Time for ER to do some work

He's been watching AN do her homework and asking "How about Ethan's homework?"

Whenever he's ready I will be. He just doesn't seem interested in holding his pencil to write or draw. And I dont want to make him do it.

AN started slightly earlier. About this time, AN could write her name. She wasn't familiar with letter back then but she could write well.

This boy is fast at recognising letters and nunbers. He knows 1-10 and all 26 uppercase letters before he turned two. But he's not interested in writing. 

I'm going to strike while the iron is hot. 

Since he asked, he'll practise drawing lines while AN revises her spelling words this evening.

School

Since beginning of this year, AN has been given weekly 听写 and this quarter, she has to learn her spelling.

She has formally informed me that she doesn't like chinese. It's no surprise to me (I didn't like to do Chinese too). But for the sake of school and her future, she has to learn as much of it as possible.

Compared to most mums, I'm actually not giving her too much work. It's mostly only what school expects, and what music expects.

I thought she's stronger in English. She didn't have to learn her English spelling much and could spell simply using phonics, with the occasional 'k/ph instead of c/f', '2 l instead of 1' etc.

Her spelling tests came back with stars.

Then complacency sets in: her, and me. I only needed to know she can spell and I won't make her practise writing those words repeatedly (unlike chinese).

This time, she made a mistake: a missing "d" in the word "behind".

Because she didn't hear Ms Ivy pronounce "behin-D-".

-____-"

So, it's advisable to practice writing repeatedly. Because most Singaporeans do not pronounce our "D", "T", "P" and "TH" becomes "F".

I make it a point to remind her to speak clearly because she can spell IF she can pronounce those words. Otherwise "behind" becomes "behin".

Chinese, on the other hand, requires considerable practice. It's really not easy. She's writing words that according to my cousin's son "some of these words I learnt last year in Primary 4!" (when he saw her practising during my grand father's wake).

What??

But practise makes perfect. That's what I hope.

She's been rewarded with perfect scores for her 听写 up till now. *phew* but her adverse emotions towards Chinese started after this.

Goodbye to interest on learning. Pressure really kills interests.

For now, she still obediently practises when she's required to. I hope this goes on.

She still enjoys doing her enrichment books.

Let's see when school is going to kill that enjoyment.

Sigh...

"I Didn't Teach You" She Said

http://www.littleflowertwointow.blogspot.sg/2013/02/please-don.html

Some time ago, I was nursing ER to sleep and for the first time ever, she gave AN help with her assessment books.

I mentioned too that I heard her attempting to teach English and preferred that she sticks to teaching AN Chinese because her English is really......sigh...she really should know better.

After 2 weeks of 'break', AN is itching to start working on the exercises again.

We started with Chinese.

And there was 1 mistake. I asked AN if she did it herself because if she did, 1 mistake is very good results because she's only at lesson 4 of Han Yu Pin Yin (HYPY) in this book (and not in school yet).

Children are frank. She replied: "Nai nai taught me. How will I know how to do? You not around that day."

Hmm.....

Ok, HYPY is the english form of chinese. Maybe she should just stay out of coaching her, totally.

Appreciate the effort, but no thanks.

AN argued with me that nai nai can't be wrong because she's a 'chinese person' and I'm 'english person'.

HYPY is the english version of chinese. I overlooked that. And my daughter actually doubted me?

She's really intrusive, whether she means it or not. Her presence already is.

AN then went to tell nai nai that she taught her wrongly.

Guess what? Nai nai denied ever teaching her anything.

HUH?!

She said she totally has no recollection about teaching AN and insisted that she wasn't the one who taught her.

She laughed at AN saying grandma's memory is not THAT bad to not remember teaching her anything if she did.

Ok.

If I hadn't blogged about it earlier, I'd be wondering if AN was hallucinating, or if I was.

She forgot she did.

Warning: Negative Thoughts Ahead!

I never forgot what she did though, throughout my entire relationship with her son.

And I will never. She's my Nineveh. She'll be here for good, and because of her, my goodness are all gone.

Because of her, I see no reason to be kind, patient and forgiving. The only reasons I smile now is because I still love my children. And I smile at flashes of my life with Baileys and Maen.

My heart is now cold and filled with hatred that can only increase with every negative encounter with her. And we meet daily, forever. That's nice.

How do I stop it?

Please don't....

