Sophie has "graduated" from Nursery!

We completed her Chinese and English workbooks last week! Woo hoo!

We took about 5 months to do so and stopping for about a month when Levi was born. It's not a race but I just wanted to celebrate her efforts so each time she finished a workbook, we celebrated with a glass of milk and cookie! She loves that! She also got a book as a present. I remember I used to get book prizes in primary school and it was just such an encouragement and I felt so proud! She doesn't go to school so we just want to celebrate her efforts at home.

Yeah Sophie! You've done well and Mummy and Daddy are so proud of you!

I'm really thankful that we've managed to keep up the homeschooling this time round and Sophie has really flourished in both languages. I thank God for the strength. It hasn't been that much work on my part and we've kept to the books and basics but it helps that Sophie is a quick learner. Flipside is that she gets bored easily so lessons have to be quick and interesting. The Math book we got is too tedious for her so I stopped using it and only recently changed to another syllabus that is much more interesting (will write more about it next time.).

We take a "school" break for the next two weeks. We'll be in Vanuatu and I'm sure we'll have lots to learn on the journey. When we return, we'll start on the K1 books and new stuff. Excited

For a long time I really struggled with having to prepare Sophie for school, in case we decide to return to Singapore to put Sophie in Primary 1. Esp in the area of CHINESE! Eeeeks! I had Chinese tuition from Primary 3 all the way till JC2 and it didn’t help at all! I still hardly read or write.

I’m really thankful that James’ family speaks Mandarin at home. My mum in law is actually a Chinese teacher at a kindy! In fact, my own conversational Mandarin improved heaps when we got married and lived with them. I can even joke in Chinese now, don’t play play. Cantonese is another ball game altogether though. I still feel like I’m in another country when I’m with his family sometimes.

On our recent trip back, Sophie picked up quite a bit of conversational Mandarin because of the exposure even though most of the time my in laws spoke to her in English. Which just reminded me that language can only be really picked up if someone keeps speaking it, even if it was in drips and drapes! But it was good enough to get us going! She started answering in Mandarin if we spoke to her in Mandarin. Previously, she had refused! And guess what were her first words? NO!

Our conversations went something like this (in Mandarin, I’m not going to put my hanyu pinyin to the test so just imagine the conversation):-
Me: Sophie, would you like some bread for breakfast?
Sophie: NO!
Faint… I guess in any language, kids learn to say “NO!” first!
Argh…. Ok, better than nothing.

I was really encouraged and decided to continue doing that here.

We picked up a couple of Chinese audio CDs, videos and books from Maha Yuyi (They are located at Bras Basah Shopping Complex and they also have an online store.) and Popular Bookstore (They also have an online store). This was in addition to the storybooks we already bought in China last year. Btw, China has a great selection of storybooks for kids at really good prices e.g. S$3 per book.

Here’s how I selected them, bearing in mind that my own reading and writing ability for Chinese is also at preschool level:

For Story Books:
1. It must have Hanyu Pinyin! If it is accompanied by an audio CD, all the better!
2. Preferably only 1-2 sentences PER page. Beyond that, I can’t read fast enough and it’ll bore Sophie while I try to figure out the hanyu pinyin.
2. Stick to the plan. I figured out my aim for this year is for CONVERSATION and EXPOSURE. I’m not trying to get Sophie to be brilliant in reading and writing. So it has to be FUN and of interest to her! I simply chose story books that were of interest to her e.g. planting, cooking, dancing etc.

These are some of the books that we chose: -

Left: The Winnie the Pooh book, Two Little Cats, I can Read (the one with rabbits) and Wizard of Oz books were from Maha Yuyi. All of them come with audio CD except I can Read. Sophie loves the I Can Read book because it's stories of two little rabbits and their family. Very easy to read. The two pink books are from Popular and there are lots to choose from. Sophie and I really like these coz they are so relevant and so easy to understand and read. The fairy tale book comes in a set of stories and I think my in laws got them in China but I've seen them at Popular.

Right: This book is a treasure! I found it at Maha Yuyi. It shows how the Chinese characters were formed over the ages. Very visually interesting. Love it. It's more for me to stimulate my own interest, ha!

For Workbooks:
1. I prefer workbooks with topical sections with lots of opportunities for discussion and conversation rather than those that focused on writing and word recognition.
2. Instructions for each section needs to come with an example, in case I can’t read the instructions. HAHAHA!

This is the book that we’re using and I love it. It's from Popular. It really suits the level we’re at or I’m at (ha!). Sophie loves it too. She can go on for 10 pages at a time, which I think is pretty good! I’ve only been homeschooling her for a month or so and we’ve finished almost half the book! She can also recognize almost 10 Chinese words!

