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Friday, September 3, 2010

Our letter "S" journey

Theme: Time
we are now alternating between thematic learning, units and delight-learning approach. We do alot of delight learning and as such we don't have plans that stretches to a quarter. We don't even have plans for the next 2 weeks. ;p

KB had such interest in numeric symbols. He started to ask about the number plate of cars when we pass by the carpark. Thanks the elevator we had to take everyday, he is now familiar with every number from 1 - 12. We reckon he was ready to tell the time. And he was able to tell the hour time, and soon he was telling us all the bus numbers from our bus-stops and where they are going, now he is trying to memorise my phone number in case he gets lost. :)


- We did a theme on 'Time', since we talk about it alot daily. KB has been talking about night time and day time and I thought I extended it to how things grow with time.
We grew beans! Beans take time to grow. Just like people. We looked at the family album and discuss times when he was was a baby and then he is now a big boy. We also spotted an old tree trunk in one of our nature walks and explained the number of rings represent how old the tree was.















Ar
ts & Crafts
KB was excited as he did his share to accumulate egg shells, washed and dried them for art. And the day finally arrived. Mummy drew a s-nake and KB crushed the eggs and stuck them on the body to look like snake's skin, then he decided to paint it. He had much better control of the paint brush then when he first started and had been able colour inside the lines, although it never came up as a topic and I was really ok with him colouring outside the line as an art form.















Reinforcing 'S' through simple peel and stick activity. Noticed how KB stacked up the stickers so nicely. I like the simple dimensional art.
















Nature prints (using pong pongs that we picked up from one of our nature adventure)




















Science
We've been in a habit of collecting nature finds and decided it was time to store them up, for a limited time (of course). We had our empty snail shell, a pong pong, some tree roots (from an uprooted tree due to strong weather condition), a whole bunch of tree leaves (from a fallen tree) - but was too big to put it in our nature jar, so we've set it our garden for now.

Mushrooms spotting
We can't believe we saw so many different types of mushroom in one park!




























In one of our play together session with younger sibling, t
he kids were suppose to get the plastic toys out of the frozen chunk of ice. They were given a few 'tools' and KB discovered what can melt ice faster. It was an hour of pure cool fun for both boys.




















... First, KB did not want to touch it. So he sprayed it.





















...then his feet went on top of the ice inside basin. Then he held the ice chunk.




















... then he went inside the basin and sat on the ice chunk! KB suddenly had an idea to go into our bathroom and get the cup out and pour lots of water on it (His own resourcefulness). I couldnt resist the little one who also followed suit, look at what he got instead? Mummy laughed so hard at that. Yes, its his potty! Cuties indeed.















And so KB discovered that water is the best and quickest way to melt the ice and get the toys out!

Pretend Play
KB goes Fishing!




















Pre-Math readiness
Playing with shapes and fraction

Pre-reading readiness
Lauri puzzle. KB was able to do it much quicker than the first time he did it. KB traced the letter "S" to get a feel how it looks like.















Mandarin We've come to the end of our Mandarin Speech and Drama at Julia Gabriel. KB had gained so much interest and confidence using mandarin as an alternative language. He even ventured to speak with our mandarin-speaking neighbours whom he has never uttered a word before. (See Review of Julia Gabriel N1 speech and drama). Now it is time for us to keep up with our conversational mandarin every Tues and Thurs and any other time of the week.

Social
KB was getting better at playing with others, while he still does alot of parallel play, he was interacting more. Home learning allows us to be available for neighbours to drop by anytime or to render babysitting to them whenever needed. KB enjoyed those surprise visits from our 7-year-old, 6-year-old , and 3-year-old neighbours, and mummy enjoyed 'having' extra kids from time to time, like a large family (minus the pregnancy bulge and by-passing parenting). Smiles.




















Some more play time
...
KB cycles everyday now, it is a blessing that we can go anywhere with mummy pushing the stroller and KB riding next to me. Theo has gone to the Library, park, playground, grandma's house all on his bike. We had an outing with a friend and KB rode about 2-hours with short breaks in between. We thought he was ready for a two-wheeler, but he seemed to love his red hot balance bike so much we decided to let him have it for another 6 months before passing it on to his younger brother. since watching YOG Time Trial, KB had several of those almost everyday. I'm truly amazed at a kid's enthusiasm...










Thursday, September 2, 2010

3-yr-old instructing mum how to 'train a kid"?

