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As we are focusing our topics on Singapore, our home. We talked about the National Flag, the National Anthem and the last was our Pledge. We talked about the places we live in Singapore, the places Kai loves to go and also about the friends.

And recently during our library visit, we found this book "Give Me A Home Among the Gum Trees". Kai loves reading books and each visit, we will have 20 books for him and he reads and remembers the stories as well as he could come up with his list of favourite storybooks and non-fiction books.

While we were discussing about Singapore, Kai stopped me and went to the library bag and pulled out this book and requested that we read together. And he started tell me about the koala in the story travelled like him to different countries and how the koala missed his home among the gum trees. And Kai started to tell me, "Mummy, I miss Singapore. When are we going back?"

I started asking him about things that he misses and he was explaining to me that Singapore is our home, our families and friends are all there. Then he told me he also missed Vancouver, where he could play in the snow and go to farm to pick fruits.

So I asked him where he want to be if we are heading off again. Without thiking, his answer was let go back to Singapore. Kids being kids, but Kai was able to tell which is his homeland even though he has friends here to play with him and I am sure he misses the families, cousins, etc.

Our Singapore Pledge

We told Kai about our Singapore Pledge that we recite daily before lessons begin daily even to this day. I told Kai that it is important to have this pledge to unite the different races together in Singapore.

I explained to Kai how this pledge came about during the tranbulent period in Singapore's History where there was racial unrest and lots of riots that it became unsafe to walk on the street after a certain hour. There were alot of doubts about the different races and alot of fight as well. And told him about the origin of the pledge written during the period between 1950s and 1960s. The pledge was written by
Mr S Rajaratnam who penned down the dream of building "a Singapore we are proud of". He believed that language, race and religion were divisive factors, but the Pledge emphasises that these differences can be overcome if Singaporeans cared enough about their country. The draft text was handed to the then Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who polished the text before submitting it to the Cabinet.

And I thought Kai our pledge in English. I told him that in the past when I was still in school, we recite the different language pledge on different day of the week.

Our Pledge

We, the citizens of Singapore,
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society
based on justice and equality
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation.

Different Languages Translation

IKRAR KITA
(Malay Translation)
Kami, warganegara Singapura,
sebagai rakyat yang bersatu padu,
tidak kira apa bangsa, bahasa, atau ugama,
berikrar untuk membina suatu masyarakat yang demokratik,
berdasarkan kepada keadilan dan persamaan untuk mencapai kebahagiaan,
kemakmuran dan kemajuan bagi negara Kami.

We are not expecting Kai to be able to sing the national anthem well and remember the whole pledge. As we go along, we will continue to practise with him so that he will be able to sing the anthem well and recite the pledge understanding the meaning well. And one thing we are glad is that Kai has a fair mixed of friends from the different races and he enjoys their company.

Our Nation Anthem

After looking at Singapore flag and flags all over the world, Kai has understood the meaning of our flag and what it symbolised. We have looked through "Our World Poster Sticker Books - Flags", Kai was able to identify our neighbouring countries and also the countries he has been to.

So I started telling him about our national anthem as Kai has been asking me during the Olympics and Parlympics, how come the songs and flags are different at the different medal presentation ceremonies. It was a good opportunity for me to use to introduce him to Singapore flag and now I told him about our Singapore National Anthem.

MAJULAH SINGAPURA
Mari kita rakyat Singapura
Sama-sama menuju bahagia
Cita-cita kita yang mulia
Berjaya Singapura

Marilah kita bersatu
Dengan semangat yang baru
Semua kita berseru
Majulah Singapura
Majulah Singapura

The Origin
The national anthem was written in the wake of nationalism during 1956-57. Its composer, the late Encik Zubir Said, had written it on the basis of two words, "Majulah Singapura" which means "Onward Singapore". It was launched on 3 Dec 1959 together with the national flag and the state crest, at the installation of the new head of state, the Yang di-Pertuan Negara. Upon Singapore's independence in 1965, "Majulah Singapura" was adopted as the republic's national anthem.

Kai was asked me. "Why is our national anthem in Malay?". It was a tough question to answer and I have to explain alittle about Singapore History to him that Singapore used to be a Malay village and we are part of the Malay Archipelago. And when Singapore became a state in Malaysia in the 1959, the national anthem was written by a malay composer to use as a state anthem. And it has a significant meaning behind it. I told him when I was little in Singapore, my English Language and Chinese Language teachers taught us about the meaning of the Singapore National Anthem in both English and Chinese and my Indian classmates learnt it in Tamil classes.

And during Music lesson, the Music teacher would take great measure to teach us how to pronounce and sing the anthem properly. I told him in school, we sing it every morning before the beginning of lessons if we are in the morning session and also during end of the day when we are heading home in the early evening if we are in the afternoon session. And it is still being conducted in Singapore schools now. I explained to him that we must take pride in our national anthem and stand still when it is play.

