The ONG family Homeschool

We did something unusual!

Yup. It was unusual. We never did it before: walk to the nearest library.

Just mommy and the 4 kids (aged 7, 5, 3 and 1, all and a half) aided by the stroller. It was about a 20 minute, three bus-stop walk from our house. I know, it's a pathetic distance but we never did it before, so I thought, today, we'll try it for fun.

Recently also, I've been thinking I need to exercise. Tired of being flabby and having only the laundry and the baby as my exercise weights.

The kids were very excited!

It was a cool evening and they did well walking. They were doing more than walking, really. They were running ahead of me, straying onto the grass areas... here I am shouting, "Watch out for the mimosa!!!", "Don't cross the zebra crossing without me!!!"

Have to say, though I got the children to wear proper shoes, I didn't follow my own advice and suffered for it. Shouldn't have worn those flimsy slippers.

Anyway, we were rewarded by a visit to our cozy little library where the kids got busy hunting down books.. no. 1 and his Astrix...and the others just enjoying the other books.

I am so glad that the children love to read. Even the baby will grab books from our bookshelf at home and can sit down and look at pictures at length while I help his kor kor, jie jie with their school work. I cannot emphasize how important it is for children to be read to and for them to enjoy books and reading.  Start a home library and keep the books within the reach of their little hands (and train them to keep the books after!!!)

In the end, I borrowed a story book about Ants because we were investigating ants this week in school. (will write more about that later..)

I had decided to spare myself the dinner cooking so after the library, we popped into the food mall and had, what else, chicken rice. If anyone is wondering how one woman with four kids handle dinner "outside", well, they all sit at the table and wait while I order and bring the food to the table. As is when we're at home, I only help no. 4 (1 1/2 years) with his dinner, the rest feed themselves.

We are at the stage where a 2 person's share is too little and a 3 person's share is way too much. But I went ahead and bought the 3 person's share of chicken rice and we were all quite full. It was crazy, but I asked them if they'd like to walk home, and they said, "Yes!" No. 1 reasoned that it'd be good to walk off the meal.

Going home, we took a little short cut which required that the stroller go down a short flight of steps. No. 1 and no. 2 each take a front wheel of the stroller and help me to it down the steps. It's really great when they are big enough to help! I remember the days when I had a baby, a 2 year old and a 4 year old. It's really easier when they turn about 5 yrs and are more physically able to do more things.

So that was the little excitement for a Friday evening for the Ongs.

Have a good weekend!

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Thanks for reading! And thanks for the emails! I have been encouraged by a growing readership and I do enjoy your emails. Keep them coming! 

If you have have any questions or queries about homeschooling, family and parenting, or Biblical Christianity that you might like to ask, do write!! And if you have found this blog useful, do share it with your circle. I do hope to be a blessing. :O)

Guest Mommy Writer's take on Preparing for Exams

Hi Suwei

When you asked me to write an article about how I prepare the kids for exams, I did not quite know what to write.

See, I am an unconventional kiasu parent living amongst the super-kiasu. Apart from school, their children have tuition plus countless assessement books shoved at them daily on top of the homework that they are given from school. They study and prepare well for exams. I, on the other hand (not sure if I am on the losing end), prefer to see that my childen learn for life.

As a daily routine, after they complete their homework, I get the two older ones, P4 and P1, to do maybe 2 or 3 pages of a given assessement book. They are required to check their work when finished; afterwhich they get a break and can do whatever they like. I also ensure that they make it a point to read a few pages of my all-time favourite 'The New First Aid In English by Angus Maciver'. It equipped me with much knowledge so I stick by it.

Usually I am fine with with my own system but I get confused and crack when I bump into a super-kiasu efficient mum who asks me if my P4 boy correctly answered question 16 on page 4 of Section B of the 2006 SA2 Science Practice Paper (???!!!). I will be like, "Actually I am not sure, you know. I asked him and he said he could so I took as that". The reply will be something like, "Wah! You know ah, everybody answer 'air can be compressed' but actually the correct answer is 'air has no definite volume' ah.......I tell you ah...bla bla bla...............". So then I have to try to be polite and stand there, sometimes up to an hour to listen to whose children answered what and which class had 7 failures for the Science Practical Exam.

