Birds and the bees

So, it has happened. Sonshine asked me how to make babies. He chose the perfect time to drop the bomb on me- while I was driving. 

I thought all I had to do was to make it simple, easy peasy! Here was how our conversation went (heads up! Lots of obscene but accurate words ahead).

Me: Well, every man has this 'thing' called the sperm in them. The man has to transfer the sperm to the woman. The sperm will grow in the woman and viola a baby is born!

Him: OH. How to put the sperm in the woman?

Me: Erm (thinking to myself, since we are on this topic, let's be specific) The man has to put his penis into the woman. 

Him: Oh. How to put the penis in the woman? 

Me: (what have I got myself into) There's a 'hole' in the woman's vagina and the man has to put his penis in the hole.

Him: oh. (In deep thoughts) Then can men put their penis in other men's hole (he was referring to the rear hole, ahem).

Me: WHAT! WHAT?!? Where did you get the idea from??!! 

Him: (calmly) You. 

Me: me? 

Him: you said the man can put in a woman's HOLE. 

Me: erm well, er... (Should I brush this off... Should I be honest)

Me: Yeeeeeees, some men do that. BUT! God doesn't approve of that and it's not normal. And don't you go round putting your penis in ANY woman. Only the woman you marry. OKAY??!

Him: okay

Him: How does the sperm come out? Can we see it?

Me: (without thinking) it's like when you pass urine. You can't see it. 

Him: oh okay. 

--------------

On another day, I wanted to know how much he understood me. So I asked

Me: So, how do you make babies? 

(I was expecting him to first say a man has to put penis in the woman)

Him: FIRST, I must get married!

Me: (Wow he GOT THAT right!)

Him: Then put the penis into her and pass urine. 

Me:...............

Assesment books

Like many Singaporean parents, I buy assessment books and assigned them to Sonshine to work on. In fact, I consider myself an assessment books warrior! My weekly pilgrimage is to walk into Popular book store and leave with an assessment book. Needless to say, I buy so many that there is no way he can finish them all by year end.

 

Over time, I wonder how effective assessment books are. The questions in the assessment books won't even appear in the school exams, so even if the child aces the assessment books, does it mean he will do well in school exams? I really doubt so.

 

Yet, most of us are still obsessed with assessment books. I have seen mothers like me scouring through the shelves for assessment books at Popular book store. I suppose, assessment books give that extra revision and practise that our child needs. That makes sense, 'practise makes perfect' doesn't it?

 

But I think most of us, me included, have lost focus on the role of the assessment books. We think number is the the key, the more they do the better. Really? I have heard of kids who do truck loads of assessment books but still get average results or still 'lose' out to others who did no or little extra work outside of school. Of course, there are also students who benefit from, and even enjoy, doing them. So are assessment books the magical formula to good grades?

 

I look at Sonshine and myself. I suspect with or without assessment books, he will do just the same. His standard would probably remain status quo even if I don't assign him extra work. Yet I do see that it helps him a little at times. For instance, when working on English assessment books, he sometimes come across new words that he is unaware of. I learn to see that as an opportunity for him to boost his vocabulary. Still, sometimes, it comes out to nothing. He would learn the new word there and then but completely forgets about it the next round. Days like these, I wonder 'what's the use?'. In general it doesn't seem to make him 'smarter', even so, it would be just a wee wee bit, negligible really.

Then it dawned on me it is not the assessment books that will help Sonshine. For him particularly, it is the quality of the teaching that helps him the most. Sonshine is attentive and absorbs well during lessons. When the teacher is very clear, concise and precise in her lessons, Sonshine will retain and know how to apply accurately in his work. For example, maths, I observed that all I have to do is to explain very clearly to him all the basic concepts of the topic. After which, he can fly solo and tackle the tedious & complicated questions on his own based on his understanding of the basics. But, first the teaching must be very clear and detailed. So ultimately, for Sonshine, it all boils down to the teacher, absolutely nothing to do with the number of assessment books he does.

So now, I've to change my mindset. That's not to say I have stop buying assessment books. I still do. But I try not to equate his grades with doing assessment books. My strategy now is to teach and then use the assessment books as a revision or practise. In the past, I would simply throw the assessment books to him and expect the books to teach him or that he would magically learn on his own by doing them. So now i choose assessment books that comes with some guidelines. It is more for me to use them as a 'textbook' to teach Sonshine especially for english where there is no school textbook for us to follow unlike mandarin.

