Certified!

Yes!! We've got our COE! To a Singaporean - the COE is the Certificate of Entitlement to buy a new car. But that's not the COE we managed to get. We got a Certificate of Exemption from Compulsory Education. So now it's time to get down to the schemes of work and scheduling.

Last week, Sarah was conferred the title of "Gymnast of the Year" for her class in Prime Gymnastics Club. It was a surprise to us. She was elated, and couldn't stop talking about it for a few days. Well, I hope she'll be able to get "homeschooler of the year" from us in the coming year.

Holidays! Milestones

It's holidays again. Til the end of the year. We've started our homeschool holidays 2 weeks early because the kids have been signed up for some intensive Chinese classes every day for the next 3 weeks. Ben is going for Speech and Drama, and Sarah for Oral and Comprehension.

I hope to do tidying up and spring cleaning of the WHOLE house, but bit by bit of course. Send kids for class, come home and tidy up for 1 hour before fetching them. Don't know if it'll work, because alas, I realise I must also prepare lunch! Gymnastics is still ongoing 3x a week.

Milestones

Yesterday, at Mama and GongGong's place, Sarah finally hopped onto a two-wheeler all by herself, pushed herself off, and rode down the road. She then turned and rode back. I was so proud of her accomplishment. We had been running with her wobbling about for ages, so this was really a proud moment.

Sunday School - Sarah is now in the bigger kids class, P1-P3. With Aunty Mei as teacher. They have just begun a new series called Children Desiring God by John Piper. Sarah remarked that she liked Aunty Mei's class, and went up to Aunty Mei to tell her. An encouraging moment for Aunty Mei indeed.

Ben is now without his sister in his Kindergarten Sunday School class At first he refused to attend, I had to take him in and sit him on my lap. But once he saw what the others were doing, he joined in, and everything was OK from there.

Gabriel now feeds himself rice at mealtime. He must have his white rice alone first before he'll eat any other protein or vege. Strange behaviour. He has also begun to tell us when he needs to poo. Great! He talks in sentences, but most of the time, I cannot decipher what he is saying.

Today's sermon was a summary of Ephesians. The main thrust was the grace and peace of God bestowed upon us in Jesus Christ. Wonderful Grace of Jesus. And the deep deep love of the Lord in electing, calling and justifying us. May we meditate on this and find this love and peace in our hearts so that we too can share this love and peace with others.

CE application

Finally printed out the application and supporting documents for the exemption from Compulsory Education.  Going to file it up, photocopy my certs and send it in.

Truth and Righteousness

Ephesians 6:13-14

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness.

"Stand" seems to be an important word here, appearing 3 times.  "Withstand" implies a resistance to something... the evil that will be rampant in the "evil day".  Having done that, we are told to "stand".  To be upright.  Not to be lying down.   We do not merely stand, only to be knocked down again by the evil that abounds, but we are to stand with armour, defending and attacking.

Truth must surround us.  What truth?  The absolute truth of the Word of God!  Not some airy-fairy, post-modern 'truth' which cannot stand the test of time.  Only the Word of God as our belt, upon which we can hang our sword and other important parts of our armour.

The breastplate protects the largest, most exposed part of our bodies, and this must be righteousness.  Again, it is not our own brand of righteousness.  It can only be the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to us.  This holy righteousness is free from weak areas, holes and kinks.  This is the only righteousness that can be depended upon to protect us from the darts of the evil One.

Practically, all this means that we must spend time getting to know the truth of God's Word in the Bible.  We must ensure that we put on the correct breastplate, believing in Jesus ALONE for salvation.  Today, when temptations come at us, we shall be able to stand and withstand.  Praise the Lord.

Against Cosmic Powers

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

We are in a fight. A wrestling match. But not against fellow man. The principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age.... what are they? I gave Sarah a word search puzzle related to this verse to do today. She had difficulty finding some of the words, so she ended up circling two very insightful 'words' - TV and IT!!!

