A few years ago, while trying to get a handle on our daily schedules which were all over the place, I found a great scheduling tool from the homeschool family behind www.titus2.com.  Titled Managers of Their Homes, the book was filled with tips and forms to help you get organised.  I didn’t end up using most of the stuff, but there were a few principles I picked up which proved invaluable.  One of them is about making your days as uniform as possible.

Like DUH! right?  LOL!  But I didn’t even know how to do that much!  I used to shun schedules because they “cramped my style”.  So we were going out and meeting people, and having people over, and going on random fieldtrips and it was all wearing me out.  Now this one thing has brought much order to our days.

DAILY SCHEDULE

So by and large our days look something like this in 2012 …

7.30 am – Kids wake up and have breakfast
8.00 am – Chinese
9.30 am – History readings (Mystery of History, Trial & Triumph)
10.00 am – Copywork
10.30 am – Math
11.30 am – Some slack for getting lunch ready, checking math answers, allowing time for schedule overruns, etc
12.00 noon - French homework or Writing Strands or Journaling (on Fridays)
12.30 pm – Lunch

AFTERNOONS VARY (see below)

5.00 pm – Dinner prep (one child helps each day)
6.00 pm – Dinner followed by packing up, folding laundry, etc
7.00 pm – Baths
8.00 pm – Bible reading with the family
8.30 pm – In bed (kids get various lengths of time to read in bed before lights out)

AFTERNOONS

In the afternoons we have a variety of activities including:

• French tuition
• Tennis lessons
• Music lessons (Alethea on piano, Timothy violin, Nathalie recorder) in the same music school
• Meeting with one other homeschool family for lunch, presentation skills, picture studies, composer studies

HOMESCHOOL GROUP

Once a week we meet with a homeschool co-op and during the 3 hours there we cover Art, Science and Theatre and the kids attend another French class.

A NOTE ABOUT SCHEDULING MULTIPLE CHILDREN

I used to schedule MYSELF when the children were younger.  That simply meant that if I was working with one child on Math, the others had to be doing something which they could do on their own, or which needed less involvement from me.  But now that the children are older, I can do the same subject concurrently.

For example, during copywork/dictation time, I read Nathalie’s copywork passage with her and get her started while the two older ones are studying their passages.  Then when they are ready, I read their passages out to them (yes, different passages at the same time, and no, they don’t get confused, but sometimes I do).  And now that we are doing Saxon Math, the two older ones are completely independent during that period so I work only with Nathalie (while entertaining Daniel).  Doing Singapore Math was different.

So that’s how we do it all! 

I know that the solution to writing more lies in canning that need for perfection (and for photos!) and learning to write shorter blog posts.  So in order to start the year right on the blogging front, I have decided to write a SHORT post about CURRICULUM.  I hope this satisfies those of you who have been patiently waiting for something … anything … about homeschooling.

Here goes:

MATH

We live in limbo where the school year is concerned because we still cannot get away from thinking calendar year (Singapore style), but want our children to be able to say what school year they are in when they talk to people here, or go to the right class in Sunday School, etc.  Fortunately for us, we do very little at “grade level” apart from math.  So to reduce the confusion, we started our children on their new math curriculum in September last year.

We made the switch to Saxon Math and they are now doing Saxon 6/7, Saxon 4/5, Saxon Grade 2.  We switched from Singapore Math (which we brought from home) to Saxon Math in order to prepare them for any Canadian standardised testing we may want them to sit for in the next year or so.

BIBLE

We read a chapter a day of the Bible as a family every evening and share our “favourite verses”.  I would like to re-start singing hymns and have ordered The Christian Life Hymnal from www.cbd.com.  We are also reading Trial & Triumph for Church history and will revive the Hide ‘Em In Your Heart CDs by Steve Green for the benefit of the younger ones.

HISTORY

We started using Mystery of History and the kids are really enjoying it.  We are not doing the activities at the end of each chapter (no time lah!), but we put our timeline figures into our timeline book (both from www.homeschoolinthewoods.com) after every three readings.  We have just completed week 12 of the first book and hope to finish books 1 and 2 of the series by the end of the year.

GEOGRAPHY

I will be using Galloping the Globe with the preschoolers in our weekly homeschool group meeting and will do the same lessons at home with our kids.  The programme is targetted at grades K to 4, but you can easily take it up a notch for older kids.  I would like to get some mapwork in as well, but I think that would be ambitious to say the least.

SCIENCE

The homeschool Co-Op we attend is using R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey (I cannot spell Odyssey without checking!) Chemistry from www.pandiapress.com.  I kinda influened the decision for selish reasons.  :)  Confession is good for the soul.  We started on the Life Science one on our own and got about halfway through before we got distracted.  We also bought Exploration Education from www.explorationeducation.com which I LOVE LOVE LOVE, but we have not been able to find the time to be diligent with this.

CHINESE

We have just started using a programme you can find online here: http://www.hwjyw.com/textbooks/.  Called the Overseas Language and Culture Education Online, it is a series of textbooks and workbooks which our resident Chinese teacher has taken a great liking to.    We are using the “zhong wen” series if you’re interested.

FRENCH

When in Rome … or Montreal … learn FRENCH!    We have a tutor who comes over for 5 hours of French every week.  On one day, she does individual hour-long sessions with each child, then on another day, she spends two hours with all three together, reading, singing, playing Monopoly, etc.  She is using locally bought workbooks for the kids.  We are also doing the L’Art de Lire programme from www.nallenart.com.  This programme is great for us because it is written in ENGLISH!  Ha ha.

ENGLISH

We are continuing to use the Charlotte Mason method for teaching English (for teaching everything, really), and are using Spelling Wisdom from www.simplycharlottemason.com for copywork/dictation.  The children also narrate from various books we read but I have become less diligent about requiring it of the two older ones over the years.  I am working more with Nathalie (just turned 7) who seems to have more difficulty with this.  Alethea is working independently from Writing Strands and I hope will be a regular contributor to the Singapore Homeschool Gazette e-zine at www.homeschoolgazette.blogspot.com.

MUSIC, ART, PRESENTATIONS SKILLS

Together with another homeschool family, we are doing Year 1 of Music and Moments with the Masters from www.cornerstonecurriculum.com, doing picture studies (I know I don’t need it but I am seriously eyeing the Picture Studies Portfolios from www.simplycharlottemason.com, and working through Beginning Public Speaking from the Institute of Cultural Communicators www.iccinc.org.

ART, THEATRE

Our homeschool co-op is using Artistic Pursuits from www.artisticpursuits.com, and we have a WONDERFUL theatre trained Mom in the group who is doing such fun stuff with the kids and preparing them to put up a play!  WOO HOO! 

THERE!  Blogging that wasn’t so difficult!    Here’s to a brand new year of teaching our own!  It will be our 8th year!

