Playtime with babydoll

Here are more activities i did with doll.

 

 

 

Before you throw away that empty tissue box, ask yourself if you can convert it into a plaything for the tot! It was "All things round" theme, i dumped anything with a circular shape in the box for doll to dig her puny hands in.

 

I made a sensory bag using zip lock bag.

 

The bag lasted to a ripe old age of ... 60 minutes. That's when babydoll decided it was way more fun to poke the bag with a pencil causing mini holes to appear on the bag.

 

Playing with big brother's marble race and watching the ball roll down the structure.

 

 

Her daily activity. The crayons and pencils are readily available and well within her reach. She goes over to the table anytime she wishes.

 

 

I thought it was time to take out my montessori kit for her. Here, she is matching the shapes. Not wanting to overwhelm her, i took out 3 shapes only.

 

She blew me away with this one. Her visual perception is really good. She is able to match most of the cylinders into place at one go.

 Sorting Melissa & doug shape  blocks by colors. I am pleasantly suprised she could match the colors though she tend to get confuse purple for blue.

 

Of course, she gets lots of nature & outdoor.

 

Not forgetting sand play!

A day at homeschool@sg

The Day in a Life link up is so inspiring that I can't help but want to join in! It is really interesting to read about how other mummies days are like! How ever similar or different our days are, we all play the same role everyday- juggling!

 

If you've ever wondered how my day is like, well here is a peek into my daily, mundane life.

 

9am

 

 

My eyes struggle to open. Umm, yes you saw it right. I am usually up at 9am, of course by now the husband has gone off to work.

(I hereby apologise to all you moms who have to wake up even before the sun breaks. But, i beg you to consider that i've interrupted sleep for the past year (and counting). No, not a good excuse? Umm, how about that my day peaks at the second i open my eyes? No? Ok! Moving right along!)

 

I wash myself up before heading to sonshine's room (who is usually up before me) and order him to wash up. He does everything himself except brushing his teeth. I don't quite trust him with this task yet. If babydoll's up too, i wash her up as well.  

 

 

 

 

 

Sonshine dresses himself up & gets his fresh milk (which has been prepared by daddy- my hero).  Babydoll starts her day by roaming around and messing the living room. As for me, I  attempt to wake myself up with a cuppa and squeeze in some time on my ipad. When i feel  awake, i walk sluggishly to the kitchen to prepare the kids' breakfast.

 

 

 

 

Mostly it is simple bread and butter. But recently, i am trying to be alittle more hardworking. I try to make breakfast more interesting in bid to make him eat faster and more. Not that he has a liking for Hello Kitty, it just makes my morning prettier.

 

10am

 

 

 While sonshine is having his breakfast and babydoll wandering around the house, i scoot back to the kitchen. This time its to prepare babydoll's lunch. This early, you say? Yes, i prepare it early so that she can have her lunch immediately after we return from school. This is my most dreaded time of the day because i got to chop, wash, scream, chop, boil etc.

 

 

After the boy is done with his milk, we would head over to the activity table. This would be our homeschool time. Babydoll sits on my left, doodling with color pencils, crayons while sonshine sits on my right working on 'mummy's work'.

 

 

When he is done with work and breakfast, he goes to the toy room and play with his lego or toys for a while. This is my chance to steal some time out- but not for long.

 

11am

 

 

Sonshine's cue to dress himself up for school. He also packs his own bag and reminds me to fill his water bottle.

 

1130am

 

 

Off to school! I love being greeted by this row of trees. Somehow it makes my journey more lovely.

 

 

12pm

 



 

Back home! You would think i'd have the luxury to go out shopping and do the 'tai tai' thing but no. I got to rush home to feed the girl before she is due for her first nap of the day. Today, i allow myself to be a lazy mama and give her 'anything goes' lunch. If time permits, i will read to her and do a little activity with her.

 

 

 12pm -1pm

 

 

The girl takes her nap! Phew! It's my peace and quiet time. This is where i take my lunch, space out into the Internet world.

 

215pm

 

 

Here we go again! My day peaks back up. Back to the car and on the road. Babydoll fools around in the car while we wait for big brother.

 

3pm

 

 

Sonshine's back! He has a little snack before play time.

 

 4pm

 

 

Time for his noon milk. All 3 of us adjourn to the kids room where the kids would read books or just goof around the room. Again, i space out or read books to babydoll.

 

 

A common sight  in the kids' room every noonday. By now, i am really exhuasted.

 

430pm-5pm

 

 

Time for sonshine to nap! WoooHOOO! Babydoll's 2nd nap coincides with his nap which means...mummy gets to catch a snooze too! HOOORAAAAH! Or its my second quiet time of the day.

