Winter 2015 Homeschooling

A month-long school break and we got to get out minds busy. P's lesson at school is covering body systems as he mentioned about muscles one time and he thought that it might be a good idea to learn this in English. That gave me an inspiration to prep our winter homeschooling plan. We will be covering this along with the winter writing that I had initially planned.

So after a few days of online research, a day of writing outline, a few hours of scheduling, and a couple more for printing the materials, we are off to a good start this week. We will be doing the skeletal first, then the muscular system plus creative writing on alternate days.

We're off to a good start this week so I'm hoping we'll manage it until it's finish.
So far, the writing was pretty encouraging. P was able to deliver and squeeze out some creative juices into his writing exercises. It may not be a full story with ending per se yet but it is promising. If we get on and finish this exercises, I think this can be a good accomplishment for the winter.  My other worry now is how can I teach him the other side of the coin, technical writing which can be more practical skill in the future. One thing that I got to keep in mind is a person who can see writing as a fun outlet, can be halfway to being able to write technical papers. Better than someone who doesn't like any kind of writing at all.

Fifteen minutes are all that is given for him to write for this creative writing exercises and so far, I've seen him absorbed and just continuously scribbling almost the whole time.

Recap:
Exe. 1 - He was able to write more than half that was asked but didn't manage to finish the paragraph pretty smoothly. His descriptions were pretty sound though and I got the impression that he can build his characters in the short scene well. His dialogues can also be pretty interesting.

Exe.  2 - This exercise was a bit more challenging but he was able to do it. I just had to remind him again of having a smooth finish in spite the limited time given. Hopefully he'll be able to develop his ideas well and wrap the endings well as we progress through the exercises.

On a side note on writing, we got to talking about the shoes brand "Paperplanes" last night and he got the idea of writing the company about why the name. Let's see how we'll go about that next time.

We also spent a day out yesterday starting from the library, his once-a-year Mc Do (or any fast food place), and a not-so-good one at Baskin. Why? He wasn't paying attention when it was time to choose the flavor so he ended up with choco mint which was my choice. Some boys gotta learn to pay attention!

This should wrap it up for our first week of homeschool sessions as well as the last day of the year 2015.

Street Smart

What I've taught him so far? Or what he had the chance to experience here so far.

1. Buy a subway card from a machine.
2. Flash the cards on bus and train.
3. Try to figure out a vicinity map in a station.

We have yet to try...
1. the ticket window for a real train ticket.
2. ride a bus by himself
3. ride a train by himself

1. Be observant of people and things around you at all times.
Be aware of people around you. Learn to read people. It can be a fun hobby when you're stuck waiting without a book. Or even if you have a book. Specially if you are in a non-familiar area, it pays to be able to read people.
2. Remember landmarks and routes.
3. Heighten your senses specially if you are in an unfamiliar and deserted area.
Avoid deserted alleys specially at night.
4. Learn where and how to get help if lost. Identify the "safe places" where one can go in case of emergency.

How to possibly learn this.

1. Bring him more often downtown and let him figure out the streets.
2. Play 39 Clues theme game to help remember landmarks and routes.
3. Let him be the guide. Set a destination, and let him figure out how to get there.
4. Let him get to feel out directions without map. 

As usual, here are some sites where I found some useful ideas. 
- from afineparent.com about being street smart as emotional intelligence
- from parents.com about stranger safety.
- from kidshealth.org about kids being street smart. 
(Hubs heard this one while we were having breakfast. He ended up saying, "the world is such a miserable world that we have to teach our kids these kinds of things." But that is the reality in some parts of the world. Sure, there are still a few safe areas but there a more unsafe ones.

Summer/Fall Filipino Reading

We revisited the Children's library last month and I found a pretty good number of Filipino books. With my husband's encouragement, I decided to create a more structured Fil-literature-based for P to continue learning Filipino. I have the list made up for the next three months at least.

The first three books which got me started were quite interesting that I decided to really make the list for the following weeks and not just pick whatever we fancy. Might as well structure it so we can make the most of the resources available. 

"Mga Tambay sa Tabi-tabi," is an interesting reference-like book for the supernatural beings in the Filipino folklore. Most if it were pretty new for me since I'm not that fond of reading scary stories at all. Some, I just heard from my Mom whenever she would be chatting with other adult when I was younger. It all seems very interesting listening to these stories. Not in a storybook kind of retelling but very casual way that it really did happen in real life of someone the speaker knows. I don't think it's more appealing than that. Unfortunately, my son had to contend with the storybook kind since his mother leans toward the scientific stories and wouldn't have a direct experience in these field.

I do love the stories though, specially the legends. I remember the well-thumbed in small pocketbook of legends in my elementary school library long time ago. This got me to pick up the book, "Ang Alamat ng Talangka." Modern writer penned this but it still has the elements of a traditional legend. Some Tagalog words would probably be at least for 5th grader coz there were some long and mouthful words. Not the casual storytelling words to use.