It has been 2.5 months since my last post.  (There seems to be a pattern forming.)  I have thought constantly of writing, but haven’t had the time.  Between managing kids and home in Tee Chiou’s absences (he has taken 15 plane trips in that time and gone to five countries), entertaining Tee Chiou’s colleagues over dinner (three times), as well as hosting family and friends who came to stay (three families, 11 people), two ski holidays (with abovementioned families) to Mont Tremblant, and all the various preparations we have made for winter and Christmas, and the children’s church and music school year-end performances, I have not been able to find time to write.  *whew*

A rare family photo.  On Mont Tremblant.

Then there has been the cooking.  Which is the subject of this blog post. 

My History in the Kitchen

Up till just past my 40th birthday, I hardly did anything in the kitchen.  My Mom is a drop-dead-fabulous cook, and cooked (still cooks) amazing multi-dish meals for the family.  I cooked the occasional Western-style meal, but that was about it.  When I got married at 30, I decided I needed to start cooking even though we lived only 100 metres from my parents.  I didn’t even know how to cook rice at that point. *faint*

But that was short-lived because I was “with child” shortly after we got married and couldn’t stand handling raw food.  So back to Mom’s we went till we had Alethea.  And a live-in maid.  For almost ten years we enjoyed the faithful and competent service of three different domestic helpers, all who enjoyed cooking, and cooked well.

Then at the end of March 2010, we went maid-free and I found myself in the kitchen.  A lot.  But even then my Mom was doing much of the buying of meats and fish for me, and slicing, marinating etc, so all I needed to do was throw things in the pan and swish around and VOILA!  Great food!  So spoiled right?

And when we moved to Montreal, Mom came along and stayed for 5 months, and continued cooking her fabulous food.  So I really have had only about half a year of real “end-t0-end” experience in the kitchen.  Planning, buying, food prep, cooking, and all that cleaning after!

And what fun it has been!  Can’t believe I waited till now!    I wanted to share here about three mini kitchen adventures.

Sandi Richard

A few months ago, plagued with worsening pain in his knee caused by torn meniscus, Tee Chiou was determined to lose weight in order to reduce the pressure on his knee.  I have never been a calorie counter.  (I thank God I have never had to!)  But now I had to learn how to cook healthy meals for dinner to support Tee Chiou’s efforts.

Interestingly enough, I had two books by Sandi Richard (www.cookingfortherushed.com) which were recommended by a Singaporean friend now living in Vancouver (hi Julia *wave*).  And though I had used a couple of recipes before, and I agreed with her philosophy, I hadn’t really used her books much because I still believed that dinner had to be a multi-dish affair.  But when I started searching for healthy recipes, I realised that all hers had calorie counts, and that each recipe was for the full meal, not just the main course.  So just for the sake of easy execution, I started using her cookbooks.

The first Sandi Richard cookbook I bought myself.  I now have FOUR!

Sandi Richard is a Canadian celebrity chef of sorts, with a passion for getting families back to the dining table through quick and easy food preparation.  She doesn’t rely on any kind of food advanced food prep, which I like, since I’m SO not organised enough.  AND … all her recipes are for full meals, carbo, protein and vegetables, so you don’t have to think about how to mix and match.  AND … with seven children of her own, her recipes are family tested and approved!

Her recipes were given one great review after another from the various members of my family, especially from the very grateful husband, who started to think that this diet thing was more that just bearable with actually tasty food!  And I became a very happy cook, because it wasn’t just easy AND quick prep.  It was easy planning, cooking, and easy cleaning up as well!  Some of her main courses are baked, which means I can pop the stuff in the oven, and go off to pick the kids from tennis class, then come home to a calm and yummy dinner!  And some of her slow cooker recipes (she has just a few), I put together for Sunday dinners so I can take a guilt-free nap on Sunday afternoons!  Doing away with all that scrambling at dinner time has just been the best thing.

Btw, she doesn’t just do “ang moh” (Western) food.  Just last night I used the udon with miso chicken recipe from her book and we exclaimed how interesting it was that such decidedly yummy Asian food could come from a non-Asian cookbook.

As an added bonus, she has pre-prepared shopping lists if you follow her week-by-week plans.  But since I was picking and choosing just the lowest calorie meals, I subscribed to her online Grocery List Generator and love how it has simplified my shopping.  I generate the list, cancel out whatever I already have or don’t want to use, print it off and head to the supermarket!

Our family has also benefitted from learning to eat outside our food comfort zones, and have found a host of yummy things we would not ordinarily have looked for in the supermarket.  It helps that being Canadian she uses ingredients which are easily found in any supermarket here.

Just Bento-ing

Once a week, our family goes to a homeschool group meeting which runs from 10 am to 1 pm.  Too late to head home for lunch, almost every family brings their own.  Now … even after being here for almost a year, I still cannot bring myself to have sandwiches for lunch.  And that’s what most people bring.  And they eat it with raw vegetables.  So not my thing.  So after a couple of uneventful lunches, which my kids were unable to finish (playing in the church yard rated higher than eating a sandwich), I decided there had to be a better way.

Bento-ing came to mind.  Packed lunches, Japanese style, and yes still cold, but potentially yummy.  I started searching the web for recipes.  And discovered www.justbento.com.  OH MAN!  Talk about inspiring!  I ran out (figuratively, since I simply ordered from www.bookdepository.co.uk) and bought the Just Bento Cookbook, because I don’t like reading recipes off the web.

And our bento-ing adventures began.  It helped, of course, that my very indulgent best friend sent us LOADS of fun bent0 tools and boxes and other paraphernalia from Singapore to get us off to an inspired start.

A bento lunch I made Tee Chiou – Onigiri (plain rice), home made chicken nuggets, and some quick decorative “flowers” and quails eggs

Now, I really don’t have time for the kyaraben or character bento (think cute) food preparation because I have to make six substantial lunch bentos and get the kids ready and out of the house by nine in the morning.  But I do indulge in the cutesy stuff once in a while if time permits and if my kids want to play with their lunch.  It certainly helps to get them eat more!  Which may or may not be what you’re after. 

A dry run of the mini burgers we are planning to make for our homeschool group Christmas party later this week.  Mini Japanese burgers, rice snouts, tomato/M&M noses, pretzel antlers, cheese and nori (seaweed) eyes.

Baking Bread

A few months ago, I was inspired (lots of thing are inspiring me these days, huh?) to start baking my own bread.  I really cannot say why I started, but having a Thermomix and seeing how easily one can make bread dough in it certainly helped me to make the decision.  Apart from a few lapses from lack of time, I have since baked all the bread my family eats.

