32 pages in total.
That cheeky boy attempted to add his own 'drama' element of sad voice and smiling face. Haha!
This video shall be a precious memento, just like the lapbook we made together that encompasses plenty of trans-disciplinary thematic activities.
The first time he saw the video on Youtube, he had a giant grin. Throughout the next few minutes, he chuckled so often watching himself. :)
16 comments:
Hi there,
Thank you for sharing all these wonderful nuggets from your boys' growing years.
I've recently become the mother of two boys myself, with the second one just hitting his 2-month mark.
My eldest is half a year younger than your Chippy, so it's lovely to read what your younger boy is going through - it's almost a glimpse of what is to come for us!
As with the similarity of raising two boys, our family is a maidless-one as well. I am a work-from-home mum on top of that.
So it's very encouraging to read of how another mum in similar situation is faring and tries her best.
Thank you for keeping up your blog, it is a great source of encouragement to many mothers out there.
All the best.
Sharon
This is sooooo cute! And he really loves the 'polka dot mushroom' part! lovely boy.
Hi, I chanced upon your blog thru Eileen's and I'm so glad I found your blog. I've two boys turning 5 and 3 this year and it's so inspiring to read about your homeschooling experience with your boys. It's so impressive that your 3.5yo can read so well. Great job you've done in your homeschool efforts!
Hi Sharon, you're most welcome! Thanks for sharing your situation too and congratulations to having another one!
Wow, it must be tiring and real busy time for you - to have a 3 years old and 2 months old and without a maid! Do you have any form of domestic help, like confinement nanny, PT cleaning or grannies to help out?
I find it inspirational too when readers reach out and share their lives since there are always something we can learn from others. Do write back when you can.
koinonia, that is his favourite part. He used to laugh every time we reached that page. :>
Ing, welcome to my blog! I am pleased that you find inspiration from my posts. Do drop by often and let me know what you think. I will pop over to yours soon. :)
Hi,
Oh, I wouldn't be able to manage without some form of 'out-sourcing'. I have a weekly cleaner come in and blitz the apartment up. On weekdays, I have a local nanny come in for 4-5 hours daily, to help out with the kids so I can actually get some work done!
We don't have family here so we've learnt to be resilient and plan wisely! There are good days and challenging ones. On the latter, I joke I'd be the first human mother to eat her young....
Thankfully, I've 'chosen' wisely and have been lucky to marry my husband! A great parenting partner, for nothing seems insurmountable if we put our efforts together!
My eldest has just begun preschool and that is currently our biggest challenge at home. He swings between liking school and not wanting to go. On his sad, whiny days, it can be very draining for all.
Oh dear... I've gone on more than I intended!
Thank you for asking! I will continue to read your blog, so please keep your upbeat posts coming! (oh, the pressure!).
All the best,
Sharon
Haha Sharon, I tried to picture myself eating my young after reading your post. Hmm.. a 2 mth-old...gulp! :P
Don't worry about revealing more than you intended. I often get carried away myself.
I can totally understand the challenges of not having village help to turn to. We get that luxury once a year when my in-laws visit (they are from London) and throughout the year, we hardly get any family help as well, though I have some living relatives around! Haha.
Yup, we just need a super supportive hubby and everything else will fall into place!! :>
Hi there,
I chanced upon your blog while blog-surfing, and I must say I am impressed and inspired by your efforts and creative juices in teaching your children.
I am a SAHM to two (6 and 2). I home-schooled my eldest till last year and sent her to kindy this year. My lessons are never as interesting as yours!
I wanted to enroll my children in your lapbooking classes, but the class is either full or timing not suitable for us. :(
Alicia, I teach my boys to read with the method that I use in my lapbooking classes - transdisciplinary thematic method coupled with lapbooking.
I can understand why word recognition progress is better and more effective with the flash card programme.
But I don't think flashing word cards is the way to go, at least not ALL the way. Flash cards are great for very young children because they are strong in right brain, hence their photographic memory is fantastic. But it is passive learning and once the novelty runs out, most kids will tune out and hence progress becomes stagnant or even regress. I am sure most flash-cards mums will agree to that.
Plus flash card method doesn't teach meanings, context and application, hence knowing how to sight read with flash cards ALONE is hardly going to make a child an effective reader.
