It’s 4am and I have been up for an hour. The problem with going to bed far too early, I have discovered, is that you wake up way too early. I am wide awake and ready to start the day.
We had a lovely weekend. Nicole came over on Saturday and we hung out playing cards with the kids and we braved the cold and went to feed the ducks in the park. I love that my kids love the simple things in life. No Play station portables required just yet. Though I know this is inevitable. Only yesterday, my next door neighbour popped round with a Benesse ‘Shimojiro” (cutesy character used to get young kids to engage in learning) ひらがな かず マシーン (Hiragana Kazu machine). A kids button pushy mock pc thing that helps to teach kids how to read hiragana. Alexa went crazy for it. James can already read his hiragana and despite this still got “new toy jealousy”. No amount of “it’s a bit too babyish for you, James” would do the trick to calm him down. Anyway, my neighbour has signed up for the monthly learning resourses from Benesse for her 3 year old daughter and they sent a duplicate parcel. When she contacted them, they told her to never mind and just throw it away!!! Like it’s a couple of used notebooks and stubby pencils. Anyway, we were the lucky winners to whom she decided to bestow this unwanted learning tool. James has managed to learn hiragana without the aid of a beepy button pushy thingy, but they both love this gadget. At Christmas another neighbour friend came round for drinks and brought an unwanted old Benesse arithmetic button pushy gadget for James. I had to remind him of this yesterday and off he went to locate it in the bedroom. Finally happy. Pushing buttons is the way forward in education it seems.
I was trying to teach James the expression “pushing my buttons” this weekend – despite having lots of fabric softner commercial moments, our weekends (and weekdays, hell, let’s just say everyday!) are punctuated with tantrums and communication misdemeanors from all parties. Yes, they have tantrums at the drop of a hat and I lose my temper with my kids really easily! Lately, I hear Alexa say a lot, “Is mummy angry?” Mmm, that would be a “yes”, I guess. I really don’t have it in me to be that kindergarten type teacher person. It really is a special skill. I have seen it demonstrated everyday by the hoikuen staff. I find it amazing that they don’t raise their voices or get irritated by the naughtiness and whinginess that surrounds them all day. It is truly remarkable, but then again, I also know that all kids seem to tow the line at hoikuen and “gaman suru” (kind of hold in all their angst) until they get home and then release it like a pressure cooker exploding its contents onto the ceiling!
Anyway, I may shout at the kids, but I also apologize for my behaviour and try to remind them that I am only angry at their behaviour and not with them. I tried to explain to James that I can tolerate so much and then I blow. Using the buttons on my cardy I tried to tell him that when he squabbles with Alexa over toys or territory, he is pushing this button (points to big pink button on her cardy). When he does it again and again, and again, suddenly I will make this noise – cue loud ferocious roar like a lion. I point to another button and explain, that when he is friendly, helpful and always smiling and laughing, he is pushing this button (points to another button on her cardy) and if you keep doing it again and again and again, I will make this noise – cue happy laughing noise folllowed by a big demonstrative hug.