I have two “go to” recipes for bread.  One is a sweet bun recipe like the ones you find in Asian bakeries.  Think Bread Talk.  You can fill it with just about anything from chocolate chips to tuna & mayo and it tastes great!  The other is a wholemeal bread recipe which is fabulously soft.  So unlike my experience with wholemeal bread.  The thing about these recipes is I always have the ingredients on hand to make them.  There was another recipe I liked a lot, but it required buttermilk, which is not something I always remember to buy.

Alethea getting in on the baking action!  This is a tray of tuna buns she did ALL BY HERSELF for a Sunday breakfast.  The dough was made the night before and put in the fridge.  Shaped, filled and baked in the morning.

If you are game to try it, the recipes can be found on www.allrecipes.com (links below).  For my fellow Thermomix users, here are my Thermomix versions so you don’t have to figure it out yourselves. 

Best Basic Sweet Bread

230g milk
65g white sugar
75g butter
10g yeast
500g all-purpose flour (I buy unbleached)
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
30g oil

Method:

1. Put milk, white sugar and butter into Thermomix for 3 to 4 mins at 37˚C on speed 1.  (You can stop when temperature reaches 37˚C.)
2. Mix in yeast for 10 to 15 secs on speed 2.  Leave for 10 mins for yeast to proof.  (Or is it “prove”?)
3. Put in flour, salt, eggs, oil, mix for 20 seconds, going from speed 0 to 6 to combine ingredients.
4. Set to close lid position, 3 mins, and hit that wheat button, whatever they call it.
5. Take out, put into lightly oiled bowl, cover with damp tea towel, let rise till doubled.  I can’t tell you how long.  It varies according to the temperature in my kitchen!  But I usually set the timer for 40 mins so I don’t forget to check on it.
6. Cut dough with scissors (apparently you should never tear pieces off, it damages the gluten and you lose some fluffy-ness) to the size you want.  I make my bread buns 45g each because that’s how much the littler kids eat.  If I make them any larger they won’t finish it.  I use the Thermomix to weigh the dough.  Of course.    Shape it the way you want.  You can fill it, or leave it plain.  Put on lightly oiled baking tray.  Cover with oiled plastic wrap.
7. Let rise till almost doubled (if you can figure out what that looks like), and bake in 190˚C oven for about 15 mins.
8. Brush with melted butter so bread stays soft.  If you are baking rolls with sweet fillings, remember not to use salted butter!  I’ve done that absent mindedly once too many times. 

Heart-shaped buns with bacon and cheese

Simple Whole Wheat Bread

470g water
55g honey
10g yeast
450g bread flour
30g butter
55g honey
10g salt
280g whole wheat flour

The recipe on the web makes 3 loaves, which is too much for the Thermomix to handle. So I scaled the recipe down to make two loaves, which fits just right.  I normally make half the dough into plain buns, and the other half I bake a regular loaf.

Method is similar to the one above.  All Thermomix recipes for bread follow more or less the same method, I guess.

1. Put water, honey into Thermomix.  3 to 4 mins, 37˚C, speed 1.
2. Add yeast, 15 seconds, speed 2.
3. Add bread flour, mix 10 to 15 seconds, going from speed 0 to 4.
4. Leave for 30 mins in Thermomix.  Your dough will become really HUGE and may pop out of the top of the Thermomix.  If it reaches this stage before the 30 mins are up, you don’t have to wait out the rest of the time.  Just continue with …
5. Whack dough down with whatever you can get your hands on.  I usually just spin the Thermomix at speed 1 till the dough deflates.
6. Add the rest of the ingredients (butter, honey, salt, whole wheat flour), mix 20 secs, going from speed 0 to 6.  Take out, put in lightly oiled bowl, cover with damp tea towel.
7. Let rise till doubled, shape, let rise till almost doubled, bake in 175˚C for about 15 to 18 mins for buns and 25 to 30 mins for whole loaves.

The End … Or Just The Beginning?

I hope you have enjoyed reading about my kitchen adventures as much as I have enjoyed sharing them with you!

I can’t believe it’s been two months since I blogged!  *faint*  A big thank you to all of you who emailed to ask if everything was okay with us.  Yes, everything has been okay.  More than okay.

We’ve been busy busy busy here!    Took two short holidays because Tee Chiou’s schedule is lighter in the summer.  One was to Gananoque, gateway to the Thousand Islands (yes, home of the salad dressing!), which was just under three hours away.  The other was to Toronto and the Niagara Falls, which was about 7 hours away.  We took the trip in two days.  Daniel isn’t great in the car unfortunately, so we can only do about three hours at a stretch and even then during his nap time.  We also spent a beautiful Saturday at a friend’s cottage up north in the Laurentians and were awed by God’s creation!  And we celebrated two birthdays in September (Tim’s on the 15th and Thea’s on the 19th).

And then we’ve been busy in the home.  It has taken us a ridiculously long time to get settled into a routine, and now I think we have finally gotten it.  I seem to be doing laundry all the time, what with clothes for six and bedsheets and too many floor mats and dish cloths, etc.  The kids help, which is great!  But I still have to mastermind it. And all that cooking too!

Books for Boys

So here I am back again.  Finally.  With a post about reading lists for boys.  It started with a question on the Singapore Homeschool Group forum.  A mom asked for recommendations for her 9 year old son, and I posted with a list off the top of my head.  No, actually it was off the top of Tim’s head.  Other moms responded also, with some books I had forgotten, then today I went up to our bookshelves to look up more so I could come up with a more comprehensive list.

Now, this is also a list for girls.  I should know because Alethea has read almost all of them. 

My suggestions of appropriate ages are very tentative, because interests and abilities vary so greatly in boys aged 6 to 9.  I read somewhere that whether early readers or late, children are almost on par when they are 10.  In the meantime, though, I strongly suggest that you continue reading to your child, whether or not they are reading competently on their own.  This way you will not miss out on some of these wonderful books.  If a child only becomes a competent reader at 9 or 10, they may not want to read Wind in the Willows or Winnie the Pooh.  And that would be such a pity.

But First …

Here are some general points about reading in the Ng household:

1.  We try to read only complete and unabridged books.  We figure if a child is not old enough to tackle the real thing, he’s not old enough for the book.  Why water it down
to something the author never intended? There are many books for each age and ability.  So we feel there is little reason to read an abridged book.

2.  We rely on reading lists from homeschool curriculum providers/advisors like www.sonlight.com (my kids find the readers for their age a little light, but have been doing well with the read-alouds for the same age), www.veritaspress.com, and our personal favourite www.amblesideonline.org. I do this because then I know that
someone else has been through that book and decided it was “okay”.  Or I go to the
bookshop, take down book titles (I just take a photo of it with my smart phone), come back and read reviews (1-star first) on Amazon.

