No Two Days Are the Same: Wednesday

Morning

My cup of tea arrived at 6:46am this morning.  The tea was very hot so I read a chapter from the book on my bedside table as I waited for the tea to cool down.  Today's chapter is on the topic of kindness.  I was soon engrossed in it and lost track of time, hence I was on the exercise bike a little later than yesterday, resulting in coming back in a quarter of an hour later too.

I ate my breakfast as usual then started on today's main chore: wiping windows and surfaces.  I break the household chores down to smaller tasks and aim to complete one major chore each day so that I don't feel overwhelmed by having to do everything all at once.

8:45am.  I was wiping the windows in my bedroom when Tiger came in to find out what the noise was (he's a light sleeper).  Seeing that it was just me, he went back to sleep for another half an hour.

It was 10:15am by the time he finished his breakfast and his morning chores.  We started with memory work, still working on the same three poems as yesterday.  After that, I read a chapter from The Golden Age of Myth and Legend while Tiger drew another helicopter.  No narration this time but we discussed the similarities between the stories of Pyramus and Thisbe and Romeo and Juliet.

Then it was on to the meat of the day: history.  We are still in the homework-completion mode, today it's history.  Tiger's homework from his history of medicine class has to do with Mesopotamia, so I thought it would be a good idea to start using the History Odyssey: Ancients (Level 2) curriculum that we have to go through the Mesopotamia section as part of completing his class homework -- I had a look at his homework requirement and found that there are a few overlaps.

Right before we started work, Tiger took put a CD into the player.  It was our music for the week: Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet, 2 Violines, Viola & Cello, in A major KV581!  Would you believe it?  The boy certainly has the right idea about things.

Afternoon

After lunch, we took a 30 minutes break after watching a documentary on ancient Iraq.  Our dining table looked like this at break-time:

We were to resume at 2pm, but my mother called right on the hour so she and I talked for 30 minutes as she updated me with news from her part of the world.

At 2:30pm, I was off the phone so I read another chapter from The Story Book of Science from which Tiger narrated orally.  At this point, my husband came home from work!  He has a flexible work arrangement such that he works from home half the time and today is one of those days.  Another half hour was taken up with us fussing about him before all of us resumed work - my husband to his work in the home office, Tiger and I back to the Sumerians in the dining area.

By 4:30pm, Tiger has completed four lessons in the History Odyssey: Ancients (Level 2) curriculum and said he has had enough of Sumerians and cuneiform for a day, so I asked him to take a break.  While he was enjoying the Blueberry Bakewell Cake (a modified version of this recipe) that I made yesterday and a cup of mint tea, I got started with dinner.

Evening

Tiger's final commitment for the day was tennis.

It was 8pm when we got home.  My husband had a work-related call to take then so we waited until 8:30pm to have dinner together.  This evening was a short one but we spent it together as a family, which is nice.

Tiger is in bed now, and I am going to join my husband to watch a movie.

No Two Days Are the Same: Tuesday

Morning

I was woken up at 6:50am this morning by my husband who brought me a hot cup of tea in bed.  We chatted for ten minutes until he left for work at 7am.  I sipped my tea for a few more minutes before getting up to spend 30 minutes on the exercise bike while listening to The Book Thief.

It was 8am when I came back in.  Not a sound in the house so I had breakfast and started to write the post about yesterday.

I heard stirring from upstairs at 9:40am.  I have almost completed my blog post so I stopped what I was doing to make some pancakes for Tiger.  Like yesterday, Tiger spent the morning completing homework from his poetry class, which consisted of researching into the poems of Christina Rossetti and Wilfred Owen.

Afternoon

Meal times are not too exciting when daddy is not around, so we had a 'working lunch' where we watched clips from BBC Nature on the birds and small mammals that we saw on our nature walk last weekend.  I had two boiled eggs for lunch so there was a lot of time for me to put together my menu plan for the week.

We took a half-hour break after lunch before resuming lessons at 2:15pm.