Ok, when I get home, I shake my head and wonder why these parents so want their children to be 'perfect' in their school work. I comfort myself that I do not put unnecessary pressure on my children. But come 6.40pm when my kids arrive home from school, the minute my P4 son puts his bag down, I go, "So how was school today?" As soon as he answers, "Ok", I go, " What was your answer for question 16 on page 4 of Section B of the 2006 SA2 Science Practice Paper?" Being the forgetful person that he is, he will probably not remember the question. Assuming that he was wrong in answering the question, I will then give instructions for him to go thorugh the topic on Air from his Science textbook the next day. So there, one topic covered.

Truly, I have no fast and hard rules about preparing for exams. I do ask my children if they have any areas where they face difficulties in and we try to iron that out.

I attended a talk at my children's primary school about 2 weeks ago. The talk was actually a briefing on the pilot curriculum for P5s next year. Streaming is no longer in existence so they are replacing it with subject-based banding, where children of similar strengths for every subject, are grouped together for lessons. To also encourage greater interaction among pupils with different strengths. However, students will be allocated form-classes based on their English and Math results (rationale behind suject-based banding?) Calculators will also be allowed for certain sections of the Math paper. Apparently MOE wants to cut down time spent on computation in answering the questions with many steps.

The message from the Principal was clear - English will not be an easy subject for the P5s next year. The paper was going to carry 200 marks. The Principal wanted the parents to spend a lot of time with the children, during the recent week holiday, to study very hard for the exams. Personally, I do not know how one 'studies' English for the exams. I thought it would come naturally with proper daily usage as well as reading (??). I saw lots of parents taking notes from the Principal's speech. They wanted to drill the message onto their young ones so that the kids will end up in the 'point 1' class for Math next year.

See, I do not understand the purpose of doing away with streaming and introducing subject-based banding. It is supposed to enable each child to develop at their own pace and abilities. However, as long as a child passes even 3 subjects, he is recommended to take 4 subjects at standard level. (They have standard level subjects and foundation level subjects that are supposedly taught at a slower pace). Listen to this ah, even when a child fails 2 subjects but passes the other 2 and scores say 80 marks for his Mother Tongue, he will be recommended to take 4 standard subjects and Higher Mother Tongue. Great! After failing 2 subjects, he is given one extra to do at a higher level!! Superb.

I truly do not understand the purpose of these changes. To me, they do not make a difference - they actually create more confusion.

Suwei, I think I'll stick to my way of preparing my children for life... incorporating exams.

Cheers!!

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Thanks GMW for that contribution. I think your stragegy is great! Life does not have to take a back seat when exams are around the corner....:OP

Now as for pg 16, qn 2bii of section C, most people answered hydrogen peroxide when it should really have been common table salt!!! Like DUH...
(Hahaha.. couldn't help it...)

I don't understand the subject banding thingy and hope some kind knowledgeable MOE person might explain. But I have to say, the MOE does not have an easy job on their hand trying to individually tailor make education for masses.

Did I hear you callin' Me a distwacSHUN???

Do not worry. This child is not kept there against his will as if in an attempt to stunt his growth.

He is a much loved member of the family and he has been busy finding cosy spots for himself all around the family schoolroom.

This happened to be the day's cosy hidey hole. 

see this and this.

Bombs Away!

That day when we were at Bollywood Veggies, a group of about 8 RASF pilots walked in the Bistro for lunch. Our little 4 year old friend went to speak with them and that emboldened my usually shy with strangers no. 1 to go and speak with them too. He came back and reported to me that he asked them which base they were from and what planes they were flying. "Mummy! That kor kor says he flies an F-16!" Wah....

Well, if only they knew that this little 7 year old carves and crafts out his own fighter jets from wood scraps. :O)

They come with bombs too! Pretty cool what a kid with time, imagination and tools can come up with, huh? Papa pretty much left him to his own devices that day and this is what no. 1 came up with.

The irony is that despite his love for fighter planes and attack helicopters, he wants to be in the army and not the air force. :OP

Getting to be a little more than a Pet Peeve...

Okay, rant time...

