Shichida Review Part 4

Little gal made very good progress when we attended the most recent Shichida lesson. She seems to be in a good mood and quickly run into the classroom and said "Hi" to the teacher and her classmate.

She was having fun playing the energy ball warm up game and managed to do it herself. Previously, I need to guide her along to rub her hands and making the gestures. During the lesson, she seems to be focusing attentively to what the teacher was teaching. When I practiced the tools with her, she was very interested and not easily irritated as before. One possibility could be she took nap before she attended the class so she was refreshed. Another reason could be there were only 3 students (including my gal) attending that day so less distraction. 

She really did very well that day. She participated in every activity, able to grasp quickly what was taught and seems to be enjoying herself. It was very different from the previous sessions we had. I think she likes the teacher. She gave her a hug at the end of the lesson.  

I was in a dilemma. I was actually thinking not to continue to the next term after Dec14 as she did not seems to like the lessons previously and also she will be starting her playgroup lesson at the childcare centre near our house in Jan15. In any case the childcare centre which I will be enrolling her will teach flashcards too. However now that she showed so much interest, I'm not sure if I should continue. 

When I discussed with bb, he was adamant of not continuing. He felt that the reason why our gal showed so much progress was due to my home practice with her. He don't have good opinion of Shichida after he attended once at J10. 

I have some reservations over this too. But I like to think that it is due to all factors - Shichida, development milestone and home practice. Without attending Shichida lessons, I wouldn't got the idea of home teaching and how to teach little gal. Although I did not follow all of Shichida methods and added in some of my own way. 

So to be fair, I think Shichida Method is effective and I don't regret my decision to enrol little gal into it. However now that I learnt some of the teaching methods and furthermore I'm not working, so I can spend more time for home teaching instead of spending about $300 plus every month for a weekly session. Which means each Shichida lesson with duration of 1hr 15mins cost about $75. Well that is very good money!  

It is different from childcare playgroup as she will be there for 1/2 day at first and can get to mingle and play with other kids to develop her social skills. 

I need to think through this and make my decision when we attend the next lesson. 

Flashcard practice

After I bought the flashcards. I used it almost everyday in my morning home practice. I flashed the cards quite slowly as a beginner and I noticed she seems to lose patience over my slow pace.

She stayed interested for the first 10 cards, then wandered off after that. I stopped the flashcards once she showed the lack of interest as I felt that even if I continued flashing the cards, she also wouldn't be interested and I didn't want to force upon her too. Yes although the PEC course taught that we should continue flashing, but knowing my gal, I don't want her to lose the interest in flashcards if I did it too forcefully. Also, I don't really like the idea of flashing the cards without any audience too.

After that I tried to practice flashing cards in front of the mirror and flash the cards faster. When I tried it on the next day, it worked. She managed to stay interested when I flashed half of the Daily used flashcards but lost patience again after that.

So when I tried to flash cards on the 3rd day. She managed to stay engaged for all the 72 cards of the Daily used flashcards, but lost interest when I proceed on to the Numbers Set. So everyday I will try to flash the cards, and we made progress day by day. In the most recent practice we did, she managed to stay engaged when I flashed the Daily use 72 card and Numbers cards set.

I'm not sure how much she absorbed and what would be the output. However I noticed she was able to focus and stayed attentive when I flashed the cards. So that is quite a good progress to me I think.

Flashcards

I was quite resistant with Flashcards previously. After attending the PEC course with Shichida and hearing some sharings from another parent about the importance of flashing the cards, I thought it is no harm giving it a try.

I searched online for some cheap sources to buy flashcards or if I can DIY myself. However the cost of the flashcards was not cheap. Furthermore it does not have what I want of having both english and chinese. Most of the time I need to buy 2 sets for english and chinese which cost me double. The cheapest set of flashcards (alphabets, encyclopedia, numbers etc) which I found online (Qoo10) would cost me about $80-$100+++ which is out of my budget.

Therefore DIY flashcards seems to be the way so I can decide on the images on the flashcards and the language as well. I came across this blog Mummyhomeschool by a SAHM sharing how to make flashcard which I think is pretty good. Unfortunately my printer has some problem printing coloured pictures and can only print in black and white. Therefore DIY seems not feasible for me as I preferred to have the flashcard showing real images instead of cartoonish images. In addition, it is not cost effective to spend few hundred dollars to buy a coloured printer just for this too.

