Planting roots, Growing wings

Right start for Math

2010-04-02T16:37:00.003+08:00

I did not grow up liking Math. Maybe because I did not have a logical mind and Math just did not make sense to me. Or simply because I learnt Math by rote and never learn the principals of Math.

Research as shown that children who use rote memorization for math seem to advance through the educational system until they reach about Primary 3. That's when Math starts to become confusing and gets harder for them to manage. Only then, adults come to a realisation that the child never really had a basic understanding of math in the first place.

So as to help a child develop a conceptual understanding of math. Math should be presented in a developmental sequence and concepts brought across through scaffolding techniques, that allows the child to build a logical sequence of their understanding.

Most people start the child on numbers. Fundamentally, it is still a useful skill for a child to acquire in learning to associate meaning with symbols. However, this does not give an indication of true understanding, as many can count to high numbers without having a basic understanding of what the numbers represent.

The best way for a child to develop a conceptual understanding of math is to present math in a developmental sequence that allows the child to build their understanding through a logical way.

Math for a preschooler starts with exploration; children should be given hands-on, concrete experiences to experiment with concepts. Through exploration, children begin to recognise similarities and differences of objects, before moving on to the concept of classification. Classification bridges to the concept of patterns, then comparing more or less before finally reaching number concepts.

Letter U

2010-03-31T16:17:00.015+08:00

Letter U is a letter that is quite fun to teach as the words starting with the letter are quite few and distinctive, thus makes it easy for a child to understand.

The books used were;Great Day for Up (Bright & Early Board Books), Up Above and Down Below, UMBRELLA by Taro Yashima (1959 CALDECOTT HONOR WINNER 1958, Exploring Underground Habitats (Mondo's Exploring Series), Underground Train (Picture Yearling Book) and The Umbrella Day.

Some of these books are out of print and can be hard to buy it off the shelf however, the local library does carry all these titles above. One of the easiest and most efficient to get those books is to reserve the books online. I spend about $10.00 per week just reserving the titles that accompany Kyle's home learning, but I think is worth spending that small investment to get the appropriate books.

I chose two books to introduce related activities;

Up Above and Down Below is a wonderfully illustrated book that brings out the activities that are specifically happening above ground and below ground. Kyle loved the pictures in the book and he spent alot of time looking through every detail. He especially enjoyed spotting the 'red ant' that was hiding in every scene.

We played the Up and Under game after reading the book. I gave him a series of movement instructions, and he had alot of fun trying out the movements.

He was trying to crawl upside down in this photo

The other game we played was Up up and away. I doodled a few items and vehicles and asked him to rearrange how high each item can go. That got him to think a little harder on whether airplanes flew higher than helicopters.

I introduced the UN word to his vocabulary. Explained how words can be different just with the two letters of UN in front of it. Like UNtie/tie, UNhappy/happy.

UMBRELLA by Taro Yashima (1959 CALDECOTT HONOR WINNER) was the other book that I used a story stretcher.

We did an art activity and I was heartened to see him totally engrossed in the activity for a full 45 minutes!

It was just a simple cut and paste

He even asked for his umbrella and ugg boots and decked himself up like the Momo character in the book.

Letter Y and Z

2010-03-24T15:44:00.000+08:00

We started on our weekly programme for read alouds since last week and so far, it has been fabulous. Kyle is averaging about 6 new books a week and he really enjoys our sessions of read alouds. He often requests these books to be read aloud to him at least 3-4 more times before we return them to the library.

I did not use the lapbook method when I introduce the letters Y and Z, instead use the literature method and the Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder for reinforcement of letter sounds.
The books use for letter Y were;You Can Do It, Sam , Yoko (Yoko and Friends-School Days), Big Yawn, The, Sophie and Sam: When to Say Yes. The books used for letter Z were; Birthday Zoo, Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I'm Off To The Moon, Zella, Zack & Zodiac.

Introducing Letter I with read-aloud books

2010-02-12T23:25:00.002+08:00

A little variation was included in the learning of Letter I. The lapbook had only Letter I pictures (I was a little lazy and did not look for folder activities) and we focused on reading books. The books used were Inch by Inch, an interesting picture book on insects; It's a Good Thing There Are Insects, I Wanna Iguana and a sticker activity book; Bugs (Nature Sticker Stories).

Each time when we touch on a new letter, I will use the Fridge Words Magnetic Word Builder to reinforce the letter sounds. At this point, I have not starting teaching 3 letter words with the word builder as yet, as Kyle needs to learn all the letter sounds and recognise all the uppercase+lowercase letters in the alphabet.

