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".
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.
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),
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.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Our letter "F f "
Bible theme: Sharing
Story: Parable of 5 loaves and 2 fish
We watched an animated cartoon online and mummy prepared the five loaves and two fish.
This was an excellent picture that showed a "Before" and "After" the miracle of Jesus. It presents great opportunities for talking about what happened after the boy share his food.
The picture remained on our show-shelf as a visual reminder for talking point. We counted the loaves of bread and fish and stick them into the basket for fun.
Talking points include:
1) God created a miracle by adding more when there is only a few.
2) God can use what you give to bless others.
This lesson coincide with our habit training for this season. It also coincide our everyday training for sharing between the KB and his younger brother.
Art and craft
We pulled out a rainy weather project. reinforcing shapes recognition and having fun creating something out of heart-shapes. These different size of heart-shapes pieced together to form a fish. He decorated the fish with glitter glue afterwards.
Alphabet craft
Making "Fox"
Alphabet picture
Sticking photos of things that starts with "F".
KB started spotting the letter "F, f" from everyday things such as this.
"F" is for feelings.
We took out the felt to play again and this time we were able to talk about feelings. The first time KB played this was about two-years-old.
Fine motor skills - Montessori (Basting)
Basting is a skill that requires one to release before squeezing the dropper. I filled cup with yellow paint and the other with blue paint. By letting him transfer one cup of paint to the other allows him to see how colour mixture can achieve another colour. Absolutely fascinating! He did it with right and then left hands and completed the entire cup with little prompting. A game that trains precision, patience and fine motor skills.
Large motor/Outdoor play
We spent so much time biking every morning we did not even do anything indoor except reading storybooks. This is him on his forth day, speeding on his new balance bike. More on learning to ride a bike at ibike. A balance bike is suppose to be small enough for the child to manoeuvre, complete with appropriate height for the seat and handle. KB was able to take his bike all the way from home and back all on his own, giving him a great sense of responsibility and independence.
Math
we play AB pattern using fresh flowers amongst other counting exercises in both language.
Imaginative play Pretending to be a frog
Science
we were so blessed to be able to play sand for 2 whole hours one morning because of a single incident. We were shoving our shovels in the sand when we saw a bird fly past us with a twig in its beak! So we got excited and watched the whole scene over and over. It was unbelievable in concrete jungle we live in. But it happened before our very eyes at a park near our place. unfortunately, I didnt have the camera with me at that time.
Service
KB had successfully mastered the habit of keeping after himself every morning. He drinks his milk, puts the bottle back in tray, take his diapers out and throw away, then change into shorts and then put his pajamas into the laundry pail and back to make his bed. (He has been on only 1 diaper per day for since January and is not wetting the bed. Hooray for another milestone!) He has also developed a habit of helping Di Di up the bed (by pushing his bum, a very cute sight!). He also cleans his bike tyres when we're back from cycling. This is Theo washing rice. He now helps to wash rice once a day for dinner and sets the table.
Socialisation
He also is in habit of paying the cashier whenever we are out and now learning to pay the taxi driver and saying thank you. KB's gym class has come to an end and it was sad for him as it was also for me. He had the opportunity to do so much in class and to be more agile. He also had the chance to learn to be courageous and tell everyone his name at every session. I was so proud of him when he was the only one who spoke in full sentence when asked what was his name. "My name is Theophilus". Another breakthrough to praise God for. It was also in this class I was able to seize teachable moments to teach him how to share. I thank God that this was a parent-child accompanied class. He would be taking a break from Gym for awhile as we focus on other areas.
Field Trip
Visit to the Fire Station. Theo & Elias was Firemen for a day. Mummy made a simple fireman costume using red colour tape from DIY shop. Daddy helped to print a badge and have it laminated to stick on the front of his t-shirt. ;p
Chinese
He finally got the hang of spoken chinese language. All because KB spent 3 whole days in Ah Ma's house. His spoken mandarin improved in the way he can answer simple questions all in mandarin! Yipee... we also read at least 1 chinese books per day. (Starting slow).
We will be focusing on conversational mandarin and storybooks for the next few months until he grows to love the language. This is the time I think he is ready to transit for full mandarin conversation for at least once a week. Until he is ready, mummy will increase it to twice a week. We are using the language immersion method.
Delight-learning
This season, we learn about surface and its 100% child-led. KB was interested in various surface of things and we were able to introducehim the following materials based on his leading. He would ask "mummy, what is this made of?" and I will tell him and introduce simple properties of the surface such as "it is made of glass, so it is easily broken.". At one point he touched a very hot kettle and cried. I had to comfort him and tell him, the kettle is made of metal, we just boiled the water in there so its very hot. Discovering what things are made of is so much fun.
Free play
Lego is such a timeless treasure. He has learnt to build some things based on imaginations. This is a horse.
Navy Open House - family on Larcfive! (Lighter, Amphibious Resupply, Cargo, 5 ton).
This vehicle is commonly known at "duck tour". It is known to be able to float in water like a boat and have wheels like a truck. So it is both a land and sea vehicle.
A bee in the flower!
On one of our walks, this time near the Botanical Gardens, just outside NIE, we caught many bees pollinating flowers in the trees. It was so amazing sight to see many bees fly in and out of the flowers. It was low enough for us to see, yet not so near to intrude on the busy bees.
Service : Fixing goody bags for friends
KB having fun putting items in goody bags for his 3rd birthday.
Bali holiday
KB have been asking about sun-rise and sun-set and we finally got to see it. KB rode on camel, turtle, touched a tiger, rode in a glass-bottom boat, swam, played with his cousin, saw how batik was being made and learnt how rice came about! He also had the chance to get a glimpse of the cockpit in the plane - super! (check out the picture of KB washing his hands. can you see a lion behind him?