The other day, I was at a very popular bookshop which sells all the assessment books so that it is frequented by all the parents, tuition teachers and school teachers of school going children.

As usual, I'm looking at books that are supposed to be for children my children's age. So I'm flipping through kindergarten books and I've come to the conclusion that Singaporean children are born reading. Why do I say this? I come across a K1 book subtitled For K1 kids who can't wait to go to K2! (talk about preying on the insecurities of kiasu parents!!!) and in this book, meant for 5 year olds, are pages of five sentence stories after which are followed by questions to answer.

I remember bits of one page. The instructions are "Read". And the sentences below go something like, The magician does tricks. A dove flies out of his hat. We are all delighted.

I'm like.. WHAT?!?!? Delighted??? No way. I think the part where the children learn to sing ABCDEFG is in vitro. And within a week of birth, they know all the individual sounds, and in about a month, they move on to consonant blends, and before way before they turn one, they've mastered tricky sounds like /ight/ and /ough/....

Okay, maybe it's done another way:

Parent: 5 year old, read this to me.

5 yr old: ???

Parent: Magician! You don't know how to read magician??? Write it 10 times for me!

5 year old writes magician 10 times.

Parent: Keep reading.... What!!! This word is deLIghted! deLIghted!!! understand??? Spell it 10 times here!!!

Who cares what the book is sub-titled. Gullible parents will buy it anyway.

And then, (get this.. there's still "and then") I come across the much sought after: "Prepare your children for P 1 Maths" series. Yes, it's the end of the year now. It is high time to start the K2s (6 year olds) who are going to make that big leap to Primary one NEXT YEAR to get a head start NOW. So the book was filled with, what else but primary 1 work. Not foundational work to bridge any learning gaps the child might have. Who are the people who write these books, I wonder??? And who are the people who buy these books.. when they could just buy the "official" primary 1 books instead???

Why is it so needful to get a head start on Primary one material? Well, if they don't and they start learning all that P 1 stuff when they are already in P 1, they'll be lost and un-able to catch up when the teachers at school bulldoze their way through the maths syllabus and 100 plus worksheets they have to cover but never have the time to mark. Makes soooo much sense to me.  What is it that the school is doing that so necessitates all this loads and loads of behind-the-scenes prep work? Why isn't anyone complaining that the school isn't doing it's job when the children have to do their learning outside of the school????

ARGHHHHH!!!!

Okay...rant over. I'll be back to the happily busy chubby mommy of 4 type person when I catch my breath again...

What do Goats and Bollywood have in common?

Well, they are both farms in the Lim Chu Kang area and we visited them both in one morning! Wow. It's been a Field trip week. First was the Army Open House, then the Hay Dairies (which is a Goat Farm) and Bollywood Veggies! It all started out as a conversation with my very long time secondary school friend who is now a mommy of a 4 year old. If you are a mom of kids and you're in the school holidays season, you know what I mean. And she had visited the vege farm before and highly recommended it. And while we were at it, why not make a detour to see the goat milking too?

Hay Dairies is a goat milking farm, open 7 days a week, 9 am to 4 pm. But the milking times are 9 to 10.30 am. If you're trying to get there, look for Lane 4, Lim Chu Kang. And it's free admission! Yae!

We enjoyed watching the milking. As a mother who in my lifetime has nursed my children about 48 mths in total, I felt so relieved for the goats when they were about to be relieved of their milk. Phew! Their udders were super full!!!

And of course, we learned a little about goats too. (There's alot to learn!) They have beautiful goats there at the farm, several different American species, chosen for their high milk yield- 3 litres a day! We learned that in order to have milk, they have to have babies, so there are lots of baby goats there at the farm too!

See the cute babies?

When the milking goats have finished their tour of duty, which is about 10 years, they become the star of the show in some science experiment. Serious.

Just in the neighborhood down (fairly deep down) Neo Tiew Road, is Bollywood Veggies, co-founded by the fairly famous Ivy Singh-Lim. Set in the very idyllic ulu Singapore countryside, Bollywood is an organic vege farm with many different kinds of veggies, herbs, fruits you can buy. So many different varieties. Oh it's the kind of place my mom would love, so a repeat visit to bring the whole family is high on my "to-do-soon" list.

