Zo Ee's Update - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (22nd March 2012)

Zo Ee has been very interested in helping me doing house chores. One that she has mastered is at folding clothes; neat and proper way. Cutting is her favourite past time too, cutting and cutting many hours daily. As usual, she is more active and very confident and agile in physical movements comparing to kids her age or a year or two elder. She has been pestering me to sign her up for Gymnastic classes which I’m still considering.

Assembled this last week.

Cut out this heart shape with free hand.

I think this is cute too. Zo Ee cut a hole to fit it onto Piglet's head.

Handwritings – Recently, since she has stopped schooling for many months now, I’ve started requesting her to pen a line each day as her handwriting practice but she’s always penning more. This was completed over 3 consecutive days. I’m not particular at the content; it’s all solely her work. Occasionally, she asked to confirm her spellings on a word or two. Usually she is able to notice misspelled and self-correct. Once she has the idea in her head, it doesn’t take her long to write one sentence, usually less than half a minute.

COGNITIVE STUFF:

In merely 2 months, she advanced from not a gamer(not expose to any) to an I-phone Expert gamer on many Adult version games. Scoring mostly “A” for the Edge game up to level 13. (video) From talkative to super talkative girl since back to Singapore. Everything she has a say, a reason too etc. Whenever she wants something, she has them think and plan thoroughly; before suggesting it to us with all her reasons and her plans and precautions to make sure everything will be ok and as planned. She talks non-stop to herself and soft - toys for hours, so pretend play has been back into the house recently. Puzzle solving games are still her favourite, her latest love is Pete’s Spike age 8+ though she loves Rush Hours (bought both recently). Super fast at solving those memory games; matching two similar cards from Brainpop.jr.

ACADEMICS:

Still an avid reader as usual; reading 4-5 hours/daily by herself. Most days; 80-90% of her readings are on fact books while the remaining are fiction books. Although we just moved back to Singapore, and has no access to public library for the past 2 years, I found that I couldn’t find her any fact/reference books at the Junior section (age 5-9) anymore. Age 10+ reference section fits her alright now. Since my last update; she has read the SAT Cartoon Vocabulary I and II for the 3rd time and Idiom books for age 9-15 twice. Once she was out reading one in the stroller, and the 2 commuters in the train trying to figured it out whether is she really reading it or merely looking at the pictures. Math: I’m seeing that she is interested in Graphing-made me a few past weeks, money and their value, and using Metric units. When I asked her what is the temperature in a typical tropical country? I was expecting an answer - hot all year round but she said it’s 95 degrees Fahrenheit. When back to Singapore (2 months ago), Dh has been so busy with the move and new job position and has not time to read any Chinese with her since last October. I didn’t want her to forget her Chinese so I’ve bought her a children Mandarin songs karaoke (84 minutes). After watching less than 5x, she remembered all the songs and could read all the 800 characters, even telling DH some similar characters which have different meaning and read differently, comparing those found on this DVD to her previous reading. For the first time, DH is finding her daughter is smart. (?)

CREATIVE OUTPUT:

Zo Ee wrote me another silly poem this month, a better one this time, unfortunately I couldn’t find it any where now. Most probably she has cut it into pieces and throws them away.

According to Zo Ee this is a strange animal with a big snout.

One day, I found this in the living room which I think is cool. Yes. She has been experimenting with folding and cutting. I did show her once many months ago, and she’s trying them out by herself.

Map with many sign- 3years 9months old


An origami aeroplane from Zo Ee, completed with drawings for turbo engine and parts inside the plane.

Zo Ee’s collage – the caterpillar(Zo Ee), Daddy and Mummy the butterflies ( somthing to do with caterpillar life cycle).

I found this the other day, from her ex-school drawing book. – 3years 7months old. The many lines in circle shows fluttering movement of bees.

EMOTIONAL ISSUES:

Winning a game has becoming very important to her.
She is still my funny, loving and happy girl. She is still worrying about dying and didn’t want to grow bigger and older because she didn’t want to die. She worries about others violating the laws or misbehaving and their safety.

SCHOOL UPDATES: Still reluctant to go to school, got extremely upset upon hearing the idea of going to school.

Arts - 2years 11months old

Zo Ee at 2years 11months 2days old. (13/3/2011)

Lion Fish

Zo Ee drew this lion fish without referring to this book, Mummy put this picture here just for comparison and she wrote LIon FISH at the bottom of her picture. She added more lines to the letter "F" of the fish word. "Is this pure creativity to match her lion fish? " She also wrote some numbers there too; 5 is the clearest of all.

2years 11month old - Zo Ee's colourful penguin.

Maths - 2years 10months old

Zo Ee at 2years 10months old. (10/3/2011)

Zo Ee decided to do some maths today. She was telling Mummy, " Mum, I want to do some maths, showing me the work book of her choice." We don't have any specific schedule in doing anything, but little Zo Ee has all the freedom to decide what she wants to do each day. Just coincidentally, she found these books from the book shelf. She did many pages for about an hour before feeling too tired and wanted to nap (not her usual self). After her nap, immediately, she wanted to continue doing maths again. This time, she sat for almost 2 hours; covering many topics and finishing page after page. Her hands were tired from colouring and writing; so she switched between her right and left hand. She was still very enthusiastic and was demanding for more but mummy's too tired to continue. Little Zo Ee was not happy but after some negotiation, she finally decided to watch VCD.