Finally, I managed to find some nice and cheaper flashcards sets at Popular bookstore. I bought 3 sets - Daily used products (72 cards, with English & Chinese words), Alphabets (40 cards, Eng & Chi) & Numbers (40 cards, Eng) - total 152 cards and it only cost me about S$25 (after discount). Best of all, all the cards have real images with english and chinese words and quality were quite good too.

Here's how it looks like.

The front of the card shows the picture. Behind the card shows the description in both English and Chinese. This is what I wanted.

For the ABC set, similarly behind the picture showed the wording in both English & Chinese.

The alphabets were separate cards from the pictures. But one thing I don't like is the alphabets also both sides. For instance, behind the alphabet A card is alphabet B. It makes it more troublesome when flashing the cards.

For the numbers set, behind the numbers showed the pictures which I think is good cos it showed the meaning of the number in graphic.

I am very pleased with the flashcards I bought in Popular. Cheap and good! I figured that I am only buying for trial so no point spend so much on the flashcards. If the results are good, I may buy other sets of different theme.

My Home Practice Classroom!

From the inspiration of Shichida, I DIY a home practice board. I called it my gal's name classroom.

Using recycle materials like cork board, cardboard, waste paper and coloured paper I created something which cost me almost nothing. The only cost which I spent doing the board is the additional velcro which I bought from Daiso and cost only $2 for 1 big piece! I bought 2 pieces so it cost me $4 to do up this board.

Those cork board, cardboard and coloured paper were my collection from my recycle project accumulated through the years. I figured that these items still looks good and it is a waste to throw it away. And yes, it finally come to use. I always like to recycle stuff.

Here's my humble creation :)

I can put up the topics which I will be teaching and place the teaching tools and materials onto the velcro freely. Cos my gal likes Dora, so I used Dora stickers on the board and on the teaching materials to stimulate her interest.  

For the shapes, I will ask my gal to paste the shapes onto the board. At first, she messed it up, but recently when I practice with her, she was able to paste the shapes correctly.

I like to add Chinese words in the teaching materials. She needs to learn Chinese too as it is our roots and important language of the future.

My library of topics includes colours, opposites, weather, feelings, actions, animals, vegetables, fruits and many more. It was quite fun doing all these. I enjoyed it too. It was n years since I did art and craft and colouring. It seems like yesterday.

Every weekday morning, I will conduct this home practice class with her on different topics in my study room. I know she is looking forward to it cos every morning she will knock on my study room door (which I always keep it close) and wanted to go in. I tried to keep the session short at 1hr and do it in the morning after she wakes up and have her milk cos I figured morning is the best time for learning.

I did not follow Shichida class topics strictly. I only follow certain topics like the energy ball (which my gal loves it), singing songs, memory linking and recently flashcards. The rest will be the playing with the board.

Afternoon time after her nap will be playing or going out which I will be bringing her to playground or library or playing games with her at home. Evening time will be story books reading before she goes to sleep.

I will give her a break on weekend cos that is usually the time the 3 of us will go out when bb is not working.

Depending on her progress, I will make adjustment to her morning classroom program. That's the best thing about home teaching I think.

Shichida PEC course

I attended the Shichida PEC course (it is a compulsory course for parent to attend) last month to learn about Shichida teachings and how to practice the learnings at home.

They explained why certain activities were conducted during the class and the rationale behind it. The course was expensive at around $200 for one parent and it only covers 2 sessions (3hrs each session). It is refundable if the child completed 12 months with Shichida.

I missed the first lesson as I forgot about it and only managed to attend the 2nd one. During the session, they showed some videos about how the children performed (e..g ability to memorise linking memory cards within minutes), shared about the values of Shichida method, taught us how to conduct home practice with the child and lastly, gotten a parent to share her experiences with Shichida.

I felt it is good that they shared the rationale of why the practices were done. It gave me a better understanding and more receptive to what was taught during the class like the flashcards.

According to them, by flashing the flashcard at high speed, it stimulates the child right brain and learning. Even though sometimes the child appear to be distracted and not looking at the flashcards, we should continue to flash as they are still listening and learning. They taught us not to doubt our child's ability and be patience for the output. The parent who shared with us also emphasize the importance of flashcards and that is the most important practice we should do with our child.