I do believe that it is through the TV and the computer (more specifically the Internet), that these rulers of darkness have their primary dominion. When we switch on the TV, or casually browse the Internet, we enter their world. Be careful not to take anything out and back into God's kingdom. If you can, don't let these dominions into your home at all! Spend too much time in these dominions, and we'll soon have PR there. Be warned. These spiritual hosts of wickedness are in the heavenly places. We might not be able to see them, but they are in the ideas propagated, the visuals we see, the little bits of omissions that we are liable to make. BEWARE!! We are to wrestle against these, never allowing them to gain the upper hand.

Hiatus...again, eczema report and Compulsory Education

*sigh* It's just that I've been so lazy to blog. Ok Ok, I promise I'll blog more regularly. I know that nobody really reads this blog, it's merely cathartic for me, and serves as a written record of what's happening in our homeschool, or wherever.

On the eczema front, it still bothers me, but less so. For the past 3 weeks, I've had only one real flare-up. Of course, it still itches, but it seems to be much more manageable. Perhaps it's the Neem, perhaps it's the visit to the foot spa TCM place in Yishun, very likely it's due to the fact that HDB has completed cementing works near our block. Or perhaps because I'm much more consistent in applying my moisturizers and creams. I still have to sweep up piles of dried skin from various places around the house every day. I'm trying to sleep earlier, wake up a little earlier to do the ironing, instead of ironing late at night. This is more difficult because Gabriel has an erratic waking time. Sometimes, before I can apply the iron to the first garment, he wakes up. Other times, like today, he allowed me to iron for 1 whole hour before I woke him up. But we shall pray and persevere.

The application for exemption from Compulsory Education is due at the end of October. I've mostly finished. I learnt quite a bit in the process. I have ordered some new art curriculum for Sarah. Should be fun. Hope we can do it. Now I just have to make a time table and tidy up my CV as well as fill in the application form itself. Print everything out, bind it up and send.

Today I feel so lazy and tired. It's the last day of the homeschool break. I want to tidy up Sarah's wardrobe. Still need to change the kids' bedsheets, make some rempah titek to use/freeze and put clothes in the machine to wash. But I have just 1 hour to do all that. Oh yes, I also need to clean the floors of the living and dining rooms. HOW?? Lazy me! Tired me!! I just wish I could sleep all day. Still have to send Sarah and Ben to gym this afternoon, not forgetting that I also have to cook dinner before going out, put G & B to sleep right after lunch.

I'm getting old. Hope I have the energy to start homeschooling again next week.

HS Holidays

It's holidays again! For 2 weeks.

We had planned to go to the zoo today, but alas, it's been raining all night, and still is, so we'll have to postpone that. In any case, I had double booked with the air conditioning serviceman, so we'll just let them come and do their job.

Chinese lessons will still go on though, because their Beijing Language School enrichment classes still continue, and they definitely must be consistent with their Chinese, otherwise they forget everything!

So what are our plans these two weeks? Besides daily Chinese practice, we hope to scrub the grouting between our floor tiles (can only do that when Gabriel is asleep otherwise he'll probably try to walk all over our work in progress), we'll bake some cookies, visit the Jacob Ballas Gardens with some other homeschoolers, play at the Pasir Ris Park, maybe do a little shopping. Sarah still has gymnastics 3x a week, and Ben once a week. Mummy intends to do some wardrobe organising for the kids, and scrub and tidy parts of the kitchen. Most importantly too, there's the application for exemption for Sarah to complete. Hmmmm.... looks like quite a lot to do! Hope we can achieve it all.

My DH's nephew last night was feeling the Monday blues, and actually asked his mummy to homeschool him! LOL!!! He's doing very very well at school, top boy, prefect etc etc. So what does that actually say about how kids are enjoying their schooling? If even the top boy can ask his mummy to homeschool him, and this was not a one-off thing, it apparently has been going on for some time, then what of those kids that are struggling with coping in school? Food for thought.