Since we forgot to start with memory work this morning, I made that our priority in the afternoon.  Most of the poems that were recited yesterday are in the "weekly" folder, which means that they need to be recited only once a week.  Therefore, Tiger only worked through the following poems today:

1. The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
2. 《古朗月行》 - 李白
3. The Word Party by Richard Edwards

When Tiger starts to work on memorising a new poem, I usually ask him to read it out loud first so that we can both listen to it.  Normally that is enough for him to pick out the basics such as rhyme, rhythm and structure.  This afternoon Tiger identified the rhyme scheme and the rhyming couplets from The Word Party.

We then moved on to oral narration where I read a chapter from The Story Book of Science and had Tiger tell it to me back, in his own words.

This would have been a quick five-minute task for Tiger were it not for the customary "Why do I have to do this?  Can't I just listen or read it to myself?"  We had been through this Q&A session many times before and he knows exactly why I insist on having him narrate after one reading.  However, I must admit that the level of concentration required for a successful narration is immense so I do understand why anyone would rather not do it if they have a choice.

Maths was next on this afternoon's school menu.  Today Tiger worked on fractions from RightStart Level E.  The lesson was more of a revision for him but as he completed it so quickly we had time to play two rounds of fraction game which helped to improve his mental accuracy.

After maths we headed out for Tiger's weekly table tennis session where I usually sit in the waiting/viewing room and read while the session was going on.

Evening

It was 6pm when we arrived home.  I started to cook dinner while Tiger alternated between fixing his remote control car and watching a documentary about animals that burrow.  When dinner was stewing for 15 minutes, I used the time to do a rapid dusting around the house.

By 8:30pm, Tiger had had a shower and was in his dressing gown, getting ready for bed.  Seeing that I was baking a cake for tomorrow, he decided to stay downstairs to draw a helicopter while following his go-to online drawing instructions.

At 9pm, my husband came home.  He is back late tonight as he met a friend after work.  The cake batter is in the oven by now and Tiger has finished his drawing, so all of us had a good chat before the boys spent some time together (fixing the shower and Tiger's remote control car) before Tiger went to bed.

I, on the other hand, had the pleasure of ironing.

I am very glad, though, that I have caught up with the post for today!

No Two Days Are the Same: Monday

The days are flying through like a blur for me, so for my own benefit (read: what have we been doing all day?) I decide to make a record of how we spend our time this week.

Morning

My alarm rang at 7am but I turned it off and went back to bed.  Tiger came in a little while later to ask me what we would be doing today.  I told him we would wait and see, but that I would like to get on with our routine as well, if that was possible.  He didn't sound too keen and headed back to his bedroom to continue with the game that he has started a few days ago.  I turned to look at my clock, saw the time and cried, "Holy cow!"

My husband has taken the day off.  He is the welfare manager around here, as in, he makes sure that we get lay-ins, have delicious breakfasts, and generally enjoy a good life.  This morning, while he prepared breakfast, Tiger and I started on our new readings.  By the time breakfast was ready (it took about 20 minutes), Tiger was halfway through his book while I had just finished the preface of mine...

Our meal times at home is usually a long affair because we have lots of discussions, especially when my husband is there.  Hence, by the time we cleared the table and started 'school work', it was 11:30am.

Tiger and I did our morning chores then started with memory work, which consists of him reciting poems out loud.  This is a new practice that we have taken on since September.  The idea is that Tiger will have a repetoire of beautiful poetry that he can call up at will.  Today being Monday (the start of a week), Tiger recited a few 'review' poems (i.e. those that he can recite easily) and worked on others that he is in the process of memorising fully.  The poems he reviewed this morning are:

1. From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson
2. Aunt Jennifer's Tigers by Adrienne Rich
3. The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Steveson
4. 《静夜思》 - 李白
5. 《早春》 - 韩俞
6. 《春晓》 - 孟浩然
7. 《游子吟》 - 孟郊 

The ones he is working on are:

1. The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes
2. 《古朗月行》 - 李白

As Tiger attends a class on the history of medicine, I recently signed up for a free short course called Brief History of Medicine.  The first episode on prehistoric medicine arrived in my in-box this morning so I read it out to him.  Each episode is a one-page summary of the key development of medicine through history and takes only five minutes to read.  I signed up only because:

• it gives a good summary of what Tiger will be covering in his history class;
• it is a good, quick way to get us into the frame of mind to start the day;
• it is free;
• it is relevant to Tiger's class.