I'm lying with ER to sleep and AN doesn't want to nap.

She's outside and dying to start on her daily exercises.
Under such a circumstance, she'll usually be constantly barging into the room to check if ER is asleep.

Today, I hear nai nai helping her outside. FINALLY, A CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION INSTEAD OF KEEPING THE KIDS GLUED TO TV WHILE SHE CHATS ON THE PHONE.

But as I listened on, I heard her switching from Chinese, to Maths, to English. That's AN's style. She probably is teaching AN as according to the little girl's requests.

And I panicked coz MIL is reading to her in her very imperfect English.

Mr Liow and I are concerned that AN is speaking broken English. She doesn't need to speak perfect English but her English is direct translation of Mandarin with sound effects instead of descriptive words very often.

And many times, we don't understand her English. That's bad.

I'm trying to quickly get away from ER now so that I can take over!

AN usually does her own reading from exercise books as she does what the questions ask of her. She has to be able to read before she can answer questions.

And reading out loud helps her get used to proper English sentence structures too.

MIL spoon feed her. With wrong pronunciations. Bad combo.

Call me unappreciative but tough work is not teaching my kids. Tough work is trying to do damage control.

Won't she just stick to helping AN with Mandarin?

I really need to regain control over many things..

Busy

When I was 6 years old, I remember myself cycling, playing at the beach, badminton with mum and brother, shopping, playing tv games....and doing nothing related to studies or enrichment classes (music started only when I was 7).

Poor kids these days start early.

There are Primary 1 preparation classes available. And AN's school offers that for full day students.

I read about the enrichment classes S goes for and am a little worried AN isn't getting enough. She's only going for music lessons besides school.

So, I went to ask around a little and realized those preparation classes are basically lots of working on actual Primary 1 books. Some model a big classroom environment.

The auntie-ness in me decided it's more economical to get her books to work on with her at home and probably start her on full day in school later in the year to benefit from the prepatory class.

She loved those books I got and immediately pleaded to start doing them. And if no one says stop, I think she'll be able to complete all 3 books in a month..

I set a limit for her to complete an exercise of each subject each day though. More only if she's done with her music and revision for 听写.

Whenever she starts "working" and momentum kicks in, she "automatically" goes through all assignments without being asked to.

Somehow, watching her enjoy what I personally find stressful makes me feel less guilty making her practice on Primary 1 stuff prematurely, and relieved that she's spending her time more effectively than having nothing to do at my mum's place after school.

My worry is that something will kill her interest in learning along the way. My impatience is one of them and I promised I'll try to not be too.fierce.

I'm thankful AN enjoys learning. As with most mums, I struggle with coaxing the kids into doing things they may not want to do each day (don't want to eat, don't want to sleep, don't want to empty their bladder in the toilet...and list goes on.)

I can't be any more thankful that getting AN to do homework is no struggle. *phew*

Updates

ER
ER started having runny nose about 2 weeks ago. It didn't blossom into the dreaded bronchitis! He's either outgrowing it, or Flixotide did help. It was purely managing the usual cough and runny nose without much emphasis on his panting, which didn't happen for the second time it threatened to attack. Thank God!

ER's potty training is still in progress. I've no guts to take away diapers. Am only putting him on potty on a more regular basis. He's not ready. He pees randomly and doesn't tell me when he needs to go. But he does look down at his diapers as he pees. And he feels the warmth of fresh pee seeping into his diaper with his hands. I'll inform him that he peed and has to tell me if he needs to go.

He is able to pee on command though (unless he peed not too long ago). I'll put him on the potty, he goes "mmmmm" and pee shoots out, even if it's only a couple of drops. Hehe.

He's going through the terrible two. There are extremely difficult days and extremely enjoyable ones.

He's getting difficult to put to bed at night, screaming to be let out to continue playing regardless of how late.

Eating is still his struggle, as is feeding him MY test of patience.

AN
AN is improving on her reading and word recognition BUT she forgot some small letters! I panicked when I realised she forgot how to write "h" in small caps and gets confused with "b" and "d".

Omgoodness....

What else?

Ermm...

These few weeks had been busy. Something's going to change but Mr Liow wants to keep it a surprise. When it finally happens, I'll announce. BUT! I am NOT pregnant

That's about all to update for now.

:)

Talk and Talk

We were in Mr Liow's car and AN hadn't stopped talking.