Wow, it's been a month and a half since I blogged. And to think that I was going to blog every week! Well, I still have that ambition, so here goes for a new start. (Yeah, like real. Let's see how long this lasts)

P1 registration is upon us. We were going to register Sarah at the nearby Horizon Primary School, which is a new school nearby. But after giving it some thought, we figured that it might be easier not to register her at all, than to get her a place and then have to write in and go to the Principal to get her withdrawn. So we're NOT going to register her. We're still in the process of writing up the curriculum et al, and waiting for the MOE to release the CE Exemption application forms. We're sure we want to homeschool, and I'm sure that's the direction the Lord would want us to take on this. I pray that our homeschool will be a place where Sarah can be nurtured and loved, and taught the truths of God's Word, in addition to learning her 3Rs, and Chinese :),

I've been tweaking the kids' timetable a bit more recently, and it's a challenge to keep to it. I just needed to get lunch on the table a little earlier than before. So far, it's only happened about 3 days out of 10. Let's try to do better this week. May the Lord help me to redeem the time.

I think my itchy skin has not helped my time management one bit. I find that I spend quite a bit of time scratching myself. *sigh* Just started taking aloe vera. It's supposed to help. Let see how it goes. Have to take it constantly for several months.

I've been reading from Proverbs with the kids. I was reminded of my favourite verse in the Bible : "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths" Prov 3:5-6

Let us wholeheartedly trust in the Lord almighty for the souls of our kids, for their education, for our own direction in our lives. He indeed will direct our paths.

Flexible

HFMD has eaten into our homeschool schedule. We were off school for nearly 2 weeks. So now it's catch up time! But then this is what homeschool is all about, isn't it? No need to be so uptight about schedules. Flexibility is the keyword. That's the beauty of it all.

Ben has started 'formal' homeschool, with Christ Centered Phonics minus the written work for now. I will be starting him on CCC Math as soon as I get his little study table tidied up so that he can sit there. It's such a joy teaching these little children who are eager to learn and look at you with eager eyes, sitting straight up in their chair. Sooooo cute!

Sarah and I have loosened up on the Mystery of History work because it's a bit beyond her. We'll probably go through it again, and do the timeline and other projects at a later time.

Someone I know was lamenting the fact that her Primary One son has lost interest in learning. She was wishing that he could learn at his own pace, and go back to having fun while learning. So I told her to homeschool! LOL! She's genuinely interested, and will come and visit me one of these days soon.

Exemption is due soon, and I'm not ready! So many things not done yet, and so little time to do it! I must once again sacrifice the homeschool schedule to do this 'nonsense'. *sigh*. But then again, exciting times are ahead!

We're back

WOW! It's been a long time since I last blogged here. Lots has happened. Let me see, where shall I begin?

Well, at the end of March, the family took a break from homeschooling (not our scheduled break, mind you) to make a loooooooonnnnnngggg trip to the US for Gary's PhD defense. Foolhardy or not, it was quite a nice time away. The long flight was quite a pain though, and the kids took a week to get over jet lag. We thought we could have some nice field trips looking at the spring flowers. But alas, when we got there, the trees were still bare to the bone. Hardly any flowers to be seen, let alone leaves! It only started to turn green on our last week, and by then we were too busy with other things to really do much study.

The good weather there did not do much for our eczema. It was far too dry. In fact, we all got itchier. Gabriel loved the fresh milk there, but we had to stop it after he started having mucousy stools. Too much lactose in the milk I think. Ben was acting up, as always. Sarah had a good time, met new friends, renewed old acquaintances, watched PBS.

The kids most enjoyed visiting the Indiannapolis Children's Museum, Wonderlab and Conner Prairie.

Now it's back to the grindstone, have to catch up on what we missed. I'm also starting to get my curriculum for the next 6 years together and write a document for the Exemption from Compulsory Education for Sarah. It needs to be done bit by bit otherwise I'll never be able to finish it.

Our prayer needs for this week are that Sarah learn not to waste so much time in dilly-dallying; that Ben be more cooperative and less rebellious, and that Gabriel put on some weight.

Ok.... breakfast time.

Back to the grind

We've been having our 2 week vacation.  That's why I haven't blogged.  During those 2 weeks, our schedule just went haywire, but it didn't really matter because there were no lessons to be done.  We only managed a visit to Ikea and another visit to the zoo.  