The next book is "Ang Mahiwagang Biyulin." I would have spelled the word violin as "bayolin" as I am pretty confused sometimes. This story has easy words even for me. It may be okay for a third grader to read at least. I managed to pick some vocabulary that I know might be unfamiliar or hard to decipher for my son. It was a fun read though, partly because of the little mouse appear in every page. The story itself was interesting.

This week's set (at least for the next two weeks) is the first on the list that I have. I tried to cover some folktales, legends, and biography. There were no legends that made it into this set. I was looking for another Lola Basyang stories but only found one. Juan Tamad sounds interesting and funny so I included it. And of course, the Aquino bio since yesterday was Aquino Memorial Day. We might start with this. 

To whoever made these books available in the local library, thank you. I just hope other immigrant moms will find and make use of these. Since there were other books in other languages there like Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indonesian, and I can only guess what else. 

Korea War Memorial and Museum and a bit of Itaewon Streets

The trip starts waiting for the subway ride. 

One good part of waiting time is the reading. (while waiting for the sub)

Four hours on our feet walking around from Itaewon to here and my feet are just about to surrender. We have just covered around 3/4 of this and we still have to check out the outer exhibits. That is basically just the indoor exhibits. 

Another War Museum and it's on a bigger scale, way bigger than what we've been to so far!
Why? But of course, it should be since it's the War Memorial of Korea.

P had some summer homework to do, so I thought why not do some day trip to Seoul. And what could be a better place to head with kiddo but to a museum that he would be totally interested to go to. I would have preferred to just go walking around some interesting street but with a kid to educate, a museum would be better. I'll try to induce him to do the street one next time.

We did a little walking in the middle of the hot sun to get to his favorite gimbap chain, and a bus stop after. He even found an interesting alien thing outside a small cupcake store called Monster Cupcakes.



Nevertheless, we both enjoyed the war memorial yesterday. It was almost killing my feet to cover the three floors and we only managed to roughly cover more than half of the indoor exhibits. We just went in and out of the exhibits, roam around in our own free will until P finally realized to really look for the outdoor ones. It was about time to head out around four with my feet almost about to give out. But I still had to do some mother role of taking photographs.

We saw the exhibit about Korean-Vietnam war, how the Viets lived underground during the war, the land mines, the different war strategies like isolating a village so the enemy can't use them as cover and suppliers.

He was also fascinated with the workings in the exhibits. He told me that he like how the miniatures were made and he'd like to make things like that too. I'm pretty surprised coz I've never really seen him to be meticulous and that kind of thing needs a very detailed eye. 

Oh boy, what will he turn out to be is still a mystery. 

For future reference on a next trip to the place, here some notes:

1. There are some QR code available in some exhibits so better prepare the app before heading there.



2. An overview of the floor plan of the exhibit room can be helpful to fine-tune or maximize one's time. I looked it up a bit online but didn't really register much. The flier at the entrance was helpful, IF we took a few minutes to study it and figure out the exhibits' layout. BUT the little boy insisted on just going with the flow of our feet. As a result, we missed the Children's Museum and other possibly interesting exhibits. 

3. English Guided Tour: As far as I can remember, there should be a 10 AM and 2 PM tour. Unfortunately, there were almost a dozen of US soldiers in the the 2PM tour and the guide available is just pinch-hitting for the day. P insisted on DIY. I was too tired to disagree.

