Pronouns...he, she, it, you, I, they and we

We were still looking at subjective pronouns and I explained again to Kai that the subjective pronouns are acting as the subjects in the sentences and perform the action of the verbs.

Kai understood that he and she is used for different genders and the rest is neutral and he knew that some are used for plural subjects and other singular. I told him that I is used for first person, you is used for second person and the rest are for third persons.

Subjective Pronouns
	Singular	Plural
1st person	I	we
2nd person	you	you
3rd person	he she it	they

We talked about how the first and second person subjective pronouns are used and how Kai has been using them in his daily conversations, in writing letters to his friends and then we moved on to the 3rd person subjective pronouns.

And Kai decided that we should tried to continue to write his story on "Edward, The Very Impatient MRT Train." In this story, we used the first and 2nd person subjective pronouns most of the time.

This is how Kai's story goes (Using first person account and subjective pronouns.),

Hi! I'm Edward, the sleek and shiny MRT train.

I am very busy everyday. I pick up passengers - young and old from the different MRT stations daily and I send them to different places. I send the students to schools, commuters to work. I also help to bring families to the park, shopping centres and banks.

I hate the morning and evening peak period where the passengers are rushing everywhere. I get frustrated when they tried to squeeze into my carriage when the doors are closing. And more a time, I could not follow my schedule and I become impatient as I want to be on the dot and meet my schedule.

Due to my impatience, I have the tendency to go at a higher speed so that I will not lost out to my friends working in the different lines.

I love to work on the east-west line and enjoy the view on top of the train-track.

One day, I was fetching passengers at the Boon Lay MRT Station and the sky suddenly became overcast. Finally, I was filled with commuters going to work and students going to schools. Just when my doors were closing, a couple of youth tried to sneak and squeeze in, forcing the door to be opened again.

It took a couple of minutes before the doors could be shut and I was late due to the delay. Being impatient, I refused to follow the instructions given by my train-conductor. I went at full speed in the heavy thunderstorm despite knowing that it was dangerous.

I was so impatient and eager to get to the next stop on time that I missed the warning red signal to stop as a train was changing lane. I was getting into a head to head collision with the approaching train if not for the alertness and skillfulness of my train-conductor who pulled the hand-brake and stepped on the foot-brake on time to prevent a serious collision from taking place.

It was a close shave for me and I was in shock. I have learnt to be more patient now after this incident and the thought of it still makes me feel shaky and cold-sweat.


Here's some examples of our work

Kai was instructed to underline and change all the Proper Nouns into Subjective Pronouns.

Sean loves to daydream and look out of the window.
He loves to daydream and look out the window.

Alan and Linda cycle to school everyday. Alan and Linda park their bicycle in behind the canteen.
They cycle to school everyday. They park their bicycle behind the canteen.

Mrs Tan exercises daily at the gym. Mrs Tan encourages her friends to join her at the gym. Mrs Tan and her friends love to have coffee and toast at the coffeeshop after their exercise.
She exercises daily at the gym. She encourages her friends to join her at the gym. They love to have coffee and toast at the coffeeshop after their exercise.

We worked on a couple more of these exercises and we hoped to write another story soon.

Note: Kai came out with the story, I was helping him to write out his story and he came up with all the ideas for the story as well and my job was to get him to think about how he phrases his sentences and we wrote out the different sentences he formed and picked out the best one.

Pronouns

We are focusing on "Pronouns" this week. Kai has been using pronouns such as he, she, I, you, they, we, it and he has no problem with them. My job here was to make sure he understand what they are and how they operate in the sentences.

I explained to Kai, "What are pronouns?" and how they worked in a sentence.

Pronouns are words that we used to replace a noun or nouns. Common pronouns include he, her, him, I, it, me, she, them, they, us, and we.

And I told him that for the time being, we are going to focus on subjective pronouns such as he, she, I, you, they, we and it.

Subjective pronouns acts as the subjects in the sentences and they perform the action of the verb.

Kai would use the pronouns to form sentences for me. And he asked me a really interesting question for his age, "Mummy, there is pronouns for girls and pronouns for boys, right?"

I thought he was really observant and I explained to him that,

He, we basically use for the male and she, we use for the female. And after`that he was happily forming sentences.

Click to see Kai's sentences

1. She is Connie. She is my Sunday School Teacher.

2. He is cycling the bicycle.

3. I am forming sentences.

4. You are recording my sentences.

5. They are playing in the rain.

6. We are doing work.

7. It is falling asleep. (Our neighbour's dog.)

Kai was able to use the subjective pronouns correctly. I told him that tomorrow, we would be looking at replacing noun or nouns in sentences with pronouns. And it would be fun to work out paragraphs.

Demonstrative Pronouns (Part II)

We looked at Demonstrative Pronouns again today, and when it used straight away before a noun, it is demonstrative adjectives. And this, that, these and those modified the nouns.

We learnt 2) This, that, these and those became demonstrative adjectives when they are used immediately before a noun and that they modified the nouns.