 

5pm - 6pm

 

 

Time for me to prepare dinner. During this time one of the kids would wake up. I will spend some one on one moment with whoever wakes up first.

 

7pm- 8pm

 

Dinner time! Also, my life-time helper returns home! AAAAh, i can feel my tense body starting to relax now. Some days my sweet man would sense that i need a break so he takes me out for a cup of nice teh tarik. Otherwise, Daddy plays with the kids in the toy room while i give myself a break.

 

9pm- 10pm

 

Kids bath time, babydoll first. I read bedtime books before she crash out. By the time i am out, sonshine is done with his bath. I read to him while he drinks his 3rd cup of fresh milk of the day.

 

11pm-12pm

 

I space out. My husband space out. We crash for the day!

 

A good day would go by without me yelling my head off at the kids. A bad day would see me jumping at sonshine for every wrong thing he does and he shrieks & apologises in response. So before you think i have a perfect day or a super mama, well i am not. I still need to learn how to not be an angsty mother and wife. :I

 

This thing called motivation

When i was in primary school, i wasn't just an average-grade student. I was a borderline student. I remember year after year, i would worry about passing & being promoted up to the next level. I was a struggling student.

 

My entire primary school went by in a blur. I attended school because i was told to. I don't know what i was learning and i don't even recall studying for the examinations! Came PSLE, i got, yes you guessed it, borderline grades. It was so borderline that i could pass to the Secondary school but had to be posted into 'Normal' stream (five years course). I recall my mother scolding me, me crying and my sister comforting me.

 

Somehow, i woke up from my deep (academic) slumber in secondary school. Somehow, grades became very important to me. Somehow, i needed to prove to my uncles, family, more importantly-myself, that i am not that 'stupid' and i can be as smart as i want myself to be.  My grades shot up and i was posted to the express stream (four years course) just after 6 months. Since then, it was happily ever after and i made it into University.

 

My own schooling journey taught me about the one thing that is important in getting good grades- self motivation. In primary school, i didn't see the point of studying or getting good grades. My parents didn't push me either. In secondary school & all the way up, my parents were equally hands off. But i somehow got spurred and this little potion called motivation was sprinkled all over me. I had zero tuition. I earn my way up to good grades all through my own hard work.

 

This made me wonder, instead of pushing our children to study hard,  would it not be easier if the child has self motivation to do so? Instead of us nagging them to revise, they do it on their own accord? Of course, the million dollar question is, how to motivate a child? Well, i am no expert. I don't have a clue either. But, maybe just maybe, if we take a hands off approach, like what my parents did? As in, passing the sole responsibility of getting the grades entirely on our children. Let them choose the path they want and bear the consequences themselves. If they do well, it is all credit to them. If they fail, perhaps they will wake up from their slumber and be driven to do better the next time, like i did , albeit that i was late (but hey, i did well, didn't i)?

 

It would sure take an extremely radical parent to do that though. I'll be the first to admit, i am not that parent! :P

 

That said, there are certain tasks (though small) that i give my son sole responsibility  & i take a total hands off approach. And, truth be told, i do see positive effects trickling in. For instance, i don't pack his school bag at all. It his daily responsibility to check his own bag and i don't even do a double check for him. Everyday, he makes sure that all his items are in his bag. I think he is motivated to do because he gets really upset if he doesn't bring the needful items to school. I really don't have to nag at him to pack his bag. Neither are there days where he forgets to pack something. See- the beauty of motivation. On a separate note, i was once informed to pack a shirt for an activity. He came home from school and the shirt was still in the bag and so i asked why. Apparently, he had already packed one himself and handed to the teacher (his teacher must have reminded the class) . I was very pleased and proud of his Independence to say the least (although he packed a rag instead and didn't tell me! LOL).

 

Ok ok, it is a small example as compared to taking a hands off approach on our children's studies. But what I'm saying is, perhaps, it works? I don't know. Would you dare take this approach? It would be really hard wouldn't it?

 

Would you- homeschool?

I would LOVE to homeschool my children. Unfortunately, our decision is to send the kids to formal school. I have a few factors working against me, hence. When i say homeschool, i am not just talking about the preschool years. It includes the entire primary school. So, why not?

 

1) The traditional husband

My man still holds a very old school view on this; children must attend formal school. To successfully homeschool, it takes both parents to agree. Otherwise, it would really tough for the homeschool parent to do it alone- without the support of the other. The husband is probably my primary obstacle. But even, if you remove him from the picture, i may still hesitate.

 

2) Social

The husband, like many parents, feel homeschooling is socially damaging. I know most homeschoolers will be rolling their eyeballs out on this one. I kind of agree and not agree; sitting on the fence on this point.

