Sophie's Love For Her Grandparents

Sophie occasionally verbalizes how much she misses Naenae. She openly talks about her death and how sad she feels about never seeing her again and slowly forgetting how she looked. Today she said this to me...

Sophie: Mummy, do you know who I pray for the most?

Me: (feeling a bit happy, thinking its me) No.. who?

Sophie: I give u a hint.. they are from my maternal side... 

Me: Oh.. who? (a little disappointed)

Sophie: It's Gong Gong and Ah Mah!

Me: Oh.. (truly puzzles) Why?

Sophie: Because they are really old.. I don't want them to die... I love them... so I pray to God.

Me: (I should be the one praying) ...

Sophie: Mummy...

Me: Hmm?

Sophie: Can you take a picture of Gong Gong and Ah Mah with me and Alfee? I want to remember them! 

Me: …

I was a little teary because I, too, fear the day when I finally lose my parents. I lost my sister years ago and the emotions never left me. Unlike Sophie, I didn't take a picture with my sister before she died. All I need to do is to look at myself in the mirror. I look like her. Some day, the kids will have to face the pain of losing their folks. It's a necessary process for our soul to mature. I hope they will deal with it wisely. 

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Papa took Sophie to the Grimm's Fairy Tales while Alfee and I stayed at home. It was a long show and Papa dozed off a couple of times but Sophie nudged him awake successfully after a few seconds and elbows. 

It was the last day of their performance so the crowd was reasonably smaller and thus, Papa could get a picture taken with the cast. He told me the performance was quite good and Sophie enjoyed herself. She was still talking about it at night.

During naptime at home, I was trying to coax Alfee to sleep by buying some sympathy. I badly needed some rest so he had to sleep. 

Me:... Mummy's not feeling well. You sleep with me, ok? Hug hug sleep...
Alfee: Ok… 

(1.5 hrs later, he woke up and placed his hand on my face)
Alfee: Mummy, you feeling better? Do you still want to sleep? I want to get up… 

Fortunately for me, I did feel better after an hour of sleep. Still, I wish I could rest a little more.

Satay By The Bay

Papa said he wanted to try something different for dinner tonight and suggested Satay By The Bay. It sounded quite nice so we happily headed there. When we saw the actual place, we thought it looked a little like a hawker centre. It's spacious and airy but the resemblance to Newton Circus is uncanny.

Then I did something unscrupulous. I saw a young chap leaning against an empty table with no chairs and happily assumed he was waiting for something other than chairs to appear on their own. Honestly, he didn't look like he was taking the table until I brought the two kids to the table and told Papa to get a highchair. Papa then told us to go because he realised the chap was probably occupying the table. Too late, he got angry and left, shaking his head as he stormed off. We were left there, feeling awkward. Yet I must admit I was glad to have got the table. 

My kids aren't hawker trained. They would do everything they aren't suppose to do and I've this OCD about food mess and filth. And fortunately, the family next to our table gave us 3 chairs so we were ready to sit and brave the dinner. It's hard to explain but we are usually very tensed if we have to eat at crowded places. 

Frankly, the food is not worth our effort. The kids hated the satay and they barely touched their chicken rice. They enjoyed the fruit and BBQ chicken wings though. Alfee kept asking for macaroni and cheese, which I thought was really strange. We don't usually eat that either.

We took a walk after dinner to wear off the satay smell but it didn't work very well. The kids wanted to run but it was too dark to run safely with kite flyers everywhere. The grass was also wet from the rain and some parts were under construction or repair so the debris and equipment were lying around.

We headed home soon after the sky grew too dark to see where the kids had run off to. I wish I could say we enjoyed the evening but it wasn't that fun at all. Maybe I was just too tired.

Books Buying Day

We went to Bras Besah Complex today. I wanted to buy some coloured transparencies, stationery and textbooks from Popular. We ended up with 3 bags of books and no transparencies or stationery. 

On the way up the escalator, we saw a shop with a huge Singapore map. Sophie quickly ran towards it and located Yio Chu Kang, then she saw Night Safari.

Sophie: Oh... so Night Safari is very near our place!

Me: Yes, quite near...

Sophie: We should go, I really want to go...

Me: Yah but it opens late at night.. you would be tired and cranky...

Sophie: I can drink coffee! That would keep me awake! Hahaha.. I'm kidding!

And I laughed. She's got a sense of humor, I must admit. She also surprised me when she picked up textbooks and started reading them at Popular. After she was done reading the Health Education Textbook, she happily declared," I like this books! Let's get it!" and dropped it in our basket. My jaws dropped too.. as she picked up a Music Textbook and sat on the floor. 

