I'm soooooooooo happy... I've invested in about 3 or 4 sets (I bought them on separate occasions, so I've lost track of how many I have bought) of Bananagrams - basically a word game where you form words using letter tiles in a crossword form (kinda like Scrabble without the board) with other banana-relevant rules/twists. So I bought them because they have more tiles than a Scrabble set has, and there are at least 2 of every letter...
I'm using them to teach syllabication... just so the children have something to touch and move around, rather than doing it all on paper like we have been doing so far. Anything that doesn't involve writing excites the kids... so I feel this was a good investment. I also bought them at a time when Popular was having their 20% storewide discount thing... so they came cheaper than they were when they first appeared on the market. Now they seem to be everywhere!!!
My only complaint is that the letters are all capital letters... although with lower case letters, sometimes the orientation is rather confusing.
Now, I plan to use my paint pen to colour all the vowels red, the consonants blue and mark "y" in a different colour since it sometimes takes on the role of a vowel... now maybe to create some homemade long and short vowel indicators... :)
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Updates....
It's been forever... Sep was the last entry, and things have moved on.
Kasser, my one and only non-family student, has his lessons on hold for the time being. This is because he has moved on into the morning session at school, having been promoted to Primary 3 this year. As such, his mother is still waiting for his schedules to be more firmed before embarking on finding two afternoons or evenings for me to give him lessons. The biggest problems in finding a suitable time arise from the fact that I do have to take care and help my 3 children in the afternoon when they come home from school, which is when Kasser is now free, and because I have to be home with my kids, Kasser's mom now has to bring Kasser to me instead of my going to his place (since that would mean my 3 children would be left home alone). During the holidays, when my children were home, Kasser came over to my house for several lessons. My OG classroom is now set up, and I have a place for all my resources and materials, as well as a proper setup for lessons with us facing each other on either side of a table. I can also close the door and shut out the noise of having 3 other children in the house. So I am still waiting. Waiting to see how keen they are in finding a good solution to the obstacles that currently stand in our way.
Stacey's and Zach's lessons also took a back seat towards the end of last year as well because we switched on the "preparing for exams" battlemode. They were swamped with homework and just getting all that work done and trying to ensure that they still had time to take a break and be a kid was tough... never mind making time for OG lessons twice a week. Some days, they worked till bedtime (8pm) and didn't have time to play. Sad.
Stacey and Zach did reasonably well in their exams, and I am proud of the tremendous improvements they made. Despite their difficulties, both managed to score within the Band 2 range... with Stacey making an almost 10% jump!
Kasser also had a 5% improvement in his scores, so I was thankful for that too!
This year, Zach will continue having group lessons on Comprehension with the SNO in his school during Chinese once a week. Stacey is supposed to have her OG lessons with her SNO but nothing has been arranged yet. I really must email her. I find that the support in Zach's school seems slightly better than in Stacey's... but it's probably too early to tell just yet. We are having Stacey do OG in school to see if she responds better in the mornings rather than in the evenings when she's already tired from a long day at school. Also, it is guaranteed to be more consistent, so that will probably help her as well.
Kasser, my one and only non-family student, has his lessons on hold for the time being. This is because he has moved on into the morning session at school, having been promoted to Primary 3 this year. As such, his mother is still waiting for his schedules to be more firmed before embarking on finding two afternoons or evenings for me to give him lessons. The biggest problems in finding a suitable time arise from the fact that I do have to take care and help my 3 children in the afternoon when they come home from school, which is when Kasser is now free, and because I have to be home with my kids, Kasser's mom now has to bring Kasser to me instead of my going to his place (since that would mean my 3 children would be left home alone). During the holidays, when my children were home, Kasser came over to my house for several lessons. My OG classroom is now set up, and I have a place for all my resources and materials, as well as a proper setup for lessons with us facing each other on either side of a table. I can also close the door and shut out the noise of having 3 other children in the house. So I am still waiting. Waiting to see how keen they are in finding a good solution to the obstacles that currently stand in our way.
Stacey's and Zach's lessons also took a back seat towards the end of last year as well because we switched on the "preparing for exams" battlemode. They were swamped with homework and just getting all that work done and trying to ensure that they still had time to take a break and be a kid was tough... never mind making time for OG lessons twice a week. Some days, they worked till bedtime (8pm) and didn't have time to play. Sad.
Stacey and Zach did reasonably well in their exams, and I am proud of the tremendous improvements they made. Despite their difficulties, both managed to score within the Band 2 range... with Stacey making an almost 10% jump!
Kasser also had a 5% improvement in his scores, so I was thankful for that too!
This year, Zach will continue having group lessons on Comprehension with the SNO in his school during Chinese once a week. Stacey is supposed to have her OG lessons with her SNO but nothing has been arranged yet. I really must email her. I find that the support in Zach's school seems slightly better than in Stacey's... but it's probably too early to tell just yet. We are having Stacey do OG in school to see if she responds better in the mornings rather than in the evenings when she's already tired from a long day at school. Also, it is guaranteed to be more consistent, so that will probably help her as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
