Time Spent on Homework & Its Correlation with PISA Results

Recently I read an article about how much time a week the Singaporean kids spend on doing homework:

http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/education/story/singapore-ranks-third-globally-time-spent-homework-20141225

If students spends 2 hours a day on homework, Monday to Friday, for 5 days it makes up to 10 hours a week, and they are free on weekends. This doesn't sound too excessive to me.

There are 168 hours a week, and 10 hours make up only 5.9% of it. If kids have a healthy amount of unstructured play time in a week too, why shouldn't they devote 6% of their time on homework? And besides homework can be fun and part of play too :-)

Too often the opposite is also true: children spend their days as if they are having 24 days of Advent Christmas everyday.

All work and no play makes Wei a dull boy. All play and no work makes Lars a dumb boy. The key here is balance.

I think the average 9.4 hours spent by students in Singapore is actually underestimated, as many receive tuitions on weekends as well.

Maths Curriculum During School Time

For Maths, we are currently using a few different medium (namely Chinese workbooks, Singapore Maths, Montessori, pretend play and iPad), currrently focusing on counting numbers 1-100 and simple addition.

 

1. Chinese Workbook

 

J loves to do his Chinese workbook best, because it is very colorful.

 

 

2. English Maths Workbook by Fairfield Publishers

 

J also loves this English Maths workbook, and is willing to do it, whenever I asked him.

It is colorful and present the materials in a simple, clear and progressive way. However, it is a little too simple, and does not equal to kindergarten kids' level in Singapore. Whenever, he refuses to do his Singapore Maths Assessment books, I will be contented with the Chinese workbook and this Maths workbook.

 

 

3. Montessori Maths

 

To make it more interesting and for manipulative, I included Montessori Maths in our Maths School Time. Usually we will do at least a page of Maths workbook a day, and when Mommy has more time, we will work on Montessori. Currently, we are on Hundred Board, not because J is still struggling with this, but because I don't have the time to look into other Montessori Maths activities yet. Also because I think J still needs to revise his numbers 1-100.

 

I like the way Montessori making abstract Maths concept very concrete for the children, and I like the fact that it allow the child to touch and move numbers that a workbook could not.



 

 

4. Singapore Maths Workbook by EPH

 

This is the Singapore Kindergarten Maths. It is very comprehensive, creative and covers many ground in a clear, simple and very easy to understand and follow manner for the child (no wonder Singapore kids score so high in PISA). However, it is very boring, because it is black and white, and the illustrations are not as attractive as the above Chinese and Maths workbooks.

 

Singapore keeps the cost down by making it black-and-white and covers many things in a page, so that as many masses can afford it as possible. But for the less self-motivated children and the late developers, a more expensive and colorful presentation would really help a lot.

 

I am using this, because I think it is important to train a child to be self-discipline, and not just rely on fun and interesting workbook.

 

Also because I do not want J to fall too far behind the kindergarten-age kids in Singapore... So, if he is willing to do one page a week, I will be contented. But if he only does 1 page a week, he will surely fall behind the Singapore kids. But it is a fact that I have to accept, living in Denmark.

 

 

 

5. Grocery Store Pretend Play

Learning Maths through Grocery Store Pretend Play is what J prefers the most. In order not to squash his interest in learning, I also included such fun game, and hope to increase it as far as time permit (I am after all a working woman, even though I have now started to work part-time! Oh how I wish to be a stay-at-home-mom!)

 

6. iPad Maths Application

I recently started letting him learn Maths using iPad. He is usually the most motivated using the iPad. But I don't think iPad can replace the workbooks, because it is not so comprehensive enough. It is good as a supplement.

 

I think I am crazy wanting to have it all - workbooks, Montessori, pretend play and iPad. But I think they each have their strengths and weaknesses and they each serve their purpose. Now the challenge is how I can pull it through and have the wisdom to know when does what. It is daily praying to God to help me through, and to correct the effects, when I make mistakes.

 

Whenever I am too much into something, God would send people to remind me. Whenever I forgot something, God would also send people to give me ideas how to move things forward. For example, for some time last year, I did not do any Montessori at all. I was just frozen. Then God sent this overseas colleague that I met at a workshop. She started talking about her kids (who are now grown) doing Montessori. That I knew, but I have somehow forgot.

 

But as J grows, I have forgotten to tidy and update the Montessori storage that led me to laziness and dread, each time I have to prepare an activity, and as such I stopped doing it. That led me to organize J's playroom and making a Montessori corner as our Montessori Classrooom.

 

She suggested that I display everything out simple and neatly in the shelf and let J pick. She suggested that I should just start playing and working with Montessori materials myself, and slowly J would be curious and would want to know more. Then I could demonstrate.

 

Oh I truly thank God for His gentle reminders and ideas, through people He put in my path. I am still not doing everything right and I am still not doing everything perfect, but God is helping me through day-by-day as I continue to learn to rely on Him and trust Him. That brings much peace-of-mind.