I commented to Mr Liow in Hokkien (which is, translated as): "She's been talking for an hour and still talking about the same thing."

She then stopped, and said: "Mummy, I know you are talking about me. You are saying that I talk and talk for one hour and still talking."

Lol! I need to master Cantonese as a fourth language!

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

Mr Liow was helping AN with her chinese assessment book and reading the instructions out in Mandarin.

AN looked lost and requested: "Daddy, can you explain that in English?"

High Fever

AN was ok when she went to school in the morning yesterday. She looked fine when I fetched her from school. Then after her nap, she looked tired still. She was lethargic the whole evening and by 8 pm, the moment we reached home, she said she was tired.

It wasn't her usual behaviour, so I thought I should just check her temperature and true enough, she was running a high fever of 39.4°c.

The kids have recovered (finally!). AN had been well for a week and ER for almost a week too. She didn't appear unwell or complain of pain anywhere.

So, fever, where have you come from and what's your reason for visiting this time?

She's staying home today. In her half awake state, she touched my arm and reminded me to inform her teacher that she's having a high fever. I think she's secretly happy.

Just hope this fever successfully burns away whatever that's attempting to harm her.

And today is a good day to finally start working on her project! She wants to do one on Desert for her Layers and Landforms of Earth. I'll probably get up earlier to search the web for info, picture s and craft ideas.

Her first project at K1.

Location : 403 Fernvale Ln,

Days of the Week

AN had been practising writing her days of the week for months. It's been hard getting her to remember which was which day.

Then, like how she got potty trained 2.5 years ago, she suddenly got it. For a while, I can't believe how she just wasn't able to remember. I didn't expect her to spell. I only thought she should just recognise and know which word is which.

Then soon after, with Mr Liow prompting her to spell them out loud, she is now able to spell them out verbally (only Monday-Friday). Writing them out still confuses her to a certain extent. See the little mistakes with caps and small letters. And when she verbally spells Friday, she does it right. When writing it, she keeps adding in a letter "s".

Good enough.

Good job, baby.

Enjoying Schoolwork

I know it sounds wierd that AN had been working on improving her (super simple) addition during the whole vacation but that was what she enjoyed each day!

I brought a few books to read to her but we ended up reading only 1. She wanted to bring her assessment book too, so into the luggage it went.

The few nights before we packed it in, she couldn't stop working on the sums. I had to remind her to take it slow. Otherwise she will run out of sums to do during our trip.

So, after washing her up each day at the hotel, she would beg for either of us to help her.

Last night, before she fell asleep, she remembered she hadn't done a single sum and starting sobbing.

"Mummy, I forgot to do my school work today...tomorrow I want to do a lot."

Because we allowed her to watch TV (for being cooperative these few days), she forgot about her math. And she felt guilty, or simply sad.

AN is unlike what I expect in a child. I did schoolwork only because I had to. I practiced my music, only because my teacher would check on my progress weekly.

AN is familiar with school pieces and has mastered Cannon in D (super simplified version) because she heard me play it and loved it. She remembered it was our wedding song from our DVD.

She learnt the melody (short and simple first part only) by listening, and I showed her 2-note chords to accompany her right hand. She spent the half of the day, randomly turning on the electone to practice. That same night, she asked me to listen and she performed it for me.

I finally feel what my father felt whenever he heard me play for him when I was little. The enthusiasm emitted from that little body is extremely contagious!

I don't think AN is gifted though. I'm just glad she enjoys what she has to do. For that I'm very very thankful!

Liow Zu Er

She enjoys writing chinese characters. She was interested to learn when I showed her how her chinese name was written and she had been writing them everywhere since then.

I thought her chinese characters look really neat for a 5 year old. Hehe. Maybe it's beauty in the eyes of beholder again

(^______^)

The Earth Under Our Feet

AN learnt about our earth in January.

In one of her lesson, Miss Sue asked the kids to draw what they thought were underground.

I was more captivated by what AN drew was above the ground: our family, particularly ER in my arms.

But, no Baileys and Maen.

She still asks about them but we can see she is starting to forget them...

Painful because Mr Liow and I just spent our first Chinese New Year without our Baileys.

And no matter how much fun we had recently because of the holidays, it was not the same. It will never be the same again.

AN's Earth

Earth has various inner layers: Inner core, outer core, mantle and crust (the most general model)


This is AN's earth

That's a fun way to learn! Why wasn't I taught to remember lessons in this way?

