Our mandarin week

Last week, i didn't do any planning for babydoll. These days i am too exhausted & i just whip out household items whenever i can.

 

 

 

The other day, i turned over our laundry basket and gave her a packet of straws. She was kept busy with inserting the straws through the basket linings. :)

 

I sat her in the bumbo seat (yah, she can still fit comfortably in it) and shove her a set of stickers. She peeled off the stickers one by one and stuck them on the chair. It sure kept her quiet & contented!

 

As for sonshine, it was our Chinese theme week. Like always, i took out our assesment book.

 

He worked on comprehension. He had to read each sentence and check if they are correct by looking at the corresponding picture. (I had to read & explain some words to him)

 

Another new area i have started is the Chinse oral bit. He isn't very confident in speaking and let's not even talk about speaking in Mandarin! So, i think it's best i start him off now.

 

The theme we worked on was 'Living room'.

 

 

 

He learnt some key words relating to the theme.

 

 

I made this mini flap card to show him how to pair a word to other characters.

                              

 

Lift the flap, you get another word with another meaning.

 

After he was familiar with the words, we refered back to the picture & i made him describe it using the words he learnt.

 

I think we did a few more workbooks, but i can't remember, :P

 



In our class this week...

 

 

I have decided to pursue copywork as part of my homeschool curriculum. There are too many benefits of copywork to give it up though its boring. You can read more about copywork here. But to each his own. Before you jump in, i suggest you take a second to think if it suits your child's learning style. I don't think every child will benefit from this style of learning. For sonshine, i think he needs this type of drilling to help highlight the sentence structure, punctuation marks, capital letters etc.

 

 

I gave him a simple book to copy. The key thing i was looking for was minimal punctuation marks (just commas and periods) and repetitive sentences (hoping that he can magically learn the spelling of the words he wrote several times over). Pelangi books are right up my alley for this purpose.

 

On a separate note, we had quite a frustrating time doing this on one of the days. I had him re-write some letters because it was not written accurately (he wrote '0' like a '6'). I ended up scolding and caning him. Not because of his error but his 'i can't do it' mentality which made him cry in despair. I didn't like that he cried over such a small matter (not the first time) and told him that it is okay if he doesn't know or needs more time but its not okay to cry and give up! 

Do you have days like these? I do! So, don't ever think its all bed of roses for us. Just keeping it real.

 

 

He did some Maths on calculating money. I had him do this since he was taught this in school last week.

 

 

He continuously surprise me with his ability to understand and solve mathematical questions. For instance, a question he encountered was  "Jim had 3 five-dollar notes. He bought something and left $3. What did he buy?" I was certain he needed help and was just about to explain to him when he said 'car' (see diagram above).

 

 

As for the girl, she did some sensory play. Squeezing sponge and spilling water all over herself and the floor. She even used a towel to wipe herself and the floor with each spillage. It was very amusing to watch to say the least.

 

 

She enjoyed this scooping activity. Actually, she is able to handle the utensils and self feed very well. Now when we are out eating, she would insist to feed herself and i am proud to say she is getting quite professional!

 

 

I secretly think she loves the scooping activity because she loves the beads. She poured them in a tray and decided that it was more fun to step on it.

 

 

Oh, how about 'bathing' in it?

In this week's news....

These were what we have been doing for the past week:

 

 Grammar:

 

                

 

For the past few weeks, we have been working on Personal Pronouns i.e 'I vs you', 'We vs they', 'He, she, it, vs we/they' and 'am vs are', 'is vs are'.  

 

                

 

I also threw in another exercise on how & when to use 'who'. Actually, i don't really teach him, i just make him do! LOL.

 

Maths:

 

                       

 

We did some Word Problems. An example of the questions we have been focusing on is "Lisa has 10 eggs. Eliza has 2 less/more eggs than Lisa. How many eggs does Eliza have?"

 

 (I usually toggle between Kumon grade 1-3, the difference is not the type of questions asked but usually is doing the operation within the ones, tens or hundreds unit. I don't need him to practise his operations (i.e add/subtract) so i usually let him do grade 1 or 2 just to expose him to the type of questions. I don't want him to spend too much time on adding/subtracting.)

 

On a separate note, I saw the following word problem on another blog & on a whim, i asked him to solve it:

 

Jars A and B have 12 cookies each. There are 14 fewer cookies in jar C than jars A and B together.

a) How many cookies are there in jar A and jar B altogether?

b) How many cookies are there in jar C?

