HomeSchool Planning

To set the records straight again. We do not have the intention to fully homeschool our little T for the time being. However, we believe that we can do more as parents for a preschooler / kindergatener than solely rely on the rigid traditional school system.

It is not about trying to make her the smartest kid around, but our bigger concern is to try to cultivate her interest in learning and encourage self motivation. I always worry about the method and approach to learning/teaching and how it can influence a person for live on what education / learning is about.

Give an example. During T's year end review with her school teacher. Teacher disclosed that T does not boldly use colours in her drawings and looks very 'stressed' and always colour only in one area of the picture. She doesn't seem 'creative' and 'confident' enough to change her colours and colour outside of an area. I was quite surprise about this as T is complete opposite at home. She keeps changing colours, is very happy and makes a 'mess' of colouring all over the page. After a short discussion, we concluded that in school, teacher always reminds them to colour nicely / neating, try not to go over the line, so as a result, the colouring session becomes more demanding than simply colouring as you wish. That is why T then opts to just stick to one colour and only one area. On the other hand, during our 'toilet wall' painting sessions at home, there's no limit set on what she can draw and we don't judge her for quality of drawing / colouring. For me, at 2.5 years, I really don't mind if her apple looks like a triangle and a pink blob of paint is a pretty flower to her. I think at this young age, its more important to encourage them to continue to draw / colour, be bold to use all the different colours / mode of arts as they wish and when they are older we can slowly introduce the rules of the game. I understand that traditional schools are there to teach the child the rules of society, to conform and obey, to respect and not question authority, etc..., but there are other approaches to life too.

This is the main reason why we try to maintain some homeschooling activities at home, so I can have a chances to expose her to less traditional method of learning, encourage her to attempt to solve the problems and find answers by herself and also observe for myself her strengths and weaknesses. Being 1 to 1, I can adapt our materials and lessons to her learning style and making timely decisions to change our lessons to match her current interests (windows of opportunities).

I realised these weeks when we try to pick up on the homeschooling that I lack a focus and direction on this topic. What we do is too random and ad hoc and I have no clue if the activities are age appropriate, if I am missing an important element to build a good foundation, if we are moving in the correct direction? As such, I also spend / waste alot time doing random research and getting distracted by all sorts of information that I think may be of interest, but might not really be useful. The conclusion, some proper planning needs to be in place so we can be more efficient and effective in our efforts.

So I put aside 2 whole days and seriously researched into preschool / kindergarten education. First was to find out what are the norm milestones for a 3-4 year old to reach, second was to think about besides these basics, what other 'stuff' to we wish T to learn during this time? Lastly was to organize the information in such a way so that we can make lesson plans and easily track and follow up on how we are progressing until we achieve the goals.

I gathered the info online from a variety of sites, reviewed, filtered and consolidated what I felt was reasonable for 3 - 4 yr old into the below charts. (I haven't figured out how to put downloadable files on blog, so if you are interested, you will have to print them or save them as photos). For curriculum planning and tracking, I referred to http://www.donnayoung.org/ and got some templates and ideas from her, made some customization and now I have a thin binder book to help me track our homeschool progress. If you are interested in taking a look at my homeschool planner book, drop me a line in the chatbox. With these tools in hand + my Montessori pre-school teaching manuals + the lovely BFIAR recommended curriculum for lapbooking, I now feel alot more confident that we will be able to have an enriching and enjoyable preschool home school experience at home. I also no longer spend alot of time browsing and researching like a headless chicken and wasting alot of time, instead, I just have to put aside a couple of minutes a day, or an hour on the weekend to plan ahead for next week's activities. Its been a great time saver (goes to explain why I have time to update the blog now)

By the way, we've worked on 2 more BFIAR books these weeks, stay tuned for post on them once we finished.

Happenings - Week 26, 2009

Once again sorry for the 6 weeks laspe in lack of posts. Blogging is kind of at the bottom on my list of priorities right now. With only 24 hours a day and my biological need to have at least 8 hours of continuous sleep each day to stay functional, it is tough to find time to blog. This is roughly how my time is shared each day

0630 - 0700 : wake up, get ready for work
0700 - 0800 : bus journey to work. Make use of time to study and prepare assignment for diploma I am currently doing
0800 - 1700 : full time job at work. Use lunch hour to have a quick lunch and rest of the time to research and prepare homeschool activities for T.
1700 - 1830 : bus journey back home. Make use of time to study and prepare assignment for diploma I am currently doing
1830 - 1915 : have dinner and bath
1915 - 2045 : do all sorts of activities with T
2045 - 2130 : night bathe for T and reading in bed
2130 - 0630 : sleep.

