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....!!

Lesson # 7: You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things happen to you

As a kid, I was a wimp. I was so scared to do anything that would pose danger to myself. I can't ride the bike, I can't swim, I don't ride roller coasters and I'm so darn scared to try to skate. Unfortunately, I never outgrew all these fears. Yes, that means, up to now, I am scared to bike, to swim, to ride the roller coaster and to skate.

I don't really know what made me so scared. But looking back, my mother didn't really let me do anything adventurous when I was young. Actually, when I ask for her permission to do anything that might bring me outside HER comfort zones, there's only one standard reply: No.

And so, that left me doing nothing but read and stay inside our house.

Kids are naturally dare devils. They leap from high places, they trip and fall and they do a lot of silly things that would eventually hurt them. Although we find these things really crazy and sometimes irritating, we can't do anything about it. Coz you see, children are really born without the concept of fear. Actually, fear is something that we learn through experience. And considering how limited their experiences are, children do not really know the consequences of their actions. Hence, they live with no fear...

As adults, we have the responsibility to keep our children safe and healthy. BUT we should also be aware that kids learn from experiences and we should not limit them from doing anything that involves risk. Instead, dare your child to do new things and reinforce it by complimenting him on his little acts of bravery. It will be a bit scary for you to expose your child to these things, but I'm sure with a lot of guidance, your child will grow up to be a courageous fine man someday.