Weekly diary and "Zhou Ji"

[buds]

Show your DD, busymom!

Oh, she will be so thrilled!
Tell her i LOVE it! :hugs:

Eh, not reali... sometimes
i can say my IT knowledge
better than hubs.

[Busymom]

Hi Buds


Actually, while i wrote the message, the pic was inserted by my DH (kenna arrowed by me). :oops:

I see that my DH has now helped to enlarge the pic. Thanks once again, without your step-by-step guide, the 2 of us would probably get no where.

Sometimes, DH is worse than me when it comes to such things and I would say \"aren't men supposed to know all these?\"


Will show DD her work tonight!

[buds]

Poohbear:

Thanks so much Buds for your encouragement... i am sure i would not be able to do it without your countless encouraging advice... Im thankful i found KSP..:lovesite: and even more thankful for selfless mums who spend hours pouring out useful tips to help mums like me...

:thankyou:

You are very welcome, darling! :hugs:

I'm glad i found KSP too! Though i have less time to go on-site
volunteering of late, this comes close enough... Niwae we're all
here to share and cos we care. So i wanna help the KSP motto
and make sure we are not stupid too! Wuahahhaaa!

With the fast paced lifestyle of kid's education now, all parents
should know how to help our children ourselves. Especially for
those on single income like SAHMs, who with limited resources
can assist in small simple ways... but definitely not an
insignificant amount of time and effort. No matter whether we
are highly educated or lowly educated or not, we can always
learn new things to help our children. So i just hope my little
contributions can help some parents along in some way..

Cheerios!

Hope to see your children's work up soon, Poohbear!

[buds]

sphinx:

Hi BudsWhere did you get the days of the week stampers? How much does it cost? Thought of getting it for my boy.Thanks

Hi sweetie, i got mine from Popular some time back.
Neighbourhood stationery shops have it too! But i
honestly do not recall the price.. sorry about that.

PS : Btw, i have received your PM. Will get to it soon ya. Hope it's ok.. :oops:

[sphinx]

Thanks buds… Think must check out d other populars n bookstore outside my area…

[buds]

My pleasure... as always.

Hope you find it!

[ac23]

Hi bubs,

I really envy parent like u who able to spend time with yr kids.
BTW, do you have any ideas on how to encourage a P5 girl to start writting diary? Need your help…please!
Thanks!

[buds]

No need for envy lah.

Everyone has their own
happy portions in life. We
may have what another may
not have and vice versa. You may
have something i would love to have
if only you'd share too! It's how we try
to balance everything till it somehow works
for ourselves. For the choices that we make
come the result of it. Being SAHM is not easy
tho it seems we have all the time in the world.
If we do not balance our time adequately, the
days will just go by unproductively. My work with
my girls is still work in progress. And i do learn from
other parents here in this forum as well! We're all here
sharing ideas, exchanging ideas and learning from one another.

:celebrate:

[mrswongtuition]

ac23:

Hi bubs,

I really envy parent like u who able to spend time with yr kids.
BTW, do you have any ideas on how to encourage a P5 girl to start writting diary? Need your help.....please!
Thanks!

It's the same as inspiring them to start a journal in english. Can read my posts here to see what I do with my students for creative writing: http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4629&start=15

For older kids, it's better to let them take the pictures & let them write about it They'll prefer writing about it because they took the pictures

All you need is an exercise book, a camera (or camera phone), computer & colour printer

[buds]

A diary is a like a personal friend.


For upper primary girls it can be a
sanctuary where they can voice their
feelings and thoughts with their daily
goings-on of school, CCA, good friends
or even bullies. My girl sometimes write
about her friends and also crappy substitute
teachers... Ahakz! :lol: But i do agree with her
on one thing... she has a fabulous form teacher!

Here are some sharings from my DD1's diaries
and also as promised earlier, this is the second
part to my initial diary writing post.

As children grow older, their writing ideas matures
with their thoughts. My elder girl started off her diary
entry with a cute note : SECRET DIARY.

She says this is a book of secrets and only for her and
mummy to share. Daddy too if he wants to and also not
forgetting mei-mei. :love:

I bought her this new WINX CLUB diary with a small lock
and key, (mebbe that's why she wanted to write the words
'secret diary'... ) after she finished her previous diary
till the last page and coincidentally she did her revision of spelling
words very well. As she didn't know that she was gg to get this new
diary..... and the fact that she LOVED WINX CLUB so much at that
time..... she dedicated her first entry to her new prized possession.

http://www.postimage.org/

http://www.postimage.org/

To address the issue of the \"and then(s)\" first... :lol:
Hee... Just to share that mine does it too!

http://www.postimage.org/

Not to worry though, as this can be easily improved with introduction
to more conjunctions. I'll go into this later on...

As children will be exposed to school compositions and will be taught to
write in paragraphs, do introduce paragraphing even if it's 1 paragraph
at one time. Meaning to say that it can be a long entry for the day, but
only 1 paragraph was used. A paragraph has to be started with a
beginning sentence slightly a distance away from the margin. At this
stage parents can help them channel their thoughts aligning to the
standard 3-parts of writing composition. ie. beginning, middle and
ending; (or introduction, body & conclusion) where eventually the
paragraphing practice will take effect.

Here is a sample of her work with paragraphing.

http://www.postimage.org/

She drew pictures on her mini notepad on the way there and
also when she was at the venue itself. She pasted them in her
diary pages as well.

http://www.postimage.org/

http://www.postimage.org/

However just a point to note though... a diary need not be like a
creative writing piece like those they do in school. Oh no! Cos then
it wud be like a chore.... another piece of work to do. It should hold
as many memories of their growing up years as possible detailing
their lives as children. Happy children ideally..

http://www.postimage.org/

http://www.postimage.org/

As parents we can also introduce useful idioms and use of synonyms
too so as to encourage a broader usage of vocabulary in their writings,
as we go along reading their diaries together with them.

Diaries are also a good source of accounting...... of pocket money.
Children who already have pocket money can start accounting practice
already. For my then P1, it also helps with addition & subtraction practice
other than just to help them build their own piggy bank.

Here's how we started out...

http://www.postimage.org/

As she was younger then, she was pretty much more a visual counter
when it came to counting money. So, whatever she has in front of her
(concrete) she will translate it to paper (abstract) the same way, by
drawing out the coins. Another way wud be to shade on the coins!

http://www.postimage.org/

With daily practice, she has developed a more standardized form of
accounting using the Montessori addition process I've taught her to
work with.

http://www.postimage.org/

http://www.postimage.org/

http://www.postimage.org/

As she grew older, we did not have to prompt her entries anymore.
Her inputs were usually her own ideas and initiatives... till today.

http://www.postimage.org/

Diary writing is also a form of discipline just like showering and
brushing of teeth. When it is encouraged from young, it would come
as almost automatic for the child to write in the daily inputs.

Nowadays, good days or on bad days both DDs love to write in their
thoughts for the day..... everyday. So mummy and daddy have more
of their childhood days' stories to read when we're old and grey.....
and missing them greatly when they have their own family to care for.

Pictures do paint a thousand words... but the words coming from the
children themselves are priceless as well. We keep the diaries in our
family treasure box with all our other family keepsake. Boy our box
is bursting... :hugs: