Learning for kids Archives - Page 7 of 8

A school holiday without going on a holiday

X has her first long 6 weeks December holiday this year. Before the start of this holiday, I was alone with the baby in the whole afternoon everyday. I could take a nap, the baby had peaceful sleep and I was free to do my things as and when the baby is sleeping.

Baby YT is sleeping

Then start the holiday, I wanted XX to enjoy her holiday and that means I have to sacrifice my sleep, make some adjustments and accept that my peaceful routine with the baby has to take a backseat.

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My little princess’ score card – progress in Primary 1

It’s been half a year that my dear princess goes to Primary 1. Her score card in my eyes has been almost perfect so far. And how happy am I to give her a near perfect score. Taking into consideration that her Primary school is a well-sought after SAP (Special Assistance Plan) school (which means they place high emphasis on Chinese and it is mandatory for all students to take higher Chinese), she manages well with her school work and enjoys school so far.

She relates happenings in school to me and I am too glad that her teachers seem to be very passionate teachers especially her Chinese teacher 黄老师. They tell interesting stories and crack jokes in the fun of learning to capture the children’s interest. And her school makes sure parents are involved and know what their children are learning by making us sign on their assignment and textbooks frequently. Academic-wise, I have totally no worries on her school’s model of teaching and guidance.

It’s a relief and “gift” for me that she does her homework after dinner on her own without any nagging from me and Kel. She shows independence in passing me her school letters and making sure I sign on her worksheets and books without fail. As a working mother, I could not spend time with her in the morning before school. Hence, I mark out pages on her assessment books for her to complete in the morning so that I can mark and go through with her at night. She did the assignment I gave her with no adults reminding her. It saves me from what I would have otherwise experience stress and worries on her academic learning.

In XX’s first MA (Modular Assessment) test for English, she got full marks. For Mathematics and Chinese, she got 23 and 24 out of 25 marks respectively. I couldn’t ask for more. Now in the second semester, her 2nd MA test, she got full marks for English again but careless mistakes and lack of focus on the questions cost her marks and she got 17 out of 25 for Mathematics. Well, so to say, she has lots of room for improvement in her focusing skills and practising patience to read questions carefully before jumping to write answers.

XX’s first parent-teacher meeting has the same response from both teachers (Form teacher and Chinese teacher). She day-dreams in class. This observation has long been commented by her Yamaha teacher. I feel attitude is extremely important for learning and doing anything well. I know it will take lots of effort by herself and time to correct this day-dreaming problem, but I will help her and by her character, I am pretty sure she will improve sooner or later. As for her attitude, if you were to read my earlier blog on “Learning Piano – from dread to love“, you will know that she has come a long way in improving her attitude. Sometimes, if she seems to be relying on me to feed clues to questions in assessment books, I feel I have a guilty part to play. I may be too obliging to give clues too quickly and just last night, I realize that XX seems to be lazy in reading music scores. She has a good memory and for new song pieces, I spoon-fed her on correcting her fingering and wrong notes by reading the score to her while she focuses on memorizing what I say and what she remembers on the positioning of fingers on the keyboard. That was a wake-up call for me to not be too involved and let her have a free hand and time to figure things out on her own! It all points to the fact that this mummy is too impatient. My girl must have picked up this bad trait from me.

XX had just experienced a long one month June school holidays. I signed her up for a 3 day academic camp which she says it’s boring. Kel sent her to her cousin’s house to play for a day every week. I took leave on and off to keep her company and brought her to my gynae check-up in June as well. Places we’ve been to during the June weekends includes the National Museum of Singapore for the Children’s Seasons, Yakult factory, taking part in the Safra Sprintkids Competition, Marina Barrage for kite flying with their cousins, Wild Wild Wet and Madagascar 3 movie screening. Since we are not going overseas for the holidays, I thought this holiday for her must be boring. But she seems to prefer boredom than to go school even though she enjoys school and she did not have much to do except to read books to finish her many book reviews homework.

Now that the holidays are over, she is back to school. She asked to be signed up for Wu Shu （武术）and she has to wake up early every Saturday for this class. It was tough on her to wake up early since she sleeps late at night and her school is in the afternoon. Even then, I praised her for being such a good girl to fight sleep and wakes up without much violent protest.

Xuanxuan, mummy is so proud of you. Keep it up my dear princess!

Reading – a simple yet important routine for the child

The best way to learn a language is to speak and read. The best way to attain knowledge is to read. The best way to indulge in vivid imagination (imagination = creativity) is to read too.

Books are real, kids can touch them and parents can spend bonding time with kids by reading to them. I would not encourage kids to read e-books since e-books cannot be touched and flipped. And staring into the screen for long hours will stress the little eyes. I would rather my kids being read to by me than to be read to by the iphone. I am sure I can do a far better job than technology read-out-loud. I started reading to my kids since I was pregnant with them and till now, I still read to my soon-to-be 5-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl. They are still loving it!