I am still taking it really slow with Kyle in introducing new letters, as most of the letter lapbooks + activities are done the most twice a week. As I do not want to turn him off the joy in learning, and we are in no rush to ensure that he has to learn to read by himself. I truly enjoy the mother and son bonding time when I read to him and hope that this read-aloud habit can continue for a long time to come.

Here are some Charlotte Mason quotes for making the habit of a family read-aloud an enjoyable time as well as a learning experience.

1. Reading a book together as a family strengthens family bonds and provides many occasions for discussion.
“There are few stronger family bonds than this habit of devoting an occasional hour to reading aloud, on winter evenings, at any rate. The practice is pleasant at the time, and pleasant in the retrospect, it gives occasion for much bright talk, merry and wise, and quickens family affection by means of intellectual sympathy. Indeed, the wonder is that any family should neglect such a simple means of pure enjoyment, and of moral, as well as intellectual culture” (Vol. 5, p. 220).

2. Be sure to make reading aloud a consistent habit that everyone looks forward to.
“But this, of reading aloud, is not a practice to be taken tip and laid down at pleasure. Let the habit drop, and it is difficult to take it up again, because every one has in the meantime struck a vein of intellectual entertainment for himself—trashy stuff, it may be,—which makes him an unwilling listener to the family ‘book.’ No; let an hour’s reading aloud be a part of the winter evening at home—on one or two evenings a week, at any rate—and everybody will look forward to it as a hungry boy looks for his dinner” (Vol. 5, p. 220).

Letter V and Growing Vegetable soup

2010-02-01T14:13:00.002+08:00

We took a week’s break from our letter activities and lapbooking, as I was simply too tired in the mornings to do anything constructive with Kyle. Lack of sleep is a very bad state to have if I plan to teach Kyle, as I will be less patient with him and more short- tempered.

We did this art activity ‘Vegetable stamping’ a week back, as a prelude to introducing the letter V and word vegetables.

This morning we continue with the letter V activities and covered the words, Volcano, Van, Violin. The books that we read included The Velveteen Rabbit and Volcanoes: Mountains That Blow Their Tops. I moulded a volcano out of clay, placed a test tube inside and filled it with warm water, drops of red colouring, some baking soda and some dishwashing liquid. Kyle poured the vinegar into the ‘volcano’ and watched it ‘erupt’.

We went on to read Growing Vegetable Soup, and Kyle spend some time on the lapbook that I put together for him.

The activities in the lapbook were mainly taken from Kidssoup. He was not too motivated to do the matching of uppercase letters with lowercase, even remarked that that activity was boring, but at least enjoyed the vegetable patterning activity. I guess learning about vegetables is not a very intriguing subject, even for the preschooler.

Before we move on to our next alphabet or lapbook, we will be listening to the violins from a Vivaldi CD and look at some Van Gogh pictures. This is one way which I think I can make learning about music and art a little more relevant for him.

Jesse Bear, What will you wear?

2010-01-15T23:54:00.004+08:00

The 3rd BFIAR book we started this week is Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? We only spent abou 10-15 minutes on the lapbook and did not manage to do any accompanying activities with this book.

Lapbook materials were obtained from homeschool share.

The concepts in the book and covered in the lapbook were really simple, and it hardly intrigued Kyle. The only key take out that Kyle got from the book and lapbook was the concept of rhyming words.

Overall the book was still a fun read. Guess its time to take a break from the BFIAR books until I get the copy of the BFIAR guidebook. At this point, I have little or no resource to refer on how to expand certain concepts from the BFIAR books.

I still wonder if these other books; Play with Me and Angus Lost, which I plan to cover in the next few weeks/months may not be as exciting as I hope they will be for Kyle. We are only in our 1st month in the year and we have 'completed' 3 BFIAR books. I hope this momentum continues, for me especially, since lapbooking really takes alot of time and effort on my part. Doesn't matter even if we might be breezing through some of the BFIAR books and lapbooks rather quickly. What matters is that Kyle learns and enjoys his home-learning.

We will have to see, for all we know, we may just start the FIAR volume 1 books earlier than I expect.

Letter J and learning styles

2010-01-15T23:27:00.002+08:00

After reading a couple of books on Jam, we went on to learn about Letter J. Words that we covered starting with letter J include; jellyfish, jacket, jelly beans, jacket, jug, jump, jack-in-the- box. We sang ‘Jack and Jill’ and a fun action song from KidsSoup; ‘Jack-in-the-box’.

Jack-in-the-box, Jack-in-the-box, curl up small (action-curl up small on the floor) Jack-in-the-box, Jack-in-the-box, Jump-up Tall! (jump as high as he can)

Contents in the Letter J lapbook were mostly from Lapbook lessons and KidsSoup.

