Caitlin has some holiday homework to do for the week off school, from (as far as I can see- gotta check her bag/books) 3 subjects of English, Malay and Chinese. Each of them have a date on the homework pages for respective dates of the week- yes, the teachers are pacing the kids so that they have homework each of the holidays.

Hot Mummee and I are of the opinion that Caitlin, whilst it’s a lazy-ish Saturday afternoon, that she can do as much of them as she can, even to have them all completed. Caitlin on the other hand, quite vehemently objects, saying that she should follow the pace that the teachers have set, to listen to what the teachers have told the class.

HM herself thinks that Caitlin is just being lazy, whereas I was seated beside her surfing whilst she was quite happily completing the homework that was set for the first few days- so I know she isn’t lazy per se.

What would you do? I kinda respect Caitlin’s respect for what the teachers have said, despite also somewhat agreeing with HM’s rationale to complete her homework early in the holidays.

One of the comics that sticks in my head is Peanuts: Charlie Brown & Snoopy, Linus & his security blanket, characters whose heads are way too big for their bodies.

I guess it’s not just the Peanuts specifically- I think in all comics & cartoons that, whenever a character is concentrating on a task, be it while writing, drawing, cutting, etc, that the character is drawn with his/her tongue out, as if in the midst of licking the upper lip. It seems like a universally accepted comic-body-language.

I have always wondered about this, even consciously stuck my tongue out hoping that my homework, drawing, whatever, would turn out nicer or better than usual. It didn’t work.

Then, I saw this only last night.

If you stick your tongue out, your work isn’t necessarily going to be good. But if you concentrate on the task at hand, the tongue comes out.

Try it.

Sorry for the quality of these photos. They are actually still frames from a video that I took of Caitlin’s tongue action with my iPhone- I freeze-framed these shots and screen captured them.

No I haven’t played them back to her yet. Hot Mummee just suggested that I do, and highlight this to her before she gets older and where kids are mean!

• Lots of colouring
• Math: Colouring the corresponding number of objects and repeated writing of numbers 1-8 at this point. It’s amazing that while Caitlin handled writing number 8 quite well, her number 2 is still problematic.
• English: Colouring the corresponding object which first letter is the repeated writing one.

  

• Mandarin: Colouring the corresponding object to which the Chinese calligraphy refers and repeated writing of that word; earlier in the year practise just the strokes that make up a calligraphy word. We are up to writing number 4 now; she already knows how to say 1 – 10

Of course with all these new “words”, she also needs to remember how to read / say / pronounce it.

On top of that, she does still come home with the sporadic artworks, usually done in school.

She also has books with 3-4 sentences per page, aimed at letting the kids recognise the words…..

These days, from the back child seat, she does already exclaim whatever she can read off the billboards she spots.

“Daddee! That’s a ‘six’ and a ‘zero’!”

No, not the speed limit; only an ad for a prepaid plan!