Diary of a mum: It's Zech's last semester in homeschool!

Zech fell sick on the first day of school. Again! He was down with fever on the first day of school in January too. :( Wanted to start on a lighter school day but ended up doing most of the stuff.

Revised the books of the Bible in the Old Testament. Finished up the story of Joseph. Zech completed a page in the workbook. Thank God there was no complaint from Zech who was still having a fever.

Zech read from the Bible reader. We love the book, especially Zech. Big font size for young kids. Familiar Bible stories. Simple content yet no compromise in Biblical facts.

He wrote a sentence in his Bible notebook. Drew the picture himself while his brother was having his nap.

He progressed to writing a short story summary this week. I love this practice. Zech summarised the story in his own words. I couldn't help refining his last 2 sentences. I know I shouldn't. But no help from me for spelling except for the word 'princess'. Told Zech before for writing, I wouldn't correct him for spelling, which is important as encouragement is crucial at this stage. He needs to enjoy writing before mastery of the skill.

Zech's bi-weekly phonics practice and lesson.

We are now learning the ai, ow and ou sounds. It's not something Zech likes but he doesn't protest like he used to now.

For reading aloud, Zech has been reading these books lately.

I like this. Large print. Hard cover. Many stories on character building. A review page at the end of each story. And it's cheap! Bought it at the Popular Expo Sale recently. It's usually $7.90.

New memory verse this week from Proverbs.

For Math, Zech learned ordinal numbers. This is quite simple and most young kids learn ordinal numbers easily.

This week, he also learned how to compare numbers. Played 'Guess my number' game with him. For example, I tell him, 'I'm thinking of a number. It is greater than 9 but smaller than 6. It is an even number.' I used magnetic numbers to help him visualize.

This week, we also went back to basics for Math. Using coloured magnets, I showed Zech the association between addition and subtraction. Sometimes we get so caught up with Math practice, we forget about concepts. Check out this useful link for teaching guidance for subtraction -
https://www.learntogether.org.uk/Resources/Documents/Subtraction%20(Teaching%20guidance%20booklet).pdf

An all-time favourite for Zech - pattern blocks! After he was done the first round, I challenged him to use only two colours but he didn't have enough triangles so ended up using the trapezoids.

Supposed to do this craft last semester but somehow, we didn't have the time. Taught Zech and Nath how to do simple paper cutting to make snow flakes.

Zech started learning hanyu pinyin in his enrichment class since April. Now he has one more extra book when he does Chinese with me. The challenge for Zech is not in recognizing and naming all the hanyu pinyin. Rather, it's writing out the hanyu pinyin for each Chinese character. It's difficult for me too because I rely on him to teach me the correct sounds but writing in hanyu pinyin is definitely easier for me. Feel like I'm learning Chinese all over again.

We are on to the next Science book on water. Very interesting for my boys because they are just so crazy over anything related to water.

Some books I borrowed from the library. Most are experiments. Wish we have time to do all, which is quite impossible.