3.  We try not to let my kids get stuck in any one genre. And they can’t say they don’t want to read a book after just reading the blurb at the back or looking at the cover.
They need to give them all a chance. So my son read Little House on the Prairie (wasn’t crazy about it), Caddie Woodlawn (loved it), The Little Princess, What Katy Did (listened to both on audio and enjoyed them thoroughly). So I try not to allow them to do too many books in a particular series unless they are read alternately with other books at the same time.  I find books in a series, especially a LONG series, becomes formulaic after a while.  It helps that I have an older daughter who is
always actively recommending books to her brother to read.

4.  We believe that you should continue reading aloud to your children.  I’m still reading to our oldest who is reading Shakespeare on her own. *shudder*  If you cannot find the time to read, invest in good audio CDs (choose the unabridged ones where possible) or borrow them from the library or buy from www.audible.com.  You can also get an excellent selection for free from www.librivox.org.  We really got into audio books when I was faced with having to read the Narnia series and balked at the prospect of almost 40 hours of reading aloud.  Now we have over 90 audio books in our collection and are currently listening to the How to Train Your Dragon series (we’re on book 4 or 5 and it is HYSTERICAL!) and it’s great entertainment for the whole family!  You mustn’t mind language like “you winkle-hearted seaweed brain limpet-eating pig” though.

5.  It is really easy to tell a good book from a not so good one.  If you find it engaging yourself, it’s good.  Each family has different standards, but if you look at a book and have your doubts (like I do when I see the likes of Captain Underpants, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Robert Munsch, sorry to all the Munsch fans out there, Harry Potter from the 4th book onwards), then don’t let your child read it.

6.  We read “old” books because getting used to that kind of language prepares
them for reading the classics and Shakespeare etc when they are older.  If they cannot handle it, read it aloud to them.  It is important for our children
to be exposed to good literature.  I do allow them to borrow the lighter reads or books in a HUGE series (like Geronimo Stilton) from friends or the library, but I try not to have too many of them lying around for them to pick up too easily.

THE LIST

For 6 to 7 year olds

• Winnie the Pooh series (unabridged please) by A.A. Milne.  Not at all trivial.  We still listen to them today and hubby and I are still delighted by the stories.
• Peter Rabbit and other stories by Beatrix Potter (like A.A. Milne’s books, these are beautifully written)
• Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• James Herriot’s Treasury for Children
• Babe: The Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith
• Little Pear and Little Pear and His Friends by Eleanor Frances Lattimore
• The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark and other books by Jill Tomlinson
• The Littles series by John Peterson
• Mr Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

For 7 to 8 year olds

• Nicholas series by René Goscinny (we still re-read these because they are so funny!  Author is of Asterix fame)
• Paddington Bear by Michael Bond
• Anything by Bill Peet.  Bill Peet was a Disney animator and his books are wonderfully illustrated.  A fantastic bridge between picture books and chapter books.  Great for the reluctant reader.
• Frindle and other books by Andrew Clements
• Follow My Leader by James Garfield
• The Moffats, Ginger Pye and other books by Eleanor Estes
• The Saturdays and the other books in the series by Elizabeth Enright
• Charlotte’s Web and Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White (I did not like Stuart Little by the same author)
• Books by Thornton Burgess (fabulous books personifying animals written by a naturalist)
• Viking Adventure by Clyde Robert Bulla
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
• Moomin series by Tove Jansson
• Toothpaste Millionaire by Jean Merrill
• Lost on a Mountain in Maine by Donn Fendler
• Doctor Doolittle by Hugh Lofting
• The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli
• Henry Huggins and other books by Beverly clearly
• Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry (don’t be deterred by the cover.  This book is FUNNEE!)
• Random House has a beginning chapter book series titled “Stepping Stones”.  The historical fiction titles are very good.  Look them up here.

For 8 to 9 year olds

• Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol
• The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
• Zorgamazoo (an entire book written in rhyme) by Robert Paul Weston and Victor Rivas
• Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska
• Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien (I couldn’t put this down myself!)
• Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene Dubois
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
• Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
• Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner

For 9 to 10 year olds

• How to Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell.  We don’t have the books but are listening to the audio versions of this now.  Not be confused with the movie tie-ins.  Read the real thing! 
• The Mysterious Benedict’s Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart.  An EXCELLENT series
• Silverwing and Airborn and other books by Kenneth Oppel (Tim’s current rave)
• Lost in the Barrens by Farley Mowat
• The Dangerous Book for boys (latest acquisition)
• 100 Cupboards series by N.D. Wilson
• Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld
• Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• Rascal by Sterling North

Happy reading!

Our children LOVE poetry.  They read it, they memorise it, they recite it unbidden, they do copywork from it, and they love it.  We have been reading poetry to them since they were young.  Not just the nursery rhyme sort, though that too.  I myself have always enjoyed poetry, though I have to say that having to “study” it in literature robbed me of some of that joy.  So we don’t do any “teaching” from poetry.  I want our children to simply enjoy it.

Poet-tea essentials – A good book of poetry, and a fine cup of tea!

WHY POETRY?

There are many things about poetry which you don’t always get in prose.  Rhyme, rhythm, appreciation of the “melody” of the English language, and extensive vocabularly.  You see, with the limitations imposed in a poem – needing to complete a thought in a definite number of syllables, having to find something which rhymes with something else – the poet uses the language in a way the prose writer does not.  So poetry is a necessary complement to reading prose.

I remember years ago, when Alethea was but 6, I was reading to her and we came across the word “belfry”.  I paused to offer an explanation, but none was needed.  “I know Mom.  It’s a bell tower.”  How did she know?  She had read the phrase “bats in the belfry” in a poem and understood the meaning in context.  To this day neither of us can remember which poem though. 

Also for the young child, poems which rhyme are easy to commit to memory, and that helps in language acquisition and retention.  And memorising poetry is a joy and beneficial at any age.

When asked to pick something to perform at our homeschool group’s school year-end concert in June, all our children asked to recite poetry, and Alethea and Timothy did one together from Joyful Noise: Poetry for Two Voices (which btw is a really delightful collection).

Our poetry books.  I thought this was all, but after I took the photo, I discovered more!

HOW TO READ POETRY

I get asked this a lot.  I think it is because many of us have been “scarred” by our literature teachers who made reading poetry a bit of a chore.  The reality is much simpler. Pick up a book of poetry, find a poem (or just read them in sequence), and just read!

You don’t have to expound on it.  You don’t have to look up definitions (unless you really want to).  You don’t even have to pretend to LIKE all of them.  Or understand them all for that matter.  There are many times when I will look up after reading a poem, and find all the children staring blankly at me.  I’ll shrug, say I didn’t understand it either, then we’ll pick another poem to read.  Just move on.

You don’t have to read many poems.  We used to read a poem a day from a predetermined selection.  One selection for each child.  If the kids liked it, we would read it again.  And again if they asked.  It took us no more than 5 to 10 mins to get through the various readings for all three children.