Examples:

This stock is made from pig's bone.

That question is tough.

These puzzles are mine.

Those balls are Sean's.



Kai's sentences

This book is funny.

That rose belongs to Grandma.

These children are my classmates.

Those birds are Cockatoos.

Demonstrative Pronouns (Part 1)

We started to look at "Demonstrative Pronouns" - this, that, these and those.

I explained to Kai that demonstrative pronouns are used to refer to specific persons or things. I told him that they can be of different uses. And they are separated into singular and plural form.

Singular
this	that

Plural
these	those

And today, we look at just one usage to ask questions for independent objects near or far away from us and for making sentences for independent objects near or far away from us.

1. They are used independently to refer to things or persons near us or pointing out to things or persons far away from us.

Examples when we used them to ask questions,

Singular object that we are referring to,

What is this? (Near or close to us)
What is that? (Far away from us)

Plural objects that we referring to,

What are these? (Near or close to us)
What are those? (Far away from us)

Examples when we are referring to objects and people in the sentences,

This is a hat. (Near or close to us)
That is Sharon. (Far away from us)

These are rambutans. (Near or close to us)
Those are my classmates. (Far away from us)




Kai's Work

Look at the questions and answers, Kai formed.

Questions	Answers
What is this?	This is a doll.
What is that?	That is an aeroplane.
Who is that man?	That is my uncle.
Who is this lady?	She is my sister.
What are these?	These are mangosteens.
What are those?	Those are fireflies.
Who are these people?	These people are my neighbours.
Who are thosemen?	Those are my father's colleagues.

Articles....Determiners...our summary

We look at the Articles and Determiners for the last time and will move on to another grammar item soon after Kai has work through the worksheets on Article(Determiners).

We discussed about the usage for indefinite articles and then definite articles.

Here's our summary,

1. Articles A or An are used when we are not referring to a specific thing that we talk about. It is a general item.They used in front of a noun when we are introducing something or someone we have not mentioned before.

2. Article A is used with all nouns beginning with the consonants such as a builder, a teacher, a sweet, a zoo, etc.

3. Article An is used with all the nouns beginning with the vowel sounds of a, e, i, o and u. It is the pronounication of the noun and not the spelling.

4. Special cases of Article A being used in front of a noun beginning with vowels of a, e, i, o and u. such as a unicorn, a university, a uniform, a European a one-in-a life-time experiment, etc. It is the pronounication of the words that matter and not the spelling.

5. Special case of Article An being used in front of a noun beginning with a consonant such as an hour, an honour, an historal moment, etc. It is the pronounication of the words that matter and not the spelling.

6. Article The is used when we referred to a specific item or person or a place when the person we are having a conversation with know specifically what we are referring to. "Please pass me the umbrella." (a specific umbrella)


7. Article The is used when we have already to refer the person or item in the converstaion. "She brought a packet of orange juice. The packet of orange juice is from Coles."

8. Article The is used when we refer to a geographical point on the globe. Singapore is near the Equator.

9. Article The is used when we refer to rivers, oceans and seas. My aunt visited the Dead Sea when she was in Israel.

10. Article The is used when we refer to thing that is one of its kind. The moon reflects the light of the sun.

Articles, Determiners, Articles...

We continue to explore and learn about Definite Article "The". As we learnt and explored, I discovered that there are so many things that I did not know and it was a great learning discovery for Kai and myself. And we hope to include Daddy into the "Great Pursue" too.

Many a time, teachers in class could not cover grammar items in details and it is a touch and go topic, this leave many of us, non-native speakers clueless about their rules and usage. Being home to homeschool and doing my own research and preparation for teaching helped me to focus on the items to be taught and to learn and remember their rules and usage.

And we were looking at the other rules to use "The".

1) We use "The" when we are referring to a geographical points on the globe, rivers, oceans and seas.

Singapore is near the equator.

Polar bears live in the North Pole.

Many airplanes went missing in the Bermuda Triangle.

The aeroplane flied over the Indian Ocean to Australia.


2)We use "The" when we are referring to something we have just mentioned.

Mrs Tan introduced her two children to Max, a girl and a boy. The girl is called Eloise and the boy is called Tim.

Daniel told Jane about his dog. The dog is playful and active.

"May I have a cup of milk, please?" asked Kai.
"I put the cup on the table already," answered Mummy.


We finally look through Definite Article "The" and hope to move on to Indefinite Articles. The task was not easy, but we manage to learn as much as we can able Definite Article and will revisit it to recap and revise once we complete our learning of Articles or Determiners.

What are Articles?? A, An or The...

English can be confused, Articles or Determiners? What are they?

Articles or Determiners are those little words that we used before a noun. "A", "an" or "the" are also known as determiners.

They can be divided into two catergories, definite or indefinite.

