He's got the whole world in His hands...

Enjoy!

colours and shapes...

Bryan burst out singing this song while he was putting his toys away this evening.

"There's red for the stop sign and green for the trees
And blue for the skies and seas
This is a song about colours, colours... we see them all around.
Red stand up, blue stand up, yellow stand up, everyone stand up.
This is a song about colours, colours..."

I'm impressed by what he caught on in school for this week. Yep, this week's theme is Colours and Shapes.

During our playdate with one of his good friends from his class today, it was so much fun observing the kids goofing around with an old game I used to play with my friends too.

It went like this:

Who took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Ryan took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Bryan took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Mommy took the cookies from the cookie jar. (I had to play along when I heard my name.)
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?
Kristin took the cookies from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes, you!
Couldn't be!
Then who?

Again, I was pretty impressed by these two four-year-olds. They were listening to each other intently to continue the chant.

:(

I told Bryan today that Mommy was upset that he didn't behave himself in school today. So after drawing his teacher a card to apologise, he decided to perk Mommy up with this card.

"That's Mommy and me and a rose with lots of thorns," he explained his drawings. "And inside the card is a rainbow to make you happy again."

Yep, I'm holding onto your promise that you won't misbehave again in school. Just four weeks into school and I've heard enough complaints about you pushing boundaries and testing limits. Why don't I get "Oh, Bryan's such a sweetie today!" anymore?

child labour?

Haha... just a little something to keep them occupied, while Mommy relaxed over dinner preparation the other day.







As you can see, not much of relaxing there if you can hear the tone of Mommy getting all stressed up towards the end of the clip.

Here's one with Kristin enjoying herself:

learning styles inventory..

Style Scores

Visual 15
Social 13
Physical 10
Aural 15
Verbal 15
Solitary 11
Logical 11

Hee, couldn't resist doing this test, although I should be running out to grab some groceries now.

Try it out, friends, and find out what your learning styles are.

Hmmm.... never knew that I learn through listening too. Guess the years of training in Germany helped to shape that. During my first lecture I had the biggest cultural shock! My German professor came in and started rattling off and there was not a single transparency flashed!

Soon, I found myself taping down all his lectures for my first semester so that I could get by my first exam. Hee... as most Singaporeans would, I was among the top. :)

Seems pretty much a bit of everything for now. Maybe it's the work I do now: SAHM! A bit of everything?!!

Good to know. Perhaps I'll revisit the test when I join the workforce again. Thanks Lilian for the website.

joke of the week...

The kids and Daddy were having some fun in the living area after dinner, while Mommy was busy folding away clothes.

All of a sudden, Bryan went, "Daddy... *growl* This is an allosaurus. It eats vegetables!"
Daddy, "Huh? What's an allosaurus?" Obviously, dinosaurs and Daddy don't get along.

Then, Bryan assembled another dinosaur and explained to his Daddy, "Now this is a killosaurus. This one eats meat. Run, Daddy, run!"

By the way, allosaurus are any of various carnivorous dinosaurs of the genus Allosaurus of the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous Periods, and killosaurus is just a new term that my 4-year-old paleontologist-wannabe is cooking up.

sweet surrender...

Yep, I finally succumb to all those yummy posts that I've been reading much too often on blogs. So I decided to try my hand at baking today! Thanks to Bill Granger's recipe, things did turn out pretty well this evening.
A little hiccup though: The icing was much too runny for a novice like me to handle. No offense to Bill's recipe! In fact, I thought his recommended white chocolate + sour cream icing tastes delightfully delicious! I'm just disappointed to a tiny degree that I couldn't do art with my new icing kit.
Oops, I almost forgot to add that I had some "helpers" too - some were way too eager or much too helpful than the others. While I was frosting the cupcakes, I had to scream for Alan to remove both children and at one time, Bryan coz he was helping himself to all the M&M's instead of using them to decorate the cupcakes!

say cheese...

Due to overwhelming response to Baby No. 1, here's a collage capturing Baby No. 2 grinning from ear to ear!

results...

I couldn't wait for the night to come. So when Bryan came home, I decided to spring the test on him. Bearing in mind that it's his first assessment ever, I walked him through the task: Got him to read all the words in one column and went through the pictures with him to ensure that the pictures were perceived correctly. Then, I began to realise my mistake. I think he's got a little confused now with hat-hay, bat-bay...

I would say he did about 80% correctly on his own for today.

