Learning At Home: A Magic Picture!

We hardly have time to do home learning during the school term these days, what with Little Bee's CCAs and school work. So, it was a much welcomed reprieve when we finally managed to squeeze in time to do some fun crafts during the June holidays.

This interesting "magical" craft amused Little Bee for a couple of hours! I tried this with Big Bee when she was younger, and she was amazed at the end product. It was truly gratifying when we saw the same sense of wonderment in Little Bee's eyes too!

This "magical" picture changes from monochrome to colourful with just a pull of your hand - what wizardry indeed!

You will need:
Thin card or paper
Scissors
Markers, colour pencils, felt tip pens
Small plastic folder
Tape

Step 1: Take a sheet of thin paper and fold it carefully into 3 equal sections.

Step 2: On the front flap, mark out a rectangle and the finger grip space. Cut away the finger grip space.

Step 3: Open out the card and cut out the rectangle. This will be the front of the card.

Step 4: Draw a decorative border on the front frame. Cut a separate piece of paper that is the same size as one section of the card, and draw your design, colouring the entire picture.

Step 5: Slip your completed picture into the plastic folder with the top against the fold of the plastic. Trim the plastic folder to the picture, and use the tape to stick the back of the picture to the plastic.

Step 6: Use a marker pen and draw an outline of the picture on the plastic.

Step 7: Fold the bottom flap of your card into the middle section. Slip the plastic-covered picture over the bottom flap. The bottom flap is now between the coloured picture and the outlined picture on the plastic flap. Fold the top flap down over the plastic. Grip the plastic and paper, and then pull the coloured picture out. Voila! The picture will seem to appear magically in colour as you pull it out. Enjoy!

Little Bee was able to work on this herself with minimal help from me. She had loads of fun! Experiment with different pictures like a hillside covered with white, fluffy sheep or a bare table top with a birthday cake appearing on it (I am excited to try this one out!).

Christmas Art

We did a bout of Christmas art on a lazy weekend over the year-end holidays. The Bees did some research on what icons they thought that most represented Christmas, and painted those out. We spent a couple of quiet hours drawing and painting these 2 festive icons, and it was really therapeutic.

Here were what the girls had done!

Big Bee's Christmas Tree

Little Bee's Santa's Torso!

Of Chalkboards And Clean Slates

To demonstrate the significance of life's impermanence, Tibetan monks will painstakingly create intricately designed sand mandalas. For months, they bent over the ground, arranging the sand grain by grain. Once their beautiful creations were perfected and completed, they cheerfully destroyed it in the ultimate celebration of impermanence.

Impermanence is the fundamental nature of the human condition. Yet, most of us are living our lives in a constant state of worry, denial and regret - and that is what's causing our supposed fears. Change is a constant reassurance that we consistently learn from the undulating affairs around us. Yet, we are often shocked by definitive constants like deaths, even though death is the most predictable outcome of life - more so than births, in this age of contraceptives and birth control tactics.

We emphasised the concept of impermanence with the Bees through simple chalk play one balmy evening. We hope that a better understanding of impermanence might help them to become more resilient, adaptable beings in future, able to face the myriad challenges that will appear in their lives soon.
We bought a box of colourful, cheerful chalks and painted a wall in our home black. We then spent the gloaming scribbling and sketching on the wall, drawing favourite pictures that bring us comfort and happiness. The Bees were mighty satisfied with the outcome of our family montage! Thereafter, we left the wall to the elements (this is an external wall, exposed to the elements).

Two days later, there was a huge downpour that wiped the entire wall clean of our sketches. After the rain, we observed the sad, faded imprints of our sketches and I felt a little sorry that our hard work was gone. However, I was surprised that the Bees exclaimed excitedly that they can start drawing all over again - on a clean slate!

And that is what life is about, isn't it? Building up things with people we love, appreciating them but not being overly-attached to them. And if something happened to shake up the foundation of these things, we cheerfully move on in life on a clean slate. Easier said than done, of course, but the Bees' approach to their chalkboard gave me something to learn and think about. I hope they can take this same attitude to the many vicissitudes in their lives next time!

Painting Heavenly Dancers

On a cool, languorous Sunday afternoon, Little Bee decided to indulge in a little bout of painting. It was ages since she last painted and she was visibly excited. As we were currently in the midst of a Cambodian-themed homelearning spiel, I initially suggested to her to paint the Angkor Wat. However, she preferred something more feminine and delicate, so we decided on a painting with ballerinas floating above a sea of blue, thus reflecting the theme of "heavenly dancers" that is still so prevalent in Angkor Wat.

