Singapore National Day is coming up on 9 of August, and I am trying to teach Baby FECS and Little FECS this national song. This song was last year's National Day's theme song and is our niece, YQ's favorite song. She asked for this song during their visit in June during bedtime "hygge". It is also our favorite song. So we will try to learn to sing it by heart and remind us of our time together in June. Oh how I miss all of you :-)
There are so many things I have forgotten what to do, when caring for baby, as it was 7 years ago, since J was born. Just collating some useful baby care videos from Babycenter.com 1. How to burp your baby?
This is the Sound House in big version in J's school
This is the Sound House J made out of milk cartons during class :-)
This is how the Danish school teaches the alphabet phonics.
First, they start by teaching the children to write the letters, without teaching the sounds yet.
Next, they teach the sounds of the letters by telling a story.
It is a mystical story about how the Danish language, the letters and its sounds come about - a story about the letters came down to earth and reside in a Danish cottage. The whole Danish phonics method is thus called the sound house (lydhuset). They even have the Sound House in big version that the kids can enter and jump around in J's school :-)
The story and method of teaching is invented by a very experienced teacher at Engelsborgskolen, and it has been used in many schools, including J's school.
Here is the website introducing this method and the creator of the method itself:
Here the creator of the story is telling the story. At 00:07:32-53, you can hear how he sings the vowels:
Here is how the mouth looks when pronouncing the Danish vowels:
Since I am a foreigner, and since I could not rely on Daddy FECS to do it (he could not produce the sounds - it sounded all the same to me!!!). I have requested J's teacher to record the sounds of the vowels for me. Here she has recorded the Danish vowels specially for me at my request. Isn't she sweet :-) She gave me permission to share with other parents.
The Lip Family Consonants (Læbefamilien)
The Front Tongue Family Consonants (Fortungefamilien)
The Back Tongue Family Consonants (Bagtungefamilien)
If only I am taught English phonics the way it is taught to children, I wouldn't have to fall asleep in class, and struggled so much to learn English, when I was in primary school in Singapore!!!
19 November 2015 (6Y7M14D): Completion of the Danish phonics Sound House project and learning. The whole class posing with the Sound House (Lydhuset). The whole class were given a test in order to "graduate" (which is very unusual to have test at Primary 0 in Denmark). While I am still struggling mastering the Danish phonics, all the kids did very well :-)
We watched the SG50 NDP with our Little FECS, and he was very interested in those songs and also the matching parade. So I have compiled this song here to learn with him.
Our Little FECS is getting better and better at multiplication. He understood the concept and could count out. Now is a good time to memorize it.
Incidentally, the Danish kids memorizing the time-table through songs in his school. Here the Primary 5 girls presenting the Danish 6-time-table song during J's school's assembly.
What a good timing :-) His school also sings other time table songs during school assembly.
In the first 10 mins of the video, you get a peep on a typical day in primary school in China and Taiwan... (sorry, this video is in Mandarin)
Our Little FECS loves to see this video a lot... it inspires him to be disciplined in class. This video is shown in the Chinese class in Denmark - thanks to my friend, Yang Li.
It is a little hilarious how the video teaches the kids to use traditional squat toilet, that is no longer in use anymore :-)
Their method of teaching Maths using manipulatives for sensory learning is rather Montessori-inspired... which is quite impressive, showing China and Taiwan is moving away from the traditional method of teaching Maths, and going for the modern method. Singapore in this aspects is falling a little behind.
Sweet Daddy made breakfast for us, while I slowly got out of bed. Daddy joined us at church today, yipee!
2 Nov 2014 - Family Meeting Night (FMN). We started FMN today with Florian playing Lego with Joshie, while I got dinner ready.
Today marked a chapter of our Family Meeting Night, since we started about 7 months ago on 23 Feb 2014. We started our Family Meeting Night with reading Farfar's book 7 months ago, and today, we finished reading it again. This book will have a special memory and place in our heart, as it is the first book we chosen for our FMN.
We encouraged Joshie to play a piece (called Cuckoo) for us at our FMN.
During the darkest moments in my life, the Word of God that came to mind had been a source of strength, comfort and hope. The Word of God guides us through life, in times when courage is needed, in times of ethical dilemma, in time of confusion, in times of joy, in time of discouragement when wisdom is needed.
But how do we do it? We do it by hiding God's Word in our heart, so that it will bring to mind and we can draw upon it, when we need it. We hide it in our heart by memorizing it. And one of the most effective ways is memorizing it through songs.
I wish for J to hide God's Word in his heart, and we have been learning to sing some of the Bible Verse Songs. You can find a list of the songs and the melody here:
I am trying to find good time table songs to prepare J for the memorization of time tables, but it hasn't been easy to find. Many of the songs are rather cheesy, but I have made a list of the better ones, nevertheless:
In Deuteronomy 6:5-8, we are also called to hide God's Word in our child's heart:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads."
I have been wanting to memorize Bible verses with J, but it hasn't been so successful. He didn't find it so fun. Of course, I have forgotten - one of the best ways for children (and adults) to hide the Word of God in our hearts is the sing it. I believed the LORD reminded me of this method last evening.
So now I am very excited to compile a list of Bible memory verse songs to sing with J and will come back to update this post, whenever I found a new song:
We started with learning the Deuteronomy 6:5 song on 17 September. I sang it together with J, after reading the verse from the children's Bible. I chose this as the first song, as "Love the LORD your God" is the first commandment from God to put God first. J really enjoyed it, and we sang it again and again for a few times. It was fun, and there was no pressure to memorize it. Hopefully as we sing it more, it will stick in our heads and we would have memorized it :-) I started playing these songs in the car on the journey to the kindergarten on 18 September 2014.
Update 21 September 2014
Today Sunday is our rest day. I told J that we will rest and worship God. We sang this song together, and J was able to sing the whole song on his own. He really like all these songs. I thank God for it. May God continue to work in J's heart.