WHAT POETRY TO READ

We have an extensive collection of poetry books.  But looking at the lot, here are the ones I would recommend if you are just starting out and want to make a few key investments:

Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Farris – if you only own one poetry book, this has to be it!  No coloured pictures though.

A Child’s Book of Poems illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa – this is a fabulous value-for-money volume.  Under 10 US dollars and in hardcover, this is a collection of wonderful and famous classic poems.

A Family of Poems selected by Caroline Kennedy (yes THAT Kennedy) – another collection of classic poems, but this one is beautifully illustrated by Jon J. Muth.

If you feel you need some guidance with definitions of key words and some biographic background on the poets, you will certainly want to check out the Poetry for Young People collections by Sterling Publishing.  We have a few of their collections by poet – featuring 30 poems (I assume more famous) poems by each poet.  They have a 200+ page collection featuring a number of poets which seems like a good buy, but which I don’t (yet) own: A Treasury of Poetry for Young People selected by Frances Schoonmaker, et al.

For the very young, I highly recommend Eloise Wilkin’s Poems to Read to the Very Young.  It comes in board book format, which is perfect for the littles.  I’m reading this now with Daniel, and the three older ones have memorised quite a few of the poems from this selection in their day. 

Another way to read poetry is by poet.  This is the method favoured by Charlotte Mason practitioners, so that the child has a deeper appreciation for poems by particular poets.  If this appeals to you, good poets to start with are Robert Louis Stevenson (A Child’s Garden of Verses), Emily Dickenson, A.A. Milne (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame), etc.  If you go to www.amblesideonline.org, you will find recommendations of poets and poems for the various years of study.  All for free!  This way too you will not have to try to figure out yourself when it will be appropriate to introduce what.

OUR POET-TEA SESSIONS

Back to our Poet-Tea sessions.  Here’s what we do.  We wait till Daniel has gone for his nap … then we bring out our good Narumi china teacups which we reserve for just this tea session.  We put sugar cubes in a bowl and milk in a jug.  We make REAL tea.  Yes, with all that caffine!  We bring out chips and dip, or maple cookies, or something fancier than the usual afternoon snack.

One evening, after our tea session was over, I left the kids to come back into the house to prepare dinner.  But to my delight, the kids stayed outside and continued reading to each other!

We each bring a poetry book to the table (the kids pick their own.  I am reading through Favorite Poems Old and New for now) and we take turns reading poems to each other.  Some times we all fall silent while we read ahead in search of another poem to read.  And some times we all find a poem at the same time and we fight for a chance to read ours first.

But all in all, we have a great time reading, sharing, laughing.  Is it any wonder everyone looks forward to Poet-Tea?

Join us in a cuppa? 

But then we settled into a new and very good routine.  The kids help out so much more now.  No more Grandma to pick up the slack!  *heh heh heh*  Meal prep, laundry, packing up, putting away, cleaning floors and toilets … they do it all now.  Ah … I live the good life! 

Wednesday is Toilet-Cleaning Day.  Alethea takes care of the children’s bathroom and Timothy does the guest toilet.

We just took a little 5-day break to drive down to the 1000 Islands region.  We stayed at a lovely little town called Gananoque (pronounced “way” at the end).  We were originally heading for Toronto, but I couldn’t imagine doing the 6+ hour drive with Daniel in the car.  *shudder*  So we picked a place about 3 hours away and used that as a base to drive a little around that region.  We came back all “chao-tah” (sunburnt) and looking healthier for it!  Ah … summer!

On the grass outside Upper Canada Village about two hours from home.

So here’s a little about various things happening in our lives six months on …

FOOD

Typical Singaporean.  First thing on my mind.    I keep telling myself I have to menu plan for my own sanity, but I can’t seem to get down to doing it.  Sigh … Like today.  I took a nap *luxury* and only came down at 4.30 in the afternoon with no plans for dinner.  Fortunately I had taken out a piece of pork from the freezer yesterday, so I sliced that up, marinated it and had Tee Chiou throw it on the barbecue while I cooked rice, fried a chai poh (pickled raddish) omelette and stir fried a frozen oriental vegetable mix.

We took out our precious stash of Mom’s satay when a family of four (good friends from our church in Singapore), came to visit in June.

We are still eating largely Asian meals (because Tee Chiou prefers it) though with the kids at lunch I tend to do easier Western-style dishes like pasta, sandwiches, baked rice, soups, etc.  My Thermomix has been working very well for us in this way.  I am so very thankful we have it!

Baking bread is child’s play (almost) when you have a Thermomix.  Bread dough in 3 mins.  Clean hands, clean kitchen counters.  This is the first loaf I baked here.

We have cut down on eating out.  Do it maybe once or twice a month now.  We were doing it more often when my parents were here.  Even if we are going to be out for the day, I try to pack sandwiches to take for a picnic lunch.  You can always find a park bench to sit on in Montreal.    Eating out is not just expensive.  It is largely unsatisfying unless you are prepared to spend a lot in a good restaurant.  Also Daniel isn’t exactly fun to have at the dinner table in a fancy restaurant.

Picnicing on Mont Royal, from where Montreal gets it’s name.

WEATHER

We have gone from freezing winter to hot hot summer!  Some nights have been so warm we were wishing for Singapore-style airconditioning!  We have central airconditioning here, but the basement gets really cold (even though we close the vents there), the first floor is great, but the cold air doesn’t seem to get up to our bedrooms.  We hear it will be like this, some days humid too, for the rest of July.  It should get cooler in August, then, we’ve been warned, we will regret not celebrating the warm weather!  No wonder people here get crazy happy when it’s HOT outdoors!  I guess it will take us a while to appreciate it, after being in hot and humid Singapore for 40+ years!

Cartwheeling in the sprinkler playground.  That water is COLD!

The wonderful thing about summer has been seeing flowers bloom!  I did a spot of gardening myself and surprised Tee Chiou with a new flower plot outside our house where there once were brambly bushes.  It had cost me 34 dollars plus too many hours in the sun.  But it was worth it.

The flowers I planted.  On the day they were planted.  They look way better now because there are more flowers.  But it is 10 pm and I can’t get an updated photo. 

Our attempts with fruits and vegetables have been exciting but not long lasting.  I think I actually need to fertilise the plants, maybe?    We have strawberry, salad leaves and tomatos in pots (harvested much!) and I have planted cucumbers, eggplant (flowering but not fruiting yet), and basil (the birds keep shitting on the plant so I cannot bear to use the leaves to make pesto!) in the backyard.

Sadly, all the flowers, fruits and vegetables will die in winter.  We have some perennials (Mom planted them before she left) in a flower bed, but they are not as colourful as the others.  Another thing I learnt recently. 

