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).