Our letter "A" journey

Letter sounds, Art & Craft We worked on "A" which makes the sound "Air". Mummy drew the apple and Theo tore it right down to 'break' the apple into 2 halves. Then he used a pencil to draw seeds left of the apple core. We got this cute idea from homeschool creations. Later KB would recognise the letter A from water play, from road signs and drawing on sand.














Nature / Outdoor have you ever seen a snail poo-poo? Well, here it is. A nice, slimy, swirly snail poo for us all to see. We all exclaimed what big poo a small snail has! KB has developed a love for garden snails and he would ask for it after a rain. it was nice because it rained alot in Sept and Oct and we always had the chance to bring a snail or two home for the day before releasing them back to their habitat. Meanwhile, KB worked at creating a cosy home for them.
















































Rain is a good thing, our Filipina helper says kids in her home town look forward to rain to play in the rain. And we thought, why not? Urban kids can do it too. So we too don our raincoat and went splashing. Here's KB enjoying the little bit of the rain.

Then there is KB on go-kart and fearless KB on flying fox.

Where do bananas grow? We discovered a really big banana tree, complete with bunches of banana hanging downwards. Instinctively the kids chose to sit underneath it. Were they waiting for the bananas to fall?

























We spotted some swans swimming in the lake and we thought it might be fun to play "spot the difference game" - Swan vs duck.












Appreciating nature and spotting a bird nest!




















Visiting Universal studio and experimenting with various form of pretend play, rides and cartoon fantasy.




















Water play - still a perennial favourite















Imaginative play
Its take-out-recycle-boxes day and build anything you want. KB built a Airport Control Tower, a ramp for the cyclist and a hump for him to jump over. Loved this game.




















Pretend Play
In one of our free play moments, he build something he had read in a book, The Little blue boat, kathy Henderson. He said it an oil rig. Check out the book version and his lego version. He build it all from memory or at least how he thought it was to be.




















Festival and celebrations
Since it mid autumm festival, this year we did something different. We made 'mooncake' using agar agar and looked at the full moon in the sky. KB made his own lantern. I supplied the materials and he assembled them together as he liked. And they neednt look like the ones sold in the market or shops, each lantern is uniquely made by a child. We also went to the Singapore River on the same night with our friends to carry lantern.















Cooking / Baking
We started a co-op with fellow homeschoolers and had a baking / cooking session once a week.
We did kneading, decorating, stirring, pouring, and eating of course.
Things started off there and we now do some cooking at home together. KB started to fry scrambled eggs at home. About time too!
















































Math
We are into patterning this season. here's one of our observation in one of our nature walks. We were in the midst of playing birthday celebrations and had invited all his furry friends to attend. And mummy took the opportunity to decorate patterns on birthday cake, with KB 'copying' after.
And other pattern games using sticker tags.

FLying Fox (whooooooooooopeeeeeeeeeeee)

Overheard: How many people left? (early addition and subtraction)

Theo: you guys go to the library lah, I will sleep by myself Mum: then who will take care of you? Theo: zsa zsa lah Mum : if both of us go, how many people will be left in the house? Theo (without battling an eyelid) : Three Mum (surprised): Huh? How many? Theo: Three Mum (not convinced) :who are they? Theo: Me, Zsa Zsa and Elias. Dad: if ah ma comes over, then how many people in the house? Theo: Four lah

Jab

Theo: After di di finish his jab, then whose turn?
Mummy: After di di, it will be your turn.

Theo: I don't want injection, because the needle is very sharp. I am a human being so I don't like people use sharp things to poke me.
Mummy: Oh every human being has to go for injection. When you were a baby you had lots of injection, you were not scared, you didn't cry.

Theo: I want to be animal, mummy.
Mummy: Why?

Theo: Because animal no need to have injection.
Mummy: Oh even dogs need to go for vaccination...

Theo: I'll be a horse ...
Mummy: Why do you want to be a horse?

Theo: because I like people to ride on my back lah
Mummy: Ok, We can play that later, you pretend to be horse, I'll pretend to be a little boy..

Theo: Horse no need injection ...

(hahah... he remembers!)

Shame

Theo (pointing to mummy and daddy's wedding picture): Mummy, why did you wear like that?
Mum: You mean the wedding dress?
Theo: No, why like that? (pointing to my off-shoulder dress), its shame lah
Mum: (laughing!) Oh, that, yes. Mummy only wear like that during wedding.

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.















Arts & 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, the 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...

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"