Tiger is given homework from his tutorial classes each week.  I am a stickler for completing homework before the next class and I told him as much.  Although Tiger is not a readily compliant child, he agrees with me on this point so he got on with his English homework, which includes an analysis of one of Obama's pre-presidential speeches.  I asked him whether he needed my help.  He said no, so I organised his class notes from last week's classes while he completed his homework.  I also started to cook dinner and had just put all the potatoes on boil when Tiger called me over to help him with a question on the use of a particular rhetorical device.

Afternoon

Tiger finished his homework around 1:30pm, by which time we were all starving so I heated up last night's dinner.  My husband joined us for lunch so another round of interesting discussion ensued.

After lunch, the boys decided to go for a walk.  I was volunteered to stay at home to wait for a collection service for something to be returned.  I did not mind that too much since Tiger and I had taken a few long walks over the weekend.

While the boys were out, I:

• listened to episode 3 of The Mason Jar while organising my collection of recipes;
• read about the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, which led me to research a little more about her;
• registered Tiger to go on a few field trips;
• replied to an email from a friend whose son studies at a top school in one of the top three Pisa-ranked countries - we have been having ongoing discussions about the teaching methods and educational outcomes;
• made dinner; and
• deep cleaned the bathrooms.

Evening

The boys came home just as I sat down for a cup of tea.

Dinner was served soon after but our dinner session was longer than usual because:

• the boys filled me in with what they saw on their walk; and
• they hated the vegetable pie that I made so I had to make something else quickly and try again.  It was a case of "We love you but we can't possible eat this pie!"

After the drama of a rejected dinner, one would think that should be the end of my day but no!  My husband and I were informed that we were to attend a science class after dinner!  The two adults groaned, "Do we have to...?"  At which point we were reprimanded for having a bad attitude towards learning and told to get our act together by half past seven when the class would start promptly.

In the half-hour session, my husband and I were shown how the carbon cycle works, and quizzed afterwards to make sure we were paying attention.  Luckily we aced the quiz to avoid incurring further wrath from the teacher.  Nonetheless we were given two homework assignments at the end of the session, one of which was to "take proper notes" at the next lesson.  Our obvious lack of note-taking has been observed and highlighted.

After the late-night science lesson, it was time for bed.  Tiger usually reads to himself but tonight he was drawing so I asked him whether he would like me to read to him as he drew.  He said yes, so I continued where we had left off and started on the story of Samuel Morse and the telegrah.

That was our Monday.

Looking At the Same Moon

The Sunday that has just gone by was the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节）.  For the Chinese, it was a time for contemplation and family togetherness.  I cannot find any better clips about the festival than the ones I found last year, so Tiger and I watched those for review.  After all, a tradition is such because it has been observed and practised consistently for over a millenia, so there is no need to watch a new video every year because the legends and practices associated with the festival are the same.

I found myself panicking in the middle of last week, having realised that I did not have sufficient traditional paper lanterns and mooncakes for the occasion.  Luckily, I was able to order them on the internet and receive them just in time!

I wanted us to make a simple craft to mark the occasion.  Since we have made paper lanterns before, we decided to paint appropriate motifs onto glass jars and turn them into glass lanterns by putting a tealight in each.  While the motifs turned out well, the effect was not as good in the evenings with the tealights in them.  I am going to add more colours to the glass paintings to see whether that helps to transform the glass jars into votive candles.

In addition, Tiger is learning a new classical Chinese poem for the occasion.  Last year he learnt the poem，Contemplation on a Quiet Night 《静夜思》, by the Tang dynasty poet, Li Bai (李白）.  This year I have chosen another poem related to the festival, again by the same poet.  This year's poem is titled The Ancient Moon Recital 《古朗月行》.