I know my crankiness is also a product of living in a very small apartment and cabin fever is another major factor in all of this. There is just no escaping the mess and the noise and you get no down time after a day at work. There really are not enough days in the week and hours in the day to get it all done. Like the dream I have of teaching my kids to read in English. This is not going as well as I had hoped, despite having the resourses and two children that love these Oxford Reading Tree books. By the time we get home from hoikuen (anything between 6pm and 7pm), dinner gets thrown together and eaten, the morning chaos gets cleaned up, the dinner mess gets cleaned up, the washing gets brought in and put away and then more washing gets hung outside, suddenly it’s way after 8:30 and the kids should be going to bed and we get in bed with a load of books which we read together before lights out. We all know this, but I’ll say it anyway, 30 minutes of reading at bedtime is just not enough to get things kick started. I went to school at aged 4 and learned to read easily (I have no memories of finding primary school a struggle) but my kids are not schooled in English. When will the penny drop? I know they are both (Alexa seems more willing and more advanced a reader then James) at the “memorisation” stage. Alexa can memorise a story practically after one hearing. She can point out words in a book like “mum”, “dad”, “dog”, “cat”, plus many more, but she can’t really READ them. She can RECOGNISE them and only on that page with the pictures. I know this is step one, but how do you get them to step two where they actually can sound out the letters by themselves and work out what a word says or how to read it? We have done phonics stuff and James gets bored, but he can understand that letters make sounds and he knows the sounds of the letters and the blends, but he can’t apply it to the books he reads with mummy. He wants a passive role and he wants mummy to read them. Yesterday we were playing with some three letter word puzzle picture cards and after five minutes he starts to complain that it makes him sleepy. He puts them away. I don’t want to push them, but I don’t want them to be “lazy” about learning or bored by it either. How do you make it interesting for a five year old? They genuinely love the books and I guess if you were at school in the UK and had these books thrown at you all day long, in a class of kids who were doing the same thing, it would begin to rub off on you, no?
In other news, we have a new teacher startiing in April. This is good news and Jenny and myself are busy getting things in order so that things will be easy to explain and implement come April. Working as a team of three will be very different and communication is going to be different/difficult due to timetabling. Currenly, Jenny and I teach at the same times and are free at the same times so we can easily co-ordinate who does what and when. Things will be very different with three sharing the workload. I have a 5 day week again – was secretly hoping that I would have a couple of days with back to back lessons leaving a Friday or a Monday lesson free. I do not have a crazy morning on a Monday anymore. This means I can leisurley get the kids to nursery and make up their futons without screaming at the kids to get their coats off and get in that classroom NOW! I still have three early mornings that mean I have to go like the clappers, but at least one of those is not Mondays and I am not tangling myself up in knots with a couple of futon covers. Nice, calm start to the week – Thank you!
Nice calm start to the week sounds nice – definitely not what happens here and I don’t even have to leave the house for work!! Well, not until 10:30 today anyway
And the fighting was over the DS. Sigh. At least they are both into the leapfrog numbers one and the dog pet one – hopefully we can avoid all fighting ones until they leave home. Unless Mario killing caterpillars and robots buy jumping on them and throwing fire bombs at them counts?
I would love to have more patience with the kids to do more English recognition. We read books in English but not every night. I’d say the ABC chart in the bathroom is our biggest learning tool at the moment!! Shou going to a NZ primary school for Oct – Dec this year though will be an incentive for me to try and get him writing the alphabet and trying to sound out letters at least – instead of having to sing the ABC song every time
Hope you are missing the flu up your way. It’s in the next town over from us so I imagine it wont be far away. Lets hope the vaccinations actually work.
xxx
Yes, I am looking forward to Mondays as of April. I am planning on having a “me” morning as my only two lessons that day are from 2pm.
Patience is key with teaching your own kids. I have very little patience and very litle time, too! I know in the end they will develop literacy skills in English. Some of the girls I teach can read and write in English quite well and they don’t have the advantage of having an English speaking parent. I regret teaching the kids the ABC song (well actually i regret letting Sesame Street babysit them while I made dinner!) I think it just confuses them when they come to learn phonics. The letters they learnt bear no relation to the sounds they hear. It’s hard to find fun learning materials in lower case here in Japan, too. Everything is upper case. Whereas Hiragana was easy peasy for them to learn. James reads a lot in Japanese, but very little in English, though his speaking ability is pretty much equal.
3 months in a New Zealand school will be brilliant for Shou. I’m sure he’ll love it. Is Marina not going too? Or is she still too young for school in New Zealand? Alexa would be starting school this Sept if we lived in the UK and James would be two school years older but they are only one year apart here.
No flu yet, but I know it’s doing the rounds. We didn’t get the jab this year either. Finger’s crossed.