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!