She got the idea

So, AN has really gasped the idea of word blending. As of now, she's only capable of 2 letters. I asked her how to spell words like "on", "of" (and "off"), "at", "an", "it", "in" etc and she does it for me. She's attempting simple 3 letters like "and" because there's only 1 letter "d" more than "an" which she already knows (besides those 3 lettered words that end with "an" and "at"...yes, we are still at these because I had been so preoccupied with the clingy ER who is my koala bear baby and haven't taught her new words)

Phonics is amazing! We used to learn to spell by memorising but with phonics now, as long as you know how that word sounds, you will be able to spell, or at least get the spelling nearly as right. And it doesn't matter if you are only 4 years old (and even younger kids who can already spell because their parents taught them early).

Why didn't we learn phonics in school when we were young???

AN learns to spell

I'm an impatient teacher. Had been teaching AN 3 letter words and going very very slow. I've only touched on words ending with "an" and "at" but there are some days she forgets. She knows how each letter sounds and can blend them but to have her read out that word, she gets it wrong sometimes.

Maybe I expect too much. It's not as if she doesn't know those words. She needs time to get used to blending letters, given that she has only started learning phonics for less than 6 months and only sounds if individual letters.

Then something miraculous happened in the past week. She recognized "to"!! Each time we read now, she looks out for the word "to" and read it out. That includes the word "too", for obvious reasons. Hehe.

And today, while she was typing away on the notepad of my iPod touch like she used to enjoy doing (that was where she learnt spell her own name since she was slightly less than 3, before she learnt to write letters), she typed the word "of" and excitedly ran to show us.

I was so proud of that!! I haven't taught her "of". I thought we can take it slow and start alphabetical order.

Got to remember not to force her to learn...she will learn if learning is fun. If it'd pressurizing, she'll hate learning.

Judy, remember!!

Parent-Teacher Meeting

Had my first parent teacher meeting this morning at Shekinah.

The session was well organized with 5 mins allocated at each 'station' with the teacher in charge of each subject 'based' there.

First up was Miss Sue who's in charge of Project Approach. The kids had learnt about themselves (parts of their body, skeletal structure etc) last term, and animals this one (categories of animals: mammals, amphibians, reptiles etc, animals as pets and so on). With these themes, they learnt by watching short programs, making craft work, coloring, doing matching exercises etc. Miss Sue said AN loves craft work and is one of the few students who can do her own cutting. AN started random cutting after her 2nd b'day. She had ample practice! Miss Sue also said AN is one of her favorite and is very much like her own daughter at this age.

Next up was 杨老师 (chinese teacher, Miss Yang) who teaches Chinese. She too has good reviews on AN, saying that she's very participative in class, outspoken and willing to learn. She's so eager that Miss Yang has started teaching her to write 手 (hand) because AN started practicing it on her own exercise book by herself. This word belongs to part of her syllabus for next term and she asked if we had been teaching her at home. I'm ashamed to say that I had been really caught up with ER and not been spending enough time coaching AN. But she's cultivated her own routine of sitting down for some writing exercises after she gets home from school and had lunch at my parents' place. She learnt to write her chinese characters all by herself and surprises mum and I each time she shows her work to us after she finished writing.

At the last 'stop', I met Miss Ivy, AN's form teacher who teaches them Maths and English. Like AN's other teachers, Miss Ivy had sweet things to say of AN too. According to her, AN is very keen to learn and learns fast too. She takes a lesson or 2 to teach AN numbers with number rod (some Montessori teaching tool) and AN mastered it in a session. She's now teaching AN Spindles. Was told AN speaks well (huh???? I am quite frustrated that AN had been speaking really broken English since we came back....)..but she probably meant AN is verbally expressive (regardless of the quality of her language skill). And that AN is strong in both Maths and her English. She asked if AN had been attending enrichment classes before we returned. Yes, if Gymboree is enriching enough (it sure is! AN loved all the fun activities so much and I missed watching her go through them each time we went...)

It is encouraging to hear that AN enjoys learning and learns well, is very likeable in class by all her teachers and peers alike etc...but I thought it would be nice to hear something else about AN. Not that I hope to hear that my daughter hadn't been behaving, but AN is not perfect. I wanted to know if her teachers have the same problems with her in school like I have when I teach her. It does get on my nerves when she's easily distracted, and stubborn (insisting that I teach her something else, or that I'm not teaching her correctly...-____-"').