Some of the Subtraction sums done by Zo Ee.

Addition, graphs, comparison-heaviest and lightess etc

She is able to write most numbers and letters without much practice. She actually figured them out as if she was drawing some numbers and letters pictures. Occasionally, Mummy will show her the proper way to write but most of the time, she will not allowed me to hold her hand, only limited to showing her while Mummy writes on another piece of paper.

Filling in the missing numbers. She even drew some bells on the roof of the house, saying "Some bells are hanging by the roof."

Zo Ee's very persistent, determined and very self-driven in learning something new. She will not give up easily although her hands were sore from both writing and lots of colouring. She didn't colour as well as she normally does because she just wanted to finish the challenge on each page before moving on to another page etc... Same as for reading, just yesterday, she spent the whole afternoon; about 5 hours reading non-stop. She picked up those ladybird books from the book shelf; reading one after another, from the easiest to the most difficult. Occasionally, she came over to Mummy, asking for clarification.

Math update:

Zo Ee has been playing/doing some online maths on this IXL website; a few times before our last trip in November and this soon became an occasionally event since January 2011 (2years 9months old). Initially, she started with Pre-K, then she wanted to do Kindergarten and First Grade instead. Mummy thought they may be too difficult for her but she insisted. After a few sessions, Mummy was surprised that Zo Ee actually knows many(most) of the kindergarten and first grade skills already and was mastering new skills at great speed. Everyday, she will choose some new skills (not wanting to repeat any) from the list, and Mummy will show her one or two examples. Surprisingly, she is able to get most answers correctly. We didn't subscribe to this website, limiting to 20 free questions daily, still Zo Ee is mastering new skills everyday without the need for repetition of the same skill. Although, we have not touch on any addition or subtraction on this website (Mummy thought they will be too difficult for her.) , still she managed to finish most First Grade skills at ease. Soon, at 2years 10months old, she wanted to do Second Grade Math instead. Again, Mummy was hesitating to let her but surprisingly after a few trials, Mummy found that Zo Ee already knew quite a number of the skills there too...; simple fraction, reading clocks, days of the week, months, seasons, read a calender, more, less, repeating patterns, skip counting, number lines up to 100...etc (Zo Ee actually knows her numbers up to 1000 at 2years 9months old, and is mastering thousands now; not perfect yet but is doing pretty fine most of the time.) She actually stopped asking for this website for about 3weeks before venturing into maths again today, on math workbooks instead. So this is Zo Ee's unique way of learning, persistently wanting to learn certain skills until she has had enough, she will stop for some time. And past few days, we have been reading on this big book of nursery rhymes , so big and heavy, that even Mummy found it too heavy to hold. It took us 3 nights to complete (because Mummy was too tired, again if given the choice, Zo Ee will want to finish the book in one night.) On the 4th night, Zo Ee browsed through it all by herself, pages after pages, stopping only to tell Mummy details of rhymes that interest her the most. So Mummy is foreseeing that she will not want this book for sometime, for months maybe.

..........................
Then

Before two years (23month old) she completed her IQ test book (age 3-5) in a month. She answered most orally and circling the correct answers, nevertheless she was enjoying each challenge very much and will insist Mummy to complete a few pages with her everyday. Mummy is surprised that she actually understood and was able to answer most questions correctly then. And now, almost a year later, instead finishing a book in a month, she will want to finish one workbook in a day if possible. Also she is able to fill in the answers by herself.

Writing Skill - 2years 8months old

Zo Ee at 2 years 8months old. (23/12/2010)

We have been very busy adapting to life in Goa, India. Many things purely cannot be described with words. Things that can be done in 5 minutes, may take me half an hour if I am lucky. A day work may take weeks or months.... so its pretty frustrating at times. Different expectation and different time frame..."Way to live life here is to be patient! patient! patient! and to let go... else I'll go crazy!"

I have busy and lazy, thus have been using facebook to record Zo Ee's development, not wanting to forget them. Recently during our home leaves, a friend asked me why didn't I update this blog for months as I used to write here daily and that question really bring me back here. Well...hopefully I am back for good.

Let's start with Zo Ee self-taught writing skill.

1/12/2010 (2years 7months 21days old)
Zo Ee wrote her name "ZOEE" (There is space limitation at the end of the paper, so she wrote one E below the other.)

9/11/2010 (2 years 6months 29days old)
Zo Ee filled in the crossword "c a t" herself.

8/11/2010 (2 years 6months 28days old)
Zo Ee came running to Mummy, proudly showing Mummy the first word written by her (self-taught)...." voilin" (violin). Zo Ee, "Mummy!Mummy! see that's the word violin!"