Shayna with her Indian Dance

On 21 June 2008, Shayna's school held graduation ceremony for Kindy 2 and art performance for the whole kindergarten students. The theme was Global Warming, with several dances from around the world. Shayna and her other 19 friends got the Indian dance part. The dance was quite dynamic and exciting. And Shayna did her dance very well. We, as her parents, were really proud of her independence and self confidence during her dance performance and during her year of Shayna at Kindy 1.

Kayla's Last Day @ 2nd Grade

This was Kayla's last day at 2nd Grade. Look at their happy faces. By the time they meet again, they will be at 3rd Grade, and get separated in different classes. As for her achievement, we haven't got the report until next week. But, hopefully, her grades are better than during her 1st grade. I am quite sure about that, since it looks like she master her lessons better this past one year.

Kayla is Having Her 2nd Grade Final Tests

During this two weeks, Kayla is having her 2nd grade final tests. This week, she's having some practice tests in Islamic Education, Sports, Computer, and Al-Qur'an. Next week, she's having written tests for three days, with two tests in a day. So, it's been serious weeks at home these past few days.

Unlike her younger sister Shayna, Kayla is not a very keen learner. She's more for art stuff. So, what's her motivation so that she'll be studying hard for her tests? Since her digital camera cannot somehow work properly, I promise her that if she's doing great in her tests, she will be getting new camera. What a price!

Kayla's Own Blog

This is Kayla's own blog. She designed the blog header and background by herself, using Paint application and Paint Artist.

The blog is basically about whatever she wants to put in the blog, which mostly are pictures taken by her with her own camera. The url: http://happy-kayla.blogspot.com/

Developing Reading Habits

Parents who love to read will want their children to also love reading. So, since I and my husband really love reading, we are very serious in our attempt to develop the girls’ reading habits. It is a serious matter, since most children nowadays prefer watching TV and playing games than reading. And in most of our life, most things will need to be learned through reading. If they don't like reading, where can we go from there? Here are what we do.

First of all, we are collecting books. The girls get to choose the books they are interested in. Our new collection consists of books that just being collected in the last 1 year. The previous collection … all destroyed by last year’s big flood. We also try to maintain the proportion of the book collection into 50% English books and 50% Indonesian books, with some being bi-lingual. Our consideration is that books in our mother tongue are still more important, especially for Shayna, my younger girl; as important the second language is, what’s the point in speaking and reading that language fluently if she cannot do it better with her own language? Two third of the overall is books with Islamic background. We think that early years of life is the perfect period for giving the girls some basics that will guide them throughout their whole life time.

The next thing is developing their love and skills in reading. Kayla, the older girl, has to read at least 3 books (2 books in English and 1 book in Indonesian) every night before sleeping, at her own choosing. Shayna … well, actually we don’t require her to read as many books. But, she is keener in reading (and any other learning, actually) than her big sister, and she often ends up read more books than Kayla does. Some of the times we ask them to read books that are beyond their ages and understanding, although still children books of course. Some people say that it will broaden their horizon and understanding.

It seems working quite well.

Kayla - Being Best Student of the Week for 2 times during 2nd Grade

Good on you, Kayla!