My mom is not a "pretty ornamental plants type" gardener. She's more the "get ready for war rationing" type gardener. Fruits, veges- these are the types of plants she loves in her garden. But I had to make it a point to put the very dangerous pineapple with the horrifying spiky leaves out of the ga rden. She should have been a vege farmer. But I know the Bollywood farm is going to be what she would love.

The children (and adults) got a chance to observe and enjoy the many different kinds of plants there on the farm, some strange looking ones, like the snake gourd, and many pretty ones like spring onion (see pic)!

A morning visit is recommended coz then it won't be so hot. And then, when it's lunch time, you can make your way back to the AIRCONed Bistro unappetizingly named Poison Ivy. But I have to say, the food tasted good. And veges we ordered- sweet potato leaves and kang kong, were super fresh and green!

100 Neo Tiew Road. Open wed- sun. (9 am - 6 pm). $2 per entry for adults. 

     

A disTWACtion??? You callin' me a disTWACtion?

See Aug 20

The ONG FHS goes to the AOH 07

No. 1 was pumped (with adrenaline)! The day before, he got out his daddy's camo mossie net cloth, camo hat, army belt and was busy dressing himself with it. I wanted to take a picture but he refused. :OP

We reached Jurong Camp at 10 something in the morning because that's where we have to leave the vehicle to take a shuttle bus to get into Pasir Laba Camp. We also had the cousins join us for this very fieldy field trip.

Actually, daddy was as pumped as no. 1 was but thankfully, he did not run around the place imagining he was carrying an assault rifle yelling "Charge!!!". (You will notice his imaginary gun in almost all the pics...) But Daddy... when we reached Jurong Camp, he simply had to wind down the windows to smell the three tonners.

He did the same with the camo covers too. *deep breath* Ahhhhhh

Brings back sweat memories....

Something I can't understand, but having gone through the AOH, I can say I do appreciate my man a little more for having survived his Army stint. (As a guardsman, no less!)

  Well, what baby and I did for the most part of this field trip was to join the queue whilst daddy and the kids went around to view other stuff. like the above pic: the Guards booth.

The very gigantic Chinook  (which is alot bigger on the ground than it looks in the sky) didn't have a queue because it was just a walk through the very big whirly bird.

The Apache, though, was a long queue (but I stuck it out!!) just so the kids could get to sit in the co-pilot's seat and take a photo. (And be trigger happy with the little red button on the "gear stick". * click click* What?? no mass destruction??? ) 

It was a really exciting experience for the bigger boys because they got to not only touch the hardware, they even had the chance to do target practice firing blanks with a rifle. It was the first time the kids fired a real rifle (look out, Afghanistan! :OP ).

I didn't get any photos of that though because I was so excited about getting a chance to shoot too! 5 out of 5! Husband gave all the credit to the scope. Humph!

And then, whilst we were enjoying the demo show where cool terrorists with matching red bandannas were being pounded non-stop by assault rifles shot from a light weight vehicle, (why didn't they send out the Ang Mo Kio hostages???) Like all documentary cliff hangers.... Disaster Struck.

Commercial Break

Do you allow your children to play with guns? I'm the kind of mom who tells their children war is not a game, you know? The soldiers who die are somebody's papa or somebody's son or somebody's brother.... I do recognise God put an innate instinct in boys to want to fight and defend and protect, I just think that that has it's place and time and childhood is not the time to revel in killing people. My 2 cents'

End of Commercial Break

Just as we we were enjoying the show at around mid-day, I thought it was about time to change the baby's diaper which was 3/4 full. I look into our "gai gai" bag and, lo and behold, we were out of diapers!!! Zero, Zilch, Zip. deado duck.

I naturally blamed husband because he was the one who grabbed the bag in the morning when I was getting something else. Why didn't he check? He doesn't mind if we're diaper-less. It's not the end of the world to him. (It is to me!!!)

So I hope against all hope that we'll be able to last all the way till we get home before the diaper explodes. But it was not meant to be for at lunch time.. he pooped! No way was I going to go through the rest of the day with him in a poopy diaper. No way. Nor was I going to clean him and go diaper-less... that'd be like waiting for a bomb to go off.

