The ONG family Homeschool

Our Little "Five Stones" Factory!

 
It's really great to be homeschooling! The children get to learn in so many different settings and the learning is all so natural and "by the way".

This week, one of the days, we all got caught up with preparing for Saturday's Homeschoolers' FunFair. What a wonderful community of homeschoolers we have. Some homeschooling moms got together and helped to organize a funfair for the community. Yay for those moms who saw the important learning opportunities these events provide for the chidlren! I'm so thankful! The homeschoolers get to set up their own stalls and decide what they want to sell. It's happening tomorrow morning (30th July). If you want more details, do email me.

The eldest is preparing a game stall and was busying formulating the game, how it is played, cost per try and prizes. etc. His papa and I are proud of him.

But the other thing we are bringing to sell at the funfair is five stones! :D Did you play it when you were young?

How we got started with the five stones....We were at a Heritage festival at Ang Mo Kio recently. (Something held in conjunction with the National Day celebrations.) Our children had a chance to play some of the games that we used to play as children like "golie" (marbles) and five stones (bean bags).

So I cut up the cloth and no. 1 had a go at the serger. He loves it! I think to him, it's like working a power tool.
 

No. 2 and 3 helped in various ways like cutting the threads and turning the pockets inside out.

 

 
The younger ones had the easier jobs of sorting the stones and placing them into the bags.

The older ones had a hand in sewing the last seam.

haha... I told him, maybe if he can do a good job with the sewing, is interested in biology and helping people get well, he might be a surgeon one day! :p (in my heart of hearts, no, I don't want him to be a surgeon.)

We were not at our desks that day, but we were STILL learning and doing "school"!

1. Calculating profit and cost. We were busy deciding on the price of each set. And thinking of all the ways to get people to buy, like having a discount if they bought 3 sets, etc. We talked excitedly about sales and if we sold at 30% discount, how much that would be.

2. Patience and perserverance. We made a total of 25 sets! That translates to 125 little bean bags!!! And that translates into lots of patience and perserverance! But I'm glad the kids didn't complain a single bit but were working happily together. I guess they were all excited about the task at hand.

3. Team work and valuing each team member's contributions. Even though younger ones did the easier jobs we learned to value each as important to get the job done, and ease the load all round. no. 4 the 5 yr old was packing the stones and twist tying the bags. He also helped in turning the pockets inside out and filling the bags with rice grains. Though it wasn't as important as using the machine to sew the side seams, he did help in the way he could and that made the job go faster!

4. Lots of Maths for the little ones. Counting in fives! Little no. 4 was learning five times table and number bonds without knowing it! Like if there were three stones, how many more stones do we need to make a set of five?

5. NE. National Education. Participating in making the five stones, my mother also had the opportunity to tell the children of the times when she was a young girl and poor. They didn't have money to buy toys so they made their own. My children were surprised that por por (grandma) played five stones! :)

6. Learning to sew with the needle and thread. The older three children had a chance to do some stitching. And they know how a bean bag is sewn now! I never knew how before this. But hubby and I did some research on google and we learned how to as well! Life long learning! :D

7. Sales. At the funfair tomorrow, the kids will have the chance to talk to their customers and sell their wares! Calculate change! etc etc...

8. Sense of achievement. Most definitely!

 
Praise God, we are happy and blessed!

 

 

 

 

Train Track Walking!

thanks bro J for all the beautiful pics!  
 
 
 

Days Flying By and some thoughts about our Maths journey

I remember the days I first started blogging. Back then I could clock one post at least every three days, sometimes less. These days, I can't seem to get an entry in in ten days! Not that I have nothing to record down, but I can't find the time to sit down at the com and get it down!

Suddenly from the start of July, homeschooling life has taken a turn for the busy. We seem to be kept busy with school work, housework, other activities day in day out, seven days a week... It's been very very fulfilling and I am happy that we are growing together as a family, the children are productively occupied and learning in a meaningful way. Importantly, the children are not overly loaded with school work but have the time to play in the afternoons and do other stuff together as a family. Like swimming on Wednesdays evenings! Field trips most definitely! :)

Homeschooling Updates.

