I’m trying to get Sophie to practise her handwriting a bit more, especially her small letters. Her teacher at creche has been getting her to practise those that she’s been weak at, for example, "e". It’s so hard to write "e"! It’s really cool of her teacher to do that and she writes on these small pieces of paper. She’s been practising the letter "e", the number "5", and she’s practising how to do a tick. I really thank God for her teacher because I really haven’t had time to do regular homeschooling with Sophie.

However, with school coming to an end and this being a long weekend, I decided to get my lazy butt going and prepare some materials for the next few weeks.

I came across this cool website that allows you to input whatever words you want and it prints out a handwriting sheet! Voila! Brillant.

James very kindly gave us his cupboard space in his room. This is our homeschool material cupboard. Not the neatest but it is organised, to me that is!

The top three shelves are full of art and craft materials like paints, playdough, crayons, markers, lotsa egg cartons, cereal boxes, toilet rolls, coloured paper, drawing blocks etc for those whimsical crafty moments.

The second shelf up from the bottom is full of workbooks and flash cards for Chinese, English, Math and random colouring and puzzle books.

The bottom shelf is for me to store Sophie’s creations and all of our DTS/FMS notes and admin stuff.

So nice to have so much storage! I recycle tissue boxes and cut up the top and that serves as my boxes to sort out all the craft materials. We are not here forever so it just doesn’t make sense to buy nice baskets. Oh how I miss Daiso!

The homeschooling books that I ordered from Sonlight arrived in the mail yesterday!!! Almost 30 kg full of books!

Ooo there was so much excitement in the house! Sophie was happily checking out the books and so was I. She could recognise some stories from the books. They were the books that we already had back in Singapore but didn’t bring with us.

Ok more about what I bought: -

I decided to buy the P3/4 curriculum from Sonlight. First of all, because it is such a costly affair, I had to think long and hard about which curriculum to go with.

Several reason why we decided to go with Sonlight:-

One, it’s a Christian company and that’s the foundation of the books and curriculum they choose and plan. Two, they are very big on reading. They believe that children learn best through reading good books, not just textbooks. Hurray for that! Three, they include most subjects e.g language arts, history, science and they recommend third party Math curriculum. Pretty comprehensive. James was quite insistent on us trying to use a complete curriculum so that I don’t have to spent so much time planning and figuring out what to do in our first year of homeschooling. So nice. Four, great support and internet community. Very impt since we’re away. I had a real good experience with their customer support. And lastly, they give a 25% discount to missionaries and hurray to YWAM because all I needed to do was mention YWAM and immediately I got a discount, without even needing to give any proof! So it cost us about S$400 including shipping from the US. I think that’s pretty good considering the amount we needed to pay if we sent Sophie to nursery. Plus they are such great books that we can use in the future.

Next, I deliberated a long and hard over whether to get the P3/4 or the P4/5. The former is for 3-4 year olds and the latter for 4-5 year olds. I "browsed" the books through Amazon and decided on P3/4 instead. I was really tempted to go for P4/5 because being the kiasu Singaporean, I wanted to move one standard above where Sophie was at so that she can grow into it. And P4/5 also come with ABC learning books, readers, some interesting science books and 4 IQ building books plus a year-long curriculum all planned out. Super tempting! However the Read-Aloud books were, I feel, far too difficult for Sophie to sit through. Quite a few of them were Chapter books. I think at 3, that’s a bit too much.

SOOOOOOO, I decided, we’ll do well with the P3/4 read alouds. I prefer that Sophie doesn’t get put off reading and that she enjoys the books. There is a social studies one (Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day), science related books (Our Animal Friends At Maple Hill Farm and A Flip Flap book on Body from Usborne), a couple of sorting and puzzle toys. P3/4 doesn’t come with a year-long weekly curriculum, only a 3 trimester reading list with suggested activities, a little like Before Five In A Row. But it’s great coz with our schedules, I can be a bit more flexible.

For learning to read, Math and Chinese, we’ll just supplement with some workbooks. Btw, Popular back home is great for these pre-school workbooks. We’ve got one for Math and a Chinese. Btw, these Chinese workbooks should come with Pinyin for the instructions. Got me there man! I am also planning to buy Reading Made Easy, comes highly recommended.

We’re all set for the year! Sophie’s been asking to read the books ALL THE TIME!

Anyways I think that whether we homeschool or not, the reading list from Sonlight for each grade is still a great reference for books to borrow from the library/buy for our kids. Btw, P3/4 also came with a story book published by Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) on a missionary’s experience! How cool is that!

So if you are looking for good books to buy, do take a look at the Sonlight list first. Another good book list is from the next step up from Before Five in A Row called Five in A Row.

