Petting Lessons

My seven-year-old nephew, Kiko, runs a zoo in their house. He has fishes, love birds, turtles, chickens, pigeons, dogs and eel under his care. Though this may sound like a crazy circus, it is quite amazing to see Kiko grow and learn from these animals.

Keeping pets at home provide ample opportunities of learning to little kids. Aside from the obvious benefits of learning about animals, children can learn a lot about life while taking good care of their pets.

Lesson # 1. Responsibility - Feeding the animals, giving them baths, cleaning their houses and petting them can teach a child understand that everyone has a role in the house and in life. Fortunately my nephew plans to be a veterinarian someday, so he does all these tasks with enthusiasm. But if your child doesn't really like doing a lot of these things, you can start by giving him a very easy task. For example, you can give him the job of a pet feeder. I am sure that your child will enjoy watching the fishes gulp up their food.

Lesson # 2 . Moderation - When Kiko had his first set of fishes, they all died the next day. Kiko was so excited that he ended up feeding the fishes every hour even against his mother's order. When all the fishes died, Kiko learned that too much food can kill his pets. So, the next time we bought him new victims he became very careful about feeding his pet.

Learning about moderation in this manner can teach your child understand why he can't have too much ice cream or spend all his time watching the TV. Inevitably, the same lessons can help your child understand the importance of being contented and purposeful in life.

Lesson # 3 . Letting go - I think one of the most important lesson in raising pets at home is learning about death. When Kiko's first dog died, he was devastated. He cried nursing her in his little arms. while my sister and I tried to console him at no avail. Until now, even if he has new dogs, he still becomes very sad when we mention the name of his old dog. But he knows it is impossible for his dog to come back and all he could do is to move on.

While death is something that I really hate teaching my pupils about, it is something that we all have to go through at some points in our lives. Witnessing the passing of a pet provides a subtle way of learning about letting go and being left behind. And more importantly, it makes your child realize that life can go on even without the people and the things that they value so much.

Lesson # 4 . Cycle of life. - When Kiko's chicken laid eggs, everyone in the house were so excited....to eat the eggs, that is. But Kiko refused to cook them even if the hen would keep on laying eggs almost every day. Because of this, the chicken population in their house just kept on growing and growing. When asked about why he did not want us to eat the eggs, Kiko said that the chicks need to grow up so they could lay their eggs too.

The cycle of life teaches respect to history and the importance of family. It gives the child an idea of the changing roles of each man as he grows up.


Lesson # 5 - Love - I think the most important lesson to be learned from raising a pet is learning how to love. Putting somebody else's needs before yours, thinking about the welfare of others and finding time to spend with somebody else are some of the things you will learn if you keep a pet at home.

I remember Kiko when his dog died, he told his mother that his chest hurts a lot. It was a very heartbreaking scene but it was also very very sweet. Imagine a three year old kid learning how it feels to love unconditionally? Now, no other lesson can top that!

Sharing Time: Animals and Their Youngs

Here's a video I made to teach my pupils about Animals and Their Youngs. If you want to use it in your classrooms, be my guest. The only thing that I want in return is for you to leave a comment or probably help me earn from my Google Ads by clicking on some of the ads in this blog. Have fun..!!

Lesson: Leadership is something you work for and not something you just happen to stumble upon...

The Election Fever has hit our school and boy our pupils had fun acting out their roles as Little Community Leaders. Since we were in our community theme, we thought that it would be much more meaningful for the kids to create their own little government inside the school.

Check out some of the highlights in our Election Day above.

Is my child learning? aka Kiko's English Class Saga Part 1

Kiko, my favorite 7-year-old nephew, has been speaking in English ever since he started speaking. His grammar is flawless and his accent is comparable to that of a native English speaker. We don't really know how it happened since most of the people in our family speaks in Tagalog. But we are definitely amused about this phenomena.

When he started schooling, his grasp of the English language helped him a lot through his preschool years. He started reading phonetically at age 3 and he can easily tackle big words at age 4. His reading comprehension is really ahead of his age. He loves reading about his favorite things like fishes, birds and trains and he spends most of his time making picture books about these things.

This year, Kiko entered Grade 1. My sister (his mother) and I, were quite apprehensive about how would Kiko fair in his Filipino subject. You see, here in the Philippines, Filipino is one of the subjects taught in the elementary and high school levels. And since, Kiko has been speaking in English most of his life, we were expecting that he would really have a hard time in his Filipino class.

And as expected, Kiko had really a confusing time learning his native language. It was really funny at first because Kiko would talk like a balikbayan. But luckily, Kiko got the hang of it and even though he still has the thwang, he can now properly conjugate the verbs in Tagalog.

Anyway, even with his new found love for the Filipino language, my sister and I were really expecting the worse on his report card. And boy were we surprised!!!! Kiko had a pretty good grade in Filipino and Sibika (Social Studies taught in the Filipino Language) but what shook us the most was the fact that Kiko got a grade of 78 in ENGLISH!!!!!

78??? An English grade of 78 for a little boy who spent most of his life talking in English? 78 for a boy who practically consumed several reams of bondpaper writing about his favorite things? Wow!!! Where on earth did this little boy's English teacher got his grade from?

(to be continued...)

Yummy Activities for Nutrition Month

July is the Nutrition Month and our school celebrated our love for nutritious food through two fun events

First is Our Little Cafe' which has been a much-awaited annual event in the school. It's when our little cute pupils would dress into waiters and waitresses outfit to run a mini restaurant and serve nutritious food to their parents. This year, our nursery pupils did a very great job in playing little restaurant helpers. The parents who came as guests were so impressed seeing their kids working so hard and so focused on their individual tasks.

Take a look at our nursery pupils at work here.



Our preparatory pupils had their cooking skills put to test with our second activity: The Iron Chef-MLM. It was a fun and hilarious take on the famous Iron Chef show in Food Network. The kids and their parents had a blast preparing a dish using our secret ingredient: the avocado.

Here are some pics from the event

Our New Classroom Layout

I've just recently changed our classroom layout to give our kids more room to roam around. I've put all the cabinets by the wall to have a feel of an open space. The different centers were placed in each corner of the room.

My Reading and Audio Visual Center on the far corner of the room.

My Whole Group Center is right in the middle

My manipulatives center is near the door.

My little theatre is in the other corner of my room.

I've put my sandboxes and other science activity stuffs outside the room where I could have an easier access to water.
My pupils love this new open space. I am hoping to be more productive this year.
How about you, how does your classroom look like?

Kiddie activities for this summer....

This summer, we signed up my nephew to the McDonald's Kiddie Crew program. The program is open to all 6 year old-12 year old kids who would like to have a taste of being part of the service crew in one of their favorite burger places. If your kids have nothing else to do than watch TV at home this summer, I think this is one activity that you should let him try. The P500.00 registration fee is worth every penny since it includes a set of cute little uniform, heavy McDo snacks for five days, daily craft activity and an unforgettable experience to work in McDo. I think that is way better than TV surfing....!!