So, I spied around that crowded canteen with all the lunch goers for strollers, and then I checked to see if the child was a similar sized child. Having found one, I began to sheepishly beg for a diaper, admitting that I had forgotten to bring even a single one out of the house. (Hope she didn't see how many children I have and that I'm supposed to be so seasoned in bringing children out.. :OP )

Well, who says Singaporeans are kiam siap? The very first mom I approached was so willing to share her extra diapers and putting down my reasons with, "I sometimes forget myself.." I thanked her profusely and when I walked past after I changed Baby, I thanked her again!

The entire day, no. 1 was asking when he could get his face painted. He was so disappointed (almost to tears) when the face painting station at the tent was too crowded.

But then the very next place we went to, we were approached by a soldier asking if the kids would like to have their face painted. Would he ever! Paint away!

Anyways, so much for an eventful day.... :O) Whenever we go for these open houses, like last year's Air Force Open House, I'm always keenly aware that I have three sons who will one day do their 2 year stint in National Service. It always fills me with pride and at the same time dread. If you're a Christian mother like me, you'll know what I mean. 

Some other shots of the day:

Talking to Americans

You are in America. America the strong, America the free...They are kind, they are generous.. They have an un-canny ability to go on at great lengths on subjects they know nothing about.

And this is the premise of this special edition of the Canadian Rick Mercer's Talking to America. He's going around interviewing people on the street about whether they should free Nelson Mendela, or America should send out more ground troops in Skeketchua. Invariably, Americans will answer a resounding Yes! And he gets Americans to do congratulatory messages to Cananda for different things like getting a second area code or getting a new 24 hour clock.

There were other street interviews I viewed had an interviewer (who looks much different than John Howard) telling folks that he was John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia, and he was greeted with the utmost courtesy and respect.

Anyway, for a laugh....

Selamat Hari Guru!

Did I get that right, Sharie?

To all the teachers out there... Keep up the good work. If you're a parent caring for your kids, you're a most important teacher too!

For Teachers:

"Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark." - Anatole France

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Brooks Adams

"A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary." - Thomas Carruthers

" A teacher who is attempting to teach, without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn, is hammering on a cold iron." - Horace Mann (1796-1859)

"Education costs money, but then so does ignorance." - Sir Claus Moser

"Education...is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,... by praise, but above all -- by example." - John Ruskin

"Education should turn out the pupil with something he knows well and something he can do well." - Alfred North Whitehead

"Getting things done is not always what is most important. There is value in allowing others to learn, even if the task is not accomplished as quickly, efficiently or effectively." - R.D. Clyde

"Give me a fish and I eat for a day.  Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime." - Chinese Proverb

"Good teachers are those who know how little they know. Bad teachers are those who think they know more than they don't know." - R. Verdi

"Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers." -  Josef Albers

"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think." - Socrates

"If the child is not learning the way you are teaching, then you must teach in the way the child learns" - Rita Dunn

"If what you're doing isn't working, try something else!" - NLP adage 

"I may have said the same thing before... but my explanation, I am sure, will always be different." - Oscar Wilde

"I put the relation of a fine teacher to a student just below the relation of a mother to a son." - Thomas Wolfe

"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." - Albert Einstein

"Men learn while they teach." - Lucius A. Seneca

"No matter how good teaching may be, each student must take the responsibility for his own education." - John Carolus S. J.

"People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives." - Thomas Mann

"Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its values only to its scarcity." - Samuel Johnson

"Spoonfeeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon" - E. M. Forster

"Teachers should guide without dictating, and participate without dominating." - C.B. Neblette

"Teach your children by what you are, not just by what you say" - Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited." - Plutarch

"There are no difficult students - just students who don't want to do it your way" - Jane Revell & Susan Norman

"To teach is to learn twice." - Joseph Joubert

"We think too much about effective methods of teaching and not enough about effective methods of learning." - John Carolus S. J.

"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." - John Cotton Dana

"You can't direct the wind but you can adjust the sails." - Anonymous

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Christians are to teach The Word! :O)

2 Timothy 2:24-26 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,  In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

Romans 10:12-15  For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!