Artsy Crafty

From WP 7/8/2010


A little peek into Amira's passion for arts.
Her very first trial on water painting with Abah:


Abah bought her a set of water paint on her 2nd birthday and she definitely love it! Some of her collections:


First guided drawing. She drew the horizontal and vertical lines in the tortoise on her own guided by my pencil-tracing lines. I simply told her to draw a straight line from the  green dot to the red dot I marked. Colouring was done by her.


Practice of drawing curves (inside the butterfly). Alike the lines above she traced my pencil lines from green dots to red dots. The horizontal short lines were also drawn by her.


This is the latest drawing and I must say I am quite proud of her as she managed it on her own, from the petals, stalk and leaf. Instruction were given once, to follow my pencil lines and green dots to red to dots.


Last but not least, her first trial on collage with different shapes.

Homeschooling ~Pt.2~

From WP 4/8/2010


Social concerns.

That was the first and foremost issue popped when abah and I talked about homeschooling.

Q: How will Amira develop her social skills if she were to be homeschooled?

A: I would like to address this question in a different angle. Are kids' social skills developed only when they go to a school? 

I have had the opportunity to experience being a Montessori teacher for 2 years, handling 4 yrs old kids. No children are the same , well it doesn’t take any experience to know that, but what I am trying to say is that these children came to school all ready with their characters built and attitudes rooted in them. Some may be friendly, others may be shy and quiet. We as teachers could only encourage or show them the right way to communicate and behave socially. This shows that parents or caretakers are the primary factors in children's development and it started way before they enter their nurseries or kindergartens. And so I believe that in developing social skills, responsibility falls on the parents' shoulders regardless the children will be going to school or not. We are the one who are supposed to show them the right way of communicating and behaving around people.


Loving and responsive parenting helps children to see the world in a positive way and to expect that relationships with others will be rewarding. Children who display high levels of social competence typically enjoy parent-child relationships characterized by positive and agreeable interactions, acceptance (Cohn, Patterson, & Christopoulous, 1991; Pettit & Mize, 1993; Putallaz, 1987)

Amira playing with her cousin

When we decided upon homeschooling our children, it means that we are ready and will undertake the full responsibility to provide them with the utmost suitable environment for them to develop all their skills, social included. Homeschooling does not mean confining our children at home without outdoor activities, but in fact being flexible will makes it much easier for us to do just that.

Sitting in a classroom of 30-40 students, does not actually prove that your children are socially competence. I mean how can you even communicate with your friends when you are expected to be silent at all times. How many of us are still keeping in touch with our primary school friends – just adding them up in FB doesn’t really count – and how many of our friends now are actually friends from school?

And anyway, greatly because of the SOCIAL problems that are widely heard and seen among students nowadays are reason enough for us to ‘keep’ our children at home. Though some of you may say that they have to experience and learn it on their own, I would rather it be ‘prevention is better than cure’.
This post is not directed to anyone but just as an assurance to our own self. And maybe IF this question is being popped to us we have the answer ready.  To each is own.

Homeschooling? ~Pt.1~

From WP 27/7/2010

It was around May when I stumbled upon this very interesting blog - littlekittle.com. What sparked my interest was about their HOMESCHOOLING journey! I had not really thought much about it before, but at that moment I was -and still am- SURE that I would like to homeschool my children, InsyaAllah. So I had started to surf the net gaining more knowledge on it. It is absolutely not an easy task, homeschooling requires determination, preserverance, absolute faith and confidence in order to realize it. Why? Simply because it is still being seen or regarded as something foreign and in most of the parents' - not to mention the grandparents', uncles', aunties' - mindset is WE HAVE TO SEND OUR CHILDREN TO SCHOOL FOR THEIR EDUCATION.

Is that really true? Is there no room for parents who would like to take charge of their children's education instead of simply putting them wholly or largely on other people's shoulders or the school system even though, I must say for myself,  have doubts on the effectiveness of their teaching system. I would like very much to be in charge in moulding and directing my children's education as I have my own opinions of what are more important for them and such.

In my still little findings, I realised that most of the family - I say family, as in homeschooling each and every members of the family will be deeply involved and will be playing each of their own important roles, nobody left out - went into homeschooling mainly because of religious concern and social concern, though there are a lot of other reasons.



Alhamdulillah, abah is quite supportive of this decision. But when we first talked about this, these were our concerns:
- Will Amira be socially impaired if she is to be homeschooled?
- How will our family react to this decision?
- How long will we able to homeschool her?
- Are we really up to this heavy task and responsibility as it concerns her future?
- How about the legality of homeschooling?
Hmmm...stay tuned