Okay so I've recovered from the emotional piece of last night. Actually, you never fully recover, the sadness just comes and goes as it pleases but after awhile you just learn to supress the emotions when there's an audience. These days, I sometimes still cry when I drive alone in the morning after dropping Dear Hubs and the kids off, mostly because I need to drive pass the cemetery where Umi was buried everyday in order to get to my office, but by the time I reach my office's parking lot, I just buckled up and start a new day. Life must go on. For the living, at least.
So where was I with Aisyah's progress? Oh yes, just glad to see that after a year of schooling, she speaks almost fluent Malay now. Her English is somewhat eroded, but not to the point that she couldn't speak or understand. Just that her vocabs have probably shrunk a little. Accent is still there, but only if prompted. She thinks it's funny (or cool, is it?) to speak Manglish or to pronounce English words the lcoals' way, which shreds my eardrums everytime I hear her do it, e.g. in her dua she recites, 'Oh Allah, make easy for me to ....' which really, should have been 'Oh Allah, ease ...' but I never corrected her because that would make her stand out from the rest of the class. Maybe I should. Oh well.
Within that one year, she managed to finish her first Qiraati book and is now Level 2. Forgive me if this is not entry worthy to those of you out there, but this is a significant moment for Aisyah who has never learnt her Alif, Baa, Taa until last year. Her school has a really good curriculum, and she can now recite everyday duas without any problem, memorise surah-surah lazim and also things we read in our prayers by memory. I am impressed with her school.
On the 3R side of things -Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic, we are seeing major improvements as well. She struggled to read earlier in the year, but lately has been picking up. I'd like to think that my persistence in coaching her contributed. Each evening, I would try to fit in around 45 minutes to an hour of study time with her. Sometimes we would do a bit of Maths (still working on addition and some algebra-like addition if you ask me), and then Imlak (Spelling in BM), where I say the words and she has to figure out how to spell them, which she enjoys because it's like a game her. It's good practise bcoz although to us, reading and writing complements each other, to six year olds they might as well be to the likes of French and Chemistry - completely unrelated.
We sometimes do either reading (in Malay), or Qiraati, but most of the times we had to skip it, otherwise she'll be late for her bed time and as a result, cranky the next morning. But if she has enough sleep, she's normally alright in the morning, and can sometimes squeeze enough time to do a couple of her Grolier's Logic sheets (IQ games - we bought these so minimise her dependencies on the rubbish she watches on YouTube on her Dad's tablet, toy reviews are her fav for some reasons, especially hosted by this boy, EvansTube -- God, I know this???!!! I must be a better Mum than I thought haha).
Oh, and where is dear Adik Zayd when all this revision is going full force? Right by our side, of course. I admit it's hard at first, with all the pulling, and grabbing, and I-want-to-do-it-too attitude, but I guess it's like a head start for him too, so I'll leave him be. He already knows how to do scribbly lines in his little blue exercise book (her Sister's pink, so he knows he has his own one), which is good enough for a a 1-year old, I guess. At least he knows which way is up (or down) when writing.