The next step is to start breaking down the words further to letters. Remember, I'm using the analytical method. So each word will get split even smaller each time. For a start, he has to copy the words by sticking letters.

test

A little learning assessment awaits Bryan tonight. If the mood for learning is right, he'll have to match the words to the pictures correctly.

I'm a little excited as to how he'll perform in the assessment.

Teaching word recognition to a young child sure involves alot of reviews. Hmmm, a recursive curriculum perhaps? I wonder how much he still remembers from the word families "-at" and "-ool".

This is the first time I'm doing assessment tasks with him. Previously, all the exercises were devised to help him search and recognise the correct word.

growing up...

Bryan's teacher requested for some photos so that she could add a personal touch to each child's cubbie in school. So while printing out some headshots, I decided I could play around with some collages and print out some for framing up.
And here's one of Bryan growing up and going places!

bits and pieces...

Just last week, I gave a Bryan a really fine black book. Hardcover, A4 size and with high quality papers, I think at least 100g per sheet. Actually it's all complimentary from SunTechnics, one of the companies that Daddy met up with.

Anyway, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be a brilliant idea to use it as a learning journal for Bryan?" So when I presented him the huge black book, he was pleasantly surprised, "Oh thanks, Mom! I really like my 'work'book." That's what I told him it was gonna be. "Ok, Mom. Let's do some work now!" He couldn't wait to start. Thus, for the initiation, I told him to pen down his own name on the cover! He was delighted!

Well, if you know me, I'm not a hardcore-homeschooling-mom who has a strict curriculum and tight schedule to stick to. No offence to mommies who homeschool though. I just pale in comparison when it comes to discipline. If I were bestowed a wee bit of your discipline, I would gladly be a hardcore homeschooling warrior too and very definitely, my children would benefit from the real homeschool. What I do is really quasi-homeschooling.

Back to our workbook: We've been quite hardworking, last Wednesday and Thurday and this Wednesday and Thursday again. Hmm, I didn't know I actually set a time for these sessions. Convenience does plan its schedule well in this case.

From our very few sessions, I'm beginning to appreciate handwritten work. Sometimes, I spotaneously chart out an hour of learning with words, other times I prefer to get him to read from the calendar and count the numbers, while he dictates how I should spell out the months. I think by getting him to watch me write, he practises writing in a way too, by observing each stroke that makes up a letter, which then combines with others to make up words. I think I've forgotten that copying is learning in itself. Thanks to our huge black book, I am rediscovering this traditional method. Also, I think I'm setting the tone for the days to come - hee, guess who's gonna be writing eventually - when he begins to write, copy and eventually learn to transcribe accurately... but certainly not in the very near future, judging from the speed at which I tread when it comes to homeschooling.

So here's our huge black book!

a reading review...

As usual, we were doing some review on what Bryan had learnt so far.
Basically the fat-cat-sat-on-the-mat-stuff and he surprised me today with another word family, the "-an" family!

He was reading off "can, ban, man, ran, pan, tan, fan" all by himself when he got too tired with the word search on "-at" family I presented him. It certainly does look like he's ready for new challenges.

We've also been working on recognising the months on a calendar.
This was what his teacher wrote last Friday:
During circle time today the children were observing the display of months and discussing which month was their birthday. Bryan told us that December is Jesus' birthday.

I'm really pleased that he remembers little personal details, especially this one! I pray that he'll have a personal relationship with our Lord one day, soon.

it's so cold...

that the fan has stopped working in my room, Mom!

Well, actually I pulled off the plug from the wall socket before I sent Bryan to bed for nap yesterday afternoon. I didn't want him to switch on his fan as soon as I left him on his own to finish his milk and then fall asleep.

Ok... it certainly didn't sound smart. But which do you prefer: He said it was too cold and the fan didn't work or the fan didn't work because there's no electricity? While the latter is definitely the correct and sane answer, I think I still prefer the innocence in his voice when he proudly proclaimed about the cold causing his fan to conk out!

He's only 4. And some day I'm gonna miss his naive way of looking at the world.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrghhh...

It's happening again! The seasonal change... we've succumbed to the cold, yet again. Sigh! It started off with Kristin, then Bryan and now Mommy. Hope Daddy will be spared.
And soup is definitely on the menu for tonight's dinner. We've gotta be healthy soon because I so wanna go to Kassel this Friday! Yes, I'm finally gonna catch up with some old friends who I haven't seen for like almost 7 years! Yippee!