Additional books used for Letter J were Mr. Jelly and the Pirates, The Giant Jelly Bean Jar, If Jesus Came to My House, Jellyfish. I did not introduce other J activities to Kyle as he is very familiar with many J things that were included in the letter J alphabet activities found online. Besides that I have learnt from previous experience that exposing him to more activities did not help him to remember the letter and sound. Instead, giving him greater exposure to the printed word worked better. As I do not like to teach using flashcards, books were the next best option.

He is extremely responsive when I point out the J letter sound through the ‘J ‘ related picture books. He learns the phonetic sound really quickly, and remembers how the letter looks after reading the books once through. I found that that Kyle seems to really enjoy learning through books and for him, it is really the case of the more books, the merrier :)

We usually will continue reading the same books for at least another 3 more times in the week before moving on to a new alphabet. I am glad that this method has worked well with him and has given me an indication that he is also a strong auditory and visual learner.

Initially, I had the impression that Kyle learning strengths were in the kinesthetic area, since he is so hands with his favorite sports; golf and tennis. But he has pleasantly surprised me with his ability in the other learning styles.

I will continue to use lapbooks + picture books with Kyle to teach him the alphabet sounds, as well as incorporate 2-3 kinesthetic activities in each lesson. What I have realised thus far, is that Kyle has little interest in art/craft activities, so I have learnt not to force these letter related art activities when he has little or no interest.

Nonetheless, Kyle will be slowly introduced to art + music appreciation through the CM method. Even if he may not grow up to be an artist / musician, it will be good for his overall development if he learns to appreciate art and music.

Blueberries for Sal

2010-01-05T16:38:00.004+08:00

There are some classics that Kyle likes, but some others like Blueberries for Sal, which I thought he could not really relate to. It helped that the activities in the lapbook (from homeschool share) managed to engaged more interest for the story.

However, our reading experience was unlike our previous BFIAR experience with The Carrot Seed. There may be a couple of concepts that he wasn’t familiar with from the book;

1. Canning the blueberries

2. Picking blueberries. For us living in Singapore, blueberries came in boxes from the supermarket, not blueberry fields :(

So as to reinforce some of the simplier concepts from the book. I got these other books to accompany this lesson plan; Bread and Jam for Frances, Jamberry and The Giant Jam Sandwich. Will progress to Letter J alphabet lessons once we have finished with some activities.

I will be taking him to the supermarket later this week to look at the variety of fruit jams available. Then getting him to try some orange jam with bread for breakfast (I told him we will be getting some blueberry jam, but he specifically requested for orange jam instead :)) And frying some Blueberry pancakes, or opt to go for the easy way out and heat up the blueberry waffles from the freezer (coincidentally, one of Keith’s favorite breakfast foods) and top it up with blueberries instead.

Letter C lapbook and activities

2010-01-05T15:58:00.002+08:00

After a long weekend break, we went on to do the Letter C lapbook this morning. The words covered from the lapbook are Cupcakes, Counting, Creation, Cake, Caterpillar, Car, Circus Clown.

The materials of the lapbook were taken from KidsSoup and Lapbook lessons.

Kyle did an colour mixing activity thereafter. It was rather messy, but he had alot of fun and managed to grasp the concept that mixing primary colours produced secondary colours.

I then asked him if he wanted to do art for to make a cloud artwork, he told me that he did not want to do art today.

When he was given art activities (part of the alphabet lesson plans) without asking if he wanted to do it, Kyle show disinterest and an extremely short attention span while doing the art activity. I realised that it is always wise that I queried on his interest in the activity before we start doing it.

That’s one of the key advantages of home learning. The learning is centred around the child’s interests and catered to his personality. I foresee that this spirited personality of Kyle’s will face some challenges when he is expected to participate in structured lessons in school.

Maybe even for a child, art is an activity that needs for an individual to be in a certain state of mind, before he is inspired to create an artwork or craft. I suppose it is time we start on art appreciation, using CM methods.

From our session this afternoon, I noticed that Kyle had very little interest for counting games. I did not insist that he complete the counting game and allowed him to do something else. I do hope that it is not due to a natural lack of affinity with numbers (hope he is not like me, I hated maths when I was young) but rather, due to the technique that the learning is delivered. After going through a couple of alphabet lapbooks with Kyle, I realised that he is usually more interested in the literacy and science concepts incorporated in the lapbook and has very little interest in the math concepts.

I will incorporate less math in the lapbooks, instead, will explore concepts from Count on Math: Activities for Small Hands and Lively Minds. This book introduces learning activities to present math in a developmental sequence that allows children to build on their understanding in a logical sequence (scaffolding of activities), and ensures that children develop a conceptual understanding of math.