That's how we lingered too long at Popular and I forgot all about what I needed to buy. It didn't help that there was a book sale at the atrium. Great discount at 40% but not all books were worth the effort. 

Fast And Furious

Two nights ago in bed, Sophie got really jealous when I put my arms around Alfee and turned away from her. She started to express her displeasure with banshee like wails.

Sophie: ... what's the point of having two kids if I cannot even get a part of you... you keep buying things for me to make me happy but the actual fact is I'm not!

I held back from saying "then next time I won't buy you anything!" and told her we would discuss the issue the next day instead. 

Tonight when I was showering Sophie, she asked me a whole bunch of questions. She wanted to know where the baby come out from the mother's womb. She actually knew. Before I could answer, she asked if it was from her 'private part'. Then she went on asking me about C-Section and pubic hair. I was caught off guard but I answered her honestly. Sometimes Sophie surprises me with her curiosity and knowledge.

During bedtime, we had a pretty interesting conversation.

Alfee: Mummy, I cried today..

Me: Why?

Alfee: ...because YiRong kicked my nose..

Me: (What???!!!) He accidentally kicked you?

Alfee: Yes, then Celeste wiped away my tears.. 

Me: Aw....

Sophie: Yah, they looked out for each other... 

Me: Wah... okay

Sophie: Alfee, you are so lucky you had water play today! 

I could tell Sophie was very disappointed I didn't let her join in the water play day at Cherrybrook today. She asked and I turned her down. Of course I would love to give her the wee bit of happiness by letting her play with her schoolmates. After all, it wouldn't be considered unreasonable. She's after all only K2. Yet she's also in TP. She's technically not part of Cherrybrook and she shouldn't be there. 

When Alfee reached school, Papa called to tell me Sophie's TP classmate was in school. He felt bad stopping Sophie from attending the water play event. Giving my kids a sense of honour and integrity supersedes providing them with frivolous happiness. Going there would be pretty much a petty greed for fun. Am I taking it too seriously? Perhaps, but Sophie didn't break down and whine even though she was upset. And I know that she knows I'm right. So I told Papa, we have principles and we should uphold them. 

Secret Message

Last Day Of TP

Sophie has been doing P1 curriculum since the early part of the year. She skipped K2 and went through a roller coaster ride because of this accelerated programme. She was ready cognitively but she wasn't so prepared to learn with older children and interact at their intellectual and social level. Yet, she survived. She is a champion in her own right. We were glad to have deviated from the mainstream because through this programme, we learnt that she loves Science, History, Geography, Literature and Performing Arts. 

Sophie also enjoys learning about God and she tries her best to be a good person. She is always kind and polite to others despite her own needs. I was told she is one of those very few pupils who greet the staff of the school consistently. She is almost always the person who gets assigned to newcomers to help initiate them into the school. She has a gift of bringing out the best of others, I have been told. 

I am never too impressed by her gross motor skills but she put in a lot of effort in the last dance performance during T&T. At first, I was very worried that she might not be able to join in the performance. In the end, she did it. Somehow, she would always make it. 

Her teachers took them to Ngee Ann City and told them to choose a gift for themselves with a budget of $15. Sophie picked 3 items. She read the book and she thought Alfee would like it, so she picked that. She even told me she wanted to teach Alfee to read the book. Then she thought about the pen that she spoilt some time ago and bought me a replacement. For herself, she bought a craft kit. I'm beaming with pride. I'm glad she didn't pick a toy or something frivolous. She has chosen wisely and generously. 

Withdrawal

I thought I should withdraw Sophie from Anderson Primary before the start of their orientation this afternoon. My encounter with their administrative staff is one I would like to forget. Anyway, it's done!

License To Teach My Own Child

Yes! I have finally received my license to homeschool Sophie. Funny that we need a license to educate our own kids. It's pretty much like how we sign consent or indemnity forms to entrust schools with our kids. How much do parents know what's happening in schools anyway to have such trust and faith in them?

Anyway, the important thing is now I dun have to cringe everytime people ask me which school she's going next year. I loathe uncertainties and for the past 2 weeks, I have been waiting for the green light from MOE. I was beginning to doubt myself and our decision. Now I no longer have to hold my breath while others rant on about the downs of homeschooling. Nothing to reconsider, no minds to change... Let's do it! I'm withdrawing from Anderson Primary this Friday, during their P1 Orientation. 

Choice

When I completed my master in counselling, I told myself... people would benefit more from a teacher who's trained in counselling than a counsellor who's worked as a teacher before. That was 5 years ago. So far, I haven't done a wee good to 'people' yet. And any hope of that left was brutally crushed as I finalized my plans for homeschooling. It is something I have to reconcile with. I might never have any chance of working again. I mean.. really strive to curve out a meaningful career path. I won't regret staying home and educating my kids, but I wish I could do more. 

