And today, these two had their first showdown!
I think WFM kena KO-ed.
This is my week in office but I decided to WFM today to help Kai with his first HBL day. He was scheduled for 12 nn to 2 pm so I drew up a timetable for the morning to keep him occupied for the morning:
8 am: Read narrated picture books
I chanced upon these marvellous books yesterday and Kai likes it! He read two books yesterday evening. So I downloaded more last night in preparation for today. He read a few books and went on to an old Cat in the Hat app to read it. I was so happy that he was reading for over an hour!
Pulled out our old iPad and a stand that was almost never used
His brothers enjoy the narrated books too, especially Yang who even sat through an audiobook
My grand plan is to slowly move him to wordier books.. By force if I have to! Though that would mean I need physical books and my glasses - I should probably make proper glasses than rely on $2 versions... We'll see..
Anyway, next..
9 am: Play Rubik's cube
I got him a new 4x4 cube recently. But he was playing with it during breakfast so he didn't want to play again. He decided to skip to the next activity which was supposed to start at 9.30 am, since it was about 9.15 am by then.
9.30 am: Draw or paint
He chose to paint. I left it to him to get paper, paint, paintbrush and palette. I didn't notice how he was painting behind me on the dining table coz I was working. Then he showed me paint flecks on the floor, and he went to shower. I continued working until he finished showering and told me to look at the walls.
Goodness. There were spots of paint on the two walls facing the table!
I gave him wet wipes and had him wipe down the walls. He exclaimed that he was so tired! But nope, he had to deal with the consequences. Recapped this at bedtime just now - good, he now knows splattering paint about isn't so fun when cleaning is involved!
He went to lie down in bed to rest after that. Really tired!
11.30 am: Lunch
He took lunch a little earlier. He asked if we could have tea. I have stopped giving him afternoon on weekdays coz it was too much right after lunch which affected his dinner. But today he had an early lunch so I agreed to afternoon tea.
12.00 nn: HBL starts
Unlocked the laptop for him and help him log into the platform. He told me he got all his answers correct for his first assignment, which was Chinese. I praised him. Then I pretty much left it to him to do everything.
Of course there were questions and comments - how to spell this, how to draw (no need to draw!), how to get out of this (window), do I spell the number, oh I watched this before, ah so tired! This boy doesn't read instructions too carefully so I kept reminding him about that.
Starting on SLS
I also referred to the WhatsApp message on what to do. It mentioned to refer to two hardcopy thing. I had to dig his mess out of his school bag to help him find. Found the maths one which he did on his own. But I couldn't find the English one. He eventually finished all by 1.45 pm. I had him do five star jumps before I let him loose on his one hour of laptop games.
A short while in, he complained about a dialogue box on lack of space. I found that his lousy laptop has run out of storage! And someone had deleted some audio pen files I downloaded some time ago... Anyway, it's still good for e-learning.
Shortly after, he started to throw a tantrum and cry. I had to go calm him down. Of course that escalated pretty quickly and I had to threaten to take the laptop away if he didn't calm down. I mean, why play when it makes you unhappy?! He was still sulking when he went back to the game but after a while, he told me that ok, he had calmed down. Gosh. He tends to dis-regulate quite a bit. I just did a quick google and will go read more...
With games, I finally managed to finish work in peace!
At 3 pm, we left the house for afternoon tea. He wanted to stay in but hello, nothing to eat at home. And I think he could really do with going out after being cooped up at home for much of the day. And he deserved tea :)
He asked for Yakun, as expected. So we had that before I picked up some toiletries at Watson while he dashed about the shop - I brought Yu there before and seriously, I don't know who was the more difficult one!!
When we got back, I decided to teach him - once again - how to pack his bag properly. I found crumpled pieces of paper in his bag, and the nth broken book cover, sighs. I also repacked his comms book which I didn't dig out just now, and a good thing I did coz I found that he had written about Chinese homework which was not mentioned in WhatsApp or SLS!
One item couldn't be found. The other, he could do mostly on his own. And while he was doing, I keyed in my expenditure today and happened to check my emails. And lucky I did, for his form teacher had sent an email about him (and some others in bcc) forgetting to bring back his worksheet - ah, that missing English worksheet!
It is due tomorrow so I had to print it out. But our printer has an issue with black. I did a power clean and thankfully, it worked!
Now, we're doing HBL once a week. We're entering a new era of blended learning now, the pace made quicker and more urgent due to the COVID-19 situation. This means we are likely to have more HBL in future. SAHPs have no issue and welcome it coz safer for kids to stay at home. WFH vs. HBL is a problem of regular working parents.
But the group of parents who can't WFH and have no caregiving support, the children who need teachers' help to cope, the children who already have school attendance issues - would they be stranded somehow? Kai's school has support for parents who need help. But I know at least R's school doesn't and her student care would take the kids only from 1.30 pm onwards. Hope this won't end up with some children missing out on learning.
So there. Our first showdown; more to come. Maybe next time I just go to office and let him loose on the laptop. So tiring with kid at home while WFH, with laptop issues, with homework surprises!
I gave myself a facial mask just now. I deserved it.
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