Bree always receives something fancy when Grandma Ettie comes for a visit. During her recent visit, Grandma Ettie came empty handed! Well, if you compare this visit with previous occasions, she did come almost empty handed because she brought only two long sleeved t-shirts. Apparently she had been asking the little tot what she wanted over the phone and apparently, all Bree wanted was to go to the beach to build sandcastles. I totally believe that too. Since the sand was removed from her sandpit earlier this year, Bree has been asking quite regularly to go to the beach. We haven’t been doing much of that recently because it has been too cold. Although she loves the sand and would stay in the sandpit for a long time, it’s not quite the same as when we visit the beach. At the beach, Bree not only loves playing with the sand, the cheeky little one also loves chasing after the waves. After that ear infection, none of us are too keen for her to get soaked outdoors until the return of warmer days.
I heard that Bree thanked Grandma Ettie for the two t-shirts without being prompted. Her parents were happy with how Bree behaved around Ettie. Bree’s parents prefer smaller presents because they wanted their daughter to appreciate simpler gifts but the t-shirts weren’t the big surprise. So, while I was away taking my short break, the whole family visited a large toy shop because Grandma Ettie wanted to buy a sandpit for Bree. It was the first* time that Bree visited such a large toy shop. (By first*, I meant that she was walking on her own two feet and the toy shop is bigger than the typical toy shops.) Before the shopping trip, her parents wondered if Bree might run around like a wild child and discussed possible ways of handling the situation if she became uncontrollable. Grandma Ettie was more positive. She already knew that Bree could behave like a perfect little lady when expected. She had apparently taken Bree to an even bigger toy shop when the tot stayed with her in Sydney late last year.
The trip to the toy shop was a success. Her parents decided at the last minute to leave the buggy in the car and the little girl walked maturely like the rest of the family. She was happy to hold the hand of an adult most of the time. At the toy shop, she wanted to ride a tricycle that was left on the ground but for some funny reason the pedals weren’t working. After picking the blue plastic sandpit with her mum’s help, they walked past a short table displaying Thomas the Tank Engine trains. There was already a little boy playing with the trains and Bree joined him and attempted to start a conversation. LOL. The little boy was painfully shy and kept to himself. Before parting company, Bree decided to not only say ‘Bye’ but offered him a hug as well. The little boy got so frightened that he cried.
Ettie made a big fuss of the delivery time for the sandpit. She wanted to make sure that the store would deliver it while she was still in Melbourne. She also complained about the model they picked because she wanted something more expensive. Bree is not complaining. She is super happy with the sandpit. She plays in it almost daily. I am just glad that this one has a proper lid to keep the sand clean.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Saturday, 23 August 2008
It’s a Breeze to Cook for Bree
Note: Here in this post, the term ‘cooking’ means cooking a meal from scratch and it is an activity more complicated than heating up leftover soup or making a Vegemite Sandwich.
I don’t really enjoy cooking but I do prefer doing it on colder days rather than in the middle of Summer. Cooking for my charges is part of my work requirement as a nanny. So, there really is no way of avoiding this chore at work. I do however make it an important point to mention during job interviews that I do not specifically cook for the rest of the family. Some people expect nannies to whip up a proper 3 course dinner for the parents, but I don’t do that. They don’t have to hire me if they are not happy about this.
At Bree’s home, I now pre-cook at least a couple of her dinners each week. When Bree was younger, her mum cooked almost all of her dinners because she wanted me to keep an eye on the little one. Now that Bree is more mature, her mum is beginning to relax. I do most of the cooking when Bree is napping. Most of the meals that I do cook for her are quite easy to make. Her mum picked them not just for our convenience but also because they are suitable for freezing. Soups like Chicken Minestrone, pasta sauces like the good old Bolognaise Sauce and things like meatballs or rissoles are all examples of food that can be divided into smaller portions for freezing. Frozen or refrigerated home cooked meals make it easy for Bree’s parents at dinner time. Since Bree started to spend the time after nap at Stella’s home, I no longer serve her dinner each night. My cooking must be pretty good because little pots of frozen meals happen to go missing quite often. I might need to set a giant mouse trap to catch the two big mice. LOL. It is actually quite funny to witness one of them thanking me after owning up to it.