Although I am skeptical about the effectiveness of flashcards, but nonetheless decided to give it a try since there is no harm. Furthermore there was true life sharing about the effectiveness of the flashcards by the parent.

During the session, they also shared Shichida values of teaching which I totally agreed.  


1) Have 0 expectation of your child.

2) Don't be a perfectionist.

3) Take the child who she is.

4) Always look at the good things she did

5) Don't compare

6) Don't take academic achievement as the priority

As parents we often fall into the mind trap of wanting our child to excel academically and as a result causing stress to the child. I tried to tell myself to avoid this thinking although I understand it is difficult because all parents wants their child to do well, in Chinese 望子成龙. What matters most to me is she grows up happily, healthily, be a good nature child, have compassion and care for others and doing and learning what she loves best.  

Back to the course review, I felt this course is useful and I really like the idea of such sharings to equip the parent to teach the child at home. But honestly speaking, this course could have been done better.

I felt the Shichida teachers who conducted the PEC course was not well prepared as I expected to be. Firstly, the information in the booklet they gave about the different home practices was not comprehensive. The teachers were flashing the presentation slides supposedly to be similar to what was written in the booklet, but some info which they presented was not found in the booklet at all. I noticed other parents also flipping through the book trying to find the info but couldn't find as well.

The teachers didn't seem to be aware and kept telling us to refer to the booklet as all information presented can be found inside the booklet but it is not true. It showed a lack of preparation as they are not aware of what was written in the booklet. When they tried to demonstrate how to flash the cards, some of the cards were mixed up and they took some time to sort it out. It again showed a lack of preparation.

I think what they could do is to provide supplementary notes to the booklet for those missing information as the course was conducted in quite a fast pace. There was lack of time to take down the missing notes (I think that was because they thought the information was in the book but in fact not). The supplementary notes wouldn't cost much too. I had written it in the feedback form too. Hopefully they will improved upon it.

As for the video showing the children reciting the linking memory cards, it looked very impressive at first as they were able to recite 40-50 items within minutes. However the problem is, they murmured or chanting through the words so fast that to be frank I can't even hear clearly what they said and if what they said were correct. After the child completed the recitation of the linking memory cards, they all looked so relief. That relief look on each child's face still leaves a deep impression in me - the stress they are facing of doing this and they are very young kids.

The refreshment provided was very simple. They just bought some cake rolls from some bakery shops downstairs and cut into very small pieces to share among a group of about 80-100 parents? Not even a simple light refreshment catering (e.g. finger food like mini sandwich, samosa and etc) which just cost a few dollars per person. Come on, the course fees are not cheap. Imagine parents come straight after work without dinner?

In addition, they are promoting a lot for their teaching materials which again not cheap.

I actually quite like their teaching values and concept. In fact this is the reason why I sign up with them. However, I felt they have been too focus about making money and saving cost on the minor things which really puts me off.

Little gal @ 20 months development milestones on 6Nov14!

6Nov14 (Thurs) - it was a breakthrough in her development to us.

Firstly, when we bring her to her grandma house, as usual she made a mess out of the toys offered to her. Previously we been trying to teach her how to tidy up after playing, but she would refused and keep saying "No No No".

Surprisingly on that day, when I asked her to pick up the toys and put inside the cupboard which keep the toys, she obediently picked up every one of the toys which she scattered all over the floor and tried to organise them in the cupboard. The whole thing took about 15mins but she did it one by one patiently without our help. I was so surprised and happy cos previously she never did it and refused whenever I asked her to. Well, that was a milestone to me!

Secondly, when we went home and let her play at the playground downstairs, she went to the staircase and tried to climb up the stairs. She was able to climb up to 5th storey by holding on to the rails and climbed down all by herself. Then after she got the hang of it, she climbed up the stairs again, and this time, she climbed all the way up above 10 over storey! So in total she climbed more than 20 storey on that day!

Both bb and I were so shocked. We didn't expected it and thought she would give up after climbing up to 5th storey again. But she persevered and climbed all the way up to above 10th floor without our help. Climbing 10 over storey is already a challenge for us but for a young toddler at 20months, she managed to do it by herself!

