Learning At Home: Forest Animals

The months following June seemed to whiz past so fast with a new job, new adjustments, the Bees (and the whole family!) falling sick, myriad social activities and Big Bee's term 2 test and now final year exams. Hence, I did not have time to update what we had been doing for our homelearning activities, and I also found my creativity and energy levels a wee bit low!

We followed the multiple intelligences format for this theme, which is nothing new, just a re-categorisation of what we used to do with our usual thematic learning. Here were some of the activities we indulged in - most of them were done from late June to August.

1) Visual/spatial intelligence

(Painting, visual arts, arts and crafts)

We focused a lot on this, as this caters to Little Bee's learning style. She learns best when she is participating in an active craft or painting session.

Crafts

Ducks in a pond

We did a bit of collage art and created a little pond in the forest with wild ducks, since we had been seeing ducks and swans in Botanic Gardens so frequently! It was good to put into art what the Bees observed in nature. They both had a fantastic time working on this, finishing in one sitting! Took about 30 minutes to complete.

Big Bee's duck collage

Little Bee's duck collage where she wrote the word "duck"

Duck paper plate craft

I was trying to teach Little Bee the letter "d", and was focusing a lot on duck crafts! She made this paper plate duck with a little assistance from me, and wrote the words "duck" herself. For me, this was a good way to reinforce writing skills in Little Bee, as she is not one to work on those traditional writing worksheets, unlike Big Bee. I also wrote 鸭子 on the duck's body, so that she could identify the words with the duck. Hence, she can now read both 鸭子 and "duck". This duck is 3D, hence could stand on its own, so Little Bee played a fair bit with it thereafter.

Hands and feet deer

This was a superbly easy craft, which just took us about 20 minutes to complete, with minimal preparation work. It is also a perfect craft for much younger toddlers. I traced both my foot and Little Bee's foot on brown construction paper, just to illustrate the concept of different sizes. I also reinforced the letter "d" as she wrote the word "deer" and she drew the eyes and expressions on her 2 deers. Notice the different expressions? 

As she worked on the craft, I also spoke about what deers eat, where they live and what their antlers are for. From one single craft, it is amazing that we could impart the knowledge of language (the sound of "d", word recognition of "deer" and 鹿), Math (different sizes) and general knowledge.

Paper plate rabbit mask

We created a simple rabbit mask where Little Bee learned about wild rabbits in the forest (versus the usual caged-up tame rabbits she saw in pet shops). It was fun creating this and she wore the mask thereafter to hop about. She drew the face and ears herself.

Painting

Squirrel in a fruit tree fingerpaint

2) Verbal/linguistic intelligence (reading, writing)

Through the various activities, I introduced 6 forest-related words to Little Bee: duck, deer, bear, rabbit, fox, squirrel. Story books with these animals as well as flashcards were used to reinforce these words. 

We played a fun activity regularly where Little Bee was supposed to match the Chinese words to the English flashcards below, and she was able to do it independently after a few tries. She had difficulty in reading all the Chinese words, so I had to help her along, but she had no problems recognising the English words. 

Letter booklet

The Bees love creating minibooks, so we created this little booklet that we downloaded from the internet for Little Bee to identify letter "d" words. She had real fun pasting pictures and words with the beginning letter "d" into the book. She had been spelling and writing her name independently since June. 

3) Logical/mathematical intelligence (science and math concepts)

Math with squirrels

Numbers 11 to 20

We did a craft with an old CD and circles of different shapes and sizes where Little Bee arranged them into a bear's face. The craft is great to reinforce the concept of different shapes and sizes. Little Bee then counted the total number of circles on the bear and picked the number 17 from the number cards below. I also got her to identify the word "bear" from the 2 flashcards below. 

Chinese number recognition

Concentration game of forest animals

We played a memory game of different forest animals, which is great for sharpening Little Bee's concentration skills and also for me to explain more about what these forest animals are.

Pattern completion

While we were on the topic of bears, we read about the story of "Goldilocks and the 3 Bears", and played this pattern completion game with characters and icons from the story. 

She also played with icons of different sizes from the story and arranged them into small, medium and big formations. 

Teddy bear dice game

The Bees love this game where we throw dice and put our respective markers on the bears with the same number of dots as the number on the dice we threw. The first player with markers on all the bears wins. It was a really exciting game for the Bees, especially when the Bees were so frustrated if they could not get the number they wanted!

4) Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence (games, speech and drama, dancing) & 

5) Musical/rhythmic intelligence (music, songs)

I combined the 2 intelligences as I could not think of many activities in this arena (not my forte!). We sang the "Five Little Ducks" song, and Little Bee who loves to dance, merrily twirled to the tune of this song.  

We also used these card puppets to re-enact the characters in the song. We introduced the subtraction and addition concept as the five little ducks dwindled down to zero ducks and then back to five ducks again. Little Bee loves this game! 

6) Interpersonal intelligence (empathy, cooperation, trust, conflict resolution)

We read the Ugly Duckling story, which is wonderful for instilling strong empathy with the children. 

We also worked on this time-consuming forest diorama project that took up a lot of energy from me, but unfortunately, creative 3D modelling was not exactly my strength, so I think we can still improve on our diorama skills! 

Big Bee was a remarkable saving grace though - many of the ideas on constructing the diorama came from her, so this helped foster problem-solving skills in her. As the Bees worked on the dioramas together, cooperation, trust and teamwork were values that were augmented through this project. 

Painting tree trunks in the shoe boxes for the diorama setting

Big Bee's forest diorama

Little Bee's forest diorama

7) Intrapersonal intelligence (self-reflection and analysis)

With their interest in painting, I encouraged the Bees to use paintings to reflect what their ideal forest habitat would look like, and they produced a couple of works on this. 

From our numerous nature walks around our densely foliaged estate, Big Bee was also rattling on about imaginative scenes in the areas we ambled past, thus opening her imagination to us. I also motivated Little Bee to tell stories from her own perspectives, and she tended to always relate stories about the particular theme we were learning: Storytelling

Breakfast with the birds

Individual portraits of their ideal forests

Other forest paintings

Big Bee's forest - or rather, apple orchard!

Little Bee's, erm, forest! She always could not resist dotting all over her painting once she was done with it, hence distorting her original artwork! 

8) Naturalistic/environmental intelligence (awareness of nature, field trips)

With our family's love for nature, we spent an abundance of time immersing ourselves in nature walks and alfresco picnics, trying to identify all sorts of forest animals around us - squirrels, snakes (!!), monitor lizards, birds, wild ducks and swans, etc. This is always my favourite part of homelearning - outdoor field trips! 

The path less trodden

Home of the black swans

Breakfast with swans

...and many more!

Friday Humour

Last Sunday, as we were about to go out and Hubby was still on the sofa, Little Bee walked up to him:

Little Bee (thrusting her watch towards him): Papa, you know what time is it?
Hubby: What time?
Little Bee: It's waste time! (then proceeded to ask him to get up)

Hubby was absolutely flabbergasted!

Celebration of Effulgence

That magical time of the year is upon us again - where glowing beacons of enchantment were carried with pride by little children; where sweet delights of moist succulent mooncakes were nibbled by adults; where instruments of luminescence created a spellbinding ambience of festivity and felicity. 

Yes, it is the Mid-Autumn Festival again, when the moon dazzles with superlative brilliance and is at its largest and most spherical tonight. 

Our celebrations started last Friday evening with the annual Mid-Autumn bash held at my estate. The party usually comprised of games and prizes for the kids, an alfresco dinner and a walk around the entire estate in nocturnal darkness! The walk had always been a highlight every year - it was quite an astounding yet wondrous sight with more than 150 children and parents dangling cheery lanterns, walking in a never-ending, meandering single-filed formation!

This year, we invited hubby's good friends SB and SJ, together with their wives and children to the estate party, and we had a wonderful time chatting (for the adults) and playing (for the kids). There were 5 kids in all ages - 8, 6, 4, 3.8, 2 and another one in C's tummy! 

1. The Bees with Alexis ready to set forth on the half-hour lantern parade! 2. Big Bee, Alexis and Cherilyn challenging their balancing skills with an ice-cream toy at home. 3. Little Bee at the start of the festivities 4. Big Bee halfway through the lantern walk 5. The Bees with many other kids playing games with the party host.

