First week of 2010

The first week went very smoothly indeed. Tammy works hard in her Ace books - math and English. She will finish the last of Grade 3 work in math soon and then start with Grade 4! This week she had to count money again and that was fine, but when I scored her measuring of pictures and drawn lines, the answers did not match those in the score book - only to find that the drawn lines in the book were not accurate at all! A line of 12.3 mm is given as 12 1/2 cm. I find this pretty shocking - should write to ACE. The lines they draw in the book, should be very accurate don't you think?

English is still Grade 2 level, but we are getting there. She is much more keen to do creative writing e.g. to write sentences with given words. On Thursday I stayed the afternoon while she did her homework and she really battled with making sentences with "isn't", "wasn't" etc. It is not that she doesn't know what the words mean, but to have to think up sentences is still hard for her.

On the grammar side, I find that the ACE books do not give enough drill work - she needs much, much more before she really grasps a concept. When she has to chose between three words e.g. to / too/ two and underline the correct one, she is usually able to do it, but when it comes to chosing the correct form of a verb, e.g the children is / are at school the alternatives seem to confuse her. I now try to get her to give the correct form of the verb, by simply writing the verb e.g "eat, ate, eaten" at the top of a couple of sentences with blanks where she has to write in the appropriate form of "eat". I also underline the timewords or auxiliary verbs to help her choose the correct form. So far it seems to work.

For reading we are busy with two books. I want her to read a Secret Seven book by Enid Blyton all by herself - I just give her monkey puzzle type questions on the story, which she has to score herself. The idea of the questions is just to make sure that she understands the story. I wrote meanings of new words in pencil above the few words that I thought she might struggle with, but they are few and far between. So far she seems thrilled with the book and that is my aim: to let her experience that reading by yourself can be great fun! For speech we practise asking and answering these questions orally.

The other book is another "High School Musical" story: this one is about school elections - a fun way to revise the whole voting process and the vocabulary that goes with it. (If we hadn't done Elections as a theme last year, I doubt whether she would understand anything of the story.) We read this book together: We read aloud together and she follows with her finger and we discuss the story as we go along. My aim is to keep on improving fluency of reading (eyemovements) as well as her vocabulary.

May the rest of the year be as much fun as the first week!

High School Musical Mania or How parties can promote language.

Hannah Montana is on ice for the time being. Tammy wants a High School Musical party for her 14th birthday next month. She plans a singing competition and quizz on H.S.M. 1. She will ask the questions, but of course she must know the answers as well. I bought her the book, but plan to give it to her on her birthday. In the meantime I "rewrite" it in Tammy English i.e. in words I know, she knows or can make out. For example instead of self-assured, I write confident, instead of vacation resort, I write ski resort, instead of crisp air, I write cold air. I also leave out most of the jargon about basketball that neither she nor I really understand. (Because time is of the essence right now, I do not want to bother too much with "new" words.) After reading, we watch that part on the DVD again and discuss questions. Her vocabulary is expanding rapidly, and expression is miles better, but still a big handicap for her.

Today we watched the eclipse. We made round holes in a sheet of paper and saw the half moon sun shining through the holes. After the eclipse, the sun shining through the holes made full circles again. She wrote about the eclipse in her diary and her homework is to tell her parents what an eclipse is and what we have seen. We practised the sentences a bit in class and I hope she remembers them. She really tries hard.

We also watched cricket. South Africa thrashed Australia! Tammy seems to understand the game much better. We watched a website which gives the score the continuously for a while. We worked out how many balls were left and how many runs S.A. needed to score in order to win. (Multiplication with 6 and subtraction.) We did the last few "unknown" multiplication tables today. (Last part of 7 and 8 times tables). I am looking forward to teach her multiplication problems. Adding with ones and tens is improving steadily - she understands the concept much better now and got 46/50 for her last homework.

There are so many activities we would like to do and so little time. Please pray for us that we will get our priorities right!

Mastering 10 + and 9+ and the 10 and 9 times tables!

We have not progressed much in terms of sewing, but at least the side seams are sewn - one little unpick here: she generally sewed nice and straight. We pinned darts in the sleeves (yes, the sleeves - not your ususal type sleeve yet!). Hopefully we'll get to sewing them today.

Tamerin's back hurts - it is a pity, because she has finally been showing some progress with the exercises. The exercises are very low key. Today we should go for a walk, but for some inexplicable reason, my feet hurt! What a pair of old crocks! Maybe we'll just dance a little bit. It is a glorious almost spring day, and we really should get outdoors.

In terms of school work: We practiced a lot of 10 + and then 9 +. (10 + for her was not just easy or natural as they are for other children. Adding with 0 is always part of her sum revision sheets!) Anyway she showed good progress here. We also did the 10 times and 9 times tables. I am very proud of her.

Her reading is becoming more fluent and comprehension is also improving. Sometimes she gives great answers and other days she seems not to understand the obvious. We just have to go slowly and patiently up the hill and we will get there. God is so good and faithful!

Tamerin's own blogs

We are back after the holidays. Most of last week was spent in Tamerin creating her own blogs. She enjoyed writing her profile, choosing her favourite books, music etc. I sometimes had to give hints e.g "What C.D do you always play in my car?"
Making the Diary Blog was easy - she just had to copy her diary she had typed so far. The Bible verse blog was a different matter, as she has been copying her daily verse by hand, which meant she has had to retype them all. She types slowly, but with less and less help. She types her written work, without me having to dictate. When she has finished, I get her then to read what she has typed and she is usually able to see where she has left out a word or a letter. This is a major step forward! She has retyped the verses we did in January and February, so there is still a long way to go before we get to just our daily verse again. Usually these verses were taken out of the Bible story we read that day, but sometimes they were verses that just the Lord just gave us. It has been benficial to revise our Bible "work" of the year again.

The past week we have spent more and more time in praying together. We have a schedule based on the Lord's prayer that we use. Praying does not only help her in her relation with the Lord (of course) but also with her speech. (Generally her speech is still indistinct, but there has been a slow by sure improvement).

Tamerin now writes her diary for homework on her "Diary originals" file. The next morning she copies it onto her "Diary" file and I help her with corrections (i.e. from present tense to past tense) and to expand it (i.e. to write about important happenings she has left out). I can really recommend keeping a diary. She enjoys it, although it is still tiring. In the beginning of the year, she wrote very short sentences and these were more or less dictated letter by letter. Now she can write simple sentences independently and is usually able to correct her own mistakes. She is so proud of herself when she remembers how to spell a word or "worked out" how to spell a word e.g. "pram".

I hope that later in life she will read her diary again and enjoy remembering this time. My vision is that her diary will become more and more a mirror of what she has done. I also hope that the practice in typing written script and generally working on the computer will lead to a job one day.