Videoclip of Tammy's Bible Speech

Tammy doing her Bible speech.

Tammy adding up the prices of Shaen's purchases.

Tammy's introduction to her Bible speech - slide 1

Tammy responding to the audience's reply to her question "Why must you eat fruit?

Long overdue news

The 2010 school year starts tomorrow for Tamerin and me. I cannot believe the summer holidays have whizzed past so quickly and I cannot believe that I never commented on her end of the year success either! Her prize giving evening was really fantastic. My husband took some short video clips of her speech so that I could put some in the blog. I was so sad that we had not done it the first year. (We have been doing homeschool for 2 years now, so this was our second prize giving.)

And now there are not going to be any video clips either: we had a burglary and my computer - with the precious downloads of the video clips and pics of the speech - was stolen! FRUSTRATION!

Anyway, here is an account of a very successful evening. Tammy's mother had invited about 20 friends and family members for a delicious supper followed by Tammy's speeches.

Tammy was too nervous to do her introduction (welcoming her family etc.), so I told her to skip the intro and get going on the power point presentation. This went very well. She first spoke about the government and the elections.

Tammy found the "strange" mouse of her brother's laptop a bit intimidating, so she stepped up to the projected images instead and explained them by pointing with her finger. E.g. she pointed to the pictures of some cabinet ministers and told the audience of which departments they were. (Most have difficult Xhosa or Zulu names, so we did not bother with names, but she can recognize the different ministers when they appear on television.)

After each theme the audience could ask her questions they had drawn from a box full of questions. I had marked the different types of questions with matching icons e.g. government questions had the state emblem, wild life questions had a cheetah and so on.

Tammy answered the questions very well and then she asked the audience some questions e.g. "Which state department looks after the poor people?" We had practised the questions and anwers before of course. She had to be able to say whether and answer was correct or not and to give the audience the correct answer to her questions without looking at her paper! She loved this - especially when they did not know the answer!!

The next two themes, "Blood circulation" and "My favourite carnivore, the cheetah" were dealt with in the same way and were equally successful.


Then is was math's time: the audience asked her "sums" that I had typed out beforehand. Tamerin had not practised the exact same "sums" before, but lots of similar ones. Questions included "What is 1/2 of 25?" "What is 50% of 60?" What is 80% of 50?", "What is 85-14?" "How much is $4 if $1 is R7.50?" "Can you read this? 6,528,945?" She answered all these very quickly and very easily. I was so, so proud of her.


The next item was her "High School Musical" speech, where she gave the audience the outline of the story with the help of power point pictures. She also showed them where Albuquerque and Stanford were on a map of the U.S. I'm pretty sure her cousins had not known that!


It was time for her to do her musical part and she played two songs on the guitar. There is nothing like knowing that you have to perform in front of others, to get you motivated to practise!


The last speech was her The Holy Nation of Heaven speech -another power point presentation about Bible verses we have dealt with - mostly out of Matthew. She illustrated the calling of Matthew with toilet roll puppets. I had helped her to make Jesus, but she had made Matthew completely on her own.


She illustrated "First seek the Kingdom of Heaven and all these other things will be given to you too" with ping pong balls and rice: If you fill a bottle (your mind) first with worries about daily needs, there is not enough space for Jesus (the balls), but if you first concentrate on being right with God and on loving others, God will see to it that you get everything else that you need too. (If you first put the balls into the empty bottle, there is enough space for the rice also.)


After receiving her certificate and book prizes, she prayed. She had written out the prayer herself some time before and practised it, but still I knew her thanks were heartfelt.


Please pray for us for this new year, that we will make the right decisions regarding programme and content - that we both will be obedient and follow His will for us.


HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Progress - slowly but surely

Tammy is doing O.K. with her PACEs (workbooks), but I find some of the exercises no good. In an exercise when she had to choose between "a" and "an", she had to fill it A or An at the beginning of each sentence. When I gave her a selfmade additional worksheet, she wrote A / An with capital letters in the middle of sentences too. She has never done that! Frustration.
She does well her tests, but comprehension is still a problem.
I think "High School Musical 3" is a bit difficult for her, but she always thanks me so profusely for helping her to read it, after a reading session, that we keep going. I often give her multiple choice questions and then we practice asking and answering these questions verbally.
It is nearly the end of our school year, so we have to start thinking about her end of the year speech, what she is going to do for Christmas and so on. Last year, she made puppets and we had a puppet nativity show at her prize giving evening. Not sure what to do this year, Bible wise. Perhaps memorize and dramatize Bible verses?
She wants to play a song or two on her guitar and I also want her to do some water aerobics on prize giving evening. All this on top of her workbooks and other work.

Please pray for us for discernment regarding choices for her special evening!

Tamerin's Prize Giving: Her End of Year Function

The prize giving evening was a huge success!

Tamerin's biggest challenge is to communicate properly. Her comprehension has been improving steadily, but her spoken language has been a handicap all along: from pronunciation till sentence construction. To stimulate spoken language we prepared a speech which she practised for her prize giving. This was held on the eve of the last day of school. (The school year in South Africa runs from January till beginning of December.) So instead of an end of the year concert, she had an end of the year speech on her year's work. I believed that as a ballet or music exam or an Eisteddfod or an gymnastics competiton motivates children to polish their year's practice, this speech would motivate Tammy to give her all. And boy, has it ever!