I have been blessed with many good eaters throughout my career as a nanny. Bree is one of the very good eaters. This means that she is willing to try anything you set in front of her. She may not eat everything on her plate but she will at least try something new without any protest. When she was down with an ear infection recently, she was off food for a while and when she was on the mend, she wanted only porridge with a drizzle of honey. We (her parents and I) also noticed that if Bree had been in the company of her dotting grandma Ettie, she would have a sudden increase of cravings for all things sweet. Among my charges from the past who happened to be good eaters, a few of them have parents who encouraged them to regularly enjoy (more like abuse) junk food simply because they live in an era of abundance. Bree’s mum does allow her daughter to enjoy a bit of junk food every now and then, and she is a tad less strict as she used to sound like in the past.
I don’t really enjoy cooking but I do prefer doing it on colder days rather than in the middle of Summer. Cooking for my charges is part of my work requirement as a nanny. So, there really is no way of avoiding this chore at work. I do however make it an important point to mention during job interviews that I do not specifically cook for the rest of the family. Some people expect nannies to whip up a proper 3 course dinner for the parents, but I don’t do that. They don’t have to hire me if they are not happy about this.
At Bree’s home, I now pre-cook at least a couple of her dinners each week. When Bree was younger, her mum cooked almost all of her dinners because she wanted me to keep an eye on the little one. Now that Bree is more mature, her mum is beginning to relax. I do most of the cooking when Bree is napping. Most of the meals that I do cook for her are quite easy to make. Her mum picked them not just for our convenience but also because they are suitable for freezing. Soups like Chicken Minestrone, pasta sauces like the good old Bolognaise Sauce and things like meatballs or rissoles are all examples of food that can be divided into smaller portions for freezing. Frozen or refrigerated home cooked meals make it easy for Bree’s parents at dinner time. Since Bree started to spend the time after nap at Stella’s home, I no longer serve her dinner each night. My cooking must be pretty good because little pots of frozen meals happen to go missing quite often. I might need to set a giant mouse trap to catch the two big mice. LOL. It is actually quite funny to witness one of them thanking me after owning up to it.
I have been blessed with many good eaters throughout my career as a nanny. Bree is one of the very good eaters. This means that she is willing to try anything you set in front of her. She may not eat everything on her plate but she will at least try something new without any protest. When she was down with an ear infection recently, she was off food for a while and when she was on the mend, she wanted only porridge with a drizzle of honey. We (her parents and I) also noticed that if Bree had been in the company of her dotting grandma Ettie, she would have a sudden increase of cravings for all things sweet. Among my charges from the past who happened to be good eaters, a few of them have parents who encouraged them to regularly enjoy (more like abuse) junk food simply because they live in an era of abundance. Bree’s mum does allow her daughter to enjoy a bit of junk food every now and then, and she is a tad less strict as she used to sound like in the past.
Sunday, 17 August 2008
Allegedly Hot-Housing Stella
Stella has now returned to school for a third term. While she seems to enjoy her friends there more and more, her school experience has been quite a different one for her parents. They are not happy with the ‘service’ and I think (I have a strong feeling on this) that Stella will switch to another school if not next term, then she will likely start afresh in the first term next year.
Stella has been coming home with readers that are way too easy for her for more than two terms now. Her teacher is aware of Stella’s abilities but for some reason the Supergirl keeps coming home with readers that are for beginners. The school can’t possibly be under resourced. The fees that they charge for Preppies are one of the highest in the country. I am not implying that the teacher did nothing. After Stella’s parents spoke to her in first term, she did make some changes in the classroom. For literacy, she organized for Stella to work with a reading buddy who is more or less reading at the same level. This same issue to do with super easy readers was brought up again when Stella’s parents met up with the teacher in the final week of term 2. They were told afterwards that Stella apparently needs plenty of practice and the readers that Stella took home were chosen to ensure success to boost confidence.
