Jia Ya is more daring than Jia Yi.
This photo was taken during the June holiday when I took Jia Yi and Jia Ya to the Turf Club. (It was Family Day in Turf Club.) There were many games stalls set up for the public and there were many people, especially children.
I encouraged Jia Yi and Jia Ya to go and try out the games but Jia Yi dare not. Jia Ya was very keen but she is too small for most of the games. Finally, we went for this train ride. Jia Ya queued for her turn, but Jia Yi refused. He dared not take the ride that's why, you can only see Jia Ya in the picture.
Will you believe me if I tell you that Jia Ya is the bully and Jia Yi gets bullied?
I hate Monday because Jia Yi has his English Spelling on Tuesday and he hates learning his Spelling.
He has to learn 5 words for his Spelling each week and he refuses to learn them early. I can promise him Power Ranger stickers, colouring books and other things. He promised he will learn but he always breaks his promises.
I used to write the words on a piece of paper and got him to copy the words. (That's how I learn when I was young. And it works all the time.) He doesn't like it. He would tell me that he knew all the words already and when I asked him to spell them for me. He knew nothing. I have to place a cane in front of me whenever he does that. The surprising thing was that, once the cane landed on his head, he remembered. It was a chore to teach him Spelling.
I decided to change to a new method. I remembered that 'yam' was one of the words in the spelling list. I brought him to the supermarket and showed him a yam and got him to trace the 'y', the 'a' and the 'm' on whatever he sees. In the end, he managed to spell 'yam' and nothing else. It's not possible to do that for all the words all the time. (Time is limited and precious.)
I changed to a new method. I copied the words onto a piece of paper and cut them into strips and let him try to remember how the words look like. He was very excited. He took the paper, turned it over and started tracing the words. Can you imagine what happened? The words were all mirror image. But he got all the words correct - the mirror image form. Guess what I did? I wrote the words again using mirror image on a piece of paper and when he traced them, he got them all in the right direction. Perhaps this is how I shall continue to teach my son his spelling.
Maybe...Monday is not that dreadful after all.