Our little one can count pretty confidently up to 5 things now. No messing with her – 4 pancakes means 4 pancakes.

Beyond 5 tho, sometimes she gets a little muddled up. Being rather stubborn at times, she’ll insist she counted 7 when it’s 8 so it gets frustrating trying to reason with her.

But these pretty velcro counting thingy (no clue what it’s called but it’s from a Montessori learning set that my godsis passed down to us) really helps her to learn and have fun sorting and counting.

Sophie going to school. I took this picture specially for you, godma n godpa, notice the bag and hat.

Behind her is the daycare she goes to every morning.

As some of you know, the childcare teachers in her school are all volunteers and they are different every school term (a term being 3 months, either during the DTS or FMS). When there is no DTS/FMS running, there’ll be no daycare.

For this DTS, Sophie has 5 daycare teachers – Tina (our school leader’s wife), Wan Lin (our friend from Singapore), Sunnie (from Korea), Misun (from Korea) and Lydia (from Sweden). Tina and Wan Lin are the English speaking ones and are more experienced while the rest struggle a bit more with the language. Halfway through the school, Wan Lin and Sunnie are leaving to do their DTS and then 2 other Canadian girls are coming to replace them.

It can be a little disruptive but thank God the kids adjusted pretty well. In fact, there was only one child who cried in the beginning when he was left at childcare. The rest of the kids did really well. Sophie cried on one of the days because the other kid cried but other than that, she’s pretty well adjusted too.

Tina is really good with the kids and the kids really love her. They have been learning a lot of new songs and Sophie’s singing all sorts of songs. Wan Lin’s been a great help at the daycare and she really helped to make really nice pictures and arty things with the kids.

It’s been such a blessing to have Sophie at the daycare and see her loving it.

This is Sophie’s first full figure drawing – with a face, dress, legs, one hand (hee). She even drew a scab on the dress. When I asked her what it was she pointed to her own leg and said that she fell down, referring to the scab.

The time that she has been spending with Matilda who’s five has been really good. Matilda draws really well for a 5 year old and Sophie’s been influenced by her. Both of them would just hang out and draw.

Here’s a nice picture of Sophie and her daycare friends and teachers! Don’t they look lovely????? Hee.

They took a picture in front of the lovely sunflowers the day before a storm came by and swept away all the flowers!

The third and fourth day of daycare for Sophie has been a bit more challenging.

Yesterday when we arrived, another girl was crying and that affected Sophie who was already a bit shaky. But we quickly brought Sophie out and let her play on the trampoline and that did the trick. She started playing and then said bye quite willingly. Bianca, the daycare teacher took over and we quickly left for class.

However, in the afternoon, Sophie woke up early from her nap and I had to leave class to get her and put her at the daycare. For the previous two days, it was more free and easy and I could stay with her when she woke up from her nap. We also use a baby monitor to check on her so we can get her when she wakes up from her nap. She is normally sleeping in the unit while we are in class.

The Sophie after nap takes a longer time to settle so she cried when I had to leave her at daycare. But the teachers were good at distracting her and then after a while she told them that she wanted to go lie down and rest, so she did! That’s what I like about the daycare, the kids pretty much did whatever they wanted, of course within boundaries. So she laid on the mattress at the daycare until I came to get her about ½ hr later, after class.

Today again she cried when we were about to leave in the morning. But we had to say bye and then leave. The teacher said she settled and then was pretty ok throughout. Another classmate of ours who brought her two year old a little later said her daughter also cried but she said Sophie was ok by then. But as I was leaving with James, I felt so bad and so tempted to go back and just bring Sophie home.

I’m praying that it’ll get better tomorrow!
 

Sophie was a bit tired and whiny today. She woke up at 7am so by 12pm or so she was getting really tired.

She told her teacher "I want to go to my special place". She prob meant her cot. Hee… Her teacher said she was putting her head in the pillow while she was reading to her. So cute lah. When we went to get her at almost 1pm, she looked so glad to see us, I felt a little bad. But she has been doing quite well. I think she was missing us because she stuck to Agatha and didn’t want her to leave. Agatha who is 12 is her fav person at the moment.

I could see Sophie from our class room during break time and I saw her playing in the sand pit and running around. I think she really enjoys being with the kids. She keeps saying that she wants to go to school so I think she’s happy there. All the kids were a little more tired today. They all looked a little stoned out at lunch. Hee. Maybe too much sun. For the first time Sophie slept for 2 hrs during her nap.

Creche room with Sophie’s fav che che Agatha from Slovekia.

For more photos, click thru this picture to our flickr site.

It’s the first day of school for all of us today.

