Bryan: Mommy, did you know that this is called the carapace? The shell part here.
Bryan was giving me a lesson on zoology this morning as I emptied his art bag from school. He was waving his hand around what a normal person would just say the hard shell protecting the tortise. According to the Dictionary of Difficult Words on the Internet, carapace means "exo-skeleton; protective shell of tortoise." Of course, I didn't know.
Me: Who told you that?
Bryan: Ms Judy.
Me: Are you sure? I'm gonna check it later on the Internet.
Bryan: And Mommy, the other side is called plastron. The belly part. (Then he flipped the tortise around.)
Me: Hmmm... ermm, ok, I will check.
I did check. He's right. I didn't even know how to spell the words. But thank goodness, phonics helped me to get them right.
Ok, nothing impressive here since he's regurgitating what he learnt in school last week.
This doesn't show how much my son knows, rather how little Alan and I know!
Best part was this:
Alan: Wow... you know, you can tell me this again tomorrow. Because I won't remember what they are by then.
Hey, so our son is doing a little better. He still remembers his turtle after a week!
Yesterday he was trying to tell me something about the anatomy of an insect. Now I can't treat what he says lightly, can I? I might learn more than I think I would.
7 comments:
Great stuff they learn in school! Bryan's memory is really good. After I click off, I won't be able to remember the names anymore.
Err...I don't remember it now, after I finished reading your post. Very impressed with Bryan.
Wow! What's that again? A carpace? Carpiece? And the only plastron I know helps me to spend money, like plastic, you know :-). He must love nature and animals tremendously. Of course he's impressive! Can't wait to meet your little ones!
Great memory work, Bryan!
Cindy, any chance of persuading Brian's teacher to work as a preschool teacher in Sg? The stuff that Bryan has been learning is way more interesting than what most Sg preschools offer!
Hey all, thanks for the kind words.
Vivian: Yeah, I think what the American teachers do in the preschool is so awesome! And yes, some of them should be in Sg too; they are with the American embassy/consulate worldwide. But whether they'd like to work as preschool teachers in Sg - I don't know. Pity though that it's not taken further from that... vocabulary - naturally the native speakers demonstrate immense capacity here, you'd just have to listen to Bryan's friends speak. Then again, that's always true for monolingual kids.
I share your thoughts too. On hindsight, maybe I should have married a native speaker... just joking :) But really, it does make a great deal of difference if we are living in a native speaking community. Vocabulary, phrases, grammar etc... comes naturally to native speakers. But with your level of English, your kids can't be too far off! :)
I bet everybody will be impressed by their speech !
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