National Geographic for Kids - April 2008 Edition

I just bought this National Geographic for Kids, April 2008 edition. Trust me, this mini magazine is great, with so many things about nature, wildlife, animals, and colorful games and puzzles. Even we, parents, will love it. Anyway, the most important thing is that my girls love it.

The cover story is about lions of the Kalahari Desert Afrika, of how they thrive in the cruel landscape. One other interesting thing is about the new 7 Wonders of the World, National Geographic version. Those 7 wonders are Taj Mahal of Agra-India, Petra of Jordan, Machu Picchu (the lost city in the cloud) of Peru, the Colosseum of Italy, Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio de Janeiro-Brazil, Great Wall of China, and Chichen Itza of Yucatan-Mexico. Three of them are in America; it's probably because most of the voters are Americans.

Kayla's Pictures of Ancol

Shayna's Bintang-Bintang

On last Saturday, 15/3/08, Shayna and her friends were invited to the Baygon Lifelines show at Mal Ciputra. The dance was called Bintang-Bintang. Quite cute :)

Finally Kayla Got 10 Pens!!!

It's all about rewards and encouragement.

To encourage the students, at school, every time the students can finish their snack or lunch they'll get one star. That means if they can finish both snack and lunch they'll get two stars each day. Meaning again, if every day of the week they can finish both snack and lunch, by the end of the week, each student will get 10 stars. But, each time the students cannot finish the lunch, they will get minus (-) star. The system is applied per week, which means that on every Monday, they all start with 0 star. It might sound like just a trivial thing about eating; nothing academic about it. But, it is also about whether the students can perform the asked tasks well or not, whether they can compete or not, right?

Since Kayla eat very slowly, up until last week she always got minus stars by the end of week, whether it was -2 stars or just -1 star. Why? She had never been able to finish her lunch. We ran out of idea to encourage her to get plus stars by the end of week. I tried from encouraging her, telling her, to getting angry to her ... all failed.

Then we remember of things she loves most ... fancy pens or any writing and drawing supplies like markers, pencils ... anything with different functions, colours, shapes and styles. So, I told her that every time she got 1 star, then she would get 1 pen. Dadaaa ... she suddenly could finish both her snack and lunch each day of the week. And, finally, she managed to get 10 pens.

Good work, Kayla!

Shayna is A Really Quick Learner

Shayna now can read really well with good understanding of what she reads. If not, how can she read that ESQ comic for kids and tell me the stories? She does well with her Iqra' reading and on the way on finishing her Iqra' 2. She can chat with her father independently using Yahoo Messenger. She can also master songs very quickly that I lost track of them. Did I teach her all that, reading and singing? BIG NO!

Every child has different learning pace. We cannot force them to master something without raising their curiosity in those something. Below is something I got from somewhere.

First, you need to start incorporating books into the lives of your children from a very young age. Even before your child can understand what you’re saying, you should read picture books and describe what is going on. This may seem pointless, but studies have shown that it will lead to a more eloquent and verbose child. As the child gets older, you can start reading more complex books.

Make the library into a fun outing for you and your kids. Go once or twice a week to get new books, and encourage your kids to finish the books before the next outing so that they can exchange the books for other ones.

As your kids become more proficient readers, you need to push them to higher content levels. It doesn’t matter if your kindergartener is reading at a 10^th grade level as long as he or she understands the book and isn’t exposed to anything that you wouldn’t want him or her to read. As long as you keep upping the ante and complexity of the books that your child reads, you will see growth in leaps and bounds.

Kayla Loves Photography

Kayla basically loves art, from drawing pictures to taking pictures with camera. She often borrows camera from me or my husband to take pictures of anything of her interest, from flowers, trees, clothes, books ... anything. She has some sense of art that I don't quite understand. That can be seen from her drawings and pictures.

Before going for our vacation, I and my husband bought Kayla a simple affordable digital Fuji camera. She loved it. She took pictures of almost everything, with various angles and background. During our trip, she took more than 500 pictures !

Now, when ever there is any interesting occasions, she never forget bringing her own camera.

Demi Matahari

I participated in ESQ training last week. I got enlightment in my heart. Everything on the surface of earth is nothing without faith. Faith will give us strength to do anything, guidelines in this modern world, and light in desperation.

"Demi Matahari" is a song by Snada, based on Al-Qur'an Surah Asy Syams 1-10.
This song gives me peace of mind and soul.

Working Online At Home

Advantages:

• considerable income
• no transportation and gas expense
• no lunch expense
• be able to supervise the girls at home everyday

Disadvantages:

• becoming a bit antisocial, since I just want to stay at home all the time and do whatever projects I can get
• obsessed :)
• hopefully my hyperopia doesn't get worse since I stick to the computer monitor for more than 10 hours/day