Wednesday, May 18, 2016

A Call for Courtesy

We always hear every generation saying 'iba na talaga panahon ngayon' (times have changed). One alarming thing that changed is that the lack of courtesy nowadays.

These are very simple and common but without teaching the child, we are missing a lot.


Let me make a short checklist to remind us all of what has been passed and what we might be missing.


1. Doors and Knocking

   - knock before entering a room
   - to enter and exit doors quietly
   - to open and close cabinets and drawers quietly 

as early as 18 months, children can practice doing this


2.Silence Game

   - practice to be silent , use an hourglass, look at the second hand of a clock
   - listen to the sound around you, listen to each other's heartbeat
   - practice waiting for turn to speak
Using what we have at home, a digital timer would suffice,
this will take a lot of practice and patience


3.Telephone / Cellphone Answering

  -don't forget to say Hello and Goodbye, (I noticed a lot are just hanging up after speaking especially on cellphones)
- when answering, getting someone to the phone, calling someone, remind to get the name, message and saying 'wait for a moment', instead of just passing the phone
- practice how to call , get a calling card handy for the child to have in case of emergencies
I gave her a card with my number for her to practice calling,
 you'll be surprised at how easy they remember


4. Coughing, Sneezing, Blowing the Nose, Burping, Yawning

   Sometimes we find children's blunder cute but it is not a good habit to grow.
 -sneeze on arm not on hands
 - practice covering mouth, washing hands and blowing on tissue
- say excuse me




5. Being Excused
- when leaving a group, table,  practice how to excuse yourself, take turns
- when passing in between people, normally you go around, this is only when there is no other choice
- when interrupting conversations


6. Being on Time, RSVP

I have organized enough parties, activities and seminars to know that this has really, REALLY gone bad.

- I would like to see the term Filipino time be erased in anybody's vocabulary.

- Give the host a time to plan, they are paying for your seat already please at least tell them that you are not coming at least a week before to adjust the food and seats
- Make a routine chart and schedule of how to make your time fit

I am guilty of this. Why? because I consider the time others will arrive,
now we are trapped in a loop where everybody thinks it will start an hour or so later

7. Offering Help

Teach the child to be independent and helpful.
Doing everything for your child spells disaster when they grow up. A doting parent might say "they are so helpless" (They are not really helpless at two years old, you'll be surprised at what they can do just give them a chance to learn)

- make a dialogue on offering help and help them discriminate who are in need of help


7. Gadgets Usage

If possible, no gadgets and tv for children under 2 yrs of age.

- no gadgets on meal time

- no gadgets on movie houses and church
- please stop using the gadgets while talking to someone


Remember, you are setting an example to your children, practice what you teach.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Leprechauns with a Pot 'o Gold

St Patrick's Day is not a big thing here in the Philippines, but since there was a unit about it and we already have the materials for it then we went for it.

1. Books: Under the Rainbow, St Patrick



2. Geography and Reading Preparation
Locate Ireland in the Map.
Make a game identifying all words that starts with sh

3. Botany & Bible: 
Talk about shamrock and its meaning.


2. Art: Color Sequence of a Rainbow
The Song Colors of the Rainbow as sung at Kindermusik class helped a lot in remembering the sequence.
We coupled it with activities and painting.


3. Language: Rainbows around the World:
Colors in English,Tagalog and how often Spanish words are used in the Philippines (a short introduction to Spanish influence to the Philippines) and Chinese

Red - Pula红色
Green -Luntian (berde) - Spanish Verde 綠色

and so on

4. Music: Classifying High and Low

- Visual thru pictures (pointing and looking for objects), High and Low
- Kinesthetic thru movement and dance
-  Auditory thru singing the high note and low note, play the high low note in the piano



5. Musical Term: Glissando
-Visual thru the logo

-Kinesthetic thru waving the scarves in an arclike movement


-Auditory thru playing the slide whistle



6. Dress Up




7. Do an Irish Jig
Put a clacker (bottle cap/coin) at the bottom of our shoes and followed the dance step.





In the end we found the pot of gold, and ate them all up!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Survive Quicksand

It is summer, time to play with sand!

1. Book: The Quicksand Book
We love Tomie dePaola books, here is one informative and amusing book, coupled with a science experiment.
   

2. Video: We watched a video from Discovery Channel on quicksand

photo credit to Discovery Channel video


3. The Experiment

-Dry Sand

-Attach the hose at the bottom, a pail is better,seal the connection

-add with a little water


-add lots of water



-test how hard it is to pull Bert out


-wait and the water goes up and sand is again stable



4. Survive in a real Quicksand

photo credit to Wikipedia
-use stick to check where you are going
-in case you already fell lie back to float and slowly roll over to dry land
-don't panic and do slow movement of pulling your legs out
(read the book for complete details)
Be careful and have a great summer everyone.


Monday, February 29, 2016

Finding North

Geography basics is one of the topics in the book we are rowing (Five in a Row curriculum)

1.Two Main types of Compass

Magnetic & Gyro

2. Reading a Compass
Read the compass and use the sun as your reference to check your reading.
(sunrise and sunset)



a gift to my husband few years back,
now we are using it for our activities
3. Making a Compass
We used Usborne's 100 Science Experiments.


-With a Needle
  


and Magic School Bus' Weather Lab

-With a Magnet






4. Mapping Out
-Make a relationship between North in the compass and map's North




5. Application
-Treasure hunting with directions




6. Book Reading
Stories to relate:

-Katy and the Big Snow
One of the topics discussed is reading a compass, you can make a sub-topic or activity about it just like this.



-Eric Carle's 10 Little Rubber Ducks


Happy hunting!


Sunday, January 31, 2016

Noodles from Scratch

This month's theme is Jazz Kitchen, singing, dancing to Jazz music and of course activities to make it memorable

1. Book:



2. Practical Life & Math

Grocery list, ingredients listing , money counting, and measuring are among the things you can learn in this simple task
Count, pay and go

3. Project Noodles from Scratch

Learn cooking terms by doing and seeing it
insisted on making noodles just like the animals in the book

mixing and measuring

kneading the dough


cutting by an adult (start with banana slicing for your child)
the one we did is still too thick

twirling some noodles for drying, we tried different shapes
4. Cooking: 

tomatoes, cheese & mushroom

Viola, finished product

5. Music : Singing and Drums
- Note reading: quarter note and eighth note, getting a beat
pum pa dum dum

Happy Eating, Reading and Singing everyone!