We remembered the time when the Singapore Netball Team was in Vancouver playing all the friendly matches against the different teams in Canada, Daddy and me brought Kai to watch every matches and we felt a sense of pride when our national anthem were played at the different matches. Kai was really young then no even 3 years old and got him to cheer for Singapore in the match. I explain to him the important of being patriotic to our country. We remember how the Canadians were so proud of their country and they aren't afraid to show it and now in Australia, the Aussies are also very proud of their country and they don their national jackets, etc. We do hope that one day, we will be able to get a Singapore National Sport Jacket for each of us as we are proud to be Singaporeans.



Differen Language Translations

Our National Anthem Translation

English

ONWARD SINGAPORE Come, fellow Singaporeans Let us progress towards happiness together May our noble aspiration bring Singapore success Come, let us unite In a new spirit Let our voices soar as one Onward Singapore Onward Singapore

Chinese

Tamil

I was only able to teach Kai the meaning of our national anthem in English and Chinese.

Information and translation contained from Ministry of Information,Communications and the Arts.

Learning about the different races in Singapore...

After learning about our National Flag, Kai was eager to learn about the different races in Singapore and the different festival seasons. We discussed about the different races of friends he has in Singapore.

When we were back in Singapore during January to July, Kai made friends with my mum's neigbhours' children. So he has Chinese friends, Malay friends and Indian friends. He played with them some times at the playground. And he was interested about their cultures and languages.

So we have a mini-history lesson about how the different races migrated to Singapore and we looked at the possibility of why people migrated during the early years. I told Kai about our ancestors from China, sail to Singapore looking for a greener pasture as well as those from India, the Malay Peninsula and as well the Eurasian who are a mixed ethnic group during to mixed marriage.

And he was curious why after making and working in Singapore, these people stay on and did not make their way back to their homeland. And he asked me, "Mummy, are we moving back to Singapore next time?"

And he added on, "I love Singapore and I want to go back there."

I asked him why and was glad with his reply that Singapore is his home and his family and friends are all there. I supposed the part of getting his friends and him to email each other has a positve effect on him.

Websites:
1. Singapore History (http://www-singapore.com/singaporehistory/index.html)

2. The History of Singapore (http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/post/singapore/history/historyov.html)

Discover our neigbourhood...

We went for our walk again and today, we were looking at our neighbours. Kai was really interested to look at the different mailboxes today. So we went round the neighbourhood looking at mailboxes and discussed about their uses.

We would like to find out more about how mailboxes comes about and who created them. Kai loves to watch different people at work, we have seen the gardener working on the garden pruning and trimming plants, builders at work at construction sites, baker baking and also seen the postman delivering letters. And it was a good way to talk about the different occupations. I took the opportunity to discuss with him why the mailboxes are outside the houses while those for apartments are under the apartment blocks.

After that Kai went to take photos for some unique mailboxes, I have compiled an album for it and we will just show a couple here.



Let a look at the unique mailboxes

Our National Flag

After watching the Olympics and now the Paralmpics, Kai was very determined to learn about our National Flag.

So today, we focused on Singapore Flag. I told Kai that we should be proud to be a Singaporean and that Singapore is our homeland. It is important to know that Singapore has come a long way from 1965.

Our National Flag

We learnt that Singapore Flag is divided into equal horizontal halves, half on the top is red with a crescent and five stars, the lower half is white. And Kai coloured a flag together.

What does each element of the flag symbolised? Kai was very curious about why it is red and white and how come there is a crescent and five stars. So we learnt more about the elements, here's what we have find out,

Red symbolises universal brotherhood and equality of man.

White represents purity and virtue.

The crescent moon symbolises a young nation on the ascendant. (I was telling Kai that Singapore was a very young country compared to other countries, when he asked me how old is Singapore. And I told him, Singapore just celebrated its 43rd birthday on 9th August 2008.)

The five stars stand for democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality.

After learning about our National Flag, Kai pasted a sticker of Singapore Flag on his Flag and World Map chart.

We are looking forward to learn about our National Anthem, the next time we do social studies again.

Learn about Map!

Kai came to me today and brought along the map of Sydney Downtown with him. And it amazed me to see him pointing to me the train station that we alighted last Sunday while bringing him to downtown.

And he was able to trace the places that we visited. He thought about the places and what he could remember there, it is amazing to see him remember all the places. We looked through the map and discussed about the different symbols on the map.

Then he told me that he wanted to work on the map of our housing estate here next Monday and after that he wants to move on to learn about different flags. And he requested to start with our national flag, "Singapore flag". And move on to the other nations.

It is a nice way to introduce him to the different nations, learn about their cultures and festivals. At the same time, I can start teaching him about National Education.

Will take a picture of the map we look at to add here later when I have more time.

Learning about our new environment...

We have recently just moved into our own rented apartment in Australia after relocating here about a month away. After all the cleaning and packing, we finally started homeschooling again.

We have come up with a daily time-table and decided on the different subjects to work on this year. And for our first homeschooling topic, we decided to learn more about our estate and worked on short studies around my estate to locate the shops, parks and playground.

We spent our time taking a walk around a small part of the estate we will be living for the next couple of years till Daddy completed his research and defence. Along our walk, we also look at those beautiful houses, plants and lovely creatures that God has created.

We are planning to work on a map for to cover our estate from the view of my little boy, Kai.