There and Back Again

Recently, Lucas' spelling marks dropped. From my own analysis, the problem is that I did not ask him to write it down. Instead I just relied on him speaking the letters out loud. Actually, it is pretty silly of me. Whenever I test my students, I always insist that they write down all the answers. They always protest, but I always tell them that it is for their own good. If the test is written, then the retrieval must be in written form. Then I always give the analogy that if all they want to do is to speak the answer, then it would be like a runner just imagining the race instead of really going for practise runs. The irony of it, not following my own advice. At the same time, I am still not happy with the school's theme-based spelling. After some research, some sources say that theme-based spelling lists must also include the etymology of the word. I am still not convinced. I am not sure that a six-year old really understands what is etymology. By the way, for the non En...

Some time ago, the whole family went to the trampoline park together with my brother-in-law and his family. This was our second visit to the park and their first to the park. It was great fun. Now, I always encourage my son to take up physical activities. This is because I always believe that good physical condition means peak mental performance . I know this sounds hypocritical when you see me, but I really try to exercise. It is just that I have a lot of difficulties in losing weight. (I still can swim pretty well now; I represented Catholic High and Temasek Junior College in swimming). I went to the Catholic High Alumni dinner two weeks ago and I was impressed by their Modern Dance and Wu Shu. I certainly hope that he can consider either one of this. Or a CCA that is sports-based. Though at the back of my mind, I know I should not expect him to end up doing exceptionally well in any sports CCA. One reason is that while I did well enough to participate in the national compe...

A couple of days ago, my son surprised my wife. It was my wife's birthday. Now, I did not have the opportunity to go together with him to Popular, so there was no card. Of course, my wife did not mind that a bit, though we joked as a family that we were not even giving a card to my wife. When I picked him up from school the day before, I was shocked. He actually produced a birthday card for his mum. It was made by the school teachers and his classmates! I could see the childish scrawl of his classmates wishing my wife happy birthday! Apparently, this little man had gone to school and managed to convince his teachers to draw a birthday card for mother. Either that, or the school had some time to burn and decided to make use of that time to draw a birthday card.  Regardless, my wife is touched that at least he made the effort to declare his desire to make a birthday card for his mother. So, presenting the birthday card.

The kids playing Xbox 360 The other day, I chanced upon my son's Minecraft game. He had this underground home that was unbelievable. It had doors, a library and other things that a house might have. I was very impressed. After all, he is only six. I never thought that a six year old would actually build a library. I know he has been watching Minecraft videos, but I did not realise that learns anything from these videos. So today, I thought I wanted to take a look at his 'world'. He was swimming with his buddies (the children of my wife's friend) so I took the iPad and opened the game. I could not find his underground home, so I searched for it by entering a nearby hole. But I could not find it. Needless to say, I continued to poke around, hoping to find it. Eventually, I went deeper and deeper underground. And I got lost. And I fell into lava. Because it was set in creative mode, my avatar was not killed by lava. Instead I got stuck. Then I panicked. I spend t...

Lucas with his mum's iPad mini Recently, an article appeared in one of the Facebook pages I liked that I found disturbing. The author of this article (which I will not link to - call me biased, but I do not want such ideas to be perpetuated) was totally against the idea of handhelds for children under the age of 12. I was really surprised by this - I do teach in a school that has children under 12 and we do use the iPads in the classrooms. Nevertheless, I clicked the article and read it (I always force myself to read articles that go against my own beliefs because I think it creates a critical mind). I realised that some of the arguments she listed were actually false dichotomies - they did not allow for alternate reasonings. She argues that handhelds delay development probably because the children do not move and exercise while watching or playing games on the handheld. It is a good point, but in another part of the article, she notes down that children below 12 can safely ...

Captain America Shield. Made by the dad. Our usual night time schedule is actually not too ideal for my son. He sleeps too late, and I feel that he does not get enough sleep sometimes. Unfortunately for him, both my wife and my schedule does not really allow for early sleep times like 8pm or even 9pm. I work till 8.30pm and my wife sometimes works even later. This is because she works for a transnational company and needs to have conference calls with her European and American counter-parts. Fortunately, these calls can be taken at home. As a result, he usually sleeps around 10.30pm; though sometimes it extends to 10.45pm. This is something we need to address next year when he enters primary one. Even though the current situation is not good, I guess all of us have to adjust. We do try to let him sleep until the very last possible minute before waking him up for school. One of thing bad habits my son has is watching too much iPad. At least I think it is too much; though he obv...