HOMESCHOOLING

Homeschooling has been going well.  We have found our rythym again.  Sure took us a long time!  We are desperately trying to finish our math workbooks before end August so that the children will be in sync with the school year when it starts end August.  It is hard to believe but Alethea will be in Grade 6.  Where has the time gone?

Group photo at the end of the homeschool group closing ceremony in May.  Our kids recited poetry.  So typical.  LOL!

The kids are now having French lessons twice a week for two hours each time.  A lovely lady comes over to our place for that and rattles off in French.  We have also been listening to French audio books, reading simple French story books, singing children’s songs, and we are using two resources for learning French which I will post about separately.

New Old BOOKS!  We bought these from two used bookshops we found on our recent holiday to the 1000 Islands.  Couldn’t tear ourselves away from the shops!

Chinese lessons are still continuing with Daddy.  We are still homeschoolers under the MOE and still responsible for teaching Chinese.  But not having an environment to speak or otherwise use it, has made it increasingly difficult to keep the kids motivated to learn.  Some successes to report though … Alethea is now reading Chinese story books on her own!  Albeit slowly.  But she is able, and willing, and that’s all we ever wanted.

The kids of the families we hang out with.

We are still hanging out with two other homeschool families now that the homeschool group is in recess for the summer.  Alethea hasn’t quite found that ONE good friend yet, and we are praying for that to happen soon.  We still miss our friends and family back home DESPERATELY.  The one downside of being here.

LIFE IN GENERAL

… has been great!  Tee Chiou’s working hours are so much more reasonable here.  We have dinner earlier, and have a couple of hours to just chill, read, watch some TV (Tin Tin in French, anyone?) before bedtime, which is still between 10 to 11.  Everyone is horrified when they hear how late our kids sleep.  8 to 9 pm is the norm here.  But the other day, a homeschooler from Singapore who recently relocated to Toronto, called me at 9.15 pm.  I told her I couldn’t talk long because I was reading to the kids in preparation for bed.  And she said, “Huh?  So early?”  I had a good chuckle over it because it was the first time in 6 months I had heard anything like that!

This must be one of life’s greatest pleasures.  To see your children run to you when you call.

There are many wonderful things to do in Summer.  Picnics, the Jazz Festival, puppet shows, parades.  There are also the international fireworks displays but these start at 10 pm and so we have decided maybe we’ll catch them next year.  Montreal is buzzing with activity.  People eat outdoors at home and at cafes.  It is a far cry from how it looked, felt and sounded when we first arrived in the middle of winter.  Watching the seasons change has been one of the most glorious experiences for me.  I watch in wonder, and say with Job:

But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish in the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
In his hand is the life of every creature
and the breath of all mankind.

Job 12:7-10, NIV Bible

It seems that gone are the days when parents knew what they were doing and were confident that they were doing right by their kids.  Or perhaps they didn’t know but were not letting on. 

These days it seems we are all deferring to some authority or other.  We read parenting books – both secular and religious.  We ask others for advice and take their word as Gospel truth. We attend talks and workshops.  We send our children to classes and camps to learn thinking skills and how to be creative.  We send them out to workshops to learn to make pizzas and to build junk art sculptures.

It seems we have lost faith in ourselves to parent and teach and impart life skills.  And it seems we have lost faith in our children’s ability to learn on their own, in their own time.

Please don’t get me wrong.  I am not saying sending children to classes is wrong.  I am not saying we should not reach out to whatever/whoever for help with our shortcomings or questions.  I am not saying we shouldn’t read parenting books (you should see how many I own!)  I’m just saying that we seem to be reaching out more than we are reaching in.

This became a very real issue to me recently.

Homeschooling or Nothing

Those of you who know me know that I am nothing short of totally committed to homeschooling.  How long for is anyone’s guess.  As I like to say to people who ask … the Good Lord only knows.    But the Good Lord has also given me a husband who tempers my all-or-nothing character with his blend of sanity, level-headedness and critical thinking.  Characteristics which I am woefully short on.

So … back to homeschooling.  When we were planning to move to Montreal, many people said, OH GOOD!  Now you can send your kids to school!  Like … HUH?  Why would moving from Singapore to Montreal make any difference to our decision to homeschool?

Apparently the thinking was that since the schools here are supposedly less pressurising, more well-rounded, and all things which the Singapore system is supposedly not, it would be a good time to put our kids in school for a “real” education. 

But over the years, homeschooling has become less about an education but more about a lifestyle.  Our decisions to homeschool include building parent-child and sibling-sibling bonds, allowing our children freedom and time to pursue their own interests, learning what God puts upon our hearts to teach, etc. 

Besides, I honestly feel I’m the best person to teach our kids. No one else cares as much as Tee Chiou and I do about equipping them for life. These things do not change when you move.  So the kids are still home.  Status quo. 

A Word from the MOE

BUT … recently, while seeking clarification from the Ministry of Education about our new “status”, being overseas, we received a bit of a stunner.

You see, we had consulted them verbally previously and were led to believe that once overseas, we no longer were under the MOE’s jurisdiction.  We were told then that we would just be classified as “overseas” and would not have to submit progress reports to the MOE.  But when we emailed them for confirmation after arriving here, we were told that we would continue to be subject to the Compulsory Education Act, would have to submit annual reports, and our children would have to sit for the PSLE if they return to Singapore before they turn 15 and if they have not completed their “primary education or its equivalent”.

So if our children were in a school in Singapore then we went overseas, the MOE wouldn’t care what kind of an education they received and from whom.

And if our children were homeschooled in Singapore but went overseas and were enrolled in a school, the MOE wouldn’t care either.

But since we homeschooled then and we homeschool now, the MOE does care.  We feel so loved. 

Questions

Which brings up a many questions, ranging from the practical “What is definied as a primary education or its equivalent?” to the more philosophical “What is an education? and “If we were completely free to educate our children in ways we as parents see fit, what would the end(s) of that education look like?”

On Who’s Authority?

Let’s leave the philosophical for another day.  For now, the question for us is, “What is a primary education or its equivalent?”  We need to figure that out because if we return after Tee Chiou’s 3-year term, Alethea will be 14 and still subject to the Compulsory Education Act and would have to do her PSLE at that age.  Unless we can show that she has completed her primary education or its equivalent.  After much deliberation (sounds good when I put it that way, huh?), here are what seem to be our options:

1. Send Alethea to school in her Grade 6 year (starts end Aug 2011).
2. Enrol Alethea in an accredited homeschool programme for Grade 6.
3. Have Alethea take a standardised test here in Canada for Grade 6.
4. Maintain status quo and have Alethea sit for the PSLE when she returns to Singapore at age 14.

Option 1, Send to school - Why should the MOE be satisfied that a Singaporean family is sending their Singaporean children to be educated by Canadian teachers, surrounded by Canadian children in a Canadian school, being taught a Canadian curriculum while imbibing the values of a Canadian society?  Why is this preferrable to having them stay home with their Singaporean parents, being educated using a Singapore curriculum, complete with a Singapore national education programme while imbibing Singaporean/Asian values?