We spent less than an hour on this painting, and it was a nice, relaxing piece of art for Little Bee. I really love how ethereal and surreal the outcome was, although my mum kept questioning why these ballerinas can dance on water! Well, it just helped to illustrate the theme of magic and myth that we are exploring with the Cambodian homelearning stint!

Step 1: Brush light blue poster paint over the entire drawing paper, then paint a darker blue for the sea.

Step 2: Using white poster paint (or chalk!), paint a round circle in the sky for the moon with white reflection on the sea's surface.

Step 3: Paint a light yellow ring around the moon (you can smudge or blend the colours if you want), and paint tinges of yellow on the reflection in the water.

Step 4: Using bold, medium-sized strokes, paint one ballerina's body and her tutu in the sky (or anywhere you like!).

Step 5: Using beige, peach or beige-coloured paint, paint in the ballerina's arms, legs, neck and head. Then embellish the ballerina's costume with a tiara or head gear and strappy pointe shoes. Use your finger or the brush to smudge the tutu to create a soft, fuzzy effect.

Step 6: Paint a second ballerina in a different ballet pose.

Tada!

Homelearning: Learning About The World From Placemats!

Homelearning had become much more ad-hoc these days. Gone are the days when we had time to do a month's worth of thematic learning. Part of the reason was because the Bees had developed a lot of their own interests by now. And the other part of the reason stemmed from my own stagnation, I must say.

Still, I tried to grab hold of any small opportunity to talk to them about the world in which they live in, highlighting issues that are not covered in their very academic and rigid school curriculum. Opportunities as small as using these placemats below to talk about geography, animals and the world they live in.

We bought these placemats back in 2011 when we were exploring the theme of Planet Earth. I remember talking a lot about geographical regions, major cities and the animals around the world using these placemats and a globe when they were bright-eyed little girls. 

3 years henceforth, we are still using these placemats for our daily meals. One languorous afternoon last Sunday, when the Bees were in the throes of revising for their primary 6 preliminary exams and primary 2 continuous assessment tests, I told them to take a long break just to "chat about the world".

We relooked at the world maps on these placemats, and I conducted impromptu quizzes (the Bees are fans of quizzes). A small sampling of the questions are: 

1. Point out the city of Reykjavik on the map! Which country is it in? 

2. Name an animal that is unique only to the continent of Asia/China/Australia. 

3. Will polar bears and penguins ever meet each other? Why/why not?

4. Point out the highest point on earth? How about the lowest? 

5. Where did Titanic sink? 

6. What do you call a whale with a unicorn horn? (This was a question that the Bees asked me, and they were shocked that I had not heard about narwhals.)

Easy questions to ask. Fun answers to talk about. Without any writing, crafting, doodling or reading. Just plenty of funny, irreverent (at times) and invigorating discussion-based learning! And I must say it was a good, long reprieve from academic and book-based revision! 

Reading "And Tango Makes Three"

Now that the furor had died down with regards to the Singapore National Library Board banning a few children's books and then reinstating a couple of them back in the adult section, I thought it might be an appropriate time to finally relate what I had been sharing with my kids about this whole saga.

Truth be told, I was exasperated with the National Library Board (NLB) for initially censoring the books - not because I was siding any side of the LGBT factions here - but because I seethed at the thought that NLB tried acting as an omniscient, all-knowing power who thinks they could control what the general population wants. Unnecessary and partisan censorship was at the heart of the issue for me.

Now that everything had died down, it is not necessary to talk about the antipathy I felt against the banning of these books. Instead, I wanted to relate how I brought my children into the heart of the discussion, as this is something that will be so fundamental in their society in future - analysing how media and society portray different issues to the population. In this day and age where internet and online articles are so prevalent, how do we nurture our children to question what they read and develop informed perspectives of their own?

I always believe in opening all communications with my children from a very young age with regards to knowledge and information. I prefer to expose them to all kinds of issues from young and discussing with them about values, rather than shielding them and compartmentalising different knowledge to age-appropriate categories. Because I do not believe there is an appropriate age for knowledge. Instead, I feel that if they had been sheltered for too long, they might be moulded by societal and peer pressures to form views that I have no control over. Hence, I prefer to transfer knowledge to them directly and have them voice out their thoughts honestly to me. Which is why sex education started at the age of 4 in my household. And why we talked about sensitive issues of death, war, rape and molestation from the age of 7. Of course, values are a big part of the discussions, and I would like to start influencing their value system from a young age, before they form any pre-conceived judgements of their own. (Again, sometimes I also have issues with me being an omniscient, all-knowing entity to my kids...but that is a story for another time!)