Miss Ivy agreed that AN does day dream. She gets distracted by her friends sometimes or stares into space. The good thing is, she's able to snap AN back and when AN finds her way out of her dream, she's still able to continue from where she left off and needs not go back to the starting point and redo her activity.

Ok, at least in this aspect, AN is not too different in school (that she day dreams).

But Miss Ivy insisted that AN is not stubborn in class at all. She mentioned that many children are different in school because of the environment. So, AN being stubborn at home may not necessary mean she will be in school. 

Good to know, because if she's stubborn in school, that will make it hard for teachers to teach her..and for her to learn.

At the end of the 15 mins, I was very assured that AN had been learning well and that she's not a slow learner like I'd been worried about. In fact, from all 3 teachers' feedback, I wondered if I should be tapping more on her eagerness to learn before it dwindles off in the next few years. Was considering enrichment classes because of this, BUT BUT BUT...with enrichment classes, will she feel overwhelmed and have her enthusiasm killed prematuredly??

I think, we'll just stick to music, and probably something dance-related (she had been asking when she'll be going for dance lessons. hehe).

For now, I'm thankful that she's enjoying school, enjoying lessons and enjoying all the academic exposure she's receiving and is even seeking out more on her own. 

Below are some of her work from her lessons for the past 5 months. 

Yes, she's behind that chicken mask.

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The Sick-s

Haven't expected myself to be having this little time to sit in front of the computer!

Mum took AN out coz Mr Liow has to work back in the office despite today being Saturday (no choice coz he's rushing something). Mum actually said she had something on today when I called last night, asking if I could go over to their place this morning with the kids. ER is sick and needy, and AN being 4 years old, will have lots of "can I do this" that I need someone to help me attend to.

And because mum loves this little girl (more than she loves me, but that doesn't mean she doesn't love me too. muahahah!), she made her way over to our place, waited for AN to wake up, and then took her out to the library and to Popular to get some books for her to do 'school work' on. AN still LOVES to do school work. Her teacher packed her exercise books back for us to go through with her and she had been insisting the whole night that her teacher allowed her to bring those books back because she had to finish EVERY single exercise.

That is not possible because there are so many left to be done! Unless the teacher is not sane.

I let her do some of those exercises though. Better than have her stare at the 'box' (television) right?

ER is now resting, and with AN out of the house. and MR Liow at work, I'm resting. I should be sleeping coz I had practically no sleep last night. Poor feverish ER kept waking up and whining in discomfort. At one point, I even had to bring him out of the room to walk him before he woke AN up, at about 4 am.

But I should not sleep now because there's a baby shower in the afternoon (which is like, now).  I'm waiting for Mr Liow to come back, join them for a bit and then leave before we pass anything to the one old baby boy.

Aww....babies.....

AN has sticky mucus (which I'm having fun pulling out from her nose) but appears alright otherwise. She said: "green and sticky mucus means I'm recovering!". That was what I told her after reading about signs of recovery some months ago.

ER is not having fever by now, but still leaking mucus and coughing as a result of his stuffy nose.

From the kids' room, I heard Mr Liow coughing the whole night too. Have I also mentioned my father is also sick? Same symptoms.

Maen has an appointment with the vet at 3.30pm later. Dr Chua will not be in. The pharmacist (nurse? receptionist? assistant?) said she will not be able to tell who will be seeing Maen this afternoon when I asked. But it doesn't matter. I don't think her ear can wait for Dr Chua to be around :(

The Lord must have His reasons for sustaining me through both rounds of virus attacks. I may probably fall sick at the end of it, and fall even more sick than any of them in the family. But I'm thankful that being well allows me to fully care for all of them (except my father whom we do not stay with. He still brought me lunch yesterday despite being unwell himself. I know, I have very wonderful parents! But it took me many many years to see beyond rivalry with my brother for attention and always thinking they favor him).

ER will recover. It's Maen I'm worried about. She managed to wriggle her way out of her e-collar.

&*^$)&*#@)%$&@

Pray that it's nothing too serious :( She can still hear. This I'm sure, because she was the first to appear when I opened up their food bank for their breakfast, and she barked at the karang guni man who was such a nuisance early in the morning.

What went wrong....? :(