Sunday, January 20, 2008

Teaching is not my cup of tea!

Definitely not!

I had been trying to teach Betu the name of the days in a week since morning and I am nowhere near to achieving it.

I tried sing-song method after plain method was not working. But sorry, that didn't work either. I started with Monday as the first day and then continued the sequence. But everytime when I would ask him to recite it back, he would start with Sunday as the first day. So his sequence of the weekdays would be something like this Sunday, cuesday (Tuesday), Friday, cuesday, Saturday. I was at my wits end after trying over 50 times and at the verge of pulling my hair out.

And it took 4-5 hours for me to realise that I can very well start with Sunday as the first day and then continue the sequence till Saturday. I really wanted to whack myself for not thinking of this earlier.

The moment I started in the morning about this whole learn-your-weekdays thing, he started making excuses to shirk from it. He complained of being hungry or his leg aching or he not feeling fine etc etc. *rolling my eyes*

Later I was losing my temper quite a bit and he was getting scared of me. I realised this and would calm myself down and pacify him as well since everytime I would shout, he would start bawling. I didn't like the whole situation. And as of now I am not teaching him the days in the week for sometime now. Atleast for a day or two.

I have to definitely think of ways of interesting method of teaching. Anybody? Any ideas?

Sent on my BlackBerry® from Hutch

14 comments:

  1. Hmm I am no expert but make learning playful. Instead of sitting him down to learn, try reciting it while doing other stuff like playing, driving etc and he doesn't have to learn it in a day - it takes time :-)

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  2. Like the previous comment, it'll take time. Anyways, how does it matter if he can learn it in a day or if takes one month. Eventually he'll get it :-)

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  3. I would say just do what u r already doing (w/out losing temper :) ...sing song works excellent for Vansh as well. I would keep singing what I want him to learn and after few days or weeks he would join me :) Good luck!

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  4. They I guess that was a good progress ..what do you expect from him ?

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  5. @All: I'm not expecting him to learn the entire sequence in one day but he seems to be having problem remembering Monday. I really don't know why. I tried various objects and sounds to make him remember for e.g M for Mumma, M for Monday. M for Moon, M for Monday but nothing has worked.

    So I've called it quits for a while.

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  6. I think the best thing would be if you just stop expecting him to learn it at all. Just sing it to him and prompt him to repeat, if only he wants, and see what comes. See what happens when you start singing the weekdays without even looking at him while he is with you. I would give it up for a a week or so or untill you feel he has forgotten the stress he had when it comes to learning weekdays.
    It should be fun to do for sure.
    This has happened with Rishab with regard to numbers. Now he can count upto 20. But I remember earlier when I started it he did not like it at all. I guess he could sense the pressure in my mind.

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  7. I just remembered, there is this popular book about this caterpillar eating through the weekdays. I don't know if you could make a "book" on your own for him with some nice pictures and a story, creative as you are.

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  8. The tag was to reveal ABCDEF of your life...Pls check my post on Jan 11th:-)

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  9. Allocate one fun activity per day of the week -- only for that day. So ice creams are eaten on Saturdays, car is washed on Sunday, supermarkets are visited on Friday... you get the idea. Choose things that he really enjoys, and make each one a special treat for each day of the week. He'll soon tell you what day comes after which!

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  10. @ Sue - Whoa!! I can't believe it! I did exactly that just today, made a song about things he loves doing on different days ...

    Sunday ko hum candies khaate
    Monday ko playgroup jaate ..and so on.

    Quite a co-incidence, hanh :)

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  11. Keep trying! And one day he will recite the days of the week back to you.

    Make the learning fun always - how about each morning you tell him 'what day it is today and what we will do today' (maybe even have a color theme for each day). Associations are a good way to learn. Hope this helps!

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  12. I am no expert in this but having seen my mom teaching pleanty of difficult stuff to uninterested kids, I share my bit here...

    How about memory cards...to associate numbers + activities + weekdays....

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  13. start with only 2 days at a time. and begin with Monday. keep on adding two more days until he has learnt the previous 2.
    hope this helps.

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  14. Iam hoping the teachers at my son's school will take care of tht... :)

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