Being aware of societal issues and our attitudes towards these issues is very important to me. Which is why I decided to let the Bees read "And Tango Makes Three" during the heart of the saga. So that they could understand all sides of the discussions. It was initially hilarious as we settled down to read a "banned" book. You know how thrilled kids are when they access something that is banned!

As we read the book, the Bees had reactions and insights that were very surprisingly mature, and we discussed about issues of censorship, love, LGBT and society's acceptance of myriad people. I let them know my viewpoints of certain issues, and they responded with their own perspectives. Of course, being 8 and 12 years old also meant that they already had pre-conceived notions of certain issues in life, and I found our discussions refreshing because I also learned unexpected perceptions from them.

It was an illuminating afternoon of open discussion and understanding each of my girls' thoughts, perspectives and personalities. But one thing that hit me was: despite all the belligerence in the mass media, the Bees remained unfazed and nonchalant, and wondered what the fuss was all about. I guess this confirmed my belief that children tend to be more curious if we shield them from knowledge. And instead of letting them harbour misinformed judgements on their own, I would rather be there every step of the way while I can.

Inspired To Paint

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Hubby took out paints, easels and canvas, and encouraged the 3 females in the family to indulge in a bout of escapism. Painting, to us, is escapism. The focus it provides is an amazing reprieve from the stress of daily life. Whether we emulate existing paintings, attempt to re-create the great works of old masters, or enact another world from our imaginations, it provides us with a little channel into another world.

Little Bee had previously sketched out a rainforest some time back, and could immediately launched into painting this rainforest alive through mainly verdant shades. 

Big Bee opted to paint a semi-abstract painting comprising of a fairly challenging blended background and a pair of love birds on a beautiful blossoming tree. 

Whereas I decided to re-enact an European countryside scene which I found online. 

We will be displaying our paintings around the house, which makes it so much more meaningful for the Bees rather than us buying paintings from other painters. And I think this rejuvenating exercise will be a regular one for us! 

Learning At Home: All About Singapore

With the impending National Day celebrations, I thought it might be fitting for me to share what we had done for homelearning some months back. We completed a whole series of homelearning on Singapore where we did lots of activities. However, I must highlight that I find it much harder to do any homelearning these days, because (1) Big Bee has such a full schedule of homework and CCAs, and (2) I am increasingly doing more (boring) academic stuff with Little Bee so she can catch up on her schoolwork. Therefore, it is a wonder that we can complete this series of Singapore studies!

Books 

We borrowed, bought and read lots of books about Singapore - our history, culture, languages and prominent sites of attraction. The Bees particularly enjoyed this book, On A Street In Singapore, which depicts Singapore's historical sites, food, history, culture and Singlish in a hilarious and easily comprehensible comic and text format. 

Even I enjoyed this book, and learned quite a lot of new things about my own country that I had never known about! For example, do you know that fish-head curry was created because an enterprising local Indian chef wanted to create a dish for the Chinese customers who loved fish head for its flavour and tenderness? Or that Roti John was named in the 1970s after a Western tourist who probably asked for French toast in a Malay hawker stall?

Little Bee also enjoyed reading this book below, which wrote about a lot of interesting attractions in Singapore.

History

We visited the Singapore National Museum (yet again) to learn about the history of Singapore, and I am so glad that Singapore citizens now enjoy free trips to the museums, yay! 

The pretty domed ceiling of our National Museum

Field Trips

We visited lots of attractions in Singapore, focusing a lot on the cultural enclaves like Little India, Arab Street and Chinatown. 

The Bees in Arab Street early this year

National Day Parade (preview)

Thanks to my cousin, Hubby, Little Bee and I were able to get preview tickets for the remarkable National Day Parade in mid July (which warrants another blog post!), while Big Bee attended the same parade as part of the primary 5 national education. We were awed by the brilliant fireworks set against a beautiful background of our cityline, and were dazzled by the military displays of our army, navy and air force.

Lapbook

Little Bee completed a lapbook on Singapore where she covered topics like our languages, climate, history, religions, geographical borders, her favourite places in Singapore, etc. It was really fun in an educational and intimate manner to get to know your home country this way. Big Bee dabbled a little in the lapbook, but was not able to complete due to her hectic schedule. 