 

He did this quite mentally, just by reading it off from my ipad. Without telling me the answer for a), he straight away told me '10!'. Well, okay, son. Now i know you know.

 

Mandarin:

 

                     

 

I made him practise writing using the newly bought assessment book i bought. The words he learnt to write were '他，也'.  

Poem

I love poems! I was introduced to poems during my secondary school days and i fell immediately in love with it. I love the rhythm and the rhyme.

So although I was skeptical about making sonshine memorise poems but i decided to give it a try anyway.

The first poem is 'The Caterpillar' by Christina Rosetti

First, i read the poem to sonshine and we talked about the content. Then i made him remember the first two lines of the poem. But to my surprise, he remembered the entire poem effortlessly all in one night.

But that's not the point. The key thing is, both mother & son had such a blast reading & reciting the poem! Sonshine enjoys reciting this poem and insist that i take turn to recite too! We really had alot of fun! Did i tell you we had A LOT of fun? Yes, it was THAT fun. :))

Some of the side activities i did as we read/recite this poem

1) Comprehension: i asked him simple questions like 'What color is the caterpillar?', 'Where is the caterpillar going?' etc

2) Speech & articulation: as he recites i work on his tone, speed of reading and pronunciation. He tends to rush by it. But i dare say he is near to perfection now! I don't know why, but it was such a proud moment having the boy stand in front of us reciting this poem so perfectly. Awww, that's my baby.

'First Language Lessons for the well trained mind'

I was looking for a grammar curriculum and decided to adopt 'First Language Lessons for the well trained mind, Level 1' by Jessie Wise. Here are my thoughts.

I would recommend it..NOT.

I was quite shocked by how slow the lesson plans are. Imagine it takes 41, a whopping FORTY-ONE (almost half the book), lessons just to teach about common & proper nouns. I was yawning my way through while reading the lesson plans. I took just 10 minutes to teach sonshine both concepts.

I picked up a locally written grammar book

In this book, it took about a 2-3 pages to explain the same things. This is right up my alley. I don't know. It could be the Singaporean in me that makes me want things to be quick, fast and good! Oh and cheap too! This local book was like $20 cheaper then Jessie Wise's book!

That said, there are some thing i like about the book:

1) I like it's usage of famous paintings for the narration exercises. Take a painting and ask the child questions relating to the picture. It helps in their oral skills and at the same time exposes the child to well-known art works.

2) Although i don't exactly follow the lessons but it did gives me alot of ideas on how i can conduct my lessons.

3) I like the idea of introducing poems to the child but i am undecided about the memorising bit.

Overall, i don't think it is worth to purchase this book. It is way too slow even for the average learner. Although, it is great that each lessons are very short (less than 10 minutes) and it's lessons are very clear & easy for a pre-schooler/kindergartener to understand.

More Spelling

We continued our spelling with words with 'ay' in them (i am starting with words with the long a sound).

The mini booklet i made for sonshine.

It includes words with the 'ay' in them. He has learnt to spell simple words like 'day', 'say' etc and other words like 'pray', 'play' and 'stay'.

I have done away with the moveable alphabet because i realised he really didn't need them to help him spell.

I wanted to speed up our spelling and try to cover as many words as possibe. So since i have the Five in a Row books sitting nicely in my shelf, ive decided to use them for our spelling lessons too.

I made a mini booklet; inside are all the words that can be found in the book.

He has learnt animal words like 'goose', 'goat', 'bear' etc.

June Holiday: English lessons

Over the school holidays, we did a few spelling activity and some English related lessons.

I took out our Melissa & Doug's spelling kit and let sonshine have a go (it was getting dusty!). Sonshine matched the letters to each board and wrote each word three times on his book. He learnt to spell a couple of words, thanks to this activity.

I also made him learn the spelling of some action words.

Our spelling lessons were too haphazard that i found a need to find some structure. I decided to go with Montessori's Movable Alphabet and use of phonograms. Yes, i said before i am not a fan of phonics. I am still not a fan. But i reckon that it would easier for sonshine to learn to spell if we follow phonogram by phonogram.

Nothing beats owning the original Montessori Moveable alphabet. I did think of buying it but the thought of storing yet another bulky educational kit was too much for me to take. Hence, i DIY my own. This one is much more storage friendly!

Our first structured lesson begins with 'ai'. He successfully learnt to spell words that has 'ai' in them including, 'train', 'pain', 'paint', 'wait' etc.