Having said that, with the wide selection of assessment books here, it is very hard to ward off the temptation to buy. I hope to constantly remind myself that it is not about the amount of assessment books Sonshine does but it is how well he can understand from what he is taught. Hopefully that will help me stay on track!
 

Tray activities for Doll

Yesterday I prepared some tray activities for Doll. When she came home and saw the trays, she immediately wanted to work on them. That's the beauty of Montessori, it's invites the child to play and learn. No need for strict routines, it's a natural process. 

The activities I prepared weren't anything academic, it was more to remind her the beauty of 'work'.

Looping the rubber bands around the bottle to work on that fine motor skills. 

Using ice cream sticks to form shapes. Its a good way for them to learn the differences in each shape ie triangle has  sides while a square has four. 

Using an aided chopstick to transfer poms poms into ice cube tray. 

As usual I simple couldn't forgo counting activities. Since Doll has learn to count to 30, I wanted her to practise.  So I prepared her only two boxes (didn't want to overwhelm her) of buttons. She had to count each boxes.  One she had to count up to 26 and another 30. 

I love that she enjoyed herself and didn't see these as 'work'. I hope I can keep this up. These days taking care of two school going kids keeps my schedule very tight and exhausting. 

Write away!

This year doll is attending formal preschool. Which means, I'll have less time at home learning with her. Looking at the school's curriculum and hearing from other experienced parents, she's in good hands. Still, I try to teach her at home albeit that it would much lesser & more concise.

I try as much as I can but I'm also lowering my expectations. This year, I want her to learn to read, write and dabble a little on simple maths. 

For a while now, I've been letting her to trace alphabets on the iPad. Yesterday I let her to the dot a dot on the letter 'A'. I numbered each dot so that the order is the is in the proper way of writing 'A'. 

Coincidentally, her school is also teaching her to write the same letter. Out of curiosity, I asked her to write it out on her own. 

Yay! So delighted that she can write 'A' on her own. At least the practises she got on the iPad paid off. 

I have also allowed her to use the scissors. I printed the above from Confessions of a homeschooling mom. Doll is so into cutting that she's asking for the scissors everyday. 

*apologies for the horrorid alignment. Typed this on my iPhone app which gives me no room to tidy up this post 😑

Chat group for parents; curse or blessing?

So I joined a group chat that was specifically created for Sonshine's and his classmates parents. Like most, the purpose is so that we can quickly disseminate and share information to each other. I even went further & network with the other moms, building friendships with them. But after a year, I decided to exit the group chat and have less interaction with the other parents. 

I realised the group chat isn't helping me much. The questions and information exchanged aren't very useful, if anything, it made me very confused. Simple things like should the kids wear uniform or PE attire is made complicated. Most of the questions raised can be quite absurd and irrelevant. It annoys me much. This also became a source of gossip for my inner group of moms. Unhealthy!

The other reason is, this year I want to keep it simple and have all information about school to come from Sonshine and him alone. Last year, I had a lot of sources who would feed me with daily updates about his school day. Some of the kids reporting to their parents were so detailed to the point where I literally felt like I had sat in the classroom myself. Like most parents, I thought this was a fantastic thing. I get to know exactly what is going on in the class. However by end of the year, I felt that I was overloaded with TOO much information. 

I realized i started to use all that information to compare other kids with Sonshine. And when he seemingly fell short, I would scold him & demanded him to measure up. Or I would wonder why Sonshine didn't tell me the things other kids told their parents. That of course made me very annoyed. With all the additional information, my decisions about his school is marred. The whole process became very unnatural. 

This year, I want to keep things simple and pure. I want to hear about school from Sonshine and not from others. If he doesn't tell me stuff that others tell their parents then I should trust that he deems those information unimportant. He has shown me that he is able to tell me about the necessary stuff like school work very well. He updates me about his school work to the T but leaves out all the other frivolous stuff like who brought what bag or who did and say what in class. 

In addition, I'm also going for less play dates with the other parents. For one, I want to know less! Such play dates meant even more gossip and information being rendered to me. It always leaves me feeling depressed or wondering if something is wrong with my kid. 