Hi Precious Moments, welcome to my blog! Thank you for your encouraging remarks. If you are very keen for your children to join our classes, you may want to consider being on wait list. Do drop me an email at email@from-tiny-acorns.com.
Hey DG,
Thanks for your reply. Ya, I was also curious about how long the flashing thing would work. :p
For C, she likes books so I guess I am lucky in a way as she likes to read together and be read to. For bigger words, the signing helped her a bit as she is able to express herself and with the actions, she remembers the words better.
I have been doing tot books and really simple lapbooks tying back to what we read - farm, 5 senses, etc. She is able to speak quite a bit (now in short sentences) and I guess my next attempt is to get her to do sight word recognition. But for the moment, I guess the main thing is that we are having fun and bonding over the activities that we do. :)
Domesticgoddess: Well done! I am so impressed that Chipsy can read so well, and he has that perseverence to read through the relatively many pages! I am also amazed at how many words he can read already, brilliant!
Like you, I believe in the whole-word recognition of words through learning in context. I tried teaching phonics at home recently, to rather negative effects. I also have friends who told me (somewhat happily!!??) that their primary 1 kids can spell out words for their spelling exercises correctly through phonetic understanding, BUT the poor kids don't understand the meaning of the words! The pride in the parents really made me wonder...is this the way we want to encourage literacy in our kids...by teaching them how to spell and pronounce, but not understand the meaning of the beautiful language?! I find it somewhat disturbing...so I had stopped my phonics teaching at home since then :)
Alicia, I am sure there is no luck involved to get a child to love books. It has plenty to do with the nurturing environment (or lack of it) that the child has grown up in so far. Love for books is step-one to early reading! :)
Beauties In Our Lives, good to know another parent who concurs. Or should I say, dare to differ from the norm?! :D
I beg to differ with parents/educators who claim that students who are taught phonics can spell better than those who aren't/weak in phonics.
Granted, learning letter sounds are important to help a child decipher beginning and ending sounds of a word (and that is already taught in pre-schools). But with sight reading and learning in context through literature and trans-disciplinary thematic activities, a child will be familiar enough to conclude the same.
I have some very young students (under 3 yrs old) in my lapbooking classes who are already reading and I am sure they can spell better than older kids who have attended phonics classes since young.
Thanks Domesticgoddess for your sharing. I must say I am greatly inspired too.
I have to agree with you here that learning to read with phonics is HARD and not the best way.
I sent my boys to very reputable phonic classes for one full year and spent a lot of money on buying readers to supplement at home. In the end, we see no results!
Two months ago, I started reading to my boys following your suggestions, just plain reading and no phonics! But I do focus on beginning sounds and guide them whenever they are lost on the ending sounds and guess what! They progress so fast.
So it is like what you said about whole word language. I used to think it must be crazy to expect them to remember all the English words.
But looking at their progress now, I am glad I did not just listen to those folks who said learning to read with phonics is the way to go.
Jolin
Hi Jolin, thanks for sharing!
I can understand why some parents may think it is crazy for kids to remember all English words and how that is unrealistic and unachievable for average learners.
Most of these parents UNDERESTIMATE their toddlers' and preschoolers' strong right-brain capabilities, especially in the area of photographic memory.
Kids who have learnt to read via whole word approach actually utilize their right brain capability of photographic memory, hence it is effortless as they learn to recognise a new word as a 'picture'. Much like the way they recognise a breed of dog by looking at a picture.
Once a child has learnt to read enough words (and it really doesn't take long once we start with the RIGHT METHOD), they will very quickly learn to decipher the words by figuring out the beginning and ending sounds. Once they do that, they can read any new words. It is really as simple as that!
Learning to read with phonics training is, on the other hand, a left-brain activity. Remembering the phonic rules is hard work for most kids because it is pure memorization.
Anyway, this is a topic that has been debated for decades and the debate is still ongoing. At the end of the day, parents must make their own choices.
Everyone can teach their child to read with word-language approach, as long as the parents can read English words themselves.
But not every parent can correctly instruct their child to read via phonics, unless the parents themselves are well-versed with the phonic rules.
All the best for your boys' exciting progress!
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