Our eldest is about 1 year away from doing taking his PSLE. As such, we have agreed that we need to be spending more time preparing for it. We've been digging into the past year papers and assessment books! I'm so glad to see him having such a good attitude about learning. He's been perservering. In a good way. :) There is a lot he needs to adjust to with the way he is supposed to answer questions for PSLE. I see the way he erases and re-do his sums, without any complaint, I am just so proud at how much he has matured. The parents reading this who have little kids who whine at doing the slightest bit of work, do take heart! They can out grow it!! I still have whineys here.... so I'm encouraging myself too. :)

I'm glad that we could take this journey to the PSLE via the homeschooling route, that is, at our pace and the child's development. Let's take Singapore Maths. Our main maths curriculum is ACE which has a lot of drill and practice. I feel this was essencial for building a strong foundation for math. Through Pri 1- 4, we have mostly been doing the MOE math textbooks and workbooks (interesting and fun) and avoided the assessment books like plague. I feel the kind of questions in the assessment books are not realistically matched to the child's cognitive development. (Questions too cheem for a child that age.) 

Every half a year, I will print out a school exam so my children can have a taste of what the kids in school do. But there is not really any real consequence for those other than letting them try. Though the don't pass with flying colours, they do pass, despite us not really working on school exams or assessment books.

Now that no. 1 is primary 5, we have started doing the PSLE maths and at this point, he is has enough maths tricks up his sleeve, his brain is more developed and able to do abstract thinking- he quite enjoys tackling the problem sums! :) Minus the tears, struggle and banging of heads against the wall. I'm thankful we can homeschool!

The bible also says there is a natural progression and development of a child:

1 Corinthians 13:11  When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Isaiah 28:10  For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:

 

 

Off to the Airport!

No... we weren't the ones flying off. Sob... 

As such, we needed to send grand ma to the airport on Wednesday morning. Like really early. We woke up at 6 am to drive her to the airport, and then off to a special brekkie out. We caught up on school later in the morning after we got home.

As we drove out, we saw all the school kids in their uniforms, walking on their way to school or waiting at the bus stop. I had to tell my children, see, this is the usual time all the school kids wake up and go to school, you know? lol my children are not subjected to this kind of torture. :p We usually wake between 7:30 to 8 am.

Nationwide, for many generations, Singaporean children and teens have been tekan-ed (let's say, trained) to wake up at un-earthly hours to get to school by 7:20am. They stumble out of their beds, bodys screaming for more rest, do all the necessary, hit the road to get to school, often before the sun even rises.

It's our common suffering bond that we've built among all Singaporean kinds.... spending many of our childhood days waking before the sun wakes.

But when I was in school, I could go to bed at 9 pm. Even till I was in secondary school It is also widely known that schooled kids these days regularly sleep at 11 pm in order to finish their homework for the next day. I wonder why child labour laws are not enacted in Singapore? tsk tsk.

Back to the airport.....

Anyway, after saying bye bye, we went took a walk to the viewing gallery at T3. Unfortunately, the viewing mall there is really not good for seeing any airplane action. :(

We had fun, nonetheless. :)

 

The Viewing Mall. But we can't get close enough to the window to get a good view of the action. :(

 
I'm a Fan of Singapore Airlines! So expensive, we can't fly it! When the children heard that grandma chose to fly SIA, they all went Waaaahhhh... in awe. Because we only ever travel by budget. HAHA! :) 

 

Must do her hair nice nice. :)

 
That awesome duty free mall...for a moment, we feel like we are going to catch a plane too! :D All the girls SMILE please!

 
But, anywhere with my beautiful family, even if it's not some far away destination, is happy family time. :D I'm thankful.  
 

Follow up Post: Peek into Our Grocery Cart

Since I did this post on a Peek into Our Grocery Cart, a reader and friend was kind enough to share with me a lobang to buy fish! :D (She empathized, having many mouths in her family to feed too, that fish can be very dear to buy...) Thank you so much A.! So touched you took the time to care and share!