More so, I realised there's no fit between this group of classmates and Sonshine. I'll be first to admit, Sonshine doesn't have those attractive personalities and can come across as annoying. It's just how he is. He's the sort who loved slapstick comedy. Not everyone finds it funny and some may get really annoyed (like yours truly). All the more, he needs friends who is tolerant and can accept his nonsense. His friends in this group are rather high strung and can get angry or easily irritated over small things that Sonshine does. So many times during play dates, I often hear these kids yelling at Sonshine over some small things or see them go to their moms to whine. I get very stress each time and would take it out on Sonshine. Sonshine on the other hand, has a super easy going character. Even if his classmates shoved him, grabbed his toys, say mean things to him, he lets it slide all the time. Rarely or never would we hear him yell at his friends to stop annoying him nor would he ever come to me and complained about being mistreated. He would just deal with it by himself. I reckon that because he's like that, he expects others to be as easy going as him. 

I did think that perhaps it's Sonshine who's plain annoying making his friends irritated. But I've seen him interact and play with other friends. These friends are more tolerant and accepting. When Sonshine annoys them, they either ignore or tolerate. They wouldn't whine or complain. But most of the time, they find him funny & they play well together. There are times when Sonshine annoys them but they get over it in a second.

That made me realised that there's a misfit between this group of classmates and Sonshine. It's not that the fault of anyone, more like all of them have faults that cause them to be incompatible. And that's really ok. We just have to seek elsewhere. 

Some may say I'm intervening too much. But I think I was emotionally drained from all this (although Sonshine is totally unaffected, I should really learn from him) and I need time to recover. So for now, I'll just detox for awhile, rest and recover! 

My aim this year is to keep things simple! 

Sometimes being exposed with too much knowledge is not a good thing. For someone like me who puts her emotions in everything she sees and hears, it can be quite unhealthy. I can't take things factually, I will let those things affect me emotionally. So for my sake and Sonshine, I'm so staying away from social networking for a while! 

Comprehension strategies

I'm working on comprehension with Sonshine. As I was doing so, I soon realised comprehension work ain't as straight forward as I thought. It requires a lot of strategies and skills that need to be taught to the children. I'm not talking about those literal comprehension questions but those that need inferring and seeking out clues throughout the passage. 

I always assumed as long as one can read-everything else will fall into place. How wrong was I. It's not always true, well not for my son at least. 

There are lots of tips on the internet on how to teach comprehension (I had to google as I had no clue). Just search for key words like 'how to teach comprehension' or 'comprehension strategies'. Not everything that is out there was relevant to me. I tweaked and added my own strategies as I worked with Sonshine. I'm going to share it here. But do note, I am by no means an expert. I am just a mother figuring her way to help her son.

1) Underline corresponding words

The passages are long for 7/8 year olds to remember every detail of the passage & they may not know where to look for the answers. Sometimes, the questions can help locate where the answers are. For instance 'Why was the donkey hurt?' I have Sonshine underline 'donkey hurt' and make him look for these corresponding words in the passage. Once he found these words, he is to read the surrounding sentences to get the answers. Many a times such questions are straight forward 'The donkey fell into the river and got hurt.' Sometimes the child is required to read the entire paragraph to find the answers. 

2) Identify literal versus inferring questions 

I taught Sonshine these two types of the questions. Literal questions are easy because you can literally copy the answers from the passage. I showed him inferring questions meant that he has to look for clues in the passage. 

To illustrate, I gave him the sentence 'Tommy went home and took medicine.' I asked him how did Tommy feel? Sonshine rightly pointed out it's because Tommy took medicine. I showed Sonshine that the sentence didn't say 'Tommy is sick' but we know he is because he 'took medicine'. I taught him this because sometimes I catch him scouring up and down the passage looking for the corresponding words from the questions in vain. He needed to be taught that literal questions meant that he had to find clues instead of the corresponding words.

This strategy seem to help Sonshine unlock the mystery of comprehension! After I showed him what inferring questions are, he suddenly tackled comprehension like a pro!

3) Identify the cause and effect

These are usually the 'why' questions. I noticed Sonshine assumed that the 'effect' sentences are always after the 'cause'. For instance 'Mary is going to the beach' (cause). 'She is happy' (effect). But sometimes it's the other way around. 'Mary is happy' (effect). 'She is going to the beach' (cause). In comprehension passages, it's not always so straight forward. The cause and effect statements are not always one after the other. Sonshine usually gets drown by all the words an details in the passages. So i had to teach him to identify which is the cause and effect. 

