More World Cup Theme News

Two days to our own World Cup celebration and three days till our end of term... and Bafana-Bafana's opening match against Mexico!
Tammy is working hard on her speech and painting (colouring in ) lots of flags. Today we cut out all 32 medium sized flags and matched them with the names of the countries. Many flags look very similar, so to help along memory, we made various associations between the flags and the countries: Here are some:

• Honduras: the stars in the middle look like an H.
• Slovenia: Venia sounds a bit like venue (one of Tammy's latest vocabulary words) and there are mountains (i.e. places/ venues) on the flag.
• Slovakia: The flag looks like Slovenia's flag except this one has crosses in the emblem. A cross in Afrikaans is a "kruis" and matches the k in Slovakia.
• Serbia: Similar flag colours as Slovenia and Slovakia, but white is at the bottom. A SERvant serves the king. There is a crown on the flag. (Servant = Serbia)
• Côte d'Ivoire: The orange elephant has white ivory and he eats green leaves.
• Ghana, Cameroon, Chile, Algeria: Ghana is in Africa and has a black star, Cameroon a yellow star and Chile a white star. Algeria has both moon and star (ALL evening lights -ALgeria)

It was great fun and in no time, Tammy was able to name all 32 flags.

Thank you God for her happy face and cheerful giggles. Please help her when she types her italics for Romans 1: 13- 15.
(For Bible homework she is going to write how she would explain Jesus and why we should believe to a non-believer. She did it verbally verby spontaneously and understandably this morning.)

Reversed Comprehension and Money

Anyone, who has been following Tamerin's progress, will know that speaking and comprehension are her biggest problems. Following the success she had with formulating and verbally asking questions at her birthday picnic (see previous post) I decided to expand the method further.

When we now read anyone of her books (Jonas Brothers, a High School Musical based book, and a Secret Seven book), I get her to ask questions and I answer. In this way she

• Reads with comprehension
• Gets grammar practice
• Practises speaking

She finds formulating questions very difficult and often does not know where to start, so I still often give her clues e.g. "Jack grabbed Susie by the arm and dragged her home." "Why....?" Most of the time she is then able to complete the question, but often gets the grammar wrong e.g. "Why Jack dragged Susie home?"

She so enjoys this new way of doing comprehension, that I have expanded it to her current theme as well. The latest theme is "Money". We have been talking about employers and employees, salaries, wages, working hours (parttime, overtime etc.) business, profit, stock, cash, interest rate, credit and investments. She types a conversation she could have with her dad about these things. "Today we went to the shops and I compared the prices of products. A 1 kg packet of Viennas costs R30. A packet of 500g of Viennas costs R21. So two packets of 500g cost R42. That is R12 more." Etc. etc.

This theme has been a huge success! Besides the general knowledge and vocabulary, she gets to practice her math skills as well. We look at advertisements of shops. Some have (in very tiny print) the number of installments, the installment amounts and the interest rates below the advertised cash prices. Tammy works out the total amount payable on the calculator. To work out the difference between paying cash or buying on credit, she does the deduction on paper. She was enthralled by her discovery that sometimes you end up paying nearly double for an item. After school she immediatly took the advertisement to show her mother!

We also went to the bank to read the notices and get forms to fill in. (A part of our weekly schedule is to fill in forms - basically to practise neat lettering, but also because it is a very necessary life skill.) Tammy was intrigued with the delayed opening security doors. Afterwards we went to Pick n Pay to revise vocabulary such as "Dairy" and "Bakery" (Food theme), but also to read prices and to compare them. Measuring has also a weekly activity been a weekly activity for months and she had no trouble understanding how to compare 500g, 1 kg, 2.5kg and 5 kg.

She is beginning to remember the methods for calculations e.g. if you know the price of one and you want to know the price of more you must.... MULTIPLY and if you want to know the difference you must TAKE AWAY! We compared the prices of viennas, sugar, flour, pens and wshing powder. In the case of sugar, flour and washing powder, the medium packaging was cheaper the the bulk packaging! "Mom you have to compare prices of products!"

Thanks God for a really fun week! Thank you also that Tammy can finally count money.

3rd Term 2009

I wrote Tamerin's report last week. I am very grateful that she is still progressing so well and so fast. Her development is amazing and its exiciting to be part it!

This term we started with My Body and How it works as a theme. So far we have covered the heart and blood circulation, the skeleton and the brain. Tammy is quite interested and remembers a lot of detail - she has even told her family what she has learned. The challenge with this theme is how to keep it practical and in line with the vision to be as independent and self-sufficient possible one day, whilst also realising that she will probably not write matric or do tertiary studies. What do you really need to know about your body? To my mind, you need to be able:

• To know how to keep your body in tip top condition
• To know how to best utilise your resources (your brain, your muscles etc.)
• To understand what a doctor might tell you about your body

After the successful exams in June, I have started to give her weekly tests and she scored 7/10 and 8/10 for the first two weeks. I am thrilled. At the moment she is busy writing evaluation tests: she is to start with ACE math's and English this term. I am very curious to know at what grade level she is.

Holiday Preparations

School holidays started today for me! Tammy and family fly to Hermanus to see the whales today!

After the successes we had with the discussions, reading and comprehension exercises on the Southern Right Whales and Hermanus, we did similar exercises on three different Cape Town themes yesterday. At least we only discussed the themes and read through the papers on the themes. Tamerin will do the "Fill in the missing words" exercises on these papers the rest of the week with her Mom. (Schools officially close for a week on Friday, so if she does school work this week, they can still count as school days - a requirement by the Department of Education.)

The themes we chose were Jan van Riebeeck and the Castle of Good Hope (the oldest building in South Africa), The history of the winelands, How wine is made and Parliament. Hopefully the family will visit the Castle of Good Hope and at least have a look at the Parliament building - even if they do not do go inside. I know they plan a visit to a wine farm. Tamerin should be able to understand most of what goes on and hopefully be able to talk about her experiences.

I have written the papers mindful of her reading vocabulary, i.e. I tried not to use too many new words. When writing about the castle for instance I wrote about the 5 corners of the castle instead of "bastions". When writing about Parliament I wrote Department of "Money" instead of "Treasury".

It is not about the facts being 100% correct, but about reading with ease, reading with understanding and being able to talk about it. There was not enough time to really practice talking about these themes, but she practised questions like "Daddy can we please drive past the Parliament?"

The whales are a different matter. It seems our speech practice worked: according to Tammy's mother, she told a friend all about the whales - something she had never done before. This shows me we are on the right track! I am so proud of Tammy.

She understood the story of Jan van Riebeeck very well even though she struggled to say his name! When I asked her (as part of the comprehension exercise) whether the Castle of Good Hope is the one that he built, she answered "No, his castle was destroyed." (Destroyed nogal! The word did not even feature in my article! I think she picked up the word, when we read Kim Possible) Anyway, her answer was correct. Jan van Riebeeck's castle did not last because he had used mud and wood to build it!

I pray that the family will have a safe journey, that Tammy's sick grandfather will get better and that Tammy will be able to use her basic knowledge of the holiday destinations to enjoy her holiday more! Have a wonderful time Tammy!

Please email me at miekie@nes.co.za if you are interested in the theme worksheets. It is not so much about the facts, but the method used to encourage reading with understanding.