The Carrot Seed and Letter C related books

2009-12-29T12:25:00.016+08:00

We started our first BFIAR book this week; The Carrot Seed.I have read this book to Kyle a couple of months back, however he showed little interest previously. Nonetheless, with the introduction of the lapbook after re-visiting the book again, he really enjoyed the story, the related activities in the lapbook and he asked for more when we finished!

Lapbooks, coupled with story-stretcher activities really can heighten Kyle’s interest in a selected topic from the book. I told him that we will be going to a plant nursery the next day to get a pot, add some soil and plant something. I could tell that he was really keen, looked forward to growing his own plant and complete this section from the lapbook.

The Carrot Seed will be read for another 2 more times before bedtime this week. I choose not follow the BFIAR recommendation of reading the book for 1 full week (in case of boredom), unless Kyle prefers it otherwise.

All materials from this lapbook were taken from homeschool share.

I introduced the letter C through The Carrot Seed lapbook and read some alphabet related books on the same day. The books that I used for letter C were; The Mixed-Up Chameleon, Mr. Cheerful , If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Anno's Counting Book and It Looked Like Spilt Milk (a book about clouds).

Initially I was concerned that I may be introducing too many new books in a single day, however Kyle surprised me with his voracious ‘appetite’ for read-aloud books and asked for one more each time I finished one book. He is able to give his 100% attention for every book that we read together :)

We followed up with a field trip to the plant nursery the next day and got items to plant our first spring onion plant.

Still awaiting a copy of the BFIAR guide + Picture Book Activities : Fun and Games for Preschoolers Based on 50 Favorite Children's Books for more ideas for story stretchers before moving on to our next BFIAR book; Blueberries for Sal.

In the meantime, we will continue with Letter C lapbook and activities for the rest of the week.

Letter R activities

2009-12-22T23:03:00.002+08:00

Kyle started on the Letter R lapbook and we talked about rain; discussed the difference between a drizzle and a downpour, how rain is important to sustain the plants and animal life in nature and water for us humans.

I shared the story about the rainbow in the story of Noah’s ark in Genesis; how the rainbow was a symbol of a convenant that God made with Noah that He will not flood the earth again. We continued with a rainbow craft using coloured salt.

The two books that we used in conjunction with letter R was Rooster’s off to see the World and Mr Rude from the Mr. Men series of mini books. After reading through couple of Mr.Men’s books, I realised that there is little value in the titles that cover negative qualities. Although there is always a small lesson that the character in the book learns at the end of it, I think Kyle was more intrigued with the initial portrayal of negative traits rather than realising that he should not practice it. I suppose his level of understanding is still rather literal, thus books of this sort will not be that suitable now.

This book was selected based on its relevance to letter R and it stem from my initial impatience in getting books for the alphabet lessons. We probably have a couple more Mr. Men books to go through from this previous purchase to accompany the alphabets.

CM methods have shed some light into my selection for better quality literature for Kyle. Moving forward, I will be only getting living books to accompany our alphabet lessons. Lots to be exhausted from these lists; BFIAR, FIAR, Classical Education, Amberside, Caldecott Medal Winners.

I plan to invest in more books from the BFIAR, FIAR recommended titles and then borrow the rest. from the local library. The current challenge I see will be to complete all the lapbooks for some of the better titles, as well as getting the books on time from the National Library reservation system.

Homeschool focus

2009-12-22T15:53:00.004+08:00

After spending many hours in the afternoons and late nights browsing through countless number of sites online. I am so pleased that I have finally decided on a focus for home-learning.

Since I have embarked on alphabet activities since this blog started, I have been rather lost in the direction to take for home-school. I always felt that although academic learning may be mandatory for any child growing up in Singapore, the system just seemed so superficial, empty and lacking in many areas. There is little room in the local system to develop the other core areas of social awareness, fine arts appreciation, habits training, spiritual development or an appreciation or knowledge of nature. In other words, the development of a whole child.

Parents are naive to think that just plainly studying and mugging for exams will be good enough to make their child an useful contributor to society. What I have learnt after seeing true life examples are that parents whose only focus is academic education for their child, the former will only be readying an adult to be moulded in the requirements in the line-up of the starting point of any rat race.

It may sound extremely over-whelming for any parent who is keen on embarking on this challenge to develop their whole child. But I realised that it is not that tough when I learnt more about Charlotte Mason educational method. She may have developed her methods of education in the early 1900s, but her techniques and her methodology are truly timeless and will be suitable for any parent who is willing to spend that time to learn with their child.

I have only started with nature walks the last two weeks and I am thoroughly amazed by the amount of knowledge and insights that a parent and child can gather from just observing nature.