Stella is still reading the readers she brings home dutifully but it is obvious that she seems to enjoy her own books or books from the library much more. She seems happy to go along with the literacy program at school but it is quite a different story when it comes to the maths on offer. The Supergirl, as well as her three other maths buddies, are simply bored beyond belief. I knew long ago that this was going to be the case for Stella. Learning about shapes, patterns, sequences, basic addition and subtraction, sorting, grouping and counting from 1-10 are simply no longer challenging to a little girl who has already been doing work like this for the last two years. The teacher did organize for Stella to work with 3 other children. She offered the children extra work but it was pretty much the same kind of work the rest of the class was doing. When given the opportunity to work together, the children worked diligently all through the 2nd term. The friendships between the children grew. In this blog, I call the group ‘The New Gang of Four’. This term however, the children are getting restless. They no longer enjoy doing the extra work. Even Stella is beginning to whinge about doing the same thing over and over. She doesn’t have a habit of whingeing and I wonder if she is influenced by the others in the group. There were plenty more choices when she was at Kindergarten. Now that she is at school, she has to do pretty much what the teacher has planned.
Stella is at least enjoying the social aspect of going to school but her parents (especially her mum) doesn’t seem to have as much luck when it comes to some of the other parents. There have been a few unpleasant experiences. During one fundraising evening, the topic of ‘Hot-House Kids’ came up in one of the many conversations that was going around, and one mum ‘jokingly’ made Stella’s mum feel uneasy by asking how she managed to get Stella to learn so much. The plans to allow children of similar abilities to work together also caused resentment. The parents of one of the new gang of four heard that parents were asking if their children miss out if the teacher is paying more attention to the ‘gifted’ children. In one birthday party that Stella attended, the mum hosting the party went around ‘introducing’ the child to everyone, telling them that she is the ‘gifted’ one and that she doesn’t know who Diego is. Gee, I didn’t know it was a crime to not know who Diego is. There are no rules stating that each and every child from the birthday child’s class has to be invited to the party. Why did they invite Stella?
I can honestly say that no one is ‘hot-housing’ Stella. The child is just inquisitive and eager to learn anything that fancies her. If Stella is ready and willing, why stop her from learning? We, her parents and I do not force the little girl to complete hours of paperwork. She learned a lot of things through play and games. As I have said before, if something is no longer appealing or fun to her, there is no way we can make her stay and learn the rest of the lesson. Many children of Stella’s age are already enrolled in many after school programmes. I read that some children who aren’t much older than Stella have something scheduled outside school for up to 5 days a week. Now that’s scary! Other than two terms of toddler music programme when she was really little, and swimming lessons in the warmer months, Stella’s parents have not signed her up for extra curricular classes outside her school. This is not to say that they didn’t entertain the idea. They had wanted Stella to learn an instrument but she was not very interested. They eventually agreed that the little girl should enjoy at least another year free from such commitments. Parents who do hot-house their children will not make such a choice. They are obsessed with scheduling something ‘educational’ for every minute their children is awake. That is suffocating.
(Note: Stella’s parents never describe their daughter as ‘Gifted’. The tag was used by some parents to describe the groups of children that were selected to work together and Stella happened to be selected for both the literacy and mathematics groups. Stella’s parents have declined to have her tested.)
Stella has been coming home with readers that are way too easy for her for more than two terms now. Her teacher is aware of Stella’s abilities but for some reason the Supergirl keeps coming home with readers that are for beginners. The school can’t possibly be under resourced. The fees that they charge for Preppies are one of the highest in the country. I am not implying that the teacher did nothing. After Stella’s parents spoke to her in first term, she did make some changes in the classroom. For literacy, she organized for Stella to work with a reading buddy who is more or less reading at the same level. This same issue to do with super easy readers was brought up again when Stella’s parents met up with the teacher in the final week of term 2. They were told afterwards that Stella apparently needs plenty of practice and the readers that Stella took home were chosen to ensure success to boost confidence.
