To-Do List, E-Learning & Keyboard Typing

Date:  Jan 18, 2016

Kids in Primary School is different from kids in Kindergarten.

For example, Kay Kay in P1 has a lot of time in the afternoon.  We have to figure out a way to help him fill up the time.

We have to find a way to teach Kay Kay to be self- discipline too.

So, To-Do Check List become an important part of Kay Kay.  

We enrolled some enrichment class such as CMA (Abacus & Mental Calculations) and BrainFit (Focus learning and languages), both aren’t exactly MOE related courses.  There are homework, and some e-learning resources.  

So, let’s take a look at Kay Kay’s first ever to-do list.

1.  We requested him to do his CMA homework.  

2.  We requested him to do his day to day Braind Fit exercise on the Computer.

3.  Of course, if they perform the tasks well, they can play board game or ii (another word of iPad in the house).

4.  Telling him when will we be in bed.

Once done, place a tick beside.

So, we going to do this every day.  And we are going to put in more E-Learning resources, Weekly Spelling and 听写 self-learning.  Even reading story book too.  As he is still P1.  So, let him play Lego, or any of his toys.  I also bought a Lego Wedo Robotics for him, and he will get to make robots every day too.  I also have a keyboard typing lesson in place.

We started with Jay Jay too back in 2013.  And it has done a good job.  By P2, he no longer need the To-Do list.  He will calculate all this time in a day, and plan his day to do the home work.  We are so glad that Jay even do his home work at school so that he can come home and attend those extra sports classes that he likes.

So, on this first week of school week, we did the to-do list for Jay Jay as well just to SHOW kay kay how much work his brother has to do.

So that Kay Kay can appreciate that his to-do list is not so scary.  Hahahahaha

There are a lot of E-learning resources.  For example the school provided MC Online for the kids.  And the students can learn English, Math and Chinese from it.

Oh ya, first of all, I must declare, I don’t play games on my PC.  So the children don’t see daddy or mommy play games on PC be it iMac or Windows PC.

I very seldom play games in from of my kids.

As I know Monkey See Monkey Do.

I do play games on iPad.  But only when I am together with them.  We played together.

I do play games on my TV either on Apple TV or Amazon Fire TV or even Xbox or Wii.  

But during schooling time, we don’t play TV Console games at all.  Only play the TV Console games when we have guests.

Also, I don’t watch Youtube in front of the kids too.

In fact, when the kids is around, I seldom use my iPhone too.  Only use it as taking photo or some messages arrived.

There is a purpose of doing so.

I want my kids to know and understand the following…

1) PC / Computer is for work, and it is not for gaming.

2) Mobile phones is for work, phone and messaging and as a camera.

3) iPad is for Games as well as learning tool.

4) In this house, if the kid ask for playing iPad they will get caned.  (no joke).  They cannot even mentioned the name “iPad”.  So, they invented another name for it, namely “ii”.  But they know if they behaves well, they done what parents ask them to do, they are rewarded with “iPad” time.

Rewarding systems is very important.  I reward them by taking them out, by letting them play iPad, by buying lots of toys they loved.  Most importantly they have to become a self-motivated kid who knows how to do homework, and know study is important to them.  That is what I need especially for a family that has both daddy and mommy working.

Expose them to so many things so that they sometimes will say “Daddy, I don’t want to play ii (iPad) can you teach me Ukulele?”

or “Daddy, I don’t want to play ii (iPad), can you play Otello with me, I just learned this game by watching other people play in school today.”

A kids who cares and willing to help parents to do work in the garden.

A kids who really know how to survive when they grow up, not scare of worms and able to pick up the 锄头.

Let’s get back to the E-Learning platform the school has for the kid.

I am teaching him that E-learning on MC Online is not only see and learn.  You got to keep notes.  

Yeah!  I make no mistake now.  I didn’t teach Jay Jay well enough during his P1 days.  

For Kay Kay, I am not taking any chances especially in building his learning skills during P1 time.

So, I taught him that he needs to start keeping notes.  So that he can refer to the notes from time to time.

I think he did great in here.  And at the same time, he can choose to learn the vocabs or wait until later.

Penmanship is very important too.

I teach him to write down notes so that he can write correctly, write faster.

I didn’t pay so much attention while Jay Jay in P1.  But I do realised that Jay was a bit weak with his penmanship last time.  

So, again, whatever mistakes we make before shall not happen to this new kid in P1.  How fortunate. 

Kay Kay has been taking his Brain Fit E-lessons or Games for almost a year.  So he is very familiar with this sort of E-learning platform.

And he likes it.

Next is the typewriting.

Strange enough that the school do not have lessons to teach kids how to type.

The biggest mistakes I think from MOE.

They introduce E-Learning and without introducing Keyboard typewriting.

How many times I see kids struggle in this.

And how many times I see kids use two fingers to type and they sure can type very fast with two fingers.

But unfortunately, that’s wrong.

So for my kids, they will get proper type writing learning programs.

This is what I bought for both Jay (Windows 10) and Kay (iMac).

I found it pretty cool to learn it the kids way.

It trains them concentration.  Focus.

They must place their fingers correctly on to the keyboard.

The aim is to increase their WPM (Word per minute) and the Accuracy.

There are different types of games they can play too.  By all to do with typing.

The two brothers some time can compete with each other too.

So I really hope that both of them can learn the typing well. Because after that, learning how to do simple programming will be the next steps.

See how I am going to turn them into Computer nerds.  hahahahaha

I am so glad to see how Jay Jay has learned how to use the flash cards to learn his spelling.  hahaha

Kay Kay felt excited to learn the Chinese on MC Online platform.

Hey, do you notice it?  The fingers.

Yeah, ten fingers on the keyboard.  The correct way of typing.  hahaha

Good luck in teaching your kids.  

May the force be with you!