As for literacy, Kyle and I will be embarking on the Five in a row curriculum (FIAR), specifically the list of Before Five in a row (BFIAR) books for the next one year. I have gone into this major shopping for books overdrive and acquired some of the titles to go with this literature curriculum. Accompanying this program will be technique of story-stretching; which is to read your favorite books and extend them with many activities, incorporating moral/virtue lessons, science, math concepts to encourage active learning in the child.

We will continue alphabet learning with our alphabet activities and lapbooks, will tie in the alphabets with some of the titles in Classical education from the library. And for interesting titles, expand into more lapbooks that are available from homeschool share and story stretchers ideas from Trish Kuffner.

Looks like it is going to be an exciting and busy year ahead for Kyle and I!

All about Christmas

2009-12-20T00:57:00.002+08:00

We started our Christmas lesson on Sunday evening. Kyle could not wait to try the candy cane after he saw me purchased it from the shop in the afternoon.

Included in the lapbooks were lots of Christmas graphics taken from various free clipart sites, the word board was from KidsSoup, the little booklets, jigsaw puzzle and sorting game were from 1+1+1=1

I feel that it is important that Kyle knows the meaning of Christmas and not get too caught up by the festivities and excitement of just receiving presents.

He now knows the meaning behind candy canes after I shared this candy cane poem with him :

Look at a CANDY CANE, what do you see?

Stripes that are RED like the BLOOD shed for me!

WHITE for my Savior, Who's sinless and pure!

"J" is for JESUS, My Lord that's for sure!

Turn it around And a staff you will see ---

Jesus, my SHEPHERD, Is coming for me!

This year’s christmas is really turning out to be one of the best ever…I never expect I could learn more about Christmas after doing the lapbook for him. Not only are lapbooks beneficial for my kid, but also helps to improve my general knowledge as well!

Letter K and T

2009-12-11T14:37:00.000+08:00

We took a short break from Explode the Code, as Kyle was starting to get bored with the worksheets. We continued with lapbooking and some file folder games for learning of alphabet sounds.

Letter K:

Letter T :

The file folders activities were mostly taken from homeschool share and KidsSoup.

I have not been rather distracted from planning Kyle’s home learning the last two months, thus did not take an effort to plan play activities or art into the learning of the alphabet this time round. And it was so apparent that lapbooking was not enough to get him enthusiastic or fully involved in his learning.

Keeping in check

2009-12-04T14:40:00.003+08:00

I introduced the letter K lapbook to Kyle about 2 weeks back. However due to his lack of interest in lapbook and explore the code worksheets for letter K, I have taken a step back these couple of weeks to let him spend more time socialising and in free play.

I came across articles on the internet, which emphasized the importance of manipulative experiences, of seeing, touching and handling new sensations versus the danger of introducing them to symbols too early in life. Which takes me back to the guiding principles of early childhood education which I have learnt before; the matching of curriculum and instruction to the child's developing interest, needs and abilities.

I have to admit that I have been rather influenced by the other blogs that I have read about children who learn to read at 2 or 3 years old, wondering if I should make greater effort to ensure that Kyle gets some academic advantage when he goes to school. It does get a little worrying when I read about what a Primary 1 child is suppose to know when he graduates from preschool.

Fundamentally, I feel there is something wrong with the Singapore education system. Children who enter primary 1 are expected to know alot more to be on par with it's overall standards. There is little consideration for individual differences and the basic fact that each child develops at a different pace. Ultimately, the reason toward academic training for the young is not about education, it is all about fulfilling parents expectations about giving their children the edge in this competitive world. Many children who enter Primary 1 and taste it's rigorous standards of schools and teachers end up being discouraged, acquire a dislike for school and learning.

I do need to keep myself in check before I start turning into an 'over-achieving' parent. I could be unwittingly killing his creativity by constantly employing him in directed activities. If he is given little room to do his own thing, he gradually might stop thinking in creative ways and will always turn to me for direction or a solution.

So then it's now back to the drawing board. I will not rule out teaching the alphabet/phonics anymore, rather, will have to constantly remind myself to take it easy and go slow. My focus should be nurturing Kyle's love for learning and not just help him to get ahead academically.

Great articles to read :
The push for early childhood literacy
Big A and little a
The joy and ease of learning through child led unit studies
A homeschool curriculum for preschool and kindergarten
Essential learning for preschoolers

More M activities

2009-11-14T17:09:00.005+08:00

We did some mosaic art this week, decorating the plain photoframes from Ikea. These photoframes will be personalised with Kyle's own artwork, which I plan to let him give to our family members this christmas.

The end product will be uploaded once it is completed by the end of next week.