 

I think the issue about having friends can be easily sorted out by going out on play dates, enrichment classes etc. So i am really not concern about this. But i am concern about the lack of social experience at home. For instance, learning to submit to another authority figure other than the parent, learning how to cope when you are not invited into a social clique at school, learning the various types of personalities out there & how to manage them etc. The home environment is still very much protected. You get to choose who you want to have play dates with. Usually, you will choose those who you get along well with, won't you? And, how many types of characters can you meet at home? The home environment is very much protected. While i think it won't be too late to overcome, but when the kid finally gets 'out there', won't he get a culture shock? And while everyone else have more or less found a coping mechanism, my child is struggling to learn all the social rules.

 

On the other hand, i think our local primary school environment is way too harsh for a young child. All that ranking and race to be the top is just too destructing on the child's esteem and character. If he's at the bottom, he will inevitably believe that he is just no good- what if he brings this belief all the way to adulthood? Don't think the top student would be spared either. Perhaps he may adopt a 'i am better than them' attitude, learn how to discriminate the 'lower' level students. Of course these are very extreme situations, but it can happen & has happen, can't it, hasn't it? If i were to homeschool, this would be one of my major reasons to do it- to protect my children from the ugliness of our school system.

 

3) Myself

I honestly believe this is my most major obstacle- myself. The sole task of educating my children is just too daunting and huge for me to handle. I don't know if i can do it. Our primary school education has changed, and still changing, so much since i left school that i don't know anymore. What if i teach them wrongly? What if my methods are not right? Won't their education be ruin by their own mother- gasp! Homeschooling Primary 1-2, or even up to 3, would be quite a breeze. But i think from there onwards it would be extremely tough, judging by how ridiculously challenging our papers are. It would also take alot of research and hard work on my part. I don't know if i have enough stamina to run it for 6 (at least) years, multiply that by 2 for two kids! If my kids do not do well for their PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination), i will fault on myself & myself alone. I think i will carry the guilt for the rest of my life. That thought alone is enough to give me nightmares.

 

 

All that said, i do not doubt the goodness of homeschooling. In fact, i strongly believe in it and encourage all you mothers who have all the factors going for you, to go for it! I admire and very much envy your courage & favorable position to do so! I wish i had more courage, i wish had it all favorable for me. But, right now, i am happy to do it alongside with the schools- though i don't really agree with it sometimes. And i guess, there are some plus points doing it this way too!

 

This is how i do it

I have received a few enquires about what textbooks or curriculum i use to teach sonshine. Since it seems to be a popular question, i decided to post my reply here.

 

It was hard to answer this question because i realised i have none! Then it made me feel like i've been very haphazard in my homeschooling. But i realised i have been haphazardly systematic. Yes, oxy-moron.

 

This brings on the next question; how do i know what to teach? How do i plan our lessons?

 

1) On the whim and common sense

 

When sonshine was younger, i taught him based on whatever i wanted him to learn.  For subjects like Mathematics, i generally went with my common sense. Start with counting, recognising quantity, addition etc. For others, i followed his interest. Like, when i noticed that he would always pick up our Atlas book to read, i decided to teach him about world atlas. Most of the time, it is purely coincidental. For instance, once i was trying to get him to eat faster by entertaining him with dollar notes- which happened to be on our dining table. From there, he learnt how to tell the quantity of each dollar note. So, this has been my lesson plan for the past few years- my homeschool curriculum largely came off from my own head.

I would like to add that this is the beauty of preschool years. You can teach anything, ANYTHING, you want to teach. I love to teach during these years because there are no deadlines (like examinations), no limits to what a child can learn & what you want to teach. There is liberty in teaching whatever you want, no primary school curriculum to catch up with, no stress, no pressure (oh i wish it would remain like so in Primary school, sigh). It's fun!

 

2) Assessment books

 

Now that sonshine is heading for Primary school in less than 2 years (sob), i feel a need to have some sort of checklist or structure in our homeschooling. My source of reference mainly come from the assessment books. It gives me a good idea what i should teach sonshine. The content pages on the assessment books somewhat act as my curriculum plan.

 

This brings me to the next question- do i draw up a homeschooling daily/weekly/monthly/yearly plan? No. I yearn to be like those organised and structured mamas, but however hard i try i fail. I realised it is because i don't work against a timeline. Basically, i teach chapter by chapter, level by level. To me, it is very important that sonshine fully understands each level before i move on to the next. I don't believe in jumping to the next chapter just because i need to stick to a plan. I don't like being stress or rushed by something so rigid. I prefer to ensure that whatever he learns has been deeply carved into his brain before i deem it good to close a chapter. For this reason, i don't aim to finish something within a time frame. I never set a goal to teach him addition by 3 years old or aim to finish Primary 1 curriculum before he turns 6. Instead, i follow his pace of learning. We are where we are today because it happens that his learning pace is faster (i say this humbly). That is why it is really hard for me to do any planning because, i never know how long it will take us to finish a chapter.

