Our Homeschooling highlights from January included:

MsC started Jazz dance classes for the first time. She is taking them at a studio within walking distance of our condo. She also started a new Musical Theater class. They will be doing a Suessical Musical in June. We watched a similar theater production online to get a sense of the show and also have been watching other Dr. Seuss shows. I'm not allowed to tell you which character MsC is playing; she's keeping it a surprise. So far they've only practiced songs and dances; no script lines yet. MsE has still opted out of all classes this term.

We've been using all the craft activities we got for Christmas: stringing beads, using sticker jems, trying out how to draw books, and lots of lego building.

We started back into our "History Quest: Ancient Civilizations" with Ancient Egypt. One of our highlights was illustrating pictures to show whether Maat would send us to the Field of Reeds or to be eaten by Ammit the Devouror. MsC thought hers was hilarious as she drew her heart heavier than the feather - Eaten; MsE drew hers both ways (a heart and a feather on each both sides of the scale) - Undecided; and MsI glued a heart and a feather on her scale after colouring her picture in - to the Field of Reeds.

The girls have been paying Prodigy Math on the computer. MsC is still enjoying the story based instructions of Beast Academy and then using the separate workbook. MsE and MsI played with Singapore coins, making groups of 10 to help with counting.

MsI has a fun flower garden game. One day MsE started weighing the flowers that had been left out. She weighted them individually, but then started grouping them by size, assuming that the weights would all be the same. When she weighted one group she was shocked to see that didn't weight what she thought it would. I realized she was doing repeated addition (early multiplication) or she wouldn't have noticed her error. She was very frustrated and worked away at weighing each flower so find the bud that weighted too much and didn't belong in that particular group. She called MsC over to see what had happened.

The girls had an epic time buying books with their Christmas money, so everyone has been very enthusiast about our nightly read alouds. MsE will read or sound out a single word at a time, but won't usually read a sentence, even if she knows all the words. I found a Minecraft Early Reader, "Jay Saves the Day", which she will partner read with me. MsC is adding chapter books up on her reading chart.

The Littles do word finds with the sight word of the day, putting blocks on the word when they find it. MsI just reads the word out as she finds it; but MsE now tends to read out all of the words on the page as she searches for the chosen ones.

We started a new activity with white boards. The girls pick a word from the bag, read it, draw it, and then write the word. MsC takes 2 words to make it more challenging and usually combines them in a funny way and then uses both the words in sentences in the drawing.

The rainy season seems to have eventually ended and dried out, so we started to spend more time at the pool as the month neared it's end. We're always learning something new at the playground, this month it was how to use a punching bag. One of the 9 year olds brought out her blow up punching bag, lined up every child on the playground, and they all took turns following her instructions. MsE, MsC and even little MsI lined up in this long and very patient line to join in this activity.

We visited the S.E.A Aquarium this month; the Jurong Bird Park (zoo); took some nature walks and some nature journalling. We also learned about the Lunar Calendar versus the Gregorian Calendar; and Chinese New Year traditions.