I made a 'mailbox' out of a recycled appliance box and Kyle enjoyed posting letters into the mailbox and pretending to be the mail man.

Then he strummed a tune with his toy guitar while singing loudly to the music.

We had fun with the science experiment Magic Milk and it was rather interesting to see the colours swirl together in the dish of milk.

Magic Milk from Rachel T on Vimeo.

Letter M activities Part 1

2009-11-06T22:09:00.003+08:00

K started on letter M today and the words we covered were magnet, mitten, math, monkey, mountain, monster, manners, music, mosquito, mouse, money, moon, mother, marble, mask, milk, marcaroni, mirror. The story used for this alphabet was Goodnight Moon and story of Moses (from the bible).

He really enjoyed the file folder activities that I prepared for the letter M;

Sequence cards for Mary, Mary quite contrary and Little Miss Tuffet

Sorting Letter M pictures on the mitten

Arranging the hanging monkeys numbers from 1 - 10

Sorting Monsters from the good mannered ones to the bad mannered ones. He like this so much that we did the activity twice in a row.

And some mopping of the floor during pretend play

More letter B activities

2009-10-30T23:41:00.000+08:00

K got a new pair of binoculars, made from toilet paper rolls. He imagined that he was looking out for birds from the window.

We played the balloon game. The rule of the game was to make sure that the balloon does not touch the ground and we had to make the sound of b when we hit the balloon. This progressed to shouting out the words starting with the letter b.

We made our own floor version of marble ball roll + goal posts (for added challenge) from lego bricks. And spent some time building with his wooden blocks.

Played home basketball and went on to play football thereafter.

Letter B activities Part 1

2009-10-28T15:25:00.007+08:00

Kyle started on letter B yesterday. The B words we covered were - Bear, body, bus, bird, button, boat, balloon, butterfly, bake, bread, bun, buildings, belt. Two books were used for Letter B; We are going on a bear hunt (he loves this book, wanted to read it up to 4x) and Me and my amazing body.

This time round, he seem to have less patience for the Get ready for the code worksheets for letter F but still enjoyed the lapbook activities...lapbooking really works for him! Here are the pages of the Letter B lapbook :

Sorting of Big and Small buses

The lifecycle of the butterfly and matching the bird pictures

Buttons patterns and Baa Baa Black Sheep sequence cards

We went on with a math counting activity using his counting bears. Again, like the last counting activity we did, he did not progress beyond the number 4. I think this is most likely due to the lack of interest in the materials.

Buttons sorted into colours using the muffin tray. He was really intrigued by the sheer variation of button styles and designs, but this only held his attention for 10 minutes.

We went on to bake buns (cinnamon) the next morning. He only help to stir the initial mix of flour, yeast, salt and sugar. He lost interest after a while when the helper started nagging at him, I have to take note not to ask the helper to be involved the next time when Kyle helps.

Then he spent some time stacking blocks to build tall buildings.

I noticed that Kyle's more irritable and impatient compared to the last time we were doing the 'F' activities. I wonder if this could be because he is having his toilet-training sessions concurrently. There may be a possibility that he is overly concern with wetting his pants if he got too engrossed in the activities. Hopefully, he will be more settled in a few days when he gets used to his new routine of using the toilet.

We will be looking to explore more letter B play activities and less seatwork in the next few days.

Letter F activities - Part II (updated)

2009-10-25T14:14:00.009+08:00

I had a whole box of foam flowers from the Discount School Supplies, so I created this Math activity for Kyle. I glued the flower shapes to craft sticks and create number cards for him to 'plant' the number of flowers indicated on the card.

Added further interest to the activity by using the sand table, sea-shells and plastic containers which he could use to fill up with sand and then stick the flowers in. He only did up to number 4 and preferred digging for shells and filling out the containers.

We went on to do feather painting.

He wasn't too keen on painting today so we ended the art activity in 15 minutes.

We visited the florist in the evening and got some flowers to learn the parts of the flowers, namely; petals, leaves and stem. I added some colouring to the water to demonstrate the capilliary action of stems. For this experiment, carnations work the best, however I had to find a replacement flower as there were no white carnations available at the florist.

Kyle and I went 'fishing' the next day and he fried the fish for dinner.

More 'F' letter art with foot-print art, rather messy but he loved the prints he made on paper.

Letter F Activities - Part 1

2009-10-24T15:40:00.014+08:00

We started with the letter of the week @ home this week, beginning with the letter F. The F words we covered were - Frog, fish, fire truck, flower, fork, food, fan, fly, fence, fishing, football, foot, finger, family and freeze.

I introduced the sound of letter F with the Leap Frog word whammer fridge phonics toy which sounds like 'fuh' as in frog. The book used was From Tadpole to Frog, a book that Kyle is already quite familiar with.

