader from Usborne "Shark in the Park". Ocean is an easy theme and you can get many resources just by googling for it. But you can also locate some printables and craft ideas here and I printed a lot of them here.

What's salt to do with this theme? This is the science bit...

Learning about "sink"...

and "float"!

It seems like a simple exercise but this actually provides the child with good foundation for "Math" as it teaches the child about "differences" and "similarities". With an older child, you can start to encourage the child to think deeper by asking questions such as why things float, the difference between fresh water and sea water, density, etc.

And of course, with most of our homeschooling activities, a field trip!

Enjoy!