It was really heartwarming to see the kids balancing their paper lanterns in deep concentration as part of the lantern-walk formation, and playing phosphorous strands of bangles whilst outdoors, and then interacting harmoniously with toys at home. With the kids entertaining each other, the mummies and daddies could all have a great chit-chat session, not to mention gorging on mooncakes! The kids enjoyed each other's company so much that the home party was only over at 10.15pm! 

And this evening, which was the actual night of Mid-Autumn Festival, we brought the Bees out for a cooling and refreshing drive, adjacent to the huge meadow behind our home, admiring the big luminous moon, listening to nothing but the crickets and toads creating an orchestra of beautiful sounds, and smelling the sweet crisp post-rain evening air by the forest with the wind caressing our faces. 

The Bees wondered what the fuss of this festival was all about, until we explained to them that the moon was supposed to be at its largest and brightest on this very day. It was priceless seeing those awe-struck expressions on their faces as they gazed at the moon in wonderment. 

Thereafter, we played with fizzling sparklers in the darkened courtyard with 2 of Big Bee's schoolmates living in the same estate. The girls had fun giggling at the sparkling mini fireworks, with Little Bee too timid to hold on to a sparkler by herself! 

Hubby also lit a candle for the girls to dip their sparklers in, so the night was bathed in mystical, candlelit glow, with sparklers contributing intermittent flashes of glimmers. The 4 girls enjoyed themselves so much that they played way past their bedtime, only retiring back home by 9.30pm! 

What marvelous celebrations to usher in the final (and most entrancing) quarter of the year!

Resplendent River

Last weekend was perfect. After spending many prior weekends in social settings with family and friends, we decided to spend some quiet quality time bonding as ourselves, with no one else but each other.

We descended to the Singapore River for an early dinner and a rejuvenating walk - imbuing ourselves with the gentle golden light of the setting sun, feeling the placid balmy breeze caressing our faces.

There is something very mesmerising and captivating about ambling beside the river - almost magical, somehow. The tranquillity, the stillness, the invisible presence of generations long before us, toiling on the same river. I stood beside it, indulging in a few moments of serenity and silence, marvelling at the surrounding peace and subtle contentment of others strolling alongside the river.

The Bees - hand in hand - sauntered vivaciously alongside the river, peering into its muddied depths and clambering up the colourful Alkaff Bridge in pure exhilaration.

The resplendent, shimmering light of the setting sun was breathtaking and bewitching, elevating our spirits to a higher plane. The ambience seemed more expansive, more enchanting with tangerine light that resonates through all our beings. Glorious.

Of Birds And Bees

With the growing proliferation of unwanted information on the mass media, combined with Big Bee's bombardment of questions every time she read certain things she could not comprehend in the newspapers, I decided to take out my trusty book on the origins of human life - Who Am I? Where Did I Come From?

I used to read this to Big Bee when she was only 4, but she had clean forgotten everything. The pages and words for a comprehensive sex education are excellent for little kids from 3 years old, complete with fun pop-up graphics (and some are very explicit indeed!) as well as flaps within the book.

Little Bee had a blast fiddling with these pop up pages, and Big Bee comprehended my simple explanation from the book. However, I must reinforce that it was pure treasure to glimpse that mixture of fascination and disgust when we came to the pages where the sperms met the egg (yes, this was illustrated in glorious pop up!). The distinct gulps of disbelief and undisguised looks of horror when the Bees realised how they were created and from where they were launched into harsh Earth was priceless indeed :) 

Birthdays Galore!

The past 2 months had been nothing short of spectacular - with our weekends packed with birthday parties and lots of other activities! We had nary a break till the next fortnight. But the Bees are enjoying themselves thoroughly, needless to say! 

Here are some highlights from the myriad parties we attended:

1) Chloe's 3rd birthday

My cousin Irene booked a wonderful bungalow at Tanah Merah to celebrate Chloe's birthday, and we had such great fun exploring and chilling in the house! There were lots of mesmerizing activities for the children - a kid's magician (where gutsy Little Bee volunteered herself to participate in some tricks!), balloon sculpting and face/body painting. The Bees participated in all the activities with glee and mirth! Chloe had 2 cakes, lucky her - a beautiful 3D number "3" cake with Pooh characters and a Buzz Lightyear agar agar "cake" which tasted divine! 