The pages of the letter F lapbook include :

Life cycle of the frog,

Matching the frog + frog food colours,

Foot printing, counting fish

And classification of uppercase f and lowercase f

One of the advantages of using a lapbook is the ability to customise the activities according to the developmental needs of the child, as well as encourage interactivity with the materials. The other advantage is that the lapbook can include the areas of math and science.

Great printouts for the content of the lapbooks can be found at File Folder fun, Lapbook Lessons, Homeschool Share, Homeschool helper and KidsSoup.

After working on the activities in the lapbook for about 20 minutes, Kyle was keen to try out the F pages in Get Ready for the Code A. I wasn't too sure if he was ready for workbooks, but he certainly surprised me by completing 9 pages of the workbook in one sitting!

He was not quite in the mood to do art today, so instead of art, I introduced the pretend play activities for letter F; Fire-fighters. He was able to use replacement objects for the fireman's helmet and hose and was really enthusiastic throughout our 20 minutes of play.

The F letter pretend play lapse for another 15 minutes while he played with his other toys. I tried to start the pretend play by telling him that F also for the word family. He then chose 3 of his mickey soft toys, and then assigned roles of Daddy, Mommy and baby for each toy. I went on with his lead from there and gave suggestions like, "The mickey family is having a family feast, what do they want to eat?" He answered, "Fishballs and crabs." He went on with daily routine like sleep and care for the mickey toys. He continued with cooperative play for a while.

Pretend play for K is mainly child initiated with some intermittent 'teacher-led' suggestions to introduce more new words and concepts to the play experience.

We then ended off the morning activities with the 'Freeze' game.

Pre-Reading skills

2009-10-22T16:43:00.018+08:00

Came across this informative article from Scholastic.com on how to develop a child's pre-reading skills. The article mentioned that the key components of reading readiness include:
- Familiarity with print and books
- Letter recognition
- Sounds of speech
- Phonemic awareness

I chose not to go for whole word techniques as I am not one that goes for flash cards. Moreover, Kyle will not be a willing participant, who will receptively watch the cards and listen to me repeat the same words daily for a period of time. Children are active learners, they will enjoy the process of learning much more if they are actively involved in it. Besides I really don't want to be a felon who will be guilty of killing my child's love for learning at a young age.

Research has also shown that 'letter-by-letter decoding, or phonics, is the dominant reading process, accounting for 62 percent of reading speed. However, both holistic word recognition (16 percent) and whole-language processes (22 percent) do contribute substantially to reading speed. So taking into account these facts, phonics can jumpstart the process of learning how to read, word recognition and whole language will come later when the child is exposed to more print.

Kyle can recognise most of the alphabets and has started learning some letter sounds. He acquired some of sounds through the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD, which were then reinforced through the Leap Frog word whammer fridge phonics toy. He has lost interest in the Leap Frog DVD, but will still play with the fridge phonics toy once in a while.

So as to help him to learn and remember all the sounds of the letters, I am now working on an alphabet lapbook fill with pictures, words and file folder games to supplement the phonics programme of Explode the Code. After reading so much about the Nancy Hall phonic books from raving reviews from Amazon.com, as well as many homeschool blogs, I just had to try out these series of books for Kyle.

I figured that depending on 3 primer books of Explode the Code will not be sufficient to retain Kyle's interest in the alphabets. For sure, with its b/w activities worksheets, this book will not be able to capture an active 2 plus year old attention for more than 10 minutes. For a start, we will look at completing at least 2 pages a day (there are at least 12 pages of activities per alphabet!). Together with the alphabet lapbooks and file folder games, hopefully be able to learn an alphabet per week.

This phonics program will have to be accompanied with letter activities; using songs, rhyme, movement, games, art and play. The lapbook will a great supplement to incorporate various file folder games that will teach matching, sequencing, shapes, patterns, numbers and counting.

Now my challenge is to work consistently on lots of printing, cutting, laminating and pasting, so that I will complete the alphabet lapbooks to get the programme started soon. And move on to other interest/theme/literature lapbooks for Kyle.

Dark Sugar Chalk scribbles

2009-10-20T15:46:00.007+08:00

I adapted this activity from Mary Ann Kohl's Scribble Art book for Kyle.

Instead of using plain chalk on the concrete floor, we soak the chalk sticks in the cup of sugar water for about five minutes. This adds brilliance to the color and helps resists smudging. One thing to take note, the sugar solution makes the chalk scribbles rather hard to clean. Soapy water needs to be used, together with a bit of effort scrubbing to ensure that the chalk markings are removed from the concrete floor.