It's at a wholesaler in Jurong called Song Fish Dealer.  I haven't gone before but I'll take her word for it and will be visiting soon! yay!

She writes:

You may wish to buy salmon from the wholesalers...we get ours from Song Fish. The last time I bought salmon, it cost $18/kg and with 6 to 7 pieces prepacked, it only cost less than $40. They sell a whole lot of other stuff too...including frozen food. Opposite them is Ben Foods, also sell wholesale...they are the ones who bring in Farmland Meat Patties. Only thing is Ben Foods open to public only on Saturdays, starting at 10am. Song Fish opens at 8am I think. If you do go, bring cooler bags or a big styrofoam box filled with ice to store the chilled purchases.

By the way, they do sell fresh batang fish, salmon, pomfret, prawns, squid etc. And they will scale, clean, cut and pack it to your specifications. The downside is, they only accept NETS or cash....

how to do Chinese??

At lunchtime today, no. 3 (7 yrs) was re-enacting the last episode of Bugs Bunny he had watched on TV the other day. He watched it only once yet, he could remember all the details and much of the script.

I wryly told him, if only he can put his great memory power to remembering all the chinese he needs to learn, it'd be perfect.

He thought about for a bit and then replied, ....but chinese isn't funny.

lol

how to make Chinese funny??

like this?:

 

A Peek into Our Grocery Cart

I like to say, what I find mundane may turn out to be something of interest to others. This is one such post: our groceries cart. lol

When folks post on their blogs, the content of their post may end up being taken up by other parties for completely different purposes than the writer intended, for good or bad...

Someone reading this post may be one who is considering how much it would cost to feed a family of seven in Singapore. (Actually, since some of my 5 children are still small, we consider it as four adult portions at the moment....)

Someone else might be doing policy studies? Or someone who does surveys on what is the market demand for home products or this profile of shoppers?....*shrugs*

Our weekly groceries is mainly to stock up on daily necessities and enough food for about 6 meals to cook (this excludes breakfast, which we usually have bread and spread or ham).

I asked my hubby how long I take when I do groceries. (He is usually holding the kids at the library upstairs while I shop in the basement NTUC.) He told me roughly half an hour. I was surprised as I thought I took more like 45 minutes. I guess I have quite perfected the route of combing through our NTUC to grab what I usually grab without too many back tracking.

Tonight, no. 3, the 7 yr old, decided to give the library a miss and come grocery shopping with me. He helped with pushing the cart, which by the end (as usually is the case) gets piled pretty full and heavy. I warned him twice not to engage my ankles under the front bar of the shopping cart. He got the message, eventually.

I counted on my very long receipt that I had about 31 items on it. This was somewhat longer than usual because today, I spent a little more stocking up on the canned food and frozen food (frozen fair price prata the big pack which I sometimes serve with chicken curry, and frozen Tays chicken nuggets, also the big pack...) 

I wonder if others out there have a habit of placing the "tougher" items like bags of rice or the canned food first on the conveyor belt to be checked out first? I do. So that when I re-load the cart, I have these items at the bottom and I can then dump the more delicate items (eggs, leafy vegs) on top.

I bought some nice and conveniently packed tom yum soup ingredients (limes, limau leaf, lemon grass etc.) to cook fish soup with salmon. The kids seems to like the soup. :) Salmon is quite dear. I bought a salmon fillet for $8.45. It might not be enough for my family so I bought another package of the bone/ head for $2.03. It nice as there's more skin and bones (good for soup) and the fatty bits. yum. I happen to like to grill those too because of the fatty oil.

And as for the final tally, it came up to... *drumroll*...$170.50!!!(Which is about US$138.)

It was more than usual (usually about $110). The most expensive item I bought tonight was the 900g can of goat's milk for the 2 yr old, $48.

This weekly grocery shopping is not the only place I do grocery shopping. I occasionally stock up on frozen foods through qb foods. And I get my bread flour and other baking stuff from Phoon Huat.

God provides, He is our all sufficiency.

So, I hope that was an interesting/ informative/ not too boring look into our weekly shopping cart. :D