Stella is still reading the readers she brings home dutifully but it is obvious that she seems to enjoy her own books or books from the library much more. She seems happy to go along with the literacy program at school but it is quite a different story when it comes to the maths on offer. The Supergirl, as well as her three other maths buddies, are simply bored beyond belief. I knew long ago that this was going to be the case for Stella. Learning about shapes, patterns, sequences, basic addition and subtraction, sorting, grouping and counting from 1-10 are simply no longer challenging to a little girl who has already been doing work like this for the last two years. The teacher did organize for Stella to work with 3 other children. She offered the children extra work but it was pretty much the same kind of work the rest of the class was doing. When given the opportunity to work together, the children worked diligently all through the 2nd term. The friendships between the children grew. In this blog, I call the group ‘The New Gang of Four’. This term however, the children are getting restless. They no longer enjoy doing the extra work. Even Stella is beginning to whinge about doing the same thing over and over. She doesn’t have a habit of whingeing and I wonder if she is influenced by the others in the group. There were plenty more choices when she was at Kindergarten. Now that she is at school, she has to do pretty much what the teacher has planned.
Stella is at least enjoying the social aspect of going to school but her parents (especially her mum) doesn’t seem to have as much luck when it comes to some of the other parents. There have been a few unpleasant experiences. During one fundraising evening, the topic of ‘Hot-House Kids’ came up in one of the many conversations that was going around, and one mum ‘jokingly’ made Stella’s mum feel uneasy by asking how she managed to get Stella to learn so much. The plans to allow children of similar abilities to work together also caused resentment. The parents of one of the new gang of four heard that parents were asking if their children miss out if the teacher is paying more attention to the ‘gifted’ children. In one birthday party that Stella attended, the mum hosting the party went around ‘introducing’ the child to everyone, telling them that she is the ‘gifted’ one and that she doesn’t know who Diego is. Gee, I didn’t know it was a crime to not know who Diego is. There are no rules stating that each and every child from the birthday child’s class has to be invited to the party. Why did they invite Stella?
I can honestly say that no one is ‘hot-housing’ Stella. The child is just inquisitive and eager to learn anything that fancies her. If Stella is ready and willing, why stop her from learning? We, her parents and I do not force the little girl to complete hours of paperwork. She learned a lot of things through play and games. As I have said before, if something is no longer appealing or fun to her, there is no way we can make her stay and learn the rest of the lesson. Many children of Stella’s age are already enrolled in many after school programmes. I read that some children who aren’t much older than Stella have something scheduled outside school for up to 5 days a week. Now that’s scary! Other than two terms of toddler music programme when she was really little, and swimming lessons in the warmer months, Stella’s parents have not signed her up for extra curricular classes outside her school. This is not to say that they didn’t entertain the idea. They had wanted Stella to learn an instrument but she was not very interested. They eventually agreed that the little girl should enjoy at least another year free from such commitments. Parents who do hot-house their children will not make such a choice. They are obsessed with scheduling something ‘educational’ for every minute their children is awake. That is suffocating.
(Note: Stella’s parents never describe their daughter as ‘Gifted’. The tag was used by some parents to describe the groups of children that were selected to work together and Stella happened to be selected for both the literacy and mathematics groups. Stella’s parents have declined to have her tested.)
Monday, 11 August 2008
Reading and Writing: My Thoughts on Stella’s Journey
Witnessing how Stella blossomed into the avid reader that she is today was amazing. It not only feels great that I was able to offer Stella’s parents suggestions and encouragement throughout the journey, I feel wonderful that they had taken the time to consult me! That means a lot to me. Teaching a child to read is something that I really enjoy looking into. Every Winter when there is less happening outside, I find myself sitting at my desk trying to figure out a magical way for children to learn to read English. Cameron seems to think that I have a bit of an obsession with this. Funnily everything is packed up for another year when Spring arrives. The deep desire to solve the literacy problem vanishes, replaced by the desire to enjoy the sunny days outdoors and on figuring out how to teach the wonders of our Universe to little children.
I am pretty sure that I have mentioned in the past my wish to blog about how Stella learned to read. Well, this is the final instalment and I have been so long winded that it ended up being a 5 part series! Hopefully, this didn’t put anyone off my blog permanently. Do leave me a comment if you have enjoyed it. Please don’t judge me too harshly for I was not born a professional writer. One reason that I have a blog is for me to improve on my own self expression.
