The previous posts are almost too good to be real. Only for so long, the picture has changed lately.
Yesterday was the tantrum day - not her's ....Mine.
Lot of things went wrong.
1. She wanted to play color cards game, we had already done it once. No use telling her we'll return to it tomorrow. She kept shoving the cards to my face. And my patience vanished, i shouted at her, pushed her away, threatened to tear the cards off. I know, i feel like crap. Was almost cruel.
To top it off, i did tear those cards and trash them. The motive was to let her know, i do what i say. I am not a pushover....big ego at play?
(Why make threats at all? Empty or otherwise.)
2. This whole card issue ended on a wrong foot and paved way for another tantrum.
She wanted to go to Baby's house NOW....I kept telling her, i have to cook, daddy will be home soon, baby might be sleeping....to no avail. And then i finally gave in, and dropped her off at the baby's. I told her to stay there, not to come back home, for dinner or for the night.
Later, when hubby came home, he called her up and asked if he can pick her. She said, mommy told me not to come home. How can i come?
He convinced her, got her back. I was in tears, hated myself for everything. She came back, we had a tearful reunion. All was forgotten.
I lay in my bed awake and thought about the day.
reached following conclusions- Am repeating these to myself often
1. Absolutely no raised voice....A BIG NO
2. No threats.
3. She comes first, and then TV/ internet/ books. If she wants my attention, she gets it.
4. If she wants to visit the baby, let her. Don't manipulate.
As i am writing this, she is already there. Same thing today morning, i was cooking, told her would drop her after i am done cooking and she has had lunch. No, the cooking can wait, Drop me there NOW.
Took a deep breath, put off the gas, dressed her up, put on the jacket and dropped her there.
Am worried that she has not eaten. But, will let her feel that she is hungry. Why shove food in their mouths even before they feel the hunger, the growling stomach...the food will get tastier when that happens.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Homeschool day 2-3-4
I know....3 days in one post.
So far so good. That activity book was real fun. She would actually look forward to the "teaching time".
We are done with the first book. Other activities it had were
1. telling the time. For now, i just introduced her to the short-hand and long-hand. The short-hand points towards a number, read that number and tell the time. The minute hand is really complicated. I have put it aside for now. The problem with our clock is, it has only 12, 3, 6 and 9 as numbers. Rest are just dashes. We need to get a new clock, or exchange it with the neighbour. :)
2. Sorting - pictures of clothes, sort them - socks, shirts, pants etc.
3. Match the columns, numbers on one side and objects on the other. Match 1 with one object, 2 with two and so on.
4. writing numbers...tracing them along the dotted line. Man, she can write, I never taught her to....i never taught even her lowercase/uppercase. She can write both, most letters. She has a good grip of the pencil. I think its safe to move to writing. On day 1, i was trying not to include "writing", but after gauging her level, i think its safe.
5. Her favourite one was. there were cards - different colors. I asked her to pick a card, see what a color it is, and try and find all objects of that color around the house. She simply loved this one. We are doing this again tomorrow.
we did the much promised clean-up on day 2. My kitchen pantry looks sparkling clean. I had her help me sort- trash, recycle, keep. We put all plastic bags together and took them to safeway in the eveing for recycling. We threw all the empty coffee bottles/ ghee dabbas and so on. No, i won't need them to store anything. :)
Day 3 we cleaned up the patio, thats an ongoing weekly activity for at least a month more. We talked about Fall while we cleaned. She made an observation- all the fallen leaves are brown, red, yellow or black. None are green. bravo...I showed her the leaves ON the trees were still green, many were turning red, and they would come down soon. the green ones will all turn red and fall off, until the tree is bare.
We plan a weekly observation of the leaves.
Have tried to give a good enough account of 4 days.
Will keep posting.
So far so good. That activity book was real fun. She would actually look forward to the "teaching time".
We are done with the first book. Other activities it had were
1. telling the time. For now, i just introduced her to the short-hand and long-hand. The short-hand points towards a number, read that number and tell the time. The minute hand is really complicated. I have put it aside for now. The problem with our clock is, it has only 12, 3, 6 and 9 as numbers. Rest are just dashes. We need to get a new clock, or exchange it with the neighbour. :)
2. Sorting - pictures of clothes, sort them - socks, shirts, pants etc.
3. Match the columns, numbers on one side and objects on the other. Match 1 with one object, 2 with two and so on.
4. writing numbers...tracing them along the dotted line. Man, she can write, I never taught her to....i never taught even her lowercase/uppercase. She can write both, most letters. She has a good grip of the pencil. I think its safe to move to writing. On day 1, i was trying not to include "writing", but after gauging her level, i think its safe.
5. Her favourite one was. there were cards - different colors. I asked her to pick a card, see what a color it is, and try and find all objects of that color around the house. She simply loved this one. We are doing this again tomorrow.
we did the much promised clean-up on day 2. My kitchen pantry looks sparkling clean. I had her help me sort- trash, recycle, keep. We put all plastic bags together and took them to safeway in the eveing for recycling. We threw all the empty coffee bottles/ ghee dabbas and so on. No, i won't need them to store anything. :)
Day 3 we cleaned up the patio, thats an ongoing weekly activity for at least a month more. We talked about Fall while we cleaned. She made an observation- all the fallen leaves are brown, red, yellow or black. None are green. bravo...I showed her the leaves ON the trees were still green, many were turning red, and they would come down soon. the green ones will all turn red and fall off, until the tree is bare.