How I read to my children:

Cover page – Read the title, author, illustrator. They will learn to appreciate the people behind the wonderful making of the book.
Pictures – For the first few times, linger on the picture page for a longer time for the kids to interpret the pictures. Their detailed observation of the pictures often stun me, as adults would not be bothered about how many mice appeared in the book of Goldilocks or whether Cleo has a bow on her head in Clifford stories.
Add in words on your own and describe what you can see in the illustration.
Ask questions about what comes next, take their answers seriously, there is no right or wrong answers!
Never read in a monotone way! Read in a MELODIC way, with pitching and be immensed in the story to enact the expressions in the story. Get them excited or in suspense to make the stories interesting.

Choosing a book:

BABIES – Big board books with texture and pop-ups, my kids’ favourites are “That’s not my…” series by Fiona Watt and cloth books with a mirror in front. Too bad, there are very few Chinese Big Board Books around
TODDLERS – Ladybird Classic series – Level 1 books, like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. I love Ladybird books because they repeat words and lines on many pages to reinforce simple words and sentences for early readers. Another hit with my kids is “The very hungry caterpillar” by Eric Carle. And don’t forget to read simple Chinese books to kids from young.
2-4 YEARS OLD- Ladybird Classic series – Level 2 books, like “The Gingerbread Man” and Clifford The Big Red Dog series, Chinese books with moral stories, fairy tales and The Berenstain Bear series. The Berenstain Bear series revolve much in moral and daily routines and happenings for young families and they are depicted in good humour. However, the stories may be a bit lengthy even though they do have simple “I can read” series. For lengthy stories, you may have to summarize as you read along for the initial few times just to catch the children’s attention and interest.
5-7 YEARS OLD- Ladybird Classic series – Level 3&4 books like “The Wizard of Oz” and The Berenstain Bear series.
PICTURE BOOKS WITH NO WORDS – I love these stories without words! It really is up to the imagination of the reader to interpret the story and follow what comes next. One good picture book without words is “The Chicken Thief” by Beatrice Rodriguez. You can borrow this book from the community library. It has an unexpected and interesting twist to the end of the story.

Ways to encourage reading:

Bedtime reading should be included in the Bedtime routine from birth.
Read to your children frequently and read to them even when they are capable of reading on their own. My 7-year-old girl still loves and enjoys being read to her.
Allow them to choose which books to read. My kids are good negotiators when it comes to the number of books to be read for the night.
Go to the library often and borrow books.
Go to the bookstores often and buy books occasionally. That shows how you treasure books enough to buy and keep them, besides, it helps to have a mini library at home.
Leave books around the house casually. This is to encourage kids to pick them up when they walk by or have nothing to do.
Let the kids see you read books and newspapers, be a good role model! (you may refer to my earlier post “Why it is important to be YOURSELF in front of the kids” and that will probably give you a good excuse to indulge in some “me” time)
Read a wide variety of books to your kids. My son YH loves the animal encyclopedia and especially books on gorillas, apes and dinosaurs.
Have a book in the car (books with large prints so as not to stress the eyes) or in your bag while travelling.
Be ready to read the same book a hundred times to your kids. They simply love the familiarity of the story and knowing what comes next.

Do you have good books to recommend? I would love to know! Tell me in the comments section!

Learning through Play – the fun and simple way

There are many ways to teach academic topics to kids through playing and games. Kids find the games interesting and get to learn English, Chinese, Mathematics without knowing. I find the ways to introduce learning something new extremely important as first impression last for a long long time. If kids are introduced to learning in a fun way, they will not tend to be put off or reject learning the same subject matter in future.

Here are 5 fun ways of learning that my kids love:

1. Teaching NUMBERS using playing cards

I love playing cards. Not to gamble with kids but to introduce the concept of numbers to my kids. There are many ways to play to reinforce this concept.

a) Big and small – The deck of cards is distributed evenly to each player. If there are 3 players, each player take turns to be the first to throw out a card, the next person has to throw out a bigger number card. Whoever throws out the biggest number card wins the pool of cards. There is a catch here. If you always throw out big number cards in the beginning, you will end up with small number cards towards the end of the game.

What is learnt here: kids get to think of what number is bigger than the number thrown out. They get to plan to reserve cards for the end where everyone has no big cards. This trains their thinking and planning skills.

b) SNAP game – Do you remember how to play “SNAP”? If you have those flash cards with a set of numbers vs a set of counting dots, you can play “SNAP” with your kids.

What is learnt here: kids learn counting and get used to patterns and train them to know the number without counting dots.

c) Memory game – Sieve out pairs of number cards, shuffle, and lay them face down on the floor. Players take turn to open 2 cards at a time. Whenever 2 cards with the same number are turned over, player gets to keep the cards. If the cards are different, they will have to be turned over face down till someone picks these cards again.

What is learnt here: kids learn numbers and train their memory skills.

2. Teaching MONEY

Set up a market stall selling fruits, vegetables, meat, etc using kids’ cooking toy set. Write down 10cents, 20 cents, 50 cents and one dollar on pieces of paper and place them on each sale item. Give your kids some money with many coins of different denominations. Start selling to your “customers”, i.e. your kids. Guide them on giving you more than the price of items and give them back money change. (My kids love this part of getting money change back. They think they earn more by getting more coins back!) Make it more fun by selling their favourite toys as well as reversing roles!