 

The content pages on my assessment books are like my homeschooling blueprint. That's why i don't really need to plan any lessons. All i have to do is to flip to the content page, see where we left off and move on the next.

 

The other reason why i do it this way is....lazy! But hey, it gets the job done! :P

And since we are at it, here is how i slot in our homeschool time

Morn:
Wake up/Wash up
Breakfast
Homeschool (15-20mins)
A bit of play
Off to school

Noon-evening:
Home from school
Eat, sleep, play & just be a kid

There! This is how i do 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'.  

"Mess"-merize

 

We had a bit of spare time before her nap today, so i decided to give her some sensory play- with paint!

 

 

 

I poured some (washable-of course) paint on a tray and gave her a paint brush.

 

 

She was cautious at first, just doodling with the brush. But the moment i threw an ice, yes ice, in the tray, her fingers dived right in for the colored ice.

 

 

And then she got really friendly with Mr paint, while mummy was cringing and trying very, very, very hard not to be bothered by the mounting mess.

 

 

And then she got so chummy with Mr Paint, she decides to smear her arms with it. Meanwhile, mummy's face became more crumpled as she stifles a "aaaAAAAaaaahhhhh...noOOooooOOooooOOoo!!" 

 

 

 

Really enjoyed herself all at the expense of mummy. At least this mom had the wisdom to do this while big brother was at school. Otherwise she would end up with twice the mess!

 

And then doll decides to walk around the house with her newly painted blue arms. That's when mom said 'Show's over honey!'.

 

Curtain closed!

Dough thing

 

It's playdough time!

 

Besides the usual squishing and squeezing, these were other ways we played with the dough.

 

 

Babydoll inserts each chip onto the dough (eye-hand coordination).

 

Trying to slice the dough. She managed to make a mess...

 

 

And pounding the dough with a toy hammer (with some squeaky noise)!

It's a fine job

I've been randomly giving the doll some fine motor skills & eye-hand coordination related activities. Actually, i don't think she needs any practice.

 

 

This is my favourite activity because its cost nothing! Sonshine couldn't do this till much later but doll does it with ease. She dropped coins after coins like a pro.

 

 

Stacking shape rings.

 

 

Plucking out cloths peg. I say plucking out because she hasn't quite get the pincer grasp skill to do this effectively yet.

 

 

This is another of my favourites. Scooping cotton balls with a spoon. Again, doll surprise me with this one. She did it well. Is it a girl thing? The boy was very slow in his fine motor skills....

 

 

And lastly, slicing fruit toys with a toy knife.

 

 

 

Spelling- The caterpillar

 

 

Our spelling lessons have taken on a very sleepy spell.

 

We haven't been doing spelling of late (but that's because i only have 10-15 minutes a day & there are so many other topics i want to cover).

 

The last spelling sonshine did was on the poem he learnt (yah, we are still at it).

I made him learn all the new words.

 

After that, i made him write the entire poem without me dictating it or spelling any words for him. At the same time, he practised his handwriting. Killing 2 birds with 1 stone i say!

Workbooks

 

This is gonna be a boring post. But, oh well.

 

Here are the workbooks that i heavily rely on daily. I do have more but these are the ones i use more often. Most, or maybe all of them can be purchased at Popular bookstore.

 

 

I have mentioned earlier, sonshine's grammar is not that great. So i purchased a couple of workbooks that focus particularly on Grammar.

 

 

I use the above books as my teaching guide. I needed some structure on my lessons but don't have time to plan so i depend on these books.

 

 

For mandarin, i am slacking alot, it doesn't help that i keep falling back on the enrichment class. But then, i know i can't entirely depend on them; some revision is still required. So, i am considering to pull him out.

 

Anyway, i've been working on his Chinese writing. Getting him to write common words and gradually into sentences.

 

I'm also gonna work on his spoken Mandarin with my very broken Mandarin. I've ordered this book to kick start. I use this book (which i borrowed from the library) to role play with sonshine what are the basics thing to say in Mandarin.

 

 

 

As for Maths. I am not starting any new topics for him because i realised he is at around Primary 2 level. If i want to start a new topic, it means i've to cross over to Primary 3 level which i am quite reluctant. So i used the above books as a revision. Also to spot check to see if he still has his mojo going- so far so good. One of the areas i am focusing on is, Word problems. I use Kumon workbooks for this.

 

 

 

OH! We did dabble in a new topic recently though; substracting in 3 digits. i.e borrowing from the hundreds column. I used my beloved Montessori kit to teach him.

 

 

I prepared some of my own worksheets for him to do without the Montessori aids.

 

So there. These are a few of my favourite workbooks. :)