2) Val's 3rd birthday

The following week, it was Val's birthday! We celebrated her birthday in a stunning function room complete with a colourful bouncer, see-saw and a gorgeous Mickey Mouse pinata with lots of sweets! It was really lovely to sit down, gorged on scrumptious food and looked at our children playing contentedly together. The 2nd generation cousins really played harmoniously together. Val looked so happy, especially when Big Bee arrived. Her cake was a breathtaking two-tiered cake in strawberry and chocolate flavours. Yum! 

3) Alecia's 4th birthday

Little Bee's best friend from school invited her to Build-A-Bear Workshop for an amazing party. Party hosts played games with the kids and there was a gigantic bunny mascot that fascinated all the little kids. Best of all, each of the kids could take home a bear that they built from scratch in the shop! What a wonderful memento! Little Bee truly enjoyed catching up with her school pals and choosing a bunny for herself. 

4) Kai's 1st birthday

Hubby's good friend celebrated his son's 1st birthday with a bash in Singtel's recreation club. The party area was so spacious, filled with comfortable big lounge chairs that the adults enjoyed more than the kids! Meanwhile, Little Bee snoozed through the entire party, waking up only after the cake cutting. Big Bee busied herself with the rest of the other kids, playing with balloons and the foosball machine. 

Can you see Little Bee (in a blue dress) snoozing peacefully on a sofa behind Big Bee? 

5) Desiree's 1st birthday

6) Brianna's 9th birthday

What a busy but fun-filled time the Bees had! 

Rejuvenation By The Sea

We spent the Hari Raya Puasa long weekend by the sea in Bintan with PF and her family. Being beach zealots, we were dazzled by the breathtaking expanse of emerald ocean, soft taupe sands on the capacious beach and resplendent sunset. Staying 2 nights at the sprawling Bintan Lagoon Resort was truly vivifying, as there were plenty of family activities for rainy days and early evenings.

The Bees enjoyed this short getaway tremendously, being in close proximity and joyous company of friends whom they had grown up with. Big Bee was giggling and chatting with Eugene and Claire, like they were little adults! Little Bee tried to tag along but felt a little left out at times with the big primary school kids, poor girl. However, she would learn fast from them, I am sure! 

Some salient highlights of the getaway:

1) Taking the Emerald Class in the ferry to and fro Bintan. This is highly recommended for sheer comfort and the opportunity to skip the long, bothersome queues at the immigration counter when checking in and out of the ferry terminal. We could even relax in a lounge at Bintan's ferry terminal on our way home, complete with coffee/tea and drinks, while their lounge staff settled the immigration check-in for us! Besides, the seats on Emerald Class were so luxurious, and drinks were served to everyone while we sat comfortably - we felt so pampered!

2) Luxuriating in the spacious, newly renovated hotel room with a large relaxation platform area that the Bees loved! The balcony chairs were wonderful for me to sink my tired body at night, after the Bees slept, listening to nothing but the orchestral music of myriad crickets and insects, perfected by the never-ending whispering of the ubiquitous trees and relentless rhythm of the sighing waves. Witnessing a blast of splendid fireworks from a distance, probably by Hari Raya merrymakers in Bintan. Bliss indeed! 

3) Watching Big Bee and Hubby engaging in a fearsome battle of Laser Quest with Eugene, Claire and their daddy, with timid Little Bee clinging on to me in the dark cavernous war space! The 3 kids and 2 daddies emerged out of the dark, cloaked in large beads of perspiration and pounding hearts after an adrenaline-racing shooting game!

4) Playing table tennis with Little Bee after the gang had expended a good 30 minutes of energy on table tennis tournaments of all kinds - between the fathers, between the big kids and between fathers and kids! Little Bee was happily picking up the ball constantly and my incessant encouragement was making her so motivated and happy! 

5) Seeing Big Bee tumbling and rolling around in a Zorb ball in the pool, feeling protective yet letting go mentally for her to explore on her own. It was also very liberating to just stay with Little Bee who was paddling happily in the baby pool, whilst witnessing how much fun Big Bee was having on her own with her 2 good buddies on the 2 pool slides. They had indeed grown up, freeing themselves from the restricting arms of us, their parents! 

6) Giggling at a laughing and exhilarated Little Bee who was bouncing up and down on a trampoline, falling and getting up, bouncing and falling again. This would be a perfect lesson for a little child like her to learn about the literal ups and downs of life! 