I know, I know. I should just get my lazy ass out of bed stay up till midnight after T sleeps to do my own stuff. But with such a condensed day, I just don't have the energy to get up and do anything else. For the weekends, its usually also jammed packed with doing all sorts of things with T around the house and out.

Again, if anyone has any tips to improve my schedule, feel free to advise.
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One good things about T is that I rarely had any separation issue from her when I leave for work. (OK, her separation axiety about going to school is another story). Since she was a baby, she rarely cried and whined when daddy and myself have to leave her at home to go to work. She always sends us off with a big hug and kiss. Nowadays, if she get up before I leave the house, she will bring over my bag, and open the door for me. This morning, she opened the door for me and I was in a rush so off I went to press the elevator button. Guess what. She calls after me to say
"Mummy !!! come back here so I can give you a big hug" awww... ok, so what if I will miss the bus and be late for work. What can be more important than a hug with my girl.

School is officially out and the summer holidays are here for all the kids. I haven't had enough time to plan what to let T do during her long hours at home. This week, I just randomly printed some tracing worksheets, activity worksheets and colouring pages off the internet to keep her busy.

:-( bad mummy. Must make a better effort at this.

Antz Attack !

T's kind of a clean freak. She wipes her hands after every piece of chip cos she can't stand the feeling of the sandy salt on her fingers. Her teacher gave her a Distinction grade for cleanliness on her report card.

For some reason she's also aquired a fear for ants recently. Summer is here is ants are a common sight around the house. Whenever she spots one crawling on the floor, she freaks and runs to Daddy and anyone one else in the house and screams "Ants, ants, catch the ants !!!" and she will jump on the sofa and refuse to let her feet touch the floor until the ant is caught and put away.

I have no idea where she got this fear from but I certain hope that it will go away soon.

Happenings - Week 35, 2008

This weekend was the Parent Teacher Meeting at the Rosaryhill school. Wai and I woke up at 8am and started to get ready for it. The meeting was for the principle to tell us a little more about the approach of the school, what to expect, and how we can prepare our self and our child better for it.

My eyes started to feel warm and I had to hold back my tears as we watched the video about these little 2 year olds in school. It is such a bitter sweet feeling to know that my little girl will soon be that independant and we will not be the only ones in her life. I can't imagine how I would be on her wedding day. I started to feel a pinch of regret and tempted to keep her home for another year.

At this moment, a friend's words came into my mind. Once an older friend of mine told me that being a parent is not only about teaching a child, but more often than we realise, its the child teaching us.

Being a control freak that I was, it was time that I have to learn to let go. I have to learn to accept and trust others to take care of my little T for me. (When we first got a domestic helper, I had a IP cam installed at home so I can watch what's going on. It was only after many months that I stopped watching the IP cam every hour)I have to learn that I cannot control what goes on at school, but instead have to adapt myself to the school's approach.

When we got home, I spent the rest of the day getting T's school things ready. Labelling her bags, washing her lunch box, cups, etc... sewing tags on her uniform etc... Trying to make everything look the best that it can, wanting her to have the best. It kind of felt like preparing her wedding trousseau.

Achievements - Nursery Admission Interview

The Pre-school structure in HK goes like this :

Pre-nursery 2 - 3 yrs old (offered only in some kindergarten)
Nursery (K1) 3 - 4 yrs old
Kindergarten (K2) 4 - 5 yrs old
Kindergarten (K3) 5 - 6 yrs old

After weeks of research, phone calls, chatting with friends and colleagues, we finally shortlisted the few nurseries that we would like to attempt to enrol. The application for admission in Sep '09 (school year in HK starts in Sep) starts in Sep / Oct / Nov '08 for the schools of our choice.

During our research we found out that 1 of the school offered a Pre-Nursery class and T is of age to start in Oct '08. We were too late to join the AM session as they have no more vacancy and the wait list was long, so we opted for the PM session instead.

Initially, we didn't have the intention of starting T on Pre-Nursery and wanted her to start only in 09/10 when she was 3. But all the research made me rather nervous about how competitive HK is on the good schools and how T might not be able to handle the admission interviews. So we figured that the admission criteriors for Pre-Nursery should be much simpler since the child is really less than 2 yrs. If paying an extra year of school fees buys her a guaranteed entry to the kindergarten and primary school, it sounds like a good buy.

