Another good read

Aidan wouldn't mind reading book when he has too (that is when mama said 'read the book'). Aimar is a different case. He has difficulty reading even one page of book, and the only way to 'force' him to read is to sit next to him and listen to his reading.

I never gave up looking for books that might attracts him to read, voluntarily. Books on facts,imaginary stuff, malay simple fiction book, and lots of types and genres. And finally, I got this one book. The riddles book. Bought it two weeks ago. And he on his way of completing it and asking for more!!!! O, what a music to my ear!

 He enjoyed it very much that he brought it to the school and read it. 

I saw lots of improvement in his reading attitudes, vocabulary and understanding of the logic. 

1. He enjoyed giving riddles that he understood. 

2. He asked and looked for answers that he didn't understand on the riddles itself.

3. He learned lots of new words and ideas. 

4. He loved it as it made him feel smarter when he threw riddles to his friends and they couldn't get it and when he told the answer they got it and laugh.

5. He read without me asking. 

ooo... I'm so looking forward to buying him more riddles books.. perhaps, this time I'd search for science riddles, maybe!

Try it, moms!

Science project: The volcano experiment

It's the science month at the school and Aidan told me he wanted to participate in the volcano science project. I thought it will be difficult, until I saw the instruction list given by his teacher and was looking forward to do it with the kids right away. The kids had fun while experimenting and exploring the 'volcanoes' of their own last weekend, before the science project. Even mama got overly excited and impressed. It was a good activity to work with the kids. 

The instruction is pretty straight forward. 
I googled it and this how it should be:

1. Build the volcano model. We made the volcano model using used bottle and shape it into a volcano mountain using the cheap plasticine.

2. Add water, vinegar, dish detergent and red food coloring in the bottle.

3. Add the baking soda when you are ready for an eruption.

A very good introduction to chemistry. 
I told them briefly in the simplest word of what really happened. 

It's the reaction between the vinegar which is acidic and baking soda which is a base that produced gas. Different form of chemicals has its own properties when mixed together and produced another different form of byproducts with different properties. For this case, I told them the byproducts is the carbon dioxide gas. I related to how human got allergic reactions and rashes all over due to do reaction on foreign things to our body. 

Aidan was quick and asked me why are not producing any bubble when we exhale carbon dioxide. I told him it's the detergent and colouring used in the experiment made it gas visible as we couldn't see the gas with our naked eyes. The detergent and food colouring are used to manipulate the observation in the experiment. 

It's a great time well-spent. Plus, they love cleaning the mess too... anything to do with bubbles and water..

Aidan is showing this in the science project in his school today. I hope it turned out well. Good luck, abang.

Science Yr 4 - Proses Hidup Manusia

Aidan learned the basic of human system, though the syllabus doesn't really introduce the human anatomy in general. The idea is to introduce the system that related to the human anatomy and to understand the effect of certain process and behaviours. 

Maths Yr 2 - Roundup / Pembundaran

There's a lot of method trying to teach lower primary children with rounding up numbers. 
The basic that I went thru with Aimar was:

1. Pastikan faham tentang digit dan nilai rumah setiap digit i.e. rumah ratus, puluh, & sa
2. Belajar untuk mencerakinkan nombor i.e. 678 = 600+70+8

To complete the round up, it's all about plus one or not to plus anything.