Preparing for Christmas : Snowman

We started our 3-series Christmas preparation. The first was an gentle introduction to snowman!!! It was more cultural than religious and I thought there was no harm to doing that.
For a change, Daddy got the materials. It was to be a Family Time.

Then we collected hard cardboard together that Saturday morning from a nearby grocery store, using a piece of the hard cardboard as backing

I looked at the stickers available and developed a picture to show where the stickers should go. I also pre-cut two snow-capped mountains, complete with snow on the top of the mountains. Then I used cellophane paper to wrap the cardboard and glued the snow-capped mountain together to create a scenic backdrop. Cellophane is good for use as stickers can be peeled off easily and does not stick stubbornly compared to paper. So it is child-friendly and they can put it anywhere and peel off easily.

The instruction was for Theo to look at the pre-drawn picture I did and identify where each of the objects should go.

We let Theo pick out what he like to stick and then assign the rest of the roles to ourselves. I think we played for about 30mins and Theo had fun peeling the stickers of Christmas trees and sticking the pressies and stars. Then he reminded me to put up the lights which he thought looked like Strawberries! He told me, "there are 2 , we forgot to put it on, there are 2" And pointed at the picture and laughed. Here's the completed picture which now hangs in our living room.
















Part II

We did a snowman craft which was really just peeling the stickers and pasting them onto the snowman, pretty much the same skillset as the snow-capped picture but this is more funtional. It hangs nicely on the doorknob! Theo did everything by himself. I love his polka-dot scarf and how cool his snowman wears it. :)




















Part III - Nativity scene (Jesus was born in the manger)

This is the real stuff Christmas is made of. We read the Bible on the birth of Jesus and proceeded to construct the birth place of Jesus. This was really easy to build, like a 3D puzzle, so it was fun! The only thing was that it needed the help of an adult because of the glue that was needed to hold the pieces in place. Theo had fun putting "Joseph", "Mary" and "Baby Jesus" in the manger.

Our letter "A"

We started on letter recognition with upper and lower case A. Theo played sorting and did it with ease. He excitedly did it another round to show Daddy when he came home that day.

We also sang "Ants on the ankle" song by jolly phonics, which Theo being an auditory learner was quick to pick up the song in a day and sang with ease. Then we trace the upper and lower case A with our fingers and did AB pattern for Ambulance and Aeroplane.















During lunch we had Animal pasta and Theo tried to identify the animals by its outline, it was rather difficult but he managed to tell which one was a cow!















We took out all the different colored balloons and pumped air into it while Theo let the Air out of the balloon. We had a whale of time with the air hissing out and balloon flying all over the house. Each time the balloon 'flies', Theo would laugh uncontrollably. I think we probably played for a good 45mins. Then it became quite tiring for my arms as I was pumping non stop! We rounded off by sorting the balloons by their colours. We also talk about God being like AIR is everywhere.

No mean feat!

pincer grip with toes!

All about Fish

We went to watch "Swimmy" a delightful play for young children. we went home and pasted Swimmy in our craft book.

2 days later, Theo came to us and showed us this stack of cards which he selected from a pile of other cards and said "mummy, I saw this... inside Swimmy... See, see"
I took the cards and examined the ones he picked and was amazed he picked the exact creatures shadows he saw in the play. Good observation and memory.

Then we went fishing the following week with a new friend, Kyle who was about the same age as him. The fish swam so fast it was difficult to catch. But I bet it was just as fun watching how 'fast' the fish swam and feeding the large koi in the pond. Theo was excited that the fish mummy caught went home with us. He took it everywhere he played that day.

Show & Tell

Overheard. Theo " We took a double-decker bus to ABC market to eat porridge, remember?" Subsequently Theo built a double decker bus using Lego and show and told us all about the trip and the bus of course! He built is quietly by himself and then showed us when its done, surprising us all.
Good job my boy.

Theo gets crafty

Theo loves crafts and once he's into it, he can be in it for a long long time. Fine motor skills and deft little fingers were at work quicker than I could catch up.

Since he was in a season of 'writing' (actually more like emulating us as we dictates our helper what to buy), I decided to let him spell his name (the short form to start) and pre-cut the letters out for him. He chose the colours and punched holes in all of them (except letter 'H' and then have them stuck onto his door. A good sense of achievement and recognition of his own name. The rest of the week, he was seen spelling his name and telling everyone where his name was; on his bag, on the door, on the fridge etc.