Homeschooling is a lifestyle, not just choice of an education vendor. In our modern world, we have conveniently subcontract our kids out to schools and enrichment centres for knowledge and skills acquisition. While it has served our country and the majority of our people, it doesn't suit the education needs of our kids, especially Sophie. I know she can get used to schooling and eventually blend in with her peer culture. However, I don't really want her to risk losing her identity and thirst for knowledge. I'm not saying all kids will suffer in schools, I'm acknowledging that formal schooling may not be suitable for everyone.

Free & Easy Sunday

Sunday is an ironic day for us. On one hand, we are usually busy with the kids since it's the helper's off day; on the other, we are super relaxed and we tend to do nothing much. Honestly, it suits us quite well that we have no enrichment classes or exciting places to take the kids. We swim in the morning, go out for lunch, come back for some TV and head out for dinner. When the weather is good, we will spend some time at ECP or the Botanic Garden.

Our choices are usually limited because the kids are fussy and then food isn't always agreeable with their tummies. Today, we had lunch at Ding Tai Fung and dinner at Sushi Teh. We picked the branch with not much of a crowd. We don't like crowds too much.

This evening, Sophie felt sick after eating. She usually has a bit of indigestion and tummy pain after eating. I suspect it has something to do with her leaky gut. But she was worse today. She kept burping and I had to get her a bag. 

Diwali

To be honest, I didn't know much about Diwali and prefer to call it Deepavali instead. It's quite interesting to research into it and Sophie is fascinated by stories of gods and deities. She has learnt about a few Hindu gods during her heritage trail in Little India and ever then, she will get all excited when she see pictures or read about them.  

We didn't have much time to prepare for Diwali so I just printed worksheets from the Activity Village. I was tempted to do crafts but we decided to stick to the activity sheets.

The Gifts From Within

I almost felt sorry that Sophie missed her graduation ceremony and a chance to be the Emcee of the school's year end concert because she skipped K2 and did P1 work this year. But I know it's really alright and there will be many other significant occasions she will miss from now on. We won't be in  the P1 orientation frenzy for starters. I admit I do feel a little lost without people telling me what to do, when to do it and how exactly to do it. I guess all of us have something to learn.

These are the 'milestones' we artificially created and learnt to accept as some of the essential norms and experiences of our life. They are the 'feel goods' for busy parents to feel involved in their children's lives and 'profitable' opportunities for institutions to milk the parents. Every year, the graduation ceremony becomes more and more remarkably prestigious. It's the little ones' first lesson about elitism  and glam. Definitely it is an impressive mini society we have created for them to get the training they need for the 'real world' later on. Of course, they aren't all bad. Such 'milestones' are like rituals that mark and initiate the children into their stage of life. They get to bid farewell to their younger self and prepare themselves for the road ahead. But seriously, are these really necessary?

Cherrybrook's annual Tea & Treats (like Dinner & Dance) is not cheap but it's not 'atas'. The money goes to the school fund. They are actually a non-profit kindergarten and all the school fees are spent on teachers' salary and school materials. They didn't tell parents to buy costumes or accessories. We all made do with what we could find.

Even the photographers and musicians are either parents or friends of the school. Papa was one of the photographers and a band member as well. Papa practised always daily for the past month or two and I'm sure the rest of them did exactly that as well.

The moment we reached NUSS Guild House, we 'deposited' the kids in the dressing room and went on socialising with the rest of the Cherrybrook parents and staff. It's funny how they thought I looked so different… every year. Maybe it's time I pay a bit more attention to my appearance in school.

The kids love to watch their papa perform. And I think its Papa's dream to form a band with the kids some day. Meanwhile, they will just have to play the audience. I didn't manage to record all the 10 songs the band played. Here's my favourite, especially with the montage…

The children were very well behaved and they waited very patiently for their turn to perform. I was worried that Alfee might go a little out of control because of sleep deprivation but he didn't. I was so proud of my kids. It was hard for both of them to do this, each facing their own unique challenges, yet they finally completed their tasks.

I would very much love to post CK's performance and Sophie's dance, but YouTube is not allowing them to be uploaded because of the songs and blogger is not letting me upload. So frustrating. Until I can figure out what to do… Here is Alfee in motion!

West Coast Park

Ms Rachael told us that Sophie was very impressive today at the playground. She could climb all the way up a structure and slide down without much fuss. She was also trying out the flying fox and having fun while she was at it. It was great to hear that from her teacher, especially when Papa had forgotten to hand her the picnic mat earlier at drop off. We were worried that she might overreact and spoil her whole day, but she didn't. Phew…

When they went back to school in the afternoon, they had a mini sports day. The children were grouped into 3 teams and Sophie's team won second. She was elated. 

All About Apples

We decided to test of doing a unit study on apples. I thought it was a simple topic so we really wouldn't take too long to complete it. Well, I was quite wrong apparently. There are many things to learn about apples and many books to borrow as well. It took me a week to gather the materials and create the lap book worksheets. Even then, I was still trying to make improvements and adding new materials. All in all, we took about 3 weeks. I think I will have to work on doing this a little more efficiently and cut it down to 2 weeks. 

I used a lot of the free printables and ideas from Apple Lapbook and Apple Trees and Apple Blossoms Unit Study by Squidoo, Apples Pre-K/ K Pack by This Reading Mama and Apple Unit by Miss Renée's Kindergarten Pad. I thought about creating my own resources but I didn't want to kill myself so soon. After all, this is our first unit study. Even so, there are just too much resources in the Internet so it's hard to decide what to do and what to drop.

Before we did the unit on apples, I didn't know there are so many different varieties of apples. I took Sophie to the supermarket just to check out the different varieties available in Singapore and bought some for her. We kept the labels of those common ones for the record. 

We took some apples for making art prints. The kids were surprised to see the 'star' when I cut the apple into half. Then I used half an apple as an illustration for 'symmetry' and taught Sophie what 'half' means. Then we name the parts of an apple and discussed their functions. 

We also did some Math mazes and problem sums on apples. The questions are very simple addition and subtraction so she could do them very quickly.

We also attempted some still life drawing. I am always guilty of pushing Sophie beyond her ability and in this case, I think I did. I was a little too eager to teach her the way to use her oil pastels. In the end, the drawing looked more like my work than hers. 

Thus, I had to ask her to do another still life, this time I kept my hands off. I tried my best to think our our experience as a learning journey. She learnt how to do it through me and applied her learning onto her own drawing.

For Science, we learnt about what happens when apples are sliced and left in the open and how to prevent them from turning brown. Sophie loves experiments so she was really attentive and eager to get involved in her little experiment.  Gong Gong was around when we were doing this and even he got all excited and eager to watch the apple turn brown. Although he didn't know all the scientific terms, he knew about the effect of lemon juice on apples and other practical ways to prevent browning.

We read The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons and Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington before discussing about the seasons affecting apples trees and their lifecycle. But I really like Apples by Jacqueline Farmer because the information is simple yet comprehensive and the illustrations are very beautiful. Sophie was keen to understand the seasonal changes and the lifecycle of apple trees, especially when there are interesting video clips to watch.

We gathered some scrap materials and created four apple trees, one for each season. I helped her draw her hand and part of her arm for the tree trunk. Sophie always remembers better when she learns through art. 

The topic on apple flowers is a little harder to explain, especially the cross pollination part. Sophie was happy to just read about it without doing any worksheet or activities. Perhaps in time she can understand the concepts better.

Grafting is another difficult idea to teach. Sophie wasn't too keen to learn about some brown, ugly looking twigs and how they are secured to another stem using electrical tape. 

We skipped cooking apples entirely because I am just not an adventurous cook. We were happy just to eat apples slices and knowing that the doctor's far away when we're doing Apples unit study. 

All About Johnny Appleseed and Apples To Oregon

We started by watching the animation on YouTube. We are very fortunate that we can get virtually anything online these days. Here are the lyrics to the catchy song in the animation. After we have got some idea who's Johnny Appleseed, we read up more about him in The Legend of Johnny Appleseed : A Graphic Novel retold by Martin Powell and Johnny  Appleseed Heads West : A Reading A-Z Level O Leveled Reader retold by Vera Ogden Bakker. 

Sophie went on exploring some websites like Crispy Apple Stand for the games and activities on Johnny Appleseed and apples in general. We also learnt some apple songs and poems from My Montessori Journey and Mrs Kilburn's Kiddos. We tried some of the printables by Royal Baloo, Mama's Learning Corner, Making Learning Fun and Homeschool Share. 

We also read Apples To Oregon: Being the (Slightly) True Narration of How a Brave Pioneer Father Brought Apples, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Grapes, and Cherries (and Children) Across the Plains by Deborah Hopkinson and used some of the printables from Apples To Oregon Unit Study by Homeschool Share. 

Alfee hasn't been spared as well. Whatever we found too simple for Sophie or too interesting for him to ignore, he would be given to have a shot at it. For him, we read Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins and Ten Apples Up On Top! by Dr Seuss and did some math related work. He also has some neat little printable readers that he can memorise easily.