Today, we started Term 2, with a slightly tweaked timetable.  From the end of March, Sarah will be going to Prime Gym for 6 hours a week.  Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.  So I've had to reorganise the timetable and I was trying that out last week (without the lessons, of course).  

This term's goal is to be more on time, to get the kids to be more on time, to get myself to be more on time as well.  First day - pretty good.  Only Sarah took too long to do her Maths homework.

We're going to America!  At the end of this month.  So I've got to get ahead of the Scheme of Work, and bring some stuff there to do as well.  We want to bring the Botany book because of the possibilities that Bloomington in Spring would offer.  We'll be missing 3 weeks of school, and 9 gym sessions!  Sarah is looking forward to the trip.  The boys are clueless.

Gabriel has started walking independently.  He's so cute!  Looks like a zombie when he walks, with his hands uplifted.  He always has a broad and bright smile on his face when he's toddling about.  

I've got so much to think about these days - planning curriculum for the exemption documents for Compulsory Education, sorting the kids' clothes, making packing lists for the trip etc.  Don't have enough time!  Help!!!

I need much grace to get through the next 3 weeks.  

Happy CNY

Wow, it's been quite a few days since I last blogged.  

Wishing everyone a blessed Lunar New Year.

We are on a long 'holiday' because of the New Year, will resume lessons on Thursday.  But then Sarah missed a few last week because I was busy spring cleaning.  Maybe we'll do a make up tomorrow.

Sarah still finds it difficult to say that she's homeschooling when people ask her which school she goes to.  Maybe we should give our homeschool a name, and I should compose a school song.  Then she'd get some school identity.

We've started singing the National Anthem and saying the pledge daily.  Must start the NE early, you know?

Today she was bored, and I forgot that she could do her history pockets.  I guess there's always tomorrow.

The Lord has been so good to sustain our homeschool schedule this term.  My 8 week first term is nearly over.  Ben has been having just a little bit of lessons each day.  Can't make him do things he doesn't want to.  Stubborn streak.  Sarah has been in the routine really well.  

Oh yes, Ben can almost answer the first 5 questions of the Catechism for Children!  Sarah is making good progress there too. 

Q38 Can you go to heaven with this sinful nature?

A.   No- my heart must be changed before I can be fit for heaven.

That's around where she's up to now.

 Next week, we'll probably go to Ikea and some other places for the holidays.  

Itchy

I've been defeated by my eczema!  Declared a homeschool 'holiday' today cos I'm SO itchy everywhere, despite taking an antihistamine.  Anyway, Sarah was not in the mood.... dwadling over Monday's Math homework.  

Ben did some good work though, counting dots, and stamping figures.  

We're still debating whether to send Sarah to primary school or not.  At home, she can get quite lazy, and have a bad attitude.  Perhaps school might be good for her?  Let her learn the hard way, rather than be the centre of attention all the time.  *sigh*.  I dunno.  We must pray hard over this  (and for my itchy skin too).

Spelling & History

Aiyoh, Sarah had 3/10 for spelling today.  She had to spell words with long 'u's as part of her phonics programme.  I gave her some time to look through the spelling words, and she was 'done' in 10 seconds (yeah, right!).  So in the end, many of her words looked like 'cuet' for cute, 'rued' for rude and the like.  This was despite giving her time to look through and check her words.  But after I collected the book, and then showed her the words as I marked them, she suddenly realised that they looked all wrong.  Well, hope she learns from her mistakes.  She should have taken more care to study the words before the spelling exercise.

Yesterday, I joined 4 pieces of vanguard paper together to make a timeline for Mystery of History.  Will take a photo of it another day, once we put some figures onto it.  We're running a little slow for history.

She's having to do Chinese copywork in her K2 Chinese workbook.  Good, I suppose.

Whilst singing the hymn "Praise to the Lord the Almighty" today, Sarah suddenly was overcome by her guilt/sin, and was crying quite hard.  Thank God for a sensitive heart.  We prayed together.  I do pray that the Lord will soon give her a brand new heart to call upon Him and receive Him as her saviour.

'Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them"'  Ecclesiastes 12:1

Nowadays my worry is Ben, who has little interest in sitting down to do any work at all, and has little spiritual sensitivity.  He needs more prayer.

Why I love Science

I've been reminded again why I absolutely love Science.  

Teaching Botany to Sarah has been such a joy for me.  She too loves to learn about nature.

Yesterday, we went outside and plucked (yes, we plucked!!) a fresh flower for dissection.  

Dissecting the flower and naming its parts brought back many happy memories.  But MOST of all, it was evidence of a wonderful, creative and artistic GOD.  How could anyone believe that this beautiful flower could have evolved from some primordial soup so long ago?  How could anyone look at the diversity of life out there and think that it all started from a single cell?  It is obvious that only a great designer could have come up with all those intricate yet functional parts of any living being.  Praise be to my awesome LORD!

Anyway, back to Botany, we're working through "Exploring Creation Through Botany" (Apologia Series).  It is simple facts, written for children, leading them to see God's hand in creation.  It has a good mix of readings, experiments, field studies and lovely coloured pictures.  This week, we've been learning about flowers.  I supplemented the study with a viewing of David Attenborough's "The Private Life of Plants".  Sarah knows about Attenborough's stand on evolution, but we love the photography in the series, so we have explained our reservations about some of the things he says in the videos to our kids.  

Phonics

Several mums who were interested in homeschooling have asked me what curriculum I use for Sarah.  Since the middle of 2008 when Sarah turned 4, we've been using a great curriculum for phonics and math called "Christ Centered Curriculum".  It's wonderful because woven into just about every page is the Word of God.  It is also rigorous and repetitive.  I like the repetitive part because children learn by repetition.  I like the rigorous bit cos it doesn't dumb down my child.  By the time she was 5 1/4, Sarah was reading independently.  Most importantly, she can read the Bible.  Praise the Lord!  Some might find this curriculum a bit boring because there are no beautiful coloured pages, not much artsy activities for the child.  It is rather wordy, especially for the teacher, but actually, once you do a few lessons, the pattern repeats itself, just with relevant changes in the phonics sounds learnt.  It's a 2-3 year programme, which also includes lessons in grammar.  How many of us, at Kindergarten level, could define a noun, pronoun, adjective, homonym, homograph, verb etc?  

I don't think Sarah will be finished with the whole Phonics series even by the end of this year, but who's counting?  

I'm starting Benjamin on the short vowels now.  "Short 'A' says /a/ in Adam.  To remain in Adam all will die, but in Christ, eternal life is nigh."  What beautiful truth that is!

Ironing

It's been 3 days since school started, and we're still ironing out the kinks, mainly in the scheduling.  These 3 days have been anything but uneventful! 

First, Gabriel, our 11 month old, has been down with a high fever from Saturday to Monday.  So you can imagine... mummy having little sleep for 3 consecutive nights, baby extremely fussy and not napping and sleeping well.  Brought him to the doctor on Monday night, at which point he decided to return to his usual squirmy, wormy self.  Anyway, the PD diagnosed him with tonsillitis, and now he's on antibiotics.  Thank God, the fever has broken, but I think he's still bothered by his throat.

Secondly, our home decided to have some electrical fault, so today, the electrician came.  Twice.  Because a few hours after his first visit, all my power sockets in the kitchen suddenly died.  It turned out to be a loose connection in the circuit breaker.  

Despite all these disruptions, we still managed to do homeschool :), 2 days with a baby on mummy's lap.  Sarah's attitude is so much better this year.  But I found my schedule of late last year, too demanding, so I've revised it.  Will be testing it for the next 2 weeks while things get settled down.

Ben sits down for lessons for about 15  minutes before he asks to do something else.  I guess, for a 3 year old, one cannot expect much more.

For Sarah's Botany, we've been growing bean plants (soya beans) in various conditions.  So far, not much growth yet, am wondering if any of the beans will grow into plants.  LOL :).  She's learning how to conduct experiments and record hypotheses and results.

Here's what we did on the last day of 2009.  Pasir Ris park - super place for the kids.  Will certainly bring them again next holidays (more about this in another post).