Friday, May 26, 2006

Look Out For The Impromptu Lessons

My excitement of being pregnant has been washed away by the daily discomfort of nauseousness, tiredness and headaches. My poor kids have been the victims of neglect. But they have also been very understanding. I hope they don't start to dislike baby. My son told me one afternoon “throw baby away because baby make you sick.” Sweet but a bit worrying.

Anyway, I feel quite guilty coz' I haven't been diligent in teaching them. Yes, they are going to “Mummy's School” for the time being. However, this has made me more alert in catching those “impromptu” lessons. Here are 2 examples:

  • Decided to go for a walk one night to ease off the discomforts. The streetlights were on casting shadows on the road. My girl comments “Hey, my shadow is almost as tall as yours.” (Blink, blink, lights go off in my head). We had an enjoyable discovery session about “shadows”. Here were some of the questions we explored:
    1. What makes the shadows? Light. Where there were no light, there were no shadows.
    2. How do you make it grow so small that it's right under your feet? Stand directly underneath the lightbulb.
    3. When is the shadow on our left / right / front / back?
    4. Does your shadow look like you? And does it do what you do?
  • Pointing to an envelope while introducing the letter sound /e/ to my son. Although an ordinary object, I suddenly wondered if he really knew what an envelope was for. I then talked about writing letters, putting stamps, writing the name and address on the envelope, posting it at the post office, and our friend the postman who delivers the letters. The children seemed pretty intrigued and now our project is to test if the system works. So, they decided they want to write to Grandma and see if she will really get the “envelope.”

So I guess the point of this blog is to remember that lessons are not only found in books. Let us not confine our children's learning to a desk. Life itself is full of lessons. We just have to awaken our senses to things that have become “ordinary” to us because to them, it may not be that "ordinary" afterall.

5 comments:

  1. Faboulous ideas! A few weeks more and hopefully you'll be feeling yourself again. *HUGS*

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  2. Good lesson. I'm sure your kids will be excited to receive a letter from grandma too :)

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  3. How very true. Things that we take for granted sometimes are a wonder and an amazement to them :)

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  4. Aiyah...lambat la...congrats on the new preg. Hope yuo will feel better soon;)

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  5. Min,
    Yes, I cannot wait to be able to eat like a normal person again.

    Geetha,
    Would have been a great lesson if the letter got finished. Hahaha. That's how it is with kids. Not everything we plan end up as we envisioned. My girl wrote the letter halfway and gave up.

    Mumsgather,
    It's fun to relive the amazement with them. But it sure does take effort to see things the way they do.

    mama22beas,
    Eh, bukan mama23beas kah? Belum lambat lagi, I still have long way to go (counting the minutes).

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