I am pretty sure that I have mentioned in the past my wish to blog about how Stella learned to read. Well, this is the final instalment and I have been so long winded that it ended up being a 5 part series! Hopefully, this didn’t put anyone off my blog permanently. Do leave me a comment if you have enjoyed it. Please don’t judge me too harshly for I was not born a professional writer. One reason that I have a blog is for me to improve on my own self expression.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
A Return to Stability
June was a busy month for me but July was like a roller coaster. The month (July) started with Bree getting better from a nasty bout of ear infection. On the day after Stella and her parents jetted off to New Zealand, Grandma Ettie arrived and my long awaited short break started. Then I returned to work on the day before the start of Stella’s 3rd term. I looked after both girls from Monday – Thursday for two weeks and then it was time for Bree to go to Buller with her parents on the 25th. I had only Stella to look after all week last week but because she attends school, I only looked after her for a few hours each day.
We are beginning a new month this week. It looks like we are returning to some kind of stability again. I will be working from Monday – Friday for two weeks and from Monday – Thursday for the other two weeks. This is pretty much the typical arrangement for most of this year. I am so glad that this Friday is one of the two Fridays I don’t have to work. Cameron and I have planned to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics in China. We hope that things will be smooth sailing for them. Stella’s parents did originally plan to take the Supergirl to China for the Olympics but plans changed and they ended up taking her to New Zealand during her school holidays.
I have been blogging mainly about Stella lately. So for a change, I will blog more about Bree this month but this will have to wait till I finish blogging about Stella’s literacy journey. In terms of regularity, I hope to write at least 10 posts this month. I no longer have the desire to post more often than that.
We are beginning a new month this week. It looks like we are returning to some kind of stability again. I will be working from Monday – Friday for two weeks and from Monday – Thursday for the other two weeks. This is pretty much the typical arrangement for most of this year. I am so glad that this Friday is one of the two Fridays I don’t have to work. Cameron and I have planned to watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics in China. We hope that things will be smooth sailing for them. Stella’s parents did originally plan to take the Supergirl to China for the Olympics but plans changed and they ended up taking her to New Zealand during her school holidays.
I have been blogging mainly about Stella lately. So for a change, I will blog more about Bree this month but this will have to wait till I finish blogging about Stella’s literacy journey. In terms of regularity, I hope to write at least 10 posts this month. I no longer have the desire to post more often than that.
Monday, 4 August 2008
Reading and Writing: Stella’s Journey (Part 4)
Stella had become progressively more skilful at digging out the sounds of and building simple words, but it took a tad longer for her to reverse that process so that she could read. I personally did wonder if this was because she was having trouble identifying some of the letters. In fact, I found out later on that she had trouble (on & off) identifying letters like ‘b’, ‘p’, ‘q’ and this was even after she knew how to read simple words. Mixing up these letters is quite common among young children.
Reading did happen eventually. It happened just as suddenly as she discovered ‘writing’. This time, we virtually heard the big ‘Ka-Chink’ from within her head when she suddenly discovered what blending was all about. Stella was in the middle of a late breakfast that very day. I had only just arrived for the day and her parents were busy getting ready to head off to work when she pointed to the cereal box and slowly said, “Kellogg’s”. Sceptics may think that Stella was just recognising a popular brand name but in the days following this first attempt, she began to read more and more words. She was hungry for words to read, looking everywhere for them. Unfortunately, this new found fun activity didn’t last long because not all English words are phonetic. The situation was also further aggravated because her parents stopped the ‘reading lessons’ temporarily due to their busy schedule. This period also coincided with two holiday trips (one to Indonesia and another one to Buller). When she no longer found it fun to just point out simple words in books and proudly read them out loud, she gave up trying and went in search of other great things to do. She had wanted to truly read a whole book by herself but words that can’t be sounded out easily and words with vowels that she had yet been taught were popping up everywhere, ruining the fun for her.
After a long break, the ‘reading lessons’ commenced again. In the days after Stella’s involvement in a fight at Kindergarten, she became quite clingy. Her mother saw that her playful self was returning when she was learning to play the UNO her father bought that she decided to play a game of revising the letters and sounds Stella already knew. Surprisingly, Stella enjoyed that and took up the invite to learn more but the process was slower at the start because all she wanted to do at that time was to play UNO. LOL. She loved that game to bits and still does.