The original poem has eight lines but Tiger is only learning the first half of it, i.e. the first four lines.  The reasons for that are: (1) the use of language in the second half of the poem is more complicated, and (2) the tone of the second half of the poem is infused with sadness as the poet alludes to the political instability of his time.  

Year 6 Plans

This post has turned out to be more difficult to write than I had expected.  In fact, I have deleted three previous attempts at writing about what we are going to do for Tiger's Year 6 journey because I've realised that what we do here is not just about book lists or the types of external activities that Tiger is engaged in.

Engrossed in his self-initiated cartography project.

This realisation came about after a recent conversation I had with a deputy headteacher of a private school where she was very interested to find out how Tiger is being taught.  While I tried to explain to her about our approach which stems from the fundamental principle of mutual respect between the teacher (me) and the student (Tiger) that in turn results in positive relational interactions that propels our learning journey forward, she was convinced that I must be using some kind of secret formula/curriculum/resource that the school teachers have no access to, based on what she has observed of Tiger.  I emphasised that it takes more than a curriculum list, although I also shared with her the sources of Tiger's curricula since Year 1 as the list was clearly what she was after.

Perhaps I have not explained it well, or maybe the actual process can't be explained so easily.  Having said that, I do have a broad overview of what we will aim to focus on over the next 12 months.  This is a plan that I now share with Tiger to get his input and feedback on the nitty gritty details with regards to the actual implementation as the months ahead unfold.  Tiger is in the position to share ownership of the learning plan and to provide input in terms of the order in which he will approach certain topics, and the materials he prefers to use to learn.

So, here is our broad plan for Year 6:
History
History remains the spine of our learning plan, so we are returning to the Ancients in Year 6, which will span the first civilisations to the fall of Rome.  This will be our second time studying the Ancients, so the focus this time round will be on developing analytical skills (for logic stage) rather than facts gathering (at grammar stage).

Science and Nature Study
Since we are taking on the Ancients again, it seems logical to us to focus on Earth Science, which allows us to start way back in prehistory and follow the development of Man's understanding of his relationship with land, sea, and the sky. 

English
I believe it is important to acquire a love of the language before one can truly be motivated to put in the effort to really master it.  Therefore, in addition to reading widely and in keeping with the historical period being studied, developing technical linguistic skills such as spelling, grammar and writing, Tiger will also be enjoying poetry, hopefully with tea and cake from time to time!

A spot of creative writing.

Chinese
After a very successful year at the Chinese school where Tiger took weekly Chinese lessons, we were both disappointed when there was a change in staff at the beginning of the year.  Tiger's new Chinese teacher taught in such an uninspring way (compared to his previous teacher) that he could not bear to go to class, so I took him out and resumed teaching him at home.  Unsurprisingly, we find that we are covering wider topics in a quicker pace compared to the Chinese school, so it looks like I will continue to teach Tiger the Chinese language myself.

Latin
I was listing the Latin resources for sale one day when Tiger walked by, saw what I was doing, and decided to have a go at the placement test, just for fun of it.  When he scored 97% at the Level 1 test, having no contact with Latin in the past 18 months, he looked at me and mused, "I guess we'd better resume Latin!"  It is so much easier when it is Tiger's own decision to take up Latin again!

Maths
We have been hopping around quite a bit in maths for two years, primarily because at one time, Tiger was not too keen on following any curriculum.  Even so, we have been able to cover the same topics as are covered in schools, and more.  In that sense Tiger hasn't suffered any gaps in maths compared to school-going children of the same age.  This summer Tiger has shown signs of becoming more cooperative (!) so I hope he will complete RightStart Level E alongside the supplementary maths activities that we have been doing these past two years.

Music
Unless Tiger shows a strong desire for instrumental lessons, his music training will consist of:
composer study - I am happy to follow the suggestion made by Ambleside Online to focus on knowing the works of one composer per term.  However, instead of following their schedule, which is a perfectly good one, we have picked and chosen the composers whom we are most interested in:

• Term 1 - Mozart
• Term 2 - Tchaikovsky
• Term 3 - Beethoven

Art
Tiger had the opportunity to gain the Bronze Arts Award last year, which he completed successfully.