We plan a weekly observation of the leaves.
Have tried to give a good enough account of 4 days.
Will keep posting.
Monday, November 17, 2008
homeschool- day 1
Went well.
We made some stuff with clay in the morning. I made an awful butterfly. She made a bird. I tried to see the bird in what she made, and did. Congratulated her for the effort.
Post lunch, we took a nap.
Then we looked for some information about "lake tahoe" on the net. Have plans of driving there this thanksgiving. Its a difficult terrain, snow can make it more so. We saw videos about snow chains, how to fix them on your car tires. She wanted to see video of how to make a snowman :) Saw those too. Quite educational- for both of us.
I have a chart for her, where we change the date/ weather/ season etc. We went out and checked the weather. Came back and finished the chart. Weather- Sunny, Season- Fall. month- Nov and so on.
Later, i had her do some stuff from a Pre-k workbook. Some of it was-
1. Find triangles in the picture and mark them
2. What comes first - eg. 3 pictures - a child opening an icecream, eating it, and dropping it.
3. connect the dots
4. 4 pictures in a row- find 2 objects that rhyme
5. Cut out shapes from the book and trace them on a paper. Color them.
6. Coloring page - i let her color out of the borders :)
Boy! Did she breeze through the assignments. I gave her a star sticker for each assignment when we were done. Stickers saying- Well done, great job, etc
And then she says, You are a good teacher...i guess kids think their moms know nothing. :) She was surprised that i can connect the dots/ know rhyming words.
We had planned on cleaning-up session as i wrote in the previous post. never got around to it. After our "assignments", we took out the trash, and visited the neighbour who has a baby. An hour flew by. Cleaning up is postponed.
Things i learnt:
1. Little patience goes a long way
2. She is too fast, i am soon going to run out of things to do.
3. You can see a bird in a mass of dough if you WANT to see it :)
We made some stuff with clay in the morning. I made an awful butterfly. She made a bird. I tried to see the bird in what she made, and did. Congratulated her for the effort.
Post lunch, we took a nap.
Then we looked for some information about "lake tahoe" on the net. Have plans of driving there this thanksgiving. Its a difficult terrain, snow can make it more so. We saw videos about snow chains, how to fix them on your car tires. She wanted to see video of how to make a snowman :) Saw those too. Quite educational- for both of us.
I have a chart for her, where we change the date/ weather/ season etc. We went out and checked the weather. Came back and finished the chart. Weather- Sunny, Season- Fall. month- Nov and so on.
Later, i had her do some stuff from a Pre-k workbook. Some of it was-
1. Find triangles in the picture and mark them
2. What comes first - eg. 3 pictures - a child opening an icecream, eating it, and dropping it.
3. connect the dots
4. 4 pictures in a row- find 2 objects that rhyme
5. Cut out shapes from the book and trace them on a paper. Color them.
6. Coloring page - i let her color out of the borders :)
Boy! Did she breeze through the assignments. I gave her a star sticker for each assignment when we were done. Stickers saying- Well done, great job, etc
And then she says, You are a good teacher...i guess kids think their moms know nothing. :) She was surprised that i can connect the dots/ know rhyming words.
We had planned on cleaning-up session as i wrote in the previous post. never got around to it. After our "assignments", we took out the trash, and visited the neighbour who has a baby. An hour flew by. Cleaning up is postponed.
Things i learnt:
1. Little patience goes a long way
2. She is too fast, i am soon going to run out of things to do.
3. You can see a bird in a mass of dough if you WANT to see it :)
We are homeschooling
No, i am not going into the whys and hows.
We start today.
Kid is 4 yr old. She already knows alphabet. Thanks to PBS kids. Sesame street, barney, Super-readers. She absolutely loves her alphabet. Imagining an alphabet in every design. In a restaurant, she takes 3 straws and makes alphabets on the table. I will leave it as it is, for now.
Certainly not making her write. Still have to do some research about teaching left-handers to write. She tries to write some letters, ends up writing their mirror-images at times. Typical left-handed problem. Have to figure out what to do about it.
She loves the picture books we get from the library. I have to read it once to her. Then she makes her own story from the book. Thats the whole idea of the picture book i suppose.
She asks me- Will you teach me like a teacher? I said, No! I'll teach you like a mom. :) Plan to make her a part of some cleaning up. She can get an idea about sorting things. To keep, to give away or to trash. That would be a good practical lesson. Have got some stuff - coloring, stickers, crayons. Will see how she likes those.
We start today.
Kid is 4 yr old. She already knows alphabet. Thanks to PBS kids. Sesame street, barney, Super-readers. She absolutely loves her alphabet. Imagining an alphabet in every design. In a restaurant, she takes 3 straws and makes alphabets on the table. I will leave it as it is, for now.
Certainly not making her write. Still have to do some research about teaching left-handers to write. She tries to write some letters, ends up writing their mirror-images at times. Typical left-handed problem. Have to figure out what to do about it.
She loves the picture books we get from the library. I have to read it once to her. Then she makes her own story from the book. Thats the whole idea of the picture book i suppose.
She asks me- Will you teach me like a teacher? I said, No! I'll teach you like a mom. :) Plan to make her a part of some cleaning up. She can get an idea about sorting things. To keep, to give away or to trash. That would be a good practical lesson. Have got some stuff - coloring, stickers, crayons. Will see how she likes those.
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