Option 2, Accredited Homeschooling - Now, I understand the attraction of having our children use a packaged and levelled homeschool curriculum like Abeka, Bob Jones University, Accelerated Christian Education, etc.  I know many homeschool families who do and it keeps them very sane.    But why would I need to pay a 3rd party a whole lot of money (US$590 per year) to certify that my children have completed what I know they have completed.  Isn’t my own word on the matter trustworthy?

Option 3, Standardised Testing - There is a standardised test in Canada called the Canadian Achievement Test.  We don’t know if the MOE will accept this as an equivalent.  Though I don’t see why not.    Question is, what do we do for Chinese?  They don’t have a standardised test for it in Canada.  But she only has 1 year and can’t possibly learn French to the level required to take a Grade 6 standardised test.  Or can she? 

Status Quo

So for now, it looks like we’ll be maintaining the status quo.  And waiting to see what God has in store for us in the coming years.

Stay tuned! 

Posing in Vermont

Thankfulness

First up, I have to tell you that I am SO VERY THANKFUL to be here.  I am thankful every day and feel so very very blessed to be living the life I live.  The Good Lord has planned this move for us at just the perfect time of our lives!  I look back and wonder at all His planning.  You know what they say … hindsight is 20/20!  When you look back at your lives, you realise that everything happens for a reason, even though at the time you thought you were getting a rotten deal!  LOL!  I quit my job, we started homeschooling for financial reasons (couldn’t afford Pat’s Schoolhouse on a single income), I started the Home Library, we continued homeschooling, I closed the Home Library, we moved, we moved again, we downsized, decluttered, went maid-free.  All, unbeknownst to us, in preparation for this move.  I am so excited to see what the Lord has planned for us in the coming years!  Because I know that looking back it will all make perfect sense, I am determined to live it forward perfectly also!

Family Life

Mom reading to the littles

Having my parents here with us has been a great blessing.  I have not lived with my parents since we got married 11 years ago.  Honestly I was apprehensive initially.  But it has turned out so very well!  My Mom has been AMAZING around the house – she cooks and cleans, unpacks and packs, looks after the kids, and generally keeps us on our toes.  LOL!  She is one get-up-and-go-and-go-and-go-and-go Energizer Bunny!  And being 24 years younger has done nothing for me in trying to keep up with her.  My Dad is Mr. Handyman around the house.  He has been working on our IKEA shelves and drawers and even successfully fixed the covers of our bedroom ceiling lights, a project which had been abandoned by the electricians who had tried and failed and left the covers on the floor.  He is also our resident entertainer, juggling oranges and lemons and the ocassional kiwi fruit *shudder* after dinner!  And they both help with homeschooling!    When we entertain (twice already), Mom cooks up a STORM!  And Dad gets the tables ready and washes bowls in between so we can reuse them for dessert!  What a blessing they both are!

Entertaining – Dad with our church Pastor and his dear wife.  See Mom’s famous spread of yummy food!

For 3 weeks from end Feb, my best friend came to visit!  We had a WONDERFUL time with her and she inspired us to do many things and go many places.   But all good things must come to an end and 2 weeks ago she left for home.  We all spent the next few days moping about the house, not knowing what to do with our time!

Patience

We have had to exercise PATIENCE on many ocassions, something I have little of.  Sigh … we have tried and met with roadblocks when attempting to apply for internet access and a home phone line, to buy mobile phones, we managed to get a Quebec driver’s license only after 6 weeks and since we needed that to buy car insurance before leasing a car, we have had to rent a car (at great cost) in the meantime!  But we have now got our spanking new Toyota Sienna!  We couldn’t even get a COSTCO membership at first!  LOL!  And my Mom was unable to get her prescription filled at the local pharmacy even though it had been issued by the Singapore General Hospital, no less!  There have been frustrating moments when one of us has tried to do something, failed, then attempted to explain to the rest of the disbelieving family why it could not be done.

Oh, and I haven’t even told you about the many times we got lost on the roads because either the GPS was uncooperative and sent us in circles, or the roads and highways were closed (yes, they CLOSE sections of highways here!) and won’t be open till they are repaired after winter!

Ah … but we are all settled now and all is well. 

COLD!

Snowing over our backyard

Speaking of winter … it is COLD here!  Of course the house is well and centrally heated at 21.5 degrees so being indoors isn’t a problem, but once you step outside, or just open the door, the cold is incredible!  The lowest it has gone is -30 degrees C and this week we are finally experiencing temperatures above zero.  Only recently have the kids been going outdoors to play.  And they have been roller-blading with a vengeance! 

View of the snow removal trucks from our living room window. 
It was AMAZING!  Some mobilisation!

The rest of the time we enjoy each other’s company indoors.  Now I know why they say winter in Montreal lasts five months!  The upside of the cold is that we managed to go skiing three times on a slope just half an hour from our house!  Unfortunately the ski season is now over on the lower slopes.  We’ll wait patiently till next winter for it to start again!

Setting Up Home

Boxes of books (right) and kitchen stuff (left)

I just realised recently that we have moved house 3 times in less than 3 years!  In March 2008, we moved from our home in Nim Park (after an en bloc sale), to Sandy Palm in Pasir Ris.  We had rented the apartment because the one we had bought had not yet been built.  Then in May 2010, we moved into our own apartment at Coastal View in Pasir Ris.  And only 8 and a half months later, we packed up and moved to Montreal!  And actually, we spent our first 3 weeks in a rental apartment while waiting for our stuff to arrive and to collect the keys to our rental house, so technically that’s 4 moves in 3 years.  No wonder I feel so tired!  LOL!  We moved into our rented house on Nun’s Island on 1 Feb.  I had hoped to have everything unpacked and done in a week but that proved to be too ambitious.  Because a week later, we realised that we were still short of book and toy shelves and had to head out to IKEA again to buy more.  Well, at the end of Day 12, I proudly announced to Tee Chiou that we were done!  With much credit to WHIRLWIND MOM and HANDYMAN DAD.

Dad and little helper putting together ANOTHER Ikea cupboard

Homeschooling

We very ambitiously started homeschooling 6 days after we moved into the house.  That same afternoon we went out to buy 12 new pieces of IKEA furniture so that derailled our efforts.  But we have now gotten into the swing of things.  The children are back on track reading and narrating from the Bible, doing Math, Chinese reading, French lessons online on www.powerspeak.com.  And we have added Canadian social studies, science, art and journaling to our homeschooling as well.  I will post about our curriculum choices for this year soon.

Schooling at the dining table.  Some things never change.

