It’s exam week once again, and somehow I am more stressed than the kids. I put too much pressure on myself that they must do good in school. Since I am with them 24/7, I can help them with their lessons. But I can only do so much.
Raf in particular is very strong in reading comprehension. But it’s a struggle in Math. He tends to be careless in his computation. For this recent quarter, they took up multiplication and division. It was shocking to me because the kid is just seven years old and the school expects these kids to memorize the multiplication table? and division? (Come to think about it, I was in Grade 2 or 3 when we took up multiplication and division) Riel said these kids should still be playing.
So for multiplication, I made him skip count and memorize the 2, 3, 5, and 10 tables and I taught him the fingers tip for the 9’s. Since the factors in multiplication are interchangeable, there are only few facts left to memorize, which some of them have rhymes and poems.
This is Raf reviewing his lessons. Photo taken just a few minutes earlier. He has cough and colds because it was unusually cold these recent days (ambient registered at 18 degrees!)
Also on their team is their red-head cousin Umi who just turned four years old last month. These kids are really playing… look at them, they make funny faces while the game is going on. And they’re supposed to be the defenders.
“People don’t change their ways till they’re forced to. Even if a visionary sits there and tells them what’s going to happen, if it ain’t broke, they’ll do nothing.” — This is so me and I’ve got to change that attitude.
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KQOTD. After fetching Raf from school… Me: How was your quiz in Math? Raf: I had some mistakes because I didn’t finish it. Me (getting angry): How come? Didn’t we review last night? Raf (reasoning): Mom, it’s not my brain. It’s just because I count slow!