Stella’s mum began by introducing the rest of the sounds that weren’t taught yet. It was a slow process involving plenty of revision to make sure that she didn’t forget the ones she had learned earlier. Armed with a book of mine containing a list of suitable words, Stella’s mum made lists of words for Stella to read. Each list focused on one sound and was then made up of other words sharing that same sound but spelled differently. It is from such lists that a child learns that sounds for spelling patterns like ‘f’ and ‘ph’ are the same and only the more common spelling patterns are introduced. All of the lists were filed neatly into a binder. Stella would take it out to read every now and then on her own. Her confidence to try sounding out a word increased tremendously after this. Another thing that had also helped Stella in reading picture books was a basic list of useful sight words.
By the end of last year (approaching the beginning of this year), Stella began to read better than before. She even dug out and read aloud books that she deemed too babyish earlier. She continued to enjoy being read to but she also preferred to co-read a picture book with another person. You could tell that she was really reading and not reciting like she used to. Today, Stella is beginning to read short chapter books at home. She also enjoys reading books (especially non-fiction) she borrows from the school library. The readers from school are a different story altogether. She kept coming home with readers that were way too easy but she reads them dutifully through. LOL. The content of some of these readers were so dull that sometimes Stella’s dad encourages her to pick something else to read when it is his turn to listen to her reading in the evenings.
Reading did happen eventually. It happened just as suddenly as she discovered ‘writing’. This time, we virtually heard the big ‘Ka-Chink’ from within her head when she suddenly discovered what blending was all about. Stella was in the middle of a late breakfast that very day. I had only just arrived for the day and her parents were busy getting ready to head off to work when she pointed to the cereal box and slowly said, “Kellogg’s”. Sceptics may think that Stella was just recognising a popular brand name but in the days following this first attempt, she began to read more and more words. She was hungry for words to read, looking everywhere for them. Unfortunately, this new found fun activity didn’t last long because not all English words are phonetic. The situation was also further aggravated because her parents stopped the ‘reading lessons’ temporarily due to their busy schedule. This period also coincided with two holiday trips (one to Indonesia and another one to Buller). When she no longer found it fun to just point out simple words in books and proudly read them out loud, she gave up trying and went in search of other great things to do. She had wanted to truly read a whole book by herself but words that can’t be sounded out easily and words with vowels that she had yet been taught were popping up everywhere, ruining the fun for her.
After a long break, the ‘reading lessons’ commenced again. In the days after Stella’s involvement in a fight at Kindergarten, she became quite clingy. Her mother saw that her playful self was returning when she was learning to play the UNO her father bought that she decided to play a game of revising the letters and sounds Stella already knew. Surprisingly, Stella enjoyed that and took up the invite to learn more but the process was slower at the start because all she wanted to do at that time was to play UNO. LOL. She loved that game to bits and still does.
Stella’s mum began by introducing the rest of the sounds that weren’t taught yet. It was a slow process involving plenty of revision to make sure that she didn’t forget the ones she had learned earlier. Armed with a book of mine containing a list of suitable words, Stella’s mum made lists of words for Stella to read. Each list focused on one sound and was then made up of other words sharing that same sound but spelled differently. It is from such lists that a child learns that sounds for spelling patterns like ‘f’ and ‘ph’ are the same and only the more common spelling patterns are introduced. All of the lists were filed neatly into a binder. Stella would take it out to read every now and then on her own. Her confidence to try sounding out a word increased tremendously after this. Another thing that had also helped Stella in reading picture books was a basic list of useful sight words.
By the end of last year (approaching the beginning of this year), Stella began to read better than before. She even dug out and read aloud books that she deemed too babyish earlier. She continued to enjoy being read to but she also preferred to co-read a picture book with another person. You could tell that she was really reading and not reciting like she used to. Today, Stella is beginning to read short chapter books at home. She also enjoys reading books (especially non-fiction) she borrows from the school library. The readers from school are a different story altogether. She kept coming home with readers that were way too easy but she reads them dutifully through. LOL. The content of some of these readers were so dull that sometimes Stella’s dad encourages her to pick something else to read when it is his turn to listen to her reading in the evenings.
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