Why I like about this book
1. Word recognition through learning how the characters have been formed over the years, very visual (SO GOOD!). They even have creative ways to help the kids remember how the characters look.
2. No writing required. She just needs to draw links and do ticks or crosses.
3. Lots of opportunities for conversation and discussion. I notice that most of these local workbooks have incorporated civic and moral education e.g it is right to throw the rubbish in the bin and not on the floor (so Singaporean ah…). Very interesting and been quite good for me to teach them to Sophie.

For others e.g Media:

I just bought and tried whatever I could find. I wouldn’t say that they are the best around or that Sophie really enjoys them but seriously, for the price range that we can afford, the selection is quite limited.

These are some that we are using:-

Left: Very old school and cheena but quite good. Got that from John Little

Right: Good song selection with flash cards of Chinese characters. From Maha Yuyi.

P/s: – I also found out that it pays to be really humble at a Chinese bookshop and just tell the salesgirl that I’m really pathetic in Chinese and want find some stuff for my little girl. HELP! Oh yes, and now Sophie can say things like “Ma ma, wo yao che xiang jiao.” (Mum, I would like to eat a banana.) That’s pretty cool ya?

As mentioned in the previous post, I had in mind a daily plan but as I implemented it, I decided to improvise and added daily chores into our early morning routine.

Now that we do not have to rush out of the house for classes/meetings in the morning, it gave us some time to do some chores like washing the dishes, cleaning the house etc. At first I was doing it by myself but then I thought "Sophie can wash dishes!" so I got her to help and she’s amazing! Over those couple of days, she helped to wash up our breakfast and lunch dishes, with some supervision from me. Of course she uses too much detergent, figures out that putting a spoon under the tap makes a fountain and that squeezing lotsa soap makes it all the more fun and she leaves the water running BUT BUT overall, she gets the job done! While she does that, I can wipe the dishes and put them away! So so cool! Best part is she enjoys it! It’s a bit stressful for me I must admit at times when she handles the glass plates but I’m thankful she’s rather careful.

When we are done, we try to do one chore a day e.g. vacuuming/cleaning the windows. I try to assign her something that she can do like spraying soap and water and cleaning tables or silly things like wipe the doors. While I do the real work. Of course she doesn’t really know she’s not doing much but she loves it!

I hope we can keep this going because I doubt we’ll ever have a maid in our lifetime and I’m hoping if we start young, she’ll see that doing chores is what a family does together and not something that only mum does or a kid must be given a reward/paid to do it. Also I’m really hoping that she’ll be a good help when baby comes along. Hopefully the novelty doesn’t wear out! Will let you know

There are essentially 3 parts to the education she prescribes – living books, experiences and good habits.

Living books are books that are usually stories written by an author with a passion for the subject and the subject comes alive. For example, Sophie has a book called "The Little Rabbit" (It is part of the Before Five In A Row reading list. She’s almost read it to death! The edges are bent and slightly torn.) It’s a story about how a little girl’s pet bunny gives birth and the life of the bunny. It’s a really simple story but the pictures are real photos. From it, one can learn about the life cycle of a rabbit, differentiate a pet bunny from a wild bunny, know what rabbits eat etc. It’s not a dry textbook or encyclopedia. Sophie loves encyclopedia type books as well but reading living books triggers her love to know more and understand more. 

Experiences – Charlotte Mason believed in providing a child with real life experiences. Reading from a book is not enough. Experiencing nature and culture is also needed. Sophie gets that a lot here but not sure how to fully implement that when we return for good to Singapore.

Lastly, teaching good habits - I’ve not figured out how to incorporate this fully into our lives yet but we’re getting there. Charlotte Mason has a whole list of how to do this and it’s a pretty hard read and almost seem archaic. BUT BUT so much truth to it. Just needs real discipling and vision to implement it.

Well, we’re starting somewhere. Not every book we have in the house is a living book but we pay a lot of attention to the kind of books Sophie reads. The Sonlight P3/4 books that we bought somewhat subscribes to the Charlotte Mason philosophy but in comparison, I much prefer the Five In A Row books and manual. There are some stories in the Sonlight books that are repetitive (e.g. the Fairy Tales) and Fairy tales, I find, are rather gruesome! E.g. stomping giants, ugly witches and magic potions etc.

Nonetheless, for this season, we’re reading Fairy Tales, for exposure sake. It’s quite fun re-reading these stories for myself too! Just to share some stuff that we’ve been doing with these stories: -

Jack & The Beanstalk

We painted some plants and planted some herbs. I meant to do a little booklet with Sophie about parts of a plant and life cycle of a plant but the internet failed on me so didn’t manage to get materials in time.

Sleeping Beauty

We made a castle out of a tissue box, toilet rolls and egg carton. I sewed a pillow for "sleeping beauty". Took out the lovely princess dress up cut outs that Steph gave Sophie for her birthday last year and she played dress up with them for a bit.