Elementary School Lessons

It’s back to school tomorrow for the children. It is doubly hard to prep them to go back to the routine after the holidays. I had to find ways to make them go to bed after 8:30am two nights before classes started.

Here are some ways we prepared before going back to school after the holidays:

• go to bed at the same time they are used to when there are classes. For us it was between 8pm – 8:30pm. Do this even if they don’t feel sleepy yet.
• Wake them up earlier than the time they usually wake up. For us, wake up call was around 8am which is kinds late because they usually wake up at 5am during school days.
• Have them prepare their school things a day or two before going back to school.

I will see how they will be tomorrow. For now, we will just enjoy the last day of our holiday break 🙂

August marks “Buwan ng Wika” in honor of the late President Manuel L. Quezon. Different celebrations in different schools were done to commemorate this day where the Filipino language is the main focus of the month.

School children play different native games, wear traditional Filipino clothes and eat native food and delicacies.

For the intermediate level where the children are now enrolled, they had a poem recitation contest among grades 4 – 5 children. There were 8 contestants (from 8 classes, 4 classes for each grade level) and my son was one of those who competed. They recited “Tayo na sa Bukid”

I missed his performance during the competition because he said it’s ok for me not to watch but I later found out that it was ok. Sigh.

Anyway, the good news was that he won! He bested seven other contestants.

Here he was reciting the poem during the culminating activity in front of the whole school assembly.

Department of Education or DepEd Guidelines on Suspension of Classes in case of typhoons in Philippine area of responsibility:

• Classes in preschool level in all private and public schools will be automatically suspended with storm signal #1
• Classes in preschool, elementary and high school in all private and public schools will be automatically suspended with storm signal #2
• Classes in all levels are automatically suspended with storm signal #3
• All travel and outdoor activities are canceled with signal #4

For more details: check the Department of Education guidelines on suspension of classes.

Decoding is the ability to translate written language (units of sounds and/or phonetics = letters symbolizing sounds and words) as spoken words.

Decoding is the ability to put together letters to form words like C-A-T being read as “cat”

Decoding is a very important skill in developing the reading skills of children.

• Children should be able to recognize the letters of the alphabet first and match the phonetic sounds that go with each letter before they can begin to decode. First words to be read are the CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words
• Children should be able to put letters together through phonetic sounds to be able to decode, like the example above C-A-T for cat
• Alongside decoding, children should be able to sight -read commonly used words for incorporating with the decoded CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words

How to start decoding?

Start with familiar names and brands that are used on a daily basis and you are starting in the right direction. So better start “reading” those labels like street signs, consumer products, brand names (be careful with these though for the child might get used to reading expensive brand names, LOL)

Don’t forget to have the children “read” their names too, even if they can’t write it yet 🙂

Greatest Common factor or GCF is the largest whole number that divides evenly into each of the numbers.

FACTORS are the numbers that you multiply to get another number. [ 3 X 5 = 15 where the factors are 3 and 5]

To get the greatest common factor, one can use two methods:

• First is to list all the factors of the given numbers. The list the common factors or the same factors for these given numbers. When this has been done, choose the biggest number among the common factors.

ex: 30 = 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 15, 30

20 = 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 20

The common factors for 30 and 20 are 1,2, 5 and 10 therefore the greatest common factor is 10.

• Another method for finding the greatest common factor is listing down the prime factors. After listing the prime factors, multiply these prime factors.

PRIME FACTORS are numbers that can only be multiplied by 1 and itself [ex: 2,3,5,7,11…]

The prime factors for 30 are 5 x 3 x 2

The prime factors for 20 are 5 x 2 x 2

The prime factorization of 30 and 20 have one 5 and one 2 in common. Multiply these common prime factors and you get the greatest common factor.

5 x 2 = 10

Today marks this year’s Autumnal Equinox and is the first day of Autumn in the northern hemisphere.

What is Autumnal Equinox? Autumnal Equinox in the northern hemisphere is the day when night and day almost have the same length. The Sun crosses the celestial equator moving southward.

In the Southern hemisphere, the Autumnal Equinox corresponds to the center of the Sun crossing the equator moving northward. This occurs on the date of the northern vernal equinox.

Nosebleed? I am too.

Read more here: The September Equinox Explained

Here is a photo of our “Autumn Tree” that sheds leaves in sync with the Autumn season in the northern hemisphere.