Enjoy the festivities of our nation's independence this National Day! 

Fun With Current Affairs

1) The Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Conflict From The Bees' Perspectives

With the Bees growing older, I am beginning to inculcate some current affairs and general knowledge of the world to them - through good old newspapers. Both the Bees already have exposure to reading the newspapers weekly (not daily yet!) and discussing/writing articles analytically in school.

This year, Little Bee's usual show-and-tell in school was replaced by a "news sharing" session, which encouraged each student to bring a news article to school every Tuesday, present it to their friends, and then have an open discussion about the news article. I love this activity because it encouraged the little kids to enhance their knowledge of current affairs, motivate them to read the newspapers regularly, and to nurture critical thinking skills when asking probing questions about the articles.

On the other hand, Big Bee's school also required her to write 5 key points about a fortnightly news article she selected, as well as a small paragraph about why she was interested in the article.

One night back in September, Little Bee wanted to bring to school an article on the intricate turmoil of the Diaoyu and Senkaku Islands between Japan and China. Because of the complicated nature of the whole conflict, I had to use diagrams, maps and very simple language to explain to the Bees what these all mean. After a lengthy explanation, I asked them on their thoughts and viewpoints, and also got them to draw out the whole conflict in simple sketching. Here were their respective theories in their own words when I asked them what would they do if they are leaders in China or Japan:

a) Big Bee's theory: Split the islands in half, and get the leaders of Japan and China to shake hands and be friends! OR both countries should agree to bomb the islands and both will have nothing, so there will be no conflicts!

b) Little Bee's theory: Japan and China will stop fighting soon, and then both will forget about the islands!! Then, suddenly the China President will go to the islands and realise that the Japanese are still there. Then, he will get very angry, and China will have a war with Japan to fight for the islands again!

What does each theory tell you of the Bees' personalities? :)

2) Newspaper Treasure Hunt

2 nights ago, we played treasure hunt - not around the house nor in a park - but with good ol' Straits Times. I thought this would be a fun way to encourage them to flip through the newspapers and encourage them to read the latest news through directed questions from me. I had to ask different levels of questions to Big Bee and Little Bee because of their age differences, but nonetheless, they had fun flipping through the papers frantically and smudging their fingers with the newsprint. Here were some of the questions I asked each of them:

a) To Big Bee
- Which country did Obama go today? (It was a tricky question because the front page of Straits Times had a picture of Obama talking to the Thai Prime Minister, and Big Bee almost said he was in Thailand, but changed her answer as she read deeper into the article. He was actually in Myanmar on Monday.).

b) To Little Bee
- How many runners participated in the Run For Hope marathon? Why do you think they are running for hope?

They did not let me off the hook easily as well. They insisted I must be part of the game too - and Big Bee ended up asking me to summarise the whole Israel-Palestine conflict to them (which I had immense difficulty explaining the reasons why they were fighting using kiddie language, so I ended up talking about air raids instead!).

All About Singapore

Our homelearning had revolved around the theme of Singapore on this month of our nation's birthday - and the Bees are loving the little snippets of Singapore that we had been reading nightly. I have no time to do painting or craftwork yet, but we had been doing lots of reading that hopefully will translate into a nice lapbook at the end of the month.

This theme coincides with what Little Bee is learning in school as well, so once again, it helps to integrate and reinforce what she has learned in school. By watching the National Day parade on TV, the Bees were also able to understand a little about the history of Singapore, and I intend to bring them out on more trips around Singapore this quarter.

Last week, Little Bee was asked to write 6 sentences about Singapore for her weekly homework in school, and with some help from me, she wrote these down, which I thought is some lovely reflections from her about how she feels about Singapore.


Sorry for the dark photo quality as this was taken with my iPhone! Here are her 6 points about Singapore, and she came up with most of them herself.

1. Singapore is one of the smallest countries in the world.
2. Singapore's National Day is on 9 August. (she said she prefers to use the term "birthday" instead of National Day though!)
3. Singapore has no natural disasters, like tornadoes and earthquakes.
4. Singapore has many races like Malays, Chinese, Indians, Eurasians and others.
5. It is always warm in Singapore because we are near the equator.
6. My favourite place in Singapore is Sentosa!

