Tactical Flags

It was contest time again in Migo's pre-school. The students had to memorize 15 flags during the eliminations. Once again, Migo passed the eliminations and was included in the final 8 students for the finals. For the finals, they had to know another 14 flags.

It was the same "amusing struggle" for us trying to review the flags with Migo...

Why are they all "United?" The United States flag was included in the eliminations. So when we were asking him to remember the flags of United Kingdom and the United Nations, Migo insisted that "United" was only for the States. We told him that there are other "United" countries, United Kingdom being one of them. We also told him that Tita Wowie and Tito Steve lives in the United Kingdom. So when we reviewed, we tell him this is where Tita and Tito lives.

Shopping Flag. Hong Kong, the red flag with the "flower" in the middle was where Tita Leah did her shopping for Migo's toys.

Dragon! Wales' flag is the one with big dragon in the middle while Sri Lanka's flag is the one with the dragon which has a sword.

J for Jupiter. Japan was included in the eliminations. Since his Planets book made an impression on Migo, he played with "J" and said that the flag with the red circle in the middle was Jupiter. When Jamaica was part of the final list that needed to be learned, he was then insisting that "J" was only for Japan!

Why are they the same? Flags with the same layout with different colors was also a source of a lot of queries. Cuba and Puerto Rico is the same, just different colors. Their sizes also seem to differ! Why? Bakit? Why? Bakit?...

Scotland and Jamaica was also the same! Just different colors... Why? Bakit? Why? Bakit?... Excavators! And since both has an "X" in the middle, they are also the "Excavators." (Migo is currently into "Diggers and Dumpers" - the mean machines of construction - this will be another blog entry soon!).

"That's not a flag, that's a triangle!" It was really hard to convince Migo that Nepal's flag is a flag. Why? Bakit? Why? Bakit?....

Word Play. Migo also used other words when remembering other flags. Tibet was Elizabeth while Guatemala was Guatemelon. Iran was said accompanied a running motion shouting: "I Ran!"

Aside from connecting it to people Migo knows (where Tita went shopping and where Tita / Tito lives), we also had to change our tactics to know if Migo got the flags right....

1. Mommy "will ask Daddy /Tita Ara/ Tito Lendl, etc. for the answer" so he will compete on who would say the correct answer first. Answers were to be recited out loud!
2. Migo got tired of saying out loud the countries , so we got into "if you don't want to say it aloud, you can whisper the answer to Mommy/Daddy tactic."
3. We will eat pancake, chips, etc. bribes.
4. We will go to Ate Mika's house ploy.
5. We will ride around the village incentive.
6. Look a mirror! We'll see if you can identify the flag in the mirror play.

In the finals, Migo got 8 out of the 10 flags asked. This is an improvement from his previous 7 out of 10 performance on his 1st quiz bee. A girl got all 10, so technically, Migo got 3rd place.

Learning with Migo continues to be fun. Next time, we will aim for 2nd place. So if you have other tactics, bribes, ploys, incentives, etc. you can suggest, please tell us so we can aim for gold! : )