7) Enjoying the resplendent multi-hued sunset at the far-reaching beach at low-tide, watching the 4 kids digging around for tiny hermit crabs, loving the fact that they were truly enjoying nature and were close to creatures of nature, nurturing these creatures and not destroying their habitats. 

8) Getting back on the beach the next morning again, and seeing 2 groups of sandcastles - one under our pavilion by the kids, and another one right under the searing sun by the fathers. It pleased my heart immensely to see the kids indulging in perpetual chatting - not of the rigmarole type these days, but proper discussions about school and life in general, with Little Bee joining in from the side. Seeing the fathers build a gigantic sandcastle, only to be destroyed by the kids eventually. What a wonderful lesson in the transient nature of things on earth :) 

9) Bewitched by awe-inspiring weatherscapes of all kinds - from intense, tangerine hues of the sunset to the vivid sapphire skies dotted with white cotton-like fluffy clouds to apocalyptic, dark menacing clouds hovering like a giant monster over us! Fantastic! 

And finally, nothing beats having all the time in the world on a beach resort to spend time with the Bees - this would be something I will cherish as much as possible before they forge ahead with their own independent lives in future! 

Women's Soccer

* A page from Big Bee's diary*

On the 21st of August, Papa and me went to watch the YOG women's football match in the evening. The football match was held at the Kitchener Road stadium. Unfortunately, Little Bee was sick so Mummy had to stay at home and look after her.

Papa parked at the humongous carpark. There was also an enormous swimming pool in the stadium. We sat at the front row in the grandstand. The view was not really that wonderful because there was a speaker blocking the other side of the football field.

The first match was Turkey against Chile. When we arrived, they already finished the first half. The score was 2-2 so it was quite exciting. The second half finished but the score was still the same. The game continued. Chile shot a goal. Everyone screamed like mad. I did not know which team I liked most, so I supported "Turle". It was a mix of Turkey and Chile.

After that, Papa went to buy some snacks. Papa bought a hotdog and a bottle of orange juice. He let me eat some of his hotdog bread. After that, we went to watch the second match. It was Equatorial Guinea versus Iran. Surprisingly, everyone was cheering for Iran. They will hit their chairs three times and shout "Iran". Equatorial Guinea had shot 2 goals.

Soon, I wanted to go home. Papa did not want to. He said that if I stayed till 9.45pm, he would buy me something. I stayed till 9.45pm. We went out of the stadium. Papa asked a man where the shop with the YOG gifts was. The man said it was inside the stadium. We could not go in again so we went home. But I still think it was a fun night!

Homelearning For Working Mums

I don't profess to be a wonderful mum. To me, fantastic mothers are those without domestic helpers and yet ensuring that the house is spick and span, who homeschool their children and who are loving wives and devoted daughters, with warm delicious meals on the table as their husbands reach home from work and who gives a nice allowance to their parents from their husband's paycheck - and yet looking gorgeous without a hair out of place! Not me for sure!

For me, I hate housework, I cannot live without my helper who does all my yucky housework, and I need my mum to help care for the kids when I am at work.

However, I try my best to be a good mother in whatever little ways I can. Hence, I spend as much time with my children (and hubby, of course) and I prefer to teach my children myself (for now) without needing to bring them for enrichment or tuition classes, except for skills-based classes that I can't teach, like ballet, piano and tennis, etc.

Yet, I know in this harsh academic environment where meritocracy is paramount, it is rather hard for our children to enjoy learning in school. Hence, I started a homelearning programme early last year when Big Bee went to primary one - to plug in the gaps that the formal school system cannot fill.

As a working mother, I must profess that it is challenging to do structured activities in the evenings after work because 1) the kids are tired after a long day in school or even at home, and 2) I am tired after a long day at work. But as mothers - working or stay home mums - we know we are focused on one objective, that of ensuring a rich learning environment for our children. And we know we are resilient from all those nights of caring for our crying babies, breastfeeding them, changing them. So, focus and perseverence are my 2 mottos when coming to homelearning, especially for working mums, where we only have that pathetic 2 to 3 hours of time with our children after work.