But if you are keen, check out the language programmes on Power Speak.  It costs 85 USD for a year’s worth of online lessons.  It says 100 bucks, but if you sign up for a demo, they will give you a code for the reduced price.  Because we have been doing so little else, no playdates, no CCAs, no drop-ins from friends and relatives (oh, how I miss those!) the children had lots of free time and have been reading like they have never read before!  So all is good. 

We have inserted ourselves into a little homeschool group which meets in a church about 15 mins away.  We have gone for two sessions now and the kids are enjoying being back in a group!  They meet for 2 hours and do 4 half-hour activities including reading, theater, art/craft and science.  Just this week, we met a lovely homeschooling mom with her two daughters and have had one playdate and an ice skating outing!  So things are looking up.  *grin*

Outings

Mom out with four kids on wheels.  Nathalie’s first time blading!

Because of the oppressive cold, we didn’t do very much in the first few weeks we were here.  But in the last few, we have gone to the Montreal Science Centre, the Pointe-a-Calliere Museum of Archeology & History, the Montreal Biodome, skiing on Mount St. Bruno (three times!), ice skating, tubbing on Mount Royal, shopping at the public markets Marche Atwater and Marche Jean Talon. 

Entering the Flavour Graveyard in the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Vermont

We have also gone sugaring-off at a Maple Farm, driven down to Vermont for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and taken the train up to Quebec City for a weekend.  Now with a car, we are able to do so much more.  And we are taking it all in!  Montreal is an exciting and activity-filled place to be!

Shopping

After a shopping day at both Costco and Kim Phat the Asian supermarket
(yes, that’s 20kg of rice and 12 litres of milk!)

We do most of our grocery shopping at COSTCO now.  It’s great since we have 8 mouths to feed (some larger than others).  Everything is packaged in bulk (three jumbo loaves of bread, four 1.89 litre cartons of orange juice, 2.2 kg packages of minced beef, 36 rolls of toilet paper, etc) but so much cheaper than shopping at the regular grocery shops.  The rest of our groceries we buy at an Asian supermarket near our home.  Er … 12 km away is considered near I guess. 

Pork at Kim Phat

There meats are SO CHEAP!  Cheaper than in Singapore.  My Mom is always oo-ing and ah-ing at the prices and the freshness of the cuts of meats there.  The first time we bought chicken carcasses to make soup, we got six whole carcasses for under a dollar!  And there was still lots of meat on it.  We had the soup and the meat over two lunches!  I remember those costing 2 Singapore dollars a piece back home.  You can get practically everything at the Asian supermarket.  Including durian!  LOL!  Only one kind though.  Cannot find D26 or Mao Shan Wang here lah. 

Cooking & Eating Out

When you have Prima and Mom, you can have Char Kway Teow in Montreal!!

Mom has been doing practically ALL the cooking!  She has an amazing repertoire and has been spoiling us with fantastic food everyday!  Even as I type, she is cooking lobster tail laksa for dinner!   YUMS!  We are still having largely Asian meals, with the ocassional stew thrown in for good measure.  We try not to eat out because it is SO EXPENSIVE!  An order of fried rice at a takeaway costs 10 Canadian.  And like we say in Singapore … not nice some more!  But we have caved in several times to the wonderful steaks at our favourite steakhouses in Old Montreal.

French

I will be starting French lessons with Tee Chiou next week.  These are provided free of charge by the Government of Quebec (or Gouvernement Du Quebec) and the invitation to participate was in French!  LOL!  Like if I could understand the invite, I wouldn’t need the lessons right!    In the meantime, I am happily taking in what I can from everyday situations.  I know that “rabais” means DISCOUNT, “économiser” means I SAVE, and “maintenant” means that’s the price I pay NOW!  I also know that “solde” written across something means that it is on sale, not that it has been SOLD!  I know how to return the greeting in French when I step into a store, but I don’t, because if I did, the sales person would rattle off a string of French words which I don’t understand.  So I say “hi” or “good morning” when I step into a shop, just so they know I don’t speak French, but will say “bonne journée” on the way out to wish them a good day.  Just so I don’t come across like some snooty person who won’t learn the language of the land!

I have been looking for a class to enroll the kids into, but most people I ask look at me strange because all their kids go to school and learn there.  Unless you have special exemptions, all children here attend French-medium schools.  Most of the classes I have found are run during the school holidays only.  So we may have to get a private tutor for them.  See how. 

For Now …

Okay.  I had better publish this post now.  I have been writing it in bits and pieces for over a month now.  *faint*  Will try to do something more profound next time.  Been thinking A LOT about homeschooling recently.  But this will have to suffice for now.    Till next time!

This is an amazing series of books (I own only one and have gone back to it several times) which will enhance your homeschool efforts if you have a Charlotte Mason or Classical Education bent.  There is a 100 page sampler and lots of information about it on the website so I won’t repeat it here.  Suffice it to say that when I put together my volume A Month with Charlotte Mason, I borrowed the idea from this publication!

I only bought one back then because it was expensive and I had to pay ridiculous shipping costs.  Then they went out of business, were bought over, and someone else tried, and again failed to keep the books in print.  But now they are in E-book format, and these guys have thrown in a whole lot of freebies to boot!

And now they are selling the CD at an introductory price of USD 27 plus shipping, a 40 dollar discount off their intended selling price come 1 May. 

But there’s more!  (I could write cheap marketing material eh?)

If you have a US address to send this to (they won’t ship this freebie to international), they will throw in a copy of one of the original printed books WITH the original CD!  I just ordered one and had it sent to my cousin in Seattle (Hi Ling!  *wave*).  Am asking her to keep the book, but send me the CD.  Too good a deal to pass up on, that FREE book! 

So wanted all of you to learn about it too.  Go check out the samples.  If nothing else, that will give you some material to use in your school right away!  I loved the Rules of Civility in the sample and am printing it out for Tim’s copywork.    Also loved the Articulation selections and did some myself!

Enjoy!

In the meantime, here is something I have promised a variety of people over the past few months.  *shame*  The next installment of copywork for lower Primary School aged chidren.  I have used this selection for my kids when they were in P2.  But there is no reason you cannot use it for children a year older or younger.  You are the best judge for what your children can handle.  I will not repeat what I wrote earlier about copywork, but if you are new to it, you can read my previous posts here and here.

There are 80 copywork selections in this file, or 20 weeks’ worth if you do 4 per week which we used to do since we typically spent one day a week out on field trips.  Unlike the previous file, I did not put lines into this one because handwriting at this stage really varies from child to child.  So for one child I bought printed books from Popular bookshop.  They had light green covers and lines the perfect width for that child.  But the next child I had to print my own sheets because his handwriting was really HUGE!  Some children at this age can write neatly without lines to guide them.  They should just write in a simple lined notebook.  It really is up to you.

I hope this helps some of you out there.  I’m sorry I didn’t get it posted sooner.  I realise we are already in MARCH!