Articles
Definite	Indefinite
the	a, an

It is not an easy grammar item to teach to a young child. So we were spending more time on it and when I started to teach these, I was startled when Kai started to asked me why. Though there are only 3 articles in English. How many of us really understand the usage and the grammar rules? Many of us have taken it for granted since we picked up most of our grammar items through books or even through conversation. The questions started me thinking and I decided to look through the grammar rules and teach Kai regarding articles.

Definite Article "The" is used when we are certain and sure of a specific thing, object, person or place. It refers to a specific one, not anyone will do case.

Indefinite Article "A, An" is used when we are referring to thing, object, people or place in general.

We took a look at the definite article first and tried to form as many sentences as we could to make sure Kai understand its usage. And we also learnt that it is also used when the noun it refers to is one of its kind.

Definite	Specific Item	Alex is read the book I have given him.
		The dog with a spot is Nicky.
		Please turn off the tap after use.
	One of its kind	The moon is so round and enormous tonight.
		The sun gives us light in the day.
		The world that God has created is a beautiful place.

We spent the time focus on definite article "The" and will go into more on "the" before we moved on to Indefinite Articles to make sure we understand and know how to use articles properly.

More reading...

Kai has requested that we do not do much work for English today instead to read through what we have learnt for the past few lessons. To revisit, recap and to master them before moving on.

We spent the time, reading through what we have learnt, forming sentences, spotting and changing the casing for names to capital letter and looking at personal pronoun "I".

It was also a time that I could see how much Kai has learnt and I would say that we have progressed.

We spent the time looking through more books from the library and enjoyed ourselves reading.

Articles

After learning the vowel sounds of a, e, i, o, u, we have form many words starting with vowel sounds. We decided to learn how to use Articles, "a" and "an".

It was not an easy lesson and we have a good laugh and after giving Kai more examples and going through the vowel sounds again. Kai was able to use Articles correctly. I have also decided to focus more time this week in helping him to master this topic.

Here's some examples that we have that required us to use "an",

an elephant
an egg
an apple
an umbrella
an ice-cream
an orange

And here's examples of when we use "a",

a boat
a cat
a toy

And some special cases that we use "an" even the beginning start with a, e, i, o, u but they do not produce the vowel sounds,

a uniform
a unicorn

I will look up more of these and continue to teach Kai this week regarding the use of "Articles".

Pronoun "I"

I introduced Kai to the Personal Pronoun "I". It is the easy to start with since he understood the usage of I. I taught him that when using I, in a sentence, no matter where it is, it has to be written in the capital letter.

We made some sentences with I and he was able to move on to a couple more of other personal pronouns like he, she, you, we, they and it.

Here's the sentences that Kai made up,

I am Kai and I will be 5 years old soon.

When I was little, I drank more milk than now.

When my maternal grandma and uncle come to visit in December, I want to bring them around Sydney.


Other sentences that he made with the other pronouns,

Alex and Emma were at the playground, they enjoyed playing there.

Bobby, the dog, loves to bark whenever I walk past it and it will stop once Uncle David calls its name.

English Grammar and Punctuation

We are still looking at "Nouns". We focused on "Proper Nouns" and I explain to Kai that it refers to a specific person, place or object. And when we use a proper noun, we write the beginning letter in capital letter (upper case) no matter where it occurs in a sentence.

We discussed further about Proper Nouns and form some sentences using proper nouns.

Kai went to Three Bears Preschool in Vancouver and Calvary Pandan Kindergarten in Singapore.

I love to read books written by Eric Carle.

Grandpa William stayed in Mount Alvernia Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital when he was sick.

We went to Sydney Downtown last weekend.

My parents brought me to Paddy Market in Chinatown near to Central Station.

* Focus on Proper Nouns and Punctation (Capital letter used for proper nouns.)

Proper Nouns

We spent about 15minutes today, discussing about naming words (Nouns). Kai has been reading about "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends" books as he is fancinated by trains. He loves to play with trains and enjoys watching videos on "The Mighty Trains".

We took the time to look through the names on the books and discuss about what are nouns. Nouns are basically naming words for people, places and objects. As we were looking at all the name listed on the book. Kai asked, "Why all the names start with capital letter?"

Taking this opportunity, I told Kai that nouns can be further classified into common nouns or proper nouns. And we discussed about the differences.

Common nouns are just naming words. And Kai came up with a list of common list.
Here's our list: boys, girls, road, shop, park, teacher, restaurant.

Proper nouns have two special features:
1) name a specific person, place or object,
2) and it starts with a capital letter no matter which part of the sentence it occurs. Here's the list Kai came up with: Thomas, Bertie, Edwards, Percy, Harold, Sesame Street, Deja, Evan, Epping, Eastwood, Marsfield, MacDonald.

And we will able to form some sentences with the nouns we have learnt.

1. Kai loves to play with trains and Shinkansen (Japan's bullet train) is his favourite train.

trains = common nouns; shinkansen = proper nouns


2. Mummy brought some chips from the supermarkets and she bought for Kai Lays.

chips = common nouns; Lays = proper nouns

3. Evan's daddy has a car, he drives a Toyota.

car = common nouns; Toyota = proper noun