I am no expert, but this is my personal survival kit for homelearning with my Bees as a working mum. I typically have only a sad 2.5 hours with the Bees every weekday evening, and I only use 1 hour or lesser every night on learning activities. The rest of time is spent on casual games and fun, which is just as important for bonding.

1) It is absolutely fundamental to have a lesson plan for the theme that I work on, so that I can refer to it and select the activity of the day almost immediately, as I do not have time to research on the homelearning activities on a daily basis. It also helps me to put into perspective a big picture of what the learning outcomes are.

I usually spend about a week structuring a lesson plan for the theme of the month, and I arrange activities according to the multiple intelligences format, ensuring that there are enough activities for each intelligence.

2) I will select the daily homelearning activity from work, or during dinner time. This may change depending on a) the Bees' and my energy levels b) our moods (whether we feel like crafting or writing, Chinese or math etc) and c) level of pre-preparation for that particular activity.

3) I try to include easy activities for weekday nights, meaning crafts or activities that need minimal pre-preparation work. In fact, most of our homelearning activities involve a lot of creation by the Bees, which makes things a lot easier for me and which help foster their innovative skills too.

4) I spend very little time on each activity, given the short attention of Little Bee and given the long day in primary 2 for Big Bee. Hence, it is usually 20 to 30 minutes for Little Bee, and another 20 to 30 minutes for Big Bee. On days where exams are nigh, I will go through Big Bee's academic schoolwork with her as she doesn't attend tuition yet, and she will grouch about how her mei mei can work on fun crafts whereas she has to do corrections, poor baby.

If it is a group activity, we will usually spend 30 to 40 minutes on it, and that's it!

There - seems very easy, isn't it? It is really effortless to do structured homelearning at home for working mums, so long we have a good lesson plan. On days when I am on leave, I can have the luxury of researching for activities on my whim and fancy, but on working days, I have absolutely no time to do such researching, so a lesson plan is truly helpful.

For activities that need some pre-preparations, like dioramas, I will work on these materials after the kids are asleep.

It just takes 20 to 30 minutes a day for homelearning. If done on a daily basis, this cumulative effort can be seen very evidently, compared to when we just chill the entire evening in front of a TV with our kids. On nights when I am really tired, I will just read more to them, or I let them doodle and paint. As mothers, I guess we know better than to give ourselves undue pressure, because if we feel stressed doing such activities with our children, it will never be fun nor effective for us nor the kids!

That being said, I still admire these stay-home mothers who do not have helpers at home, and yet had bravely started their own businesses fueled by their passion in early childhood development! These are Amazonian mothers indeed - Pauline and Rachel from My Playschool.net and Domestic Goddess. It is amazing how they are courageously living their dreams!

Homemade Cards

'Tis a season for parties in August, and the Bees had been really busy being socialites and decorating homemade cards. We had never needed to buy birthday cards, all thanks to my Bees' avid interests in creating their own cards for birthday friends and relatives. 

In this fortnight, we attended 3 fantastic parties: Little Bee's best friend Alecia's 4th birthday party as well as the Bees' cousins Chloe's and Val's 3rd birthday parties. It was immense fun, and they were wishing for more parties! Pictures of the parties will be posted in another entry. 

Meanwhile, the Bees had also been really busy preparing cards for their friends and cousins. Big Bee had been making cards for years, and I guess this bug caught on with Little Bee, who had started making cards with great interest for all kinds of occasions at home. Hence, she was elated when she could make her debut entries for these 3 parties officially! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of Chloe's card that Big Bee created, but I am sure I will be asking my cousin Irene for a photo soon! 

Little Bee's card for Alecia, her best friend. She enjoys decorating her name with curly swirls to make it prettier, something she learned from her beloved jie jie. I wrote the words "Happy Birthday" and she decorated the entire card on her own. She drew Alecia in a long straw dress in a garden with a big flower and butterfly. 

This is a card for Little Bee's friend Hsin Yann, whose party she missed due to her flu a month ago. The letters "IUVL" actually meant "I LUV U". She knows the letters that made up this phrase but would always mix them up, hence "IUVL"!

Little Bee's card for Val - this time, she wanted to write Happy Birthday herself, so she copy wrote the phrase from me. Again, the curly letters for her name prevailed! 

Big Bee's card for Val - she is now very adept at creating cards with pop-up effects or flaps, enhancing the interactivity of the card for the little ones. 