So we submitted our application and followed up closely with the school for the interview as we are considered 'late' applicants. Finally the interview was scheduled for Thursday 31/Jul. During the week, I did more detailed research on this particular school. The more I found out, the more I liked the school and really wanted T to be able to study there. I really didn't expect myself be so excited and nervous about it. It was almost like I am taking the exam myself. The scheduled time was just during T usual nap time. So I had to plan a day ahead to alter T's routine in order for her to be alert during the interview. The nite before, I had to do my 'homework' and look up more about the school in case we were asked questions about it. I was so nervous I had trouble sleeping that nite and woke up really early the next morning.

We went to playschool as usual in the morning and I tried to tired T out so she would take her nap earlier. We made her favourite lunch so she would eat faster. We bathe her and washed her hair so she would smell nice. Overall, she was kept very happy the whole morning and she was singing in the taxi on the way to school.

During the interview the teacher tried to get T to play with her. T being her usually shy self needed some warm up time and turned away to hide behind me. Luckily, T responded well to me and I was able to make her follow the teacher's instructions. To my surprise, the teacher did try to test if T recognised the colours, which she didn't respond to. (I was afraid that we might fail due to this)

Sensing that T was still shy, teacher offered to show us around the school facility. Wow... I was positively impressed by how big their place is. It housed a kindergarten, primary and secondary school and with a school hall and chapel in the middle of the blocks. There were music room, library, playroom, gymroom just for the kindergarten sections. There was also a outdoor play area with a jungle gym and tricyles to ride on. I loved this place by now and so did T. As we were shown around the facilities, T started to explore around too. She played on the slides, fingered the books, tapped on the piano, etc... Teacher saw for herself that T was not shy of environment, only of stranger. T was also physically independant, able to walk, climb steadily. She also takes instructions well and will stop and leave the room upon our order and will not whine to stay and play. She did not need us to pull her hand and will just follow us wherever we went.

When we returned to the administration office, teacher told us there's no problem with T starting school with them. Yippee.... T continued to play with the toys in the room while I finished up the paperwork.

T will start school in Oct'08 (she is still under 2 yrs on 1st Sep). She will have to put on a set of school uniform and ride on a school bus. She will start to spend 4 hrs a day without any family beside her. I am sure I will miss her dearly. I already feel a whinch of sadness when I think about it. Only 22 months ago I was everything she had in the world. She was a tiny little baby lying in my bosom. And soon she will be happy to wave bye bye to mummy and run off to join her friends from school. Now I start to understand why do mothers always cry at weddings.

Sorry for the lengthy boring post. Just needed to get all these off my chest for a closure on the sweet yet sour school search event which has been bothering me the past month.

Here's the website of Rosaryhill Kindergarten where T will start school in October
http://www.rhs.edu.hk/kg/

Ramblings - Search for Nursery

The past 2 weeks has been nerve racking for me. Applications for nursery must be launch between Sep - Nov and each school have their own cut off date. I've been busy calling up schools, arranging visits and keeping a diary of which school releases application on what dates and when is their cut off date. Then you have to make sure you get the application forms in time (some schools actually release a quota of application form and some parents go queue overnite just to get the application form. I for one am not going to apply for schools who run their operations like a property business.) and submit them before the dateline.

After submitting application, you will then have to wait to be called up for the entrance interview. Being clueless about what goes on in these interview, I bought a local guide book as a reference. Some of these elite school must be crazy. Here's a sample of questions asked :

• Look at a picture and count mentally (using fingers and counting aloud is not allowed) how many items are in the picture
• Look at a series of picture, organize them in the proper sequence (before and after, eg, morning, noon, night) and tell a short story about the picture.

Bear in mind that these kids are barely 2 yrs old when they go for these interviews. If my child can do all these at 24 mths, I think I need not send her to their school but to NASA perhaps.

Although I would also like to be able to get T into a good school, but I am extremely reluctant to drill into her the ABCs and 123s at such a young age. Also, I do not wish that I myself get too distracted by all these popularity contest and forget what kind of upbringing I want for my child. If she does well during the interviews, good for her. If she doesn't, so be it. Just let her perform as she naturally would, no need to force entry, as I am not prepared to drill her with homework for the next 4 yrs just to make sure she keeps up to the expectation of such elite school.

So finally, I have shortlisted a few catholic schools who teaches in english and mandarin to try to enrol. I secretly hope she is able to get into the single one that includes the Montessori approach as part of their teaching, as that means less homework for her and mummy too.