A walk to the stables

A walk to the stables
Tamerin at the horses: we walked there on Thursday and talked rugby nearly all the way!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Last few weeks of the year!

I feel guilty that I have blogged so little about Tamerin this year! Looking back we’ve had a good year of consolidating: we started with prescribed Graded books for English and Math in the first term. She did reasonably well with those, but there was not enough practice, practice, practice for her. A few exercises do not cut it! Also there were many , to my mind, “unnecessary” stuff eg “Fill in can or may.” If you cannot communicate properly, how important is “can and may”? How many people use can instead of may anyhow, and we all understand they mean.

The rest of the year we focussed much on speaking: all work (grammar, spelling, themes etc.) was drilled orally, and I do mean drilled! Now we are reaping the results. When Tammy recently wrote out her prayer for the end of the year, she included “Thank you for helping me to speak fluently!” For Tammy to be able to speak well remains the main objective for both of us. We are not “there” yet, but the improvement has been vast –not only in ability to absorb and say new words, but to understand spoken language. The first time I ever heard her say a 100% correct sentence of own accord was in September and how we high fived! Since then good, correct sentences have become much more frequent. Drilling pays dividends!

We did not tackle a new theme this term, but revised “nutrition” over and over again. Tammy is very interested in nutrition and I believe it to be a very important life skill theme, so I do not think that we have been fiddling away the time! We have prepared questions and answers on various nutrition questions e.g. “Why do you have to eat fruit?” “Why do you have to drink water?” “Why is animal protein not a good idea?” Tammy knows a lot about essential fatty acids, Omega 3, essential amino acids, free radicals, anti-oxidants, cholesterol, fibre, low G.I. food etc. etc. I am so proud of her! I have learnt a lot about nutrition along with her!

The trouble now is to know what to talk about at her prize giving: digestion or how to improve brain function or how to improve your immune system….. Decisions, decisions!

For math we play shop: I (the client) come to her with a health query e.g. “What can I take to prevent weak bones?” (calcium, magnesium and zinc, Vitamin D and omega 3.) She then looks at her price list and rounds the prices:

Caltrate: R123:99 = R124

Omega 3: R97.90 = R98

Magnesium: R68.99 = R69

Then she mentally adds the figures: 4+ 8 = 12, so 124 + 8 = 132 and 132 + 90 = 222 and 2+ 9 = 11, so 222 + 9 = 231, and 231 + 60 = 291!

I give her R300 and she mentally deducts the change and then the greatest fun of all is to pick up the change and work out the cents 99c = 1 c + 10c + 1c = 12c =15c (We haven’t got smaller coins than 5c in South Africa.)

This combining of theme and math works so well for us: adding and deduction are interrupted with short spells of conversation re nutrition.

As we plan to play shop on her prize giving night, please pray that everything will work out well. I hope to blog soon about her other endeavours for the evening and to add a photo of the new slim Tammy!

5 comments:

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

WOWWWW That is amazing! You really worked hard this year! I'm so glad you posted again; I wondered where you had gone off to. :)

Miekie said...

Hi Happy Elf Mom
Thanks for the comment - will try to catch up on homeschool blogs - I'm way way behind.

Adelaide Dupont said...

That will be a good thing for the evening prize giving.

Everyone can be involved then.

Miekie said...

Hi Adelaide
I just pray that all will work out! We are still busy revising grammar, spelling and math for her exams and it takes up much more time than I have envisaged! And as Tammy says Prize giving night is coming closer! We have to practice her "speeches" every day, but get very little done speechwise.

Adelaide Dupont said...

I was impressed to see that South Africa has recently rationalised its money system (in terms of the small coins).