Love, Forever

Last Saturday, we went to a lovely alfresco cafe at Vivocity for breakfast. The Bees loved the cafe with plush spacious swings and a stunning view of Sentosa's Universal Studios, the integrated resort and busy bay with incessantly moving boats.

I loved the large cup of latte and Hubby liked the bright, airy ambience. Their blueberry muffins were a tad too sweet though! 

August 2010

The girls were so happy fooling around that I could not resist snapping some jubilant photos of them, and then comparing these shots with a similar picture that I took of them at the beginning of 2009. 

January 2009

Oh, how they had grown since then, but one fact is constant - their profound love for each other will remain forever, despite all the little sibling squabbles. 

New Lesson Plan - Multiple Intelligences

I had researched a fair bit on Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory, and recently developed a lesson plan for the Bees around each of these intelligences, and integrating the activities as best as I could, since I am not a professional educator. 

I firmly believe in a holistic, broad-based education for children from a young age, an education that empowers them, that enables them to think independently and creatively. Most importantly, I believe in an education that imbues our children with broad knowledge of the world, its people and nature, rather than using it as a tool for success. 

I want my Bees to have passionate empathy for issues and events in the world, versus cold apathy - an understanding of all religions, gender discrimination, global warming, extinction of nature, racial biases, poverty...the list goes on. It is not easy though, in cosy Singapore, where our children are so accustomed to a comfortable life. 

Despite the fact that top universities around the world are now focusing their brightest minds on interdisciplinary (versus multidisciplinary) learning, fusing together learning outcomes from different disciplines in a holistic, liberal-arts style, I am not convinced that we should wait for higher education institutions to impart such valuable life skills to our children. This is especially crucial in our local education system where the curriculum is a lot more fragmented, focusing on excellence in rigid vertical subject areas rather than integrating the core curriculum together. 

Alas, it is much easier said than done in the constant race for excellence and meritocracy starting from primary schools. I am guilty as charged - always coaching Big Bee on her subject areas during intensive term time, and only focusing on some feeble semblance of integrating the language arts, general knowledge, arithmetic and science during weekends or holidays. 

Of course, a thematic learning approach helps a lot, but I found that this thematic approach - combined with integrating Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences with a strong understanding of our child's learning style - is more effective for Little Bee who is still detached from the harsh primary school education system. 

Still, I try my best to foster general knowledge about the world, incorporating science and math concepts, to Big Bee. But I am finding it a challenge to balance my expectations of her academic performance (which parent would not have expectations?) and my desire for her to have a holistic, enjoyable education. 

Anyway, enough of my rambling! I just want to share the skeleton of our most recent homelearning theme on Forest Animals which was structured around a lesson plan incorporating Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory, and we try to work on activities that complement, rather than isolate, each other.

Brief peek at the lesson plan

Theme: Forest Animals

Visual/spatial intelligence (the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas) - crafts, visual arts, paintings, sketchings, dioramas

Linguistic intelligence (the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals) - writing of journals and stories (for Big Bee), reading, oral articulation of stories, understanding of new vocabulary, word recognition

Logical-mathematical intelligence (the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically) - math concepts, general knowledge, concentration/memory games, observation of patterns

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements) - walks, dancing, sports, speech and drama, games

Musical intelligence (capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms) - music, songs (I am not that good at teaching this aspect!)

Interpersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others) - Activities that nurtures empathy, cooperation, trust and conflict resolution, eg working on dioramas as a pair of siblings, stories that foster empathy, etc

Intrapersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations) - activities that encourage self-reflection, eg drawings of individual perspectives, encouraging the Bees to talk about their feelings after stories, etc

Naturalistic intelligence (awareness of nature and the environment, and how one fits into the whole global ecosystem) - field trips, walks in parks, picnics, etc

There is one last intelligence that he developed more recently on existential intelligence (sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence, such as the meaning of life, why do we die, and how did we get here) and I try to incorporate questions and discussions on this aspect into our activities, more for Big Bee. 

I find that building a lesson plan based on these intelligences helps me to ensure that their homelearning will be as holistic as possible. There are also many activities that overlap between intelligences, hence stressing on the interdisciplinary aspect of this theory. I will share more on our specific activities, which are the usual homelearning ones, in another post!