He has been invited to carry on with the next level but he has decided to take a break from it, in order to get back to just creating art for the sheer joy of it rather than worrying too much about documentaion and reporting.  Tiger says that he may continue with the next level in a year or two to allow himself time to mature a little bit more and to grow in other areas so that he may get more out of the process of acquiring the award.  What he says sound very reasonable, and going for the first level was just for a bit of fun and experience so it really doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things.  I am nonetheless pleased with his show of self-awareness and knowing what he wants to do, so he has my full support in his decision to pause.

Without the pressure of working towards the specifications of the award (which involves a lot of report writing), we can resume our leisurely pace to learn art history as we encounter it in our other studies.


External Activities
As always, I seek to strive a balance between individual study and group actitivies for Tiger so that he experiences both in the most effective, productive way.

Small-group Tutorial:

• Lab science
• Practical STEM
• English
• History of Medicine

P.E.:

• Tennis
• Table tennis
• Climbing 
• Swimming 
• Mountain biking

Clubs:

• Geology
• Theatre
• Programming
• Percussion

The above is quite enough for a Year 6 boy, don't you think?

Summer is Not Over Yet!

We are still officially on our summer break, and I have made a deliberate effort to stop ourselves from signing up for too many of the tantalising summer courses available.  However, as I look at what we have been doing since we got back from Cornwall (that was a real holiday), it seems that we are on the go again!

We have been spending time in nature,

spending time in the garden,

Tiger's current interest/obsession is anything and everything nautical, so he has been reading up on this topic.

Fiction and non-fiction books.

As he read the books, Tiger became intrigued by how boats and ships work.  He then decided the best course of work is to build a model boat that would float.  After he figured out what materials to use for his model boats, we went to the craft shops and got balsa wood and some fabric (for the sail).  Tiger has been obsessively designing his models, cutting the various pieces out of wood, testing his models, and redesigning them in the sink.

Once he was happy with his final designs at home (after several unsuccessful ones initially), he asked to launch them at a pond to see how they would respond in the 'real world' (as opposed to the sink at home).  Tiger brought a net to catch his boats before they floated too far away from the edge of the pond.

Even with his new area of interest, Tiger is still very much engrossed in the study of military history, reading books, play acting, and resuming the mini lectures.

Recently, he has been playing around with PowerPoint by himself and is using it in his mini lectures, progressing from his previous use of the whiteboard for his presentations.

While I managed to stop myself signing Tiger up for a multitude of summer classes, I did take him to an electronics class, only because he got to solder his own circuit board and learn about its various components, which I have absolutely no interest in or knowledge of.

The end product is a small bug-like machine that responds to different light intensities.  That is pretty cool.

It looks as if we have started 'school', doesn't it?  Our days before or during the summer don't look any different, except that many of the regular classes that Tiger attends are on a break at the moment.  I expect our days to be much more hectic come September, in view of the various classes that are currently being organised for the new academic year. 

For now, I am still enjoying the relatively slow pace of what's left of the summer, while watching our diary gradually being filled up with activities for the new term.

We Haven't Fallen Off the Face of the Earth...

Although we did reach the end of Engand's land!

While the boys enjoyed themselves tremendously doing all sorts of outdoorsy, water-related activities during our stay in Cornwall,

I had a restful time, spending the holiday mostly reading, observing and thinking. 

I absolutely relish the opportunity to spend some time outside of my usual environment since it gives me the time and space to consolidate the lessons and experiences gained this past academic year.  It also helps to prevent my getting stuck in the humdrum of a routine, or a familiar way of going about things.  It appears that some changes are in order for the new academic year.

Of course, what remains unchanged is my love for good food, which we have had plenty of while on holiday.

It was a wonderful seaside holiday for all of us this summer.  We still have a few more weeks of summer to go before the new academic year starts again, some time in September.  I hope you are enjoying your summer too!