4. Pick a better time to take outdoor shots. Definitely not the best on a summer day, with the sun's heat in the middle of the day and it's angle against the lens on the later part of the day. We went in the midst of summer. Spring or fall season might be actually better.

~~~

School Break Home School

Winter was pretty long and even though P attended a couple of winter classes, there were still plenty of time to make use of. The easier one to compliment his reading interest is catch-up writing. 

We managed to at least cover some basics of writing paragraphs and write three journal entries per week for a month. That is quite a feat!

This coming summer break will be a continuation of that with a reward of a game board before the break ends which is around his birthday anyway. 

I was able to get on it and finished the curriculum-of-sorts yesterday. Not a complete one strictly speaking should be enough to get a big picture of what we will be covering and hoping to accomplish for this summer school break. 

We (well, me at least) are also planning other non-academic activities like a couple of indoor games, kitchen/baking and hopefully, short day trips. 

I hope we'll manage to accomplish this! 하자!

Feb 25 PM

We headed to the skating rink after the bank stop this morning. Got there at 11:30 and it turned out they have lunch break til 12:30. We had to grab our lunch and wait before he can get in the rink.

We only paid 3500 for entrance and skates rental for one kid. I opted not to since I am not really up to it. P tried to convince me a lot of times but maybe next time. He even volunteered to pay for me. I have yet to gather enough strength and patience to try to learn that one.

He ended up hugging the wall for the first two rounds and I was following him while walking OUTSIDE the rink. He managed to move away from the wall before we hit the third round. It wasn't so bad. I got to exercise a bit but he stayed on until 4:45 with a couple of breaks in between including the 15 minutes official re-icing time. (I'm not sure if that's a correct term.)

He stayed there for four hours of skating and I stayed around watching and almost freezing. I had to hang out at the cafeteria where it was less cold, run to the rest room to empty my unusually busy bladder and warm my hands in the electric hand drier. I have never been a regular fan of rest rooms but that drier is such an attraction.

A day at the skating rink can be fun, I think. He just have to make sure to put enough foot powder the next time we go so his rented skates will not stink. What on the list for next time? Bring more food and drinks (buying so often at the cafe is too expensive), a towel, hand warmer, extra pair of socks, and foot powder a.k.a. baking soda.

Feb 25 AM

Sebeh Don finally made it to the bank today! The trip to open a new account to the newly opened branch in the area has been planned for a while. I had to prepare the documents: kajok kwangge jeong myeongseo, my passport and ID and his Dojang.

I had hard time finding his stamp coz I almost forgot where I kept it. Luckily, I finally found it last Sunday after a couple of days searching. We were ready to go to bank the next day but there was such a heavy dust alert so we postponed until it finally cleared out today.



This is the second time for him to open a Korean kid's account. The first one was at Woori Bank late last year. We came more prepared and confident in accomplishing the transaction this time. The teller almost had us in a glitch when she mentioned that we still need another document but we told her that we didn't need that one. We are not signing up for the online banking. P seemed fine with just going to the bank to do the transactions. there. It's pretty near and it's just for his savings anyway so most transactions will only be deposits.

He basically handled most of the process by himself except for the signatures (six at that) I have to sign. He said he only had to sign twice but I had to do a lot. Funny. He handed her his envelops of bills and coins. Then, he watched with amazement as the teller dropped the coins in the coin counting machine. It was just such a cool thing for him to see it for the first time.

P managed everything with his Korean language skills. Sure, he may not be very familiar with most banking terms but that is what he is learning. The nice teller was patient enough with us even though she almost ignored me when she was explaining the requirements. But that's okay. It's his account, he speaks and understands better Korean than me and he is there to learn. I just take a step back for him to learn.

I know I also need to learn and practice my Korean language but I can do so at another time. In fact, I've opened accounts quite a few times with my limited language skills even before. It isn't easy yes, there was even a time that I almost cried out of frustration a few years back. Things had improved now.

P will have to learn more on dealing with things like this though. It's just about time for him to do so and not end up like a silly teenager unfamiliar with life transactions. There are still plenty to learn and experience like riding the bus by himself. THAT... is for another day. :D 

Korean Steamed Rice Cake

We were lucky enough to get a chance to make a cake last weekend, a rice cake at that. The nice teacher called us up if we were interested which we were of course. I thought it was just a one time thing but it turns out to be three sessions, once every month. 

It is an interesting thing for my son coz he was as excited as I am. We've baked together in the our kitchen in the Philippines when he was younger but since he is older now and more capable of doing things himself, I let him have his way this time. I did have to do the 'lil bit of chopping and most of the cleaning. 

As I have guessed, the cake is a rice cake. The teacher showed us the ingredients, and demonstrated how the cake was made. There were dried dates, pine nuts, sprinklers as cake toppings. We even learned how to make a flower topping made from rice flour as well. It was just amazing how a little bit of art goes into culinary. Funny thing is we never got the chance to get a copy of the recipe. 

So I may have to write it down here or what I remember most, that is. 

Ing.

3 C *pre-mixed white rice flour

2 C *pre-mixed yellow rice flour (squash)

 *(this already has the sugar, salt and I don't know the rest)

Toppings:

pine nuts, sprinklers, cried dates (seeded, rolled and chopped thinly), blueberries, and a Mr. Santa cake topper

How:

1. Best to strain the flours (which we forgot to do.)

2. Pour them on the mold lined with paper foil. You can alternate the colors for a layered look or marble style. Whatever you prefer.

3. Set aside a clump of flour to steam outside the mold to use for the flower toppings.

mix in some juice to color the whites, like a food color.

4. Steam these for 15 mins. for the toppings, and 18 mins. for the main cake.

5. Take out the clumps and start flattening them out to cut out three circles using a cookie cutter or something round. Then , put the three round on half-on-top- of each other and roll it. Cut in half and tweak the "petals" a bit and voila, you have your flower toppings now!

6. When the time is up, take a chosticks/toothpick test to check if it's all well steamed. Then, turn off the fire, leave it for a minute or two before taking it out. 

7. Then, start designing the cake. 

Here is how the rest of the cake from everyone in the class turned out. We got to take them home in cake boxes too!

Before 

P's designed cake. Not too polished-looking but edible anyway. He can't wait to try it!

After

It isn't the typical western cake that is all too sweet. It was just almost tasteless, with only a hint of sweetness to it. However, we all like liked it as it is. Well, maybe with a little bit of the sweet toppings. Not bad for a healthier cake I'd say. 

This got me thinking to try steaming something one of these days. I can probably try bread or buns next time. If only our kitchen will be warmer soon. :D