Theo has such a sense of responsibility and gifts of helps beyond his age, I could hardly believe what KB was saying today. (Not that I endorse the principle, but I was pleasantly surprised at his thinking process). He had shown such growth at taking care of his little brother.

Scenario 1: (Mummy took baby Elias into the bedroom into his crib during dinner time, KB noticed and asked)

Theo: Mummy, why is di di in the room?
Mummy: Theo, di di is being disciplined because he did not want to get into his high chair.
Theo: Mummy, don't punish him, just talk to him. Say "Elias get into your high chair" and he will sit down. You see. Punish is not good mummy.
Mummy: Theo, we're not discussing this for the moment ok, because mummy is taking care of him.
Theo: Its not good for Elias to be punished mummy...

He even got all the details communicated... whew!

Scenario 2 (Elias was afraid)
Theo: Elias , no need to be afraid, (and started singing) "I'm not afraid of anything, anything, anything, I'm not afriad of anything, cuz Jesus lives in my heart"

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Self-control



We turned on the air-con tonight as it was a rather warm evening. As we reached for the remote-control, KB said "This also needs self-control".

Fruit of the spirit


I overheard KB telling me the other day when we had fruits for snack.

(we were eating fresh cocktail of papaya, apple and apricot)

KB: Hmmm... I like this fruit of the spirit.

"Overheard"

"Overheard" is a section where the cutest thing is heard on planet earth. This is a keepsake for my children so that they know how much I treasure them, and every word they say not only bring joy to our homes, but a priceless treasure for keeps...

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Our letter "M m"

Bible theme: Everything has its time (Ecc 3:1-8)
We're using a thematic approach together with a letter unit this round. We are dedicating a whole series using Ecc 3 in our next round of updates. We also just started our mandarin speech and drama with Julia Gabriel for a term and mummy is now more intentional about speaking mandarin at home. Yipee!


Pre-writing readiness
KB was getting better with this. He does not touch the side lines now. He is also learning to be more precise as he circles those letters which are not the same.

Fine-motor skills
& Math readiness skills
KB is also getting better at cutting and can follow simply lines for a cut-out of shapes.
Mummy got him to cut out all the circles and mummy did all the stars. Then we did AB pattern and made a decorative item for our house. We read Beep beep vroom vroom and played 'follow the pattern' game by using our toy tokens to match colour patterns of the cars.

















Outdoor/Nature play : 'Sand-sation", climbing trees and playing with snails

























Elias is joining us in lots of nature play. Being a kinesthetic and rather fearless boy, he had lots of fun exploring. Sometimes mummy can take a book and sit and read while the kids play by themseleves. Peacefully. Nature captivates kids like no other can. And I marvel at what a wondeful God we have through his creations. KB is using a big shovel and Elias using a small one.

Letter craft, "M"
Since KB started recognising letters in our daily life on his own, I have changed our word pictures activity. I have now included a word together with the picture to reinforce sight words. There is no pressure to recognise them, but the goal is to bring about an awareness that letters form words that is significant to him.





Language Arts

We ventured a FIAR story on The runaway Bunny and we did a simple lapbook for ease of playing games on story sequencing, shadow matching and learning about shapes. We also played shadow matching (not a simple one at that, so it was nice that it was slightly more challenging).















It was interesting that KB recognised the illustration from The Runaway Bunny being similiar to a book he read. He exclaimed "This is like the Goodnight Moon book!" So we took out the other book and played "spot the difference" game by comparing the room in one book to the other. Helps in training the eye to spot colours and details.






Art: Making Impressions: Artistic Pursuits
KB collected various objects around the house and started making impressions. We looked at a picture and talked about the texture and then KB explored and played with various impressions. This is about learning that is motivated by curiosity. Artistic pursuits, "Rushed Children will not have time to gain this knowledge. Give children time to explore and to gather knowledge about the world they inhabit."

Service
Habit of saying "Good morning" and watering the plants. KB has been independent in changing out of his pyjamas and into his day clothes, that he now needed permission as the weather may not permit him to change out of bed clothes so soon. It was a habit training on self-control.

Free play

Train rides, playing with water, cycling, observing dew drops on leaves (picture taken by KB), random painting (of a boat according to KB),

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

3-yr-old on balance bike



This is KB's 3-year-old birthday present. He has wanted a bike forever and it was just so difficult to get such a bike in Singapore at affordable price. This was hand-carry all the way by daddy from U.S. :) KB's forth day at it and he was a whiz already.