Her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins attended and all were most impressed. Best of all was that Tammy really enjoyed it. No-one, except me and the Lord and in a way her mother, knew just how much her speech has improved through this effort. If you have been following our blog, you would know that this speech preparation has gone on for a long time, but it has paid dividends: her pronunciation has improved and pattern sentences has been drilled in a meaningful way and skills such as reading the thermometer were also fine tuned.

The speech was presented as a show and tell and covered most aspects of her school work such as her reader, numerical skills, geography, history and life skills.
Tammy ready to start - the stack on the left table were mostly pictures which she lifted and discussed one by one and then put them on the table on the right. The stack also included her reader and her dictionary!

It took a lot of guts to stand in front of an audience and speak, but she did it well. She stood reasonably still and did not fiddle too much with clothes etc. (We practised this a lot too!)

"I understand prices. The price of this milk is R13.99, but it actually costs R14."

The temperature right now is 24 degrees (Celcius)

"I also know the map of South Africa, especially the road to Durban..."

"The Voortrekkers were farmers from the Eastern Cape, who trekked north..."
"
The Southern Right whales come all the way from Antartica to our coasts every spring..." It is the first time she was able to pronounce "Antartica" correctly! (The Southern Right whale was part of our curriculum because the family went to the whale festival in September.)

Between her speech and her Nativity puppet show, she passed round a box with sums and problems - the audience asked her tables, division etc. and she answered without hesitation .She loved this. In the meantime I set up her puppet show. I was the narrator and Tammy did the dialogue. We ended with a discussion as to where Jesus is now, what He is doing in heaven, how you become His child and what will happen when He comes back. I asked her the questions and she answered them.

"Don't be afraid Mary. God thinks you are special. You are going to have a baby boy and you must call Him Jesus."

The setup.

Tammy's puppets: crib and all were made out of toilet roll tubes - got the idea on the internet. (I cannot edit my posts once I leave this page, so I can't add the link now. Does anyone else have this problem?)


The angels were another internet idea.

"Thank you for my book prize Teacher!" (She also got an Excellence Award with a gold sticker on which I first embossed an A+ with a ball point at the back. She was most thrilled with the A+)

I am just sad, that due to a misunderstanding, we only have photos and no video clips to share. Fortunately her Oupa made a full scale video for the Durban Ouma to enjoy when she comes to visit in December. The enthralled audience had tears in their eyes and were full of compliments and praise. However, all this is God's work: He brought us together and made all this possible. All praise to Him!

Thank you, thank you God for a wonderful year.

As we now have our summer vacation, this blog will sleep for a few weeks. We'll be back early in the new year. Tammy might come to the farm for a visit, so you might hear from me next week, but in case I have no homeschool news before Christmas:

MAY YOU ALL HAVE AN ESPECIALLY BLESSED CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Speech Progress

We are practicing Tammy's speech for the end of the year function. At this stage we just read it together, but I already see signs of improved fluency in speaking and comprehension has definitely improved. When she "boasts" about her multiplication ability, I first ask her random sums (adding, division, multiplication etc.). We intend giving the audience time to ask her sums. When she talks about the weather chart, the hottest day etc., she is also to say "The temperature right now is...." This part reminds us to check the classroom thermometer every day, so as to make sure she will really be able to read it easily on the big night.
When talking about history, she has to refer to the earth globe and the map of South Africa. She does this quite well. We also talk about present history e.g. the election of the U.S. president, the problems in Zimbabwe, what causes economic problems. (Nogal!)

The second part of the programme will be a Nativity "play". I will be the narrator and Tamerin will do the speech parts of the different characters. The different characters will be portrayed by toilet roll puppets. Tammy still has to make them, but we have started with easy cut out angels.

Please pray that all will go well. I am not sure how well she will handle stress in front of an audience. I do not want to put pressure on her, but on the other hand I do want to give her a chance to show off her abilities.

Outings and New Plans

Tammy, her brother and his friend in the door of the Voortrekker Monument


Tamerin in front of the circle of wagons around the Voortrekker Monument.

Last week Tamerin's brother's school closed for 2 days (Jewish holidays), so I took them to the Voortrekker Monument. It is a huge monument erected in memory of the pioneers of Dutch and French descent who trekked northwards between 1835 and 1850. Their history is depicted in a frieze on the ground floor and in beautiful tapestries in the basement and in displays in the museum.
We discussed the history at length before the outing and Tamerin seemed to understand much of the history: their daily lives e.g. why they had to make biltong (dried salted meat) and bake bread in ant hills, but also the bigger issues: why they moved out of the Eastern Cape, why Piet Retief talked to the Zulu King Dingane, why they had to trek out of Kwazulu-Natal again... History and geography go hand in hand, so to explain the Great Trek, I often referred to the map of South Africa and in this way we revised earlier "geography" e.g. Mozambique (her father went there in the beginning of the year, and that is where the first Voortrekker leader died), the Drakensberg Mountains that the Voortrekkers crossed with great difficulty and which Tamerin got to know on their trips to Durban.
There are only a few weeks of school left. We are planning her prize giving evening. We envisage an evening with her family and possibly my family. We are working on a speech that Tamerin will make on her year's work. My idea with the speech is to get her to practice pronunciation and "pattern sentences" in a meaningful way, i.e. she practices speech on subjects which she might want to discuss anyway. Today she really struggled to say "ability", but in the end she could say: "This year I have improved my ability to read." I pray that her ability to speak will also improve drastically.