What is learnt here: kids learn the concept of money, how to count money and get back money change.

3. Teaching ENGLISH / CHINESE

Do a “SHOW AND TELL” with your kids! You can take turns to play this with your kids starting with you! Pick up anything, it can be a pen, a tissure box or a favourite toy and start describing the object in your hands. You have to speak proper English or Chinese sentences, add in some simple but interesting vocabulary. Then when it is your kids’ turn, let them rattle on and DO NOT INTERRUPT or attempt to CORRECT their descriptive phrases. Let them be proud of their “Show and Tell” moment. After all, they are “on stage”!

What is learnt here: Kids learn English and Chinese words and build up their vocabulary. The game boosts their confidence and on-stage performance. While you also do a “Show and Tell, they get to learn more difficult and interesting words and phrases from you too.

4. Teaching MATHEMATICS

It is important to recognize patterns to improve Mathematics as many Mathematics concept revolves around patterns recognition. I play board games like “Snake and Ladder” and any games that require dice throwing. Such games enable my kids to recognize the dots on the die for each number. If you use 2 dice, they learn to add the numbers too. Learning music helps on pattern recognition as well. There are endless patterns on music scores. I teach my girl to recognize the pattern of the composition and play on the piano without counting each note.

What is learnt here: kids are trained to get used to recognizing patterns so that they are able to apply them in Mathematics concept.

5. Train the BRAIN

To give a game of “Snake and Ladder” an interesting twist, we reverse the rules with the kids. With the Up the Snake and slide Down the Ladder, the kids have lots of fun catching whoever confuses with the rules. Same goes for the card games where the smaller number card wins over a big number card.

What is learnt here: kids learn to think in unconventional way and their brains are trained to switch thinking from different perspective easily.

Do you have great fun games to entice kids in learning? Share with me!

I want my kids to experience house chores now

My sister-in-law told me that she ironed her clothes when she was only five years old. She was brought up in a family of 5 children.

Hence, every time I iron clothes, I would think of her ironing when she was my daughter’s age. Even though I do not need ironing help from my kids, I would still think if I should expose her to ironing at such a young age. Will she be able to handle the heat, the ironing strokes, the weight of the iron, etc?

However, I know young kids love to help out around the house. And I shall let them handle some simple chores so as to expose them to how things are being cleaned, wiped, mopped, swept, washed, and many others. It will serve as a skill exposure as well as fun learning for them.

So far, I have let them help out in the below chores which I think they are able to handle well:

1) Sweep the floor

They have helped to sweep the floor around the house. The first few times are more of sweeping the dust AROUND the house rather than into the dustpan.

Even if some things do go into the dustpan, they seldom end up correctly into the bin. You just have to teach them patiently and sweep thoroughly once again when they are asleep.

Appropriate age: 4 years and above

2) Wash the dishes

You have to separate out the lighter bowls and cutlery for them to wash. They may not be ready to handle the heavy pots and pans right now.

The idea is to let them try out how to dispense the detergent onto the dish sponge. Next, spread the detergent on the surface of the sponge evenly. Then apply onto the dishes on all surfaces including the exterior of the bowls (this step they will be very thorough and can easily soap for more than a minute for a small bowl). After that, they will wash the bowl under the tap, with one hand still holding the soapy sponge. That tickles me as I have not expected them to still hold onto the soapy sponge when rinsing the dishes.

Appropriate age: 4 years and above

3) Wash the teddies

I let my kids help to wash their own teddies and their favourite bolsters.

They put in the soap, on the tap, learn how to wash the surface of the teddies as though they are bathing them. They get to see how dirty the soapy water is.

After which they pour away the water and rinse and squeeze a few times till there are not much bubbles left. To speed up the drying, we put them into a big towel and spin dry in the washer. Finally, they helped out with the hanging of the bears and bolsters for airing under the sun.

Appropriate age: 3 years and above

4) Sewing

I believe my girl is able to handle the needle and thread at 6 years old. My boy would not be ready now.

Over the weekends, I did some animal felt craft with my kids, and when it came to the blanket stitches, I took over. As kids love to learn new things, I showed my girl how to sew the blanket stitch and let her try it out on her own. At first, she was too quick in pulling the needle and the thread came out loose. I love it that she learnt about the way to handle needle and she tried out a few stitches before she passed it back to me. So, there she gains another experience!

Appropriate age: 6 years and above

5) Cooking

There are many steps in the process of cooking. I am still not comfortable in letting my kids try out the cutting process where they have to handle knives. But the washing of vegetables, peeling, beating eggs are definitely more manageable. I have let them play around with making sushi, making jelly, putting the toppings on a pizza. You will be surprised how much they are able to help out.

Appropriate age: 4 years and above

Kids love to help, and love to try new things. There is no better time than now to let them learn while having fun.

As for ironing, I shall look into that when my girl turns 7 next year.

Do you have other simple chores for your kids too? Tell me about them!