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. :)

 

 

What have we been doing?

There isn't much to post about or more accurately, i do not have the luxury of time to sit in front of the computer and type away in absolute peace. Today is one of those rare, rare, rare days. That said, it does not mean our homeschooling has ceased. It is still very much active just that i've stop creating activities for the boy. Instead, i am relying heavily on workbooks which do a fine job, in my opinion.

Our homeschooling now is just a mere 10-15 minutes (hasn't it always?) each morning. Sonshine works on one or two 'mummy's homework'. After which he has free play before heading to school.

The following are subjects that i'm currently focusing on and i rotate them daily.

English

Grammar

Spelling

Handwriting

Maths

Word Problems

Primary 1 syllabus

Chinese

Writing

四五快读

Art

Trying really hard. But i'm trying to incoporate drawing, painting and art appreciation. But it's hard especially when i've a clingy girl at my feet and i'm too afraid of mess!

We painted one of Keith Haring's work as part of my art lesson

And as for babydoll...

I'm still working Glenn Doman flashcards with her. She now shows much interest and would even ask for it. Psst: I think she can recognise some words! But i am not entirely sure. She seems to be able to point to the correct words but if go for another round of cards, she start to loose her 'ability' and start goofing about. However, she seems to get it correctly for first few cards each time i 'test' her. I have activities planned for her but it's currently stored in my head waiting, just waiting to be actualised. Oh, if only i've the time and energy!

Besides that, she has lots of free play to the point of turning my house upside down. Currently her favourite toys are the wooden ring stacker (i'm surprised she can actually slot each disc in since the openings are rather small) and very cute & interesting Duplo set.

With all that said, i guess i'll be slowing down in my postings here. No, i won't be shutting this blog just yet. I'm just taking a snail's pace. So, 'ta-ta', till my next post! :)

She play puzzles!

I have put up a couple of puzzles on the shelf for babydoll since she was like 10 month old. But she would just take out the each puzzle piece and strewn them all over the floor.

Recently, i discovered she can do something new!

She has learnt to put the puzzles into its right places by matching the pictures! I would pick out a piece and ask her 'where do we put this?' or i might say 'where is the pig?' (whichever animal piece i am holding). She would find the matching picture (there's a corresponding picture under each loose piece) and promptly put it in its place. Most of the times, she can't quite fit the puzzle into the slot but at times, by some magical luck she can.

This is another puzzle that she loves. Her favourite pieces are the grapes and strawberry! Like the above puzzle, she's able to match the pieces to its place.

YAHOO!

All about babydoll @ 14 months old

Her favourite word: mama, mama mamaAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!! (Yes in that exact manner). She first uttered 'mama' at 10 month old.

Her favourite things are 'ba ba' which can mean 'balloon, ball and birds' all starting with 'B'!

Her other favourite thing is 'ka ka' for shoe.

She loves shoes and would insist i try on shoes for her when we're out shopping at the shoes department :I.

She also says 'na na!' for 'No, no'

She says 'ge ge' (or something like that) for 'kor kor' (big brother)

She understands two-step instructions like 'pick it up and put it back' or 'put it back and close the (drawer, door)'. I am loving this because i get to engage her help at times!

She points to things that attracts her; she can point to her body parts & fruits etc when asked.

She understands when i say 'Mama is going to the toilet', she would drop all that she's doing and start walking & pointing at the bathroom where i'd do my business.

She knows to head toward our reading corner when i say 'read book time!'

Or when i say 'let's go', she would wave and start to head toward the door or to me.

Recently, she seems to tell me after doing her 'big business'. She would look at me and say 'baba' while pulling her diaper.

Awwww, my baby is growing up too fast!

I am also a tad dissapointed that she isn't showing signs of reading (yes, i can see all you people rolling your eyeballs, here let me help pick them up for you).

:D

 But that's because i realised sonshine recognised a list of words at 14 month old. I know, i know, each child is different. I do realised that i have unconsciously put on sonshine's cognitive learning curve on her. Here, i have to remind myself that it would be a different route with her. I have had it too easy with sonshine since he absorbs information very fast & effortlessly.

So my journey with babydoll might be alittle different, ok maybe even difficult. :I

But then again, to be fair to her, i haven't put on the same diligence on teaching & reading with her as i had with the boy. This i blame sonshine's school! I am spending my time ferrying him up & down; it really breaks any momentum.

Anyway, time to buck up mama! :)