10 Nov

It is a quiet Saturday at home I guess.

Papa has to meet his Indonesian client and send my mil somewhere in the evening. So it will be a whole day alone with the two little kids.

They are playing again (sigh) while I cook the porridge (again).
I planned to tidy the WHOLE HOUSE at first... but I think lazy mummy will tidy the CLOTHES first.... :p

Giving old stuff to salvation army donation which has come to our school, so I make use of this chance to tidy up the house. Though I want to clean and tidy the whole house, but time and energy forbid me to do so. I still have work to rush !!

Last night, Ryan was given a good scolding by papa for misbehaving in school. I chose to go and bathe when he was crying, otherwise I will sure become soft-hearted and try to stop papa from beating further.. :p  He deserved la... no choice, to teach him well, I must endure it.

After the chi-cham episode, I bathe him again (after sweating and crying so much). He took out his Chinese story books and read to me, something he likes to do recently. Of course, he cannot recognise all the Chinese words, but he can remember the sentences by looking at the pictures on the page. He enjoys reading. I just had to correct him when he mispronounced certain words.

Gu Shi (story) , he said Bu Shi
Peng You (friend), he said Peng2 You4 (like Ang mo speaking mandarin haha)

While Ryan was reading Chinese story books, I was giving En en dictation. A very impromptu decision. But I realised through this activity, En en can learn many skills at the same time, and I can monitor her too.

I chose a story book that she has read before and picked one paragraph from any page. I did not tell her anything beforehand..haha...I said, take out a book and get ready. Mummy read then you write.
For her, she had to listen to the words that I read, for words she has difficulty spelling, I asked her to listen to the word again and try using phonics ( listening skills and phonics identification). When she was writing, I checked the way she wrote the letters. I don't always sit beside her when she does her work, so I seldom have the chance (and time) to check her formation of letters. I pointed out her mistake (like the way she writes f , d , b) and asked her to redo. I believe she learns the right way, but sometimes, to be fast or lazy, she uses an easy way out which is wrong.

When I read the second sentence, she asked me, "Start with capital letter?". (punctuation and captials)
She wrote the name using small letter earlier, which I pointed out as well.

The paragraph that I read out to her :
One sunny morning, Aurora awoke in the most cheerful of moods. It was her seventeenth birthday and she could not wait to see what wonderful surprises were in store. Luckily, she did not have to wait long.

When  she completed the paragraph, I asked her to read out to me. I taught her how to read with fluency and intonation ( cos of some incident during oral exam in sch, I thought I should start teaching her now). At first, she was not clear nor loud, I told her to read clearly, not skipping the ending sounds (which kids do so frequently).

After a few times, she could even memorise the 3 sentences in that paragraph. I thought it could also help her in sentence structure in future. I was happy with what I did, and I thought I should continue doing it.

Let's see how much she can learn from this.


As for Ryan, he is picking up words from the cards, I am happy that now he is willing to learn to read. Let me see what I can do to Ryan's reading.....