I felt that these 2 were major milestones she achieved and wanted to blog it to record this special day.

Little gal, if you read this blog in the future, Daddy and Mummy wanna let you know that we were so proud of you!

Little gal development progress - 20 months

At 20 months, I am surprised with my gal's development. 

Expression

She can expressed herself now by saying simple words of what she wants. E.g. She will say "shoe" or "Out" if she wants to go out. She will say “开” if she wants you to open something. With some prompting, she will say "Please, 开". She will say “谢谢” when being offered a cookie (but need some prompting). She will say "soup" when she wants to drink soup. She will say "Bread" if she wants to eat bread. She will say "Nice!" if the food taste good and many others. 

Memory

She has very good memory and can remember what you teach her and relate back when you ask her. For instance, I read to her a book about feelings and how to express surprise 1-2 months ago. Recently I read to her another book also about feelings but with a different surprise expression. When I asked her what is surprise, she expressed her surprise similar to the first book she read instead of the recent book. She is like a sponge, absorbing what was taught to her the first time. 

Understanding

She likes to listen to our conversations and can also understand very well what we are talking about. For instance, when I was discussing with my mom to bring her out, she immediately go to her shoe rack, point to her shoe and say "shoe" and stand at the door waiting to go out. 

She can name the pictures in the book when I point to her and ask her what is it. Things she can name clearly are Dog, cat, mouse, cow, apple, ant, fly, arrow, bear, boat, car, bus, ball, balloon, baby, bag, bib, card, cake, egg, duck, flower, fork, spoon, hat, heart, book, pig, shoe, clothes, train, and etc. 

She is better at pronouncing simple words with 1-2 syllabus. She can't pronounce words with 3 syllabus yet. However she can understand most of it and point to the picture or item when I asked her. E.g. when I asked where is the umbrella? She will go look for her umbrella and bring it to me although she can't pronounce it yet.

Name body parts

She can name clearly and point to her body parts (Eyes, ears, mouth, nose, toes, arm, hand). 

Basic Opposites

She can say "Up" and "Down" and raise her hands when up and put down her hands when down. She can identify if the things she touch is cold or hot. 

She knows "Big" and "Small" but not able to say out yet. But she demonstrated her understanding by expanding her hands when I asked her what is big and narrowing her hands when I asked her what is small. 

She also knows who is a boy or girl. She will point to a boy and say "Boy!" and point to herself when I asked her where's the girl. 

Motor skills

1. Drink from cup

She is able to drink from a cup (not sippy cup) independently now with minimal spilling and finished every drop of it. She can also feed herself but still got tendency to spill the food all over her. With more practice, I believe she will be able to feed independently in no time.



2. Walk up & down the stairs

She can walk up the stairs to 5th storey and walk down by holding on to the rails. I have to admit that even I have difficulty catching up with her.



3. Throw, roll and kick the ball

She knows the difference between throw, roll and kick the ball and can do it when being prompted.



4. Riding scooter

She can ride a scooter now by herself in a slow pace. Not racing stage yet.



Follow instructions

She is able to listen and follow instructions very well. For example, she can pick up the correct thing and bring to you when being told to.




Loves to read

She loves to read and every night before she goes to bed, she will go into the bedroom automatically and find her books and ask me to read to her by pulling my hands and point to the books. When I am not reading to her, she will flip the book pages and try to read it herself.




Likes & dislikes

She starts to develop her own personality and likes and dislikes. For example when my mom tried reading to her, she refused and say "no no no" (cos my mom don't understand the book and anyhow read, and she knows it!). But she is ok when I or her daddy read to her.



When I sing to her, she will be very happy and start dancing by spinning around. But when my mom or aunt sings to her, she will stop and sulk (cos my mom and aunt sing out of tune and she knows it!).


What surprised me is she actually knows and will listen to you if she thinks you knows your stuff well. So she is starting to be aware of what is right or wrong and good or bad. I think she got a very positive and serious attitude towards learning.


I'm not sure how the other children of same age progressed. I read articles before that some very intelligent kid can read all alphabets by the age of 1 year old. My gal may not be in that league but I am happy and satisfied with her development every day bit by bit.


What matters most to me is she grows up happily, healthily, be a good nature child, have compassion and care for others and doing and learning what she loves best.