Learning At Home: My Amazing Body

We had not been doing much structured thematic homelearning lately, due to the busy and hectic schedules for all of us, including the Bees. However, for the latest theme - My Amazing Body - we managed to read up and explore a lot of literature for children on the human body. It helped tremendously that both Bees were studying about the human body in school as well - so what we did at home was really a reinforcement of what had been taught in school. Unfortunately, Big Bee was drenched in all her schoolwork, assessments, examinations, co-curricular activities, school performances and camps, etc, so other than reading the books together, she could not really participate in other activities.

Basing loosely on the multiple intelligences model, I had listed down very briefly what we did. Unfortunately, this time round, I had no time to take many pictures!

1) Visual/spatial intelligence
I sketched out 2 big A3-sized outlines of their bodies, and customised these to each of the Bees. Each Bee had 2 body outlines to experiment with. For Little Bee, we took one and created a body board game, which was quite cool. However, as we drew in more game boxes, we kind of lost the winning outcome of the game! Although, on hindsight, I think it was a nice way to inculcate in Little Bee that not all game boards are about winning. The journey itself is more fundamental. The board game was good to reinforce addition and subtraction, with little boxes on "Move 10 steps forward" or "Go back 6 steps", etc. I pretty much let Little Bee design the game board - but we had yet to play it!

For the other body outline, Little Bee drew the major systems of the human body and identified where these were - veins/arteries, heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, stomach, big/small intestines etc. This was another augmentation to what she had already done in school.

We also learned about bones and skeletons, so Little Bee completed a very simple craft using earbuds to re-create a skeleton, which was really fun for her.

2) Linguistic intelligence
We read many books about how the human body functions. Children's books on these were amazing - the vocabulary was fun, the concepts was refreshingly simple and the experiments were fabulous to reinforce these concepts.
Little Bee created a mini book on "My Amazing Body", which was really a nice fusion of what she had learned in terms of the vocabulary of different parts of the body and the application of the concept of numbers to these parts of the body. The illustrations were done entirely by Little Bee, and I thought these reflected her quirky sense of humour. The cover of the book was drawn using chalk, and she had great fun with that!

I had yet to do Chinese learning, but will attempt to do so soon - it will be more complete if I can reinforce the English vocabulary of different parts of the body in Chinese.

3) Logical-mathematical intelligence
We learned about the connection between numbers and parts of our body from the previous exercise on the mini-book. We also played around with some recommended child-friendly experiments from some of the books which really helped to enhance the application of concepts to real-body understanding. Unfortunately, I could not really remember many experiments now, except for a few - the common experiment of blowing in and out into a balloon to illustrate how our lungs work, asking the children to clench and unclench their fists non-stop for a minute to demonstrate the effort of our pumping heart which will pump in this manner for decades, and getting the children to open their eyes wide without blinking to drive the importance of blinking - and many more!

4) Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence + musical intelligence
There was a week when we were learning about bones, so we watched a hilarious video about the song Dem Bones, while singing and dancing to the tune, imitating the many skeletons on the music video - laughing, prancing and singing. Fun!
We also had fun moving different parts of the body to illustrate the workings of the major muscle groups and how they are helping to move these parts of the body.

5) Intrapersonal intelligence + existential intelligence
I could not find activities relating to this theme to reinforce interpersonal intelligence, but hopefully this is something that I always endeavour to inculcate in them irregardless of any thematic learning! I also could not find time to focus more on naturalistic intelligence.
However, we reflected a lot about the importance of the different functions of the human body to keep us alive. We discussed about what would happen when our heart stops beating, when certain parts of our body (eg kidney) stop functioning - and I hope this fosters self-reflection in them.

In all, a very enriching theme indeed!

Rough And Tear Math!

Life had been immensely hectic for me, with crazy working hours, Big Bee's mid-year exams and Little Bee's increasing school load in preparation for primary one. Which is why I have absolutely no time to conceptualise comprehensive homelearning plans nor do much elaborate activities with the girls. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the light beaming at the end of the tunnel will shine brightly soon.

Meanwhile, I make do with whatever little time I have to spend quality time with the Bees. Which means hastily rigged homelearning materials which may not be the best in aesthetics but nevertheless, helped achieve learning outcomes!

Last month, Little Bee and I were learning about number bonds and addition, and I had absolutely no time to prepare anything fancy. Hence, I just pulled together some scraps of papers and toothpicks, and taught her the following concepts. She was tickled by the little bits of papers that I tore to make counting tokens, and loved this concept of learning where we tore bits of paper whenever we needed them! I just placed the final number (10 and 5), and she arranged the below bonds herself.