School Time: Letter "D"

J (3Y10M25D). We matched the "d" mini figurines with the "d" pictures in the flash card:

We picked out the letter "d" magnet and listened to its sound on the Leap Frog Letter Factory

We picked out the letter "d" card from among others

We read the book on "My "d" Sound Box

We matched the "d" figurines from our own "Sound box" with the pictures in the "Sound Box" book:

We counted the number of letter "d" found in the book:

We practiced tracing small letter "d" from the workbook we bought from Singapore:

We practiced tracing capital letter "D" from the workbook we bought from Singapore:

Others:

We did the Addition with Number Rods.

We read an English Bible story.

We revised the Chinese characters for household objects.

We revised the piano letters and did piano finger exercise.

References:

School Time/Skoletid/上课时间 - Letter f

Duration: 6.15 - 8pm (1 hour 45 mins)

Montessori Time:

I plan to introduce 3 letters a week every alternating day. Today, we traced the sandpaper letter f and went through the f sound strip from Brilliant Minds Montessori:

We did the pre-handwriting activity of drawing lines with thick markers:

 

 

 

 

To introduce some variation and to reinforce the letter f, we traced letter f with from 1+1+1=1 with playdough instead. Tracing it with the playdough seems to be a big hit and more effective than stamping and sticking stickers as Joshua paid more attention and tried hard to place the playdough and form it into the shape of f to place it within the line. I have made a mental note of it and will try to use playdough for "tracing" letters:

 



 

Joshua requested to play more with playdough. So I gave him 10 more minutes on the timer. When the bell rang, I asked him to clean up. It was a good day today - he helped to put all the molds back into the container and made these figurines (but I helped him with the last one):

 

 

Blanket Time:

We read a Bible Story for children with the letter f from The Baby Bible ABCs board book (as well as letter e story although it was not part of today's plan, but Joshua requested for it):

 

 

 

 

We read a Chinese book about classroom, and we compared it to the classroom of Joshua's Chinese class on Saturday to make it relevant for him:

 

 

Desk Time:

We did sound-to-letter matching letter cmf worksheet where Joshua identifed for example the picture of the cat by name of the letter, etc. He didn't quite understand the concept of this worksheet, but after a few examples, he got the hang of it and began to realise that all these things start with the letter. I think such worksheets help reinforce the sandpaper letter learning and it is of a great help - one of the strengths of Brilliant Minds Montessori's concept:

 

 

 

We did a sheet of the Chinese workbook:

 

 

Quiet Time:

We read the letter f verse from The ABC Bible Verse Book:

  

  

 

 

Additional Information:

So far so good. Today has been good. Joshua (3Y6M19D) seems to be slowly getting into the habit of following curriculum. I hope this will continue into a good habit for both him and me. We followed the curriculum is from Brilliant Minds Montessori:

 

 

School Time/Skoletid/上课时间

Duration: 7 - 7.30pm (30 mins)

Montessori Time:

We are slowly getting more organized and I think it is about time that we follow a curriculum. I bought the Brillant Minds Montessori Reading and Writing Kit Program and started the first lesson yesterday.

Today, we did the pre-handwriting activity of drawing lines with thick markers. We did it on the mat, but I will slowly transit it to the desk. The program advises that this exercise should be repeated daily, and provided a CD of worksheets (As it is copyright protected, I could not share them here). We will try. So far today, Joshua has enjoyed it a lot, but the novelty may wear off.

 

After drawing lines, we used the same sheet to paste pasta, another handwriting preparation spatial orientation and fine motor development lesson in the program. Joshua counted all the way to 24 while pasting the pasta. It has been fun for him:

 

 

 

To reinforce the letter C that we started yesterday and continuing with stickers, we traced letter C today with stickers from 1+1+1=1:



 

 

Blanket Time:

Joshua heard the story of the Little Red Riding Hood in Danish at his kindergarten today. Coordinating with his kindergarten, this evening I read him the same story in Chinese as part of our trilingualism pursuit:

 





 

Desk Time:

Joshua did one page of his Chinese worksheet today. He could have done more, but now that he has dropped his mid-day nap, he was overtired.

 

 

 

 

School Time/Skoletid/上课时间

Duration: 7 - 8pm (1 hour)

Montessori Time:

We revisted some Practical Life activities that he used to do when he was 2 years old - Funnelling water... at 3.5 years, Joshua has moved on to the challenge of pouring from adult size bottles, as the kid-size bottles no longer challenge him. Here he is pretending to pour orange juice. At this age, he is showing increasingly seriousness, concentration and sense of fulfillment in his work, compared to his attention span when he was 2 years old.

 Here is a video:

Blanket Time:

We read 2 books today. This is a Chinese book on Babapapa visiting other planets.





We read an English book on kangaroos.

Desk Time:

We did 3 pages of worksheets today. Continuing on the planet theme (this was unplanned and a good coincidence), Joshua did a counting and pasting stickers exercise on planets from his Chinese workbook. Here Joshua showing his victory sign for completing his homework:

More on counting and matching exercise:

Quiet Time:

Joshua chose this page, because it showed planets, continuing on the theme of planets. We tried to memorize a verse Genesis 1:1, but he wasn't too interested, prefering to recite Tang Dynasty poems. This I reckon is because English is his third language. I just have to be patient.