It turns out that the structured lesson didn't help sonshine learn his spelling any better. He is accepting of either way, a random list of words or words with the same phonograms. The good thing about him is that it doesn't take much for him to remember & retain the words he learnt. So i conclude the structured lesson is more for me! LOL.

As with Montessori's lesson, i also created a mini book.

This particular book contains words that has 'ai' in them.

We also played with Junior scrabble during the school holidays. I found it way too boring but sonshine had loads of fun.

One of the books sonshine loves to borrow from the library is a book on Homophones. After reading book after book on homophones, i decided to let him have a go at a worksheet printed from here.

Learning Mandarin the fun way

Last week, i taught sonshine all about the 伟围部, well not all. But some of the words with the 伟围部. I thought it was an effective way to help recognise and write the words.

First, i used the mandarin kit i bought. I showed him what 伟围部 was.

I took out some words that are made of the symbol.

As we swop the interchangeable dominoes, i read the words out to him and explain the meaning of each words.

He learnt how to write each word on the ipad. I first write and say out the strokes as i write. He followed suit.

When i am certain that he knows the meaning/usage & strokes of each word, i have him revised the words by completing the mini exercise. (hahaha, i just realised you can't really tell which is my handwriting and which is his! Just goes to show how childish my handwriting is!)

Post note: words that he learnt 国，圆，园

The Journal homework

Sonshine brought back a blank jotter book from school. He had to write a journal as a holiday homework. Knowing that sonshine might have difficulty expressing his own thoughts and translating them into written words, i decided to incorporate Susan Wise's suggested activity in her book.

In the book, she suggested that the child read a passage  and have the child answer questions relating to the short story, in complete sentences. The parent/teacher then writes down his answers. The child copies what is written thereafter. I think it is a great way to give the child a visual on how his thoughts can be translated into words and then in writing.

So to guide him, I ask him simple questions, he answers in complete sentences and i write down his answers in full.

He copies his own verbal thoughts on his jotter book.

Example of questions that i ask;

me: What is today's day?

Sonshine: Today is Friday.

(i write down his answer)

me: What are you doing?

Sonshine: I am eating biscuits

(i write down his answer)

me: How are you feeling?

Sonshine: i am happy

(i write down his answer)

He copies his answers onto the book.

Questions i asked:

What is today's day?

Where did you go yesterday?

His answers:

Today is Sunday.

(Yesterday) I went to take the train.

He added on his own accord:

It was very fun.

I am happy.

I was pleasantly surprised that he added the last two sentences. More importantly, he actually used the correct tense i.e. 'went' without my prompting!

The teacher encouraged the children to draw pictures on the blank side of the book. I asked him to draw a happy face and this was his creation.

Mr Happy potato!

I love this homework! It not only helps to brush up his spoken grammar but also his writing. WOOT!

Copywork

I have to admit. I am panicking a little bit because Sonshine's spoken and written English is still below average. It baffles me that he can read, understand the context, has a wide vocabulary but has problems composing a structurally correct sentence!

So, i am going do whatever i can to help him. I am using Susan Wise Bauer's Writing with Ease curriculum (I was introduced to this book while reading Adventures of bear). I am not following strictly just using it as a guideline. It's quite technical & involves alot of copywork and narration.

I used to think copywork is a boring way to teach a kid to write. But now i think otherwise! I realised while one can read it does not mean one can write. There are many writing rules that a reader tend to overlook. For instance, capital letters, punctuation marks etc. Copywork is one great way to highlight these writing rules to a young writer. Like most kids, sonshine missed out the capital letters & punctuation marks on his first copywork which affirms that reading and writing are not one and the same. I feel copywork helps to drill into the child the correct sentence structure more deeply than reading.

I also like the narration exercise recommended by the author. It involves reading a short passage or a book with the child and then have the child answer (verbal) in full to questions relating to the passage. I think this is a great activity to help Sonshine speak/answer in proper sentences which will eventually help him in his Comprehension work.

Overall, i like the curriculum because the suggested activities are very short and simple. It doesn't require an hour or even 30 minutes of the child's time, just 5-15 minutes will do. However, i choose to use my own choice of book titles rather than her recommended books. I am using mostly books that we borrow from the library. 

This week, i've had sonshine copy short sentences (no pictures, too lazy to take) from the kumon reading book and this book, Mouse was Mad (a book we adore!). I'm just grateful he didn't, hasn't resisted and has been quite receptive to copywork. As for narration, i use the library books we've been reading each night. After reading a page, i'd ask a simple question and have him answer me in complete, grammatically correct sentences.