Story: Parable of 5 loaves and 2 fish
We watched an animated cartoon online and mummy prepared the five loaves and two fish.
This was an excellent picture that showed a "Before" and "After" the miracle of Jesus. It presents great opportunities for talking about what happened after the boy share his food.
The picture remained on our show-shelf as a visual reminder for talking point. We counted the loaves of bread and fish and stick them into the basket for fun.
Talking points include:
1) God created a miracle by adding more when there is only a few.
2) God can use what you give to bless others.
This lesson coincide with our habit training for this season. It also coincide our everyday training for sharing between the KB and his younger brother.
Art and craft
We pulled out a rainy weather project. reinforcing shapes recognition and having fun creating something out of heart-shapes. These different size of heart-shapes pieced together to form a fish. He decorated the fish with glitter glue afterwards.
Alphabet craft
Making "Fox"
Alphabet picture
Sticking photos of things that starts with "F".
KB started spotting the letter "F, f" from everyday things such as this.
"F" is for feelings.
We took out the felt to play again and this time we were able to talk about feelings. The first time KB played this was about two-years-old.
Fine motor skills - Montessori (Basting)
Basting is a skill that requires one to release before squeezing the dropper. I filled cup with yellow paint and the other with blue paint. By letting him transfer one cup of paint to the other allows him to see how colour mixture can achieve another colour. Absolutely fascinating! He did it with right and then left hands and completed the entire cup with little prompting. A game that trains precision, patience and fine motor skills.
Large motor/Outdoor play
We spent so much time biking every morning we did not even do anything indoor except reading storybooks. This is him on his forth day, speeding on his new balance bike. More on learning to ride a bike at ibike. A balance bike is suppose to be small enough for the child to manoeuvre, complete with appropriate height for the seat and handle. KB was able to take his bike all the way from home and back all on his own, giving him a great sense of responsibility and independence.
Math
we play AB pattern using fresh flowers amongst other counting exercises in both language.
Imaginative play Pretending to be a frog
Science
we were so blessed to be able to play sand for 2 whole hours one morning because of a single incident. We were shoving our shovels in the sand when we saw a bird fly past us with a twig in its beak! So we got excited and watched the whole scene over and over. It was unbelievable in concrete jungle we live in. But it happened before our very eyes at a park near our place. unfortunately, I didnt have the camera with me at that time.
Service
KB had successfully mastered the habit of keeping after himself every morning. He drinks his milk, puts the bottle back in tray, take his diapers out and throw away, then change into shorts and then put his pajamas into the laundry pail and back to make his bed. (He has been on only 1 diaper per day for since January and is not wetting the bed. Hooray for another milestone!) He has also developed a habit of helping Di Di up the bed (by pushing his bum, a very cute sight!). He also cleans his bike tyres when we're back from cycling. This is Theo washing rice. He now helps to wash rice once a day for dinner and sets the table.
Socialisation
He also is in habit of paying the cashier whenever we are out and now learning to pay the taxi driver and saying thank you. KB's gym class has come to an end and it was sad for him as it was also for me. He had the opportunity to do so much in class and to be more agile. He also had the chance to learn to be courageous and tell everyone his name at every session. I was so proud of him when he was the only one who spoke in full sentence when asked what was his name. "My name is Theophilus". Another breakthrough to praise God for. It was also in this class I was able to seize teachable moments to teach him how to share. I thank God that this was a parent-child accompanied class. He would be taking a break from Gym for awhile as we focus on other areas.
Field Trip
Visit to the Fire Station. Theo & Elias was Firemen for a day. Mummy made a simple fireman costume using red colour tape from DIY shop. Daddy helped to print a badge and have it laminated to stick on the front of his t-shirt. ;p
Chinese
He finally got the hang of spoken chinese language. All because KB spent 3 whole days in Ah Ma's house. His spoken mandarin improved in the way he can answer simple questions all in mandarin! Yipee... we also read at least 1 chinese books per day. (Starting slow).
We will be focusing on conversational mandarin and storybooks for the next few months until he grows to love the language. This is the time I think he is ready to transit for full mandarin conversation for at least once a week. Until he is ready, mummy will increase it to twice a week. We are using the language immersion method.
Delight-learning
This season, we learn about surface and its 100% child-led. KB was interested in various surface of things and we were able to introducehim the following materials based on his leading. He would ask "mummy, what is this made of?" and I will tell him and introduce simple properties of the surface such as "it is made of glass, so it is easily broken.". At one point he touched a very hot kettle and cried. I had to comfort him and tell him, the kettle is made of metal, we just boiled the water in there so its very hot. Discovering what things are made of is so much fun.
Free play
Lego is such a timeless treasure. He has learnt to build some things based on imaginations. This is a horse.
Navy Open House - family on Larcfive! (Lighter, Amphibious Resupply, Cargo, 5 ton).
This vehicle is commonly known at "duck tour". It is known to be able to float in water like a boat and have wheels like a truck. So it is both a land and sea vehicle.
A bee in the flower!
On one of our walks, this time near the Botanical Gardens, just outside NIE, we caught many bees pollinating flowers in the trees. It was so amazing sight to see many bees fly in and out of the flowers. It was low enough for us to see, yet not so near to intrude on the busy bees.
Service : Fixing goody bags for friends
KB having fun putting items in goody bags for his 3rd birthday.
Bali holiday
KB have been asking about sun-rise and sun-set and we finally got to see it. KB rode on camel, turtle, touched a tiger, rode in a glass-bottom boat, swam, played with his cousin, saw how batik was being made and learnt how rice came about! He also had the chance to get a glimpse of the cockpit in the plane - super! (check out the picture of KB washing his hands. can you see a lion behind him?
Monday, April 19, 2010
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