This is the schedule for most days
9am – 12.45pm – School for all
12.45 – 2pm – Lunch for all
2 – 3.15pm – School for all (Sophie naps)
3.15pm – 5.30pm – Work duties (Alternate days, fridays and weekends are free for those parents with young children, that means us)
5.30pm – Dinner
Most nights are free except Monday nights where we have a Marriage Video to watch.

For today, we had breakfast together as family in our home unit before base worship. Base worship is when the entire base gathers together for worship. That happens every Monday. That includes all the kiddos! Ooo it was so cute to see all the kids take different percussion instruments and flags and started playing and waving around, just for fun, not necessarily in tune or according to beat. So nice.

After worship at 9.50am, we brought the kids to the creche/homeschool. There are 3 ladies looking after about 2 babies, 3 toddlers and 2 that are 4-5 years old. For a start they’ll all be together but when it comes to nap/craft time, they will be separated 3 ways – babies have a little room with cots, the toddlers have a room and the kindy kids have another room of their own. The older ones have a homeschool room where they can do their work with someone watching over them. During playtime, they’ll all play in the big playground where there is a trampoline, swings, play cars, and a little adventure area where they can climb up and down.

Sophie was already quite familiar with the play area so she quickly settled in. Her fav che che Agatha was there so she was very happy. We said bye and left. That went pretty easily.

During our tea time (about 11.15pm), James and I took turns to pop in to see her. I brought her hat for her coz it was getting quite sunny (It alternates between sun and rain thru the day). When I left, she started to cry! ooooo… but her teacher said she was easily distracted and stopped quickly. Phew!

So thank God Sophie did very well on her first day – almost 3 hrs on her own at the creche.

On our side, the staff did the introductions and sharing about their life stories. As usual, YWAM style – total openness. We spent the afternoon working on a collage on our personal life – from birth till now. It’s our turn tomorrow to share using these collages.

After lunch, I took Sophie back to the unit for a nap while James went back to class to work on his collage while I did mine in the home unit. Sophie was supposed to go back to creche at 2pm but she didn’t wake up till 3pm so I decided to just keep her in the unit and spend time with her. We had tea and did a bit of homeschooling. I’m still trying to figure out how to let her nap and go back to class. From tomorrow onwards, we will have afternoon sessions.

It’s starting to feel a bit more Christmasy around our home. I finally got down to planning a countdown for Sophie to help her understand the meaning of Christmas! Instead of a 24 days Advent calendar, I have the improvised quick fix one – 8 days! Hahaha! Better than nothing!

Day 1
We started Day 1 yesterday by fixing up our Christmas tree! Ok not we, just James and Sophie, I was busy taking pictures! Finally! Just 1 more week to Christmas! With all the boxes lying around, we had to dig out a space to put up the tree. One of our family traditions (er ok, we only have 1 so far… hiak!) is to buy a new Christmas ornament every year. We got this in Brisbane for this year.

Day 2
Today is Day 2. We got down to making Christmas cards, somewhat. All my grand plans of making different types of cards with Sophie turned into one big fingerpainting exercise. Oh wells!

 Prints for Christmas

The other thing we did was to set up a Nativity scene……….. er……… with our multi purpose Happyland Farm set! Wah hahahaha…. the Farmer is now Joseph and his wife is Mary. Pretty convenient huh? I handmade (Hahaha!) a star using origami paper and it really looks like a nativity scene. My original plan was to make the scene from scratch. Ya right. Maybe next year if I start now. But I love it. It sits next to the tree and it served as an excellent teaching tool for Sophie to learn about Christmas. She tried to put baby Jesus to bed.

Nativity scene next to Christmas tree

And finally, we try to read different versions of a Christmas story to Sophie every night – traditional, modern interpretations, the bible itself etc. Oh yes, and we’ve been playing Christmas songs all day. I bought a Veggie Tales Christmas soundtrack off iTunes yesterday – it’s ok, quite funny! She’s now able to sing Jingle Bells and Away in the Manger, sometimes she mixes up the lyrics from the different stanzas but it’s super nice to hear her sing them!

Join us for the countdown….

We watched this last Sat.

I’m not quite sure what it really was but somehow I found that last year’s was much better. Generally this year, the sound was very soft and couldn’t capture the attention of the kids sufficiently and as a result, the kids were rather noisy and distracted. At certain points I couldn’t hear the conductor.

And I was waiting for Uncle Peter the conductor to tell a story but they didn’t this year. Last year he told a story and the music followed the movements of the story.

Nonetheless, we enjoyed the entire process very much. Just the opportunity to sit in the concert hall to listen to the SSO and not having to be quiet is a good thing.