4) Try to decode a new word

It's probable that the student will stumble upon a word he never seen. I try to teach Sonshine to always first ask himself if that word is a noun (is it a person, place or thing?), verb or an adjective. From there, look around the passage to look for clues that tell you more about the word. 

5) Demonstrate reading skills

I learnt that a reader can be a good reader or a poor reader. I always thought the latter meant that the child cannot decode the words. But that's not right. A poor reader is one who reads without properly understanding the story. Sonshine isn't a detail person. He gets the gist of the story but overlooks all the nitty gritty details. Fortunately, I still have the habit of reading aloud to him. As I read to him, I demonstrate how he should be reading 

a) Read again

 

When I come across sentences that I think he doesn't understand. I show him that he can always stop and go back and read again. This time read slowly and look for clues to understand better or check if he had miss something out earlier. 

b) Ask questions aloud

 

Sometimes a sentence doesn't make any sense. I usually stop and ask aloud 'something is strange here! What is it?' Together, Sonshine & I will identify what is so strange about it and why. 

c) Identify with the character.

 

At some point, I would stop and ask Sonshine how he would feel if he's the character or reminded him that he had a similar experience before. Being able to identify with the character is important because sometimes in comprehension, the students are required to use their own personal knowledge and experiences to answer a question. It also helps them in making predictions. That's why I want Sonshine to pick up the habit of putting himself in the character's shoes. This would help him to enjoy the story and better understand the passage.

 

6) Build vocabulary

 

Looking back, I realised I never work on English with Sonshine, very rarely. I was focused alot more on Math and Chinese. I always assumed that since we speak English at home & he reads, he would be a natural in the subject. Wrong. I know a lot of parents claim that reading is enough to build a strong foundation in English. I beg to differ. Reading helps, yes, but it is only ONE of the ways to improve English. Some kids are a naturalist in the subject so reading books alone will help them. But some kids are just not very good in the language. Some kids would read but not notice things like spelling, grammar, vocabulary & especially punctuations- they read purely for the storyline. Sonshine is one of them. The only thing he picks up during his read is spelling, everything else, he overlooks. For kids like him, they need a structured, consientious lesson to teach them- ON TOP of their leisure reading.

 

I also thought by reading his vocabulary would improve. Well yes and no. He did pick up words but Sonshine tends to 'escape' when he sees words he doesn't know. He would not attempt to know the meaning of the word, not even make a wild guess. Only this year, I learnt that I had to consciously make him learn new words everyday- no matter how simple the word is. Why is vocabulary so important? The comprehension passages will get harder and use 'bigger' words as they progess up each level. If they don't have sufficient words in their vocabulary bank, they will have difficulty in understanding the passage. Morover, Singapore comprehension has the habit of asking 'What does XX mean?' or 'What is another word for XX?'. If the student has limited vocabulary, he will literally be throwing 2 marks away for his English paper.

Wow, this primary school education is a whole new era to me! Lots of 'work' to be done ahead! *Sweat*

 

Guided reading

These days I am more focused on teaching Doll to read. No Math, no activities just reading.

 

I decided that I needed some sort of a system instead of going by where the wind blows me. So I made my way to my local bookstore (Popular) & bought a guided reader for Doll.

 

I chose Scholastic science readers.

 

There are several mini books like these in the set.

 

I love this series because the sentences are more or less repetitive. There are new words on each page but mostly repetitive throughout the book.

 

I am using these books to give me some sort of a structure to teach Doll. What I do is, I'd first read a book to her and then teach her the new words.

 

 

I'd prepare word cards that are found in the particular book we are focusing on.

 

Like always, I do matching activity with her or get her sort the words as I read each word to her. As I've mentioned earlier, matching words helps Doll learn more effectively.

 

After she can recognise the new words, I'd return to the book and make her read word by word. It is easy to look at the picture and guess the words. That's why, I'd usually cover the pictures & point to each word as she reads aloud.

 

 

I am satisfied that Doll has learn to read quite a substantial number of words. Since I have (long) purchased (but never use) a box of word cards, I decided to to use them for Doll to practise her reading.  I took out the words she had learnt and randomly form a sentence or phrase. She would then read aloud to me.

 

I love these cards, so many possibilities!

 

 

Also, I am exposing her to writing her letters and practising her pincer grasp. I've downloaded a couple of free apps & she's been doing this almost daily. Sometimes, we can 'cheat' a little and let technology be their teacher hee hee hee!