This chalk activity only managed to keep him interested for about 15 minutes or so. At the end of each art activity, I always make sure that Kyle helps in the cleaning up. For now, I think he enjoys the cleaning up process better than the art activity itself.

I think life skills need to be imparted to a child from an early age, especially when there is a live-in domestic help at home. Children who grow up with a domestic help at home have a tendency not to help with household chores or clean up after themselves. For a start, I make sure that Kyle keeps his own toys after he is finished playing with it, helps to bring his own empty plates and cups to the sink and learns how to make his own bed after he gets up in the morning.

Art for a toddler (not)

2009-10-19T14:39:00.010+08:00

Looks like I never learn, for the last few times anyhow.

I tried to introduce interest study (bats for this week) for Kyle today using crafts, but I ended up doing the craft by myself, while he was sitting by my side cutting paper randomly. It did not occur to me at that moment that pasting bats bodyparts together may be still rather advanced skill for a two and a half year old. Anyhow, this experience further reinforces my observation that he is not quite ready for group settings when teacher-directed activities is the focused, rather than a child-centred one.

I have finally came to the realisation that he is not quite into closed ended art activities, like craft, and will prefer open ended ones like painting/collage/kneading/scribbling or whatever inspires him at that moment.

Guess it's back to Maryann Kohl's Scribble Art for art-time inspiration.

I must have been deluded to think that he can do these crafts. Well, at least he did put some glitter glue on the bat wings...

Home Library

2009-10-19T13:06:00.005+08:00

I started building a small but quite comprehensive library for Kyle from the start of infancy. Most of his books have been bought online from Amazon.com and Christianbook.com, as my experiences with shopping for books in local bookstores, such as Borders or Kinokuniya have been far from being pleasant. It has always been a challenge for me to find the books that I want, or there are simply one too many books locally that give human characteristics to animals. Richard Scarry books kind of maximised our quota of animal personified books.

In my opinion, the basic must haves in any toddler-preschooler library are books of these genres (some of our favorites include):

- Alphabet books Chicka, chicka boom boom Alphabeep
- Number, shapes, colours, opposite books One boy Black, white, day, night When a line bends, a shape begins Red stop, green go Go Dog go
- Basic concept/skills books Goodnight moon Goodnight gorilla Toilet tales Even firefighters go to the potty Topsy and Tim books
- Word books Richard Scarry's Best word book ever
- Sticker books (which incorporate alphabets, numbers, colours, shapes, things, occupations, etc)
My Giant sticker activity book
- 'Special interest' books (in Kyle's case will be books about vehicles) Cars and Trucks and Things That Go Truck stuck My truck is stuck
- Children's bible The beginner's bible Rhyme bible storybook
- Music story books Barefoot books with singalong CDs (wonderful illustrations)
- Chinese books (mainly word books from Popular bookshop)
- Science, nature or how it works books Let's read and find out 1 science books
- Social skills books Learning to get along books
- Just literature Richard Scarry's best story book ever Today I feel Silly Caps for sale Harold and the purple crayon Carrot Seed Don't let the pigeon drive the bus
- Workbooks (only introduced it when he turned 2 and a half, we only use them once in a long while at this point) Kumon workbooks Homework helper
- Living books (list from Before Five in a row)

We have pretty much moved on from board books after he turned 1 and a half. From that stage, he understood the importance of treating his books with care and has never tore the pages of any of his books. The library is an investment that is really worth while, he has learn so much from reading these books and I think these books have succeeded in cultivating a love for reading, or rather, being read to for now!

About this blog

2009-10-18T00:31:00.005+08:00

"There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings."
Hodding Carter

Parents...mothers especially, will always be the child's first teacher and what we teach them in their early years will be more important than things that they will learn through formal education.

The lessons never stop for me as a parent. I learn something new everyday interacting with my child, observing him, seeing the world through his eyes and watching what I say or do in front of him. I learn that things don't always go the way that I plan, and to be flexible and be accepting of change, which is not always the easiest for me.

This blog will document our sessions learning together. That will be the best way to review my 'on-the-job' training as his first teacher, and to continually challenge myself to grow and change. Afterall, I believe that being a mother and helping my child to realise his potential is the best way to realise my own.

Afterall, this blog will always serve to remind me that I have the most exciting, challenging and most rewarding job in the world.

Kyle at 2 years 7 months

Catch-Fortywinks is a depiction of a mother and a neurotic wife who is obsessed about parenting. Like the name suggests, this space is where I take a short and refreshing breather from the daily grind, and jot down my journey through life as a parent. This other blog that I keep, 'Vignettes' include articles I write, that addresses various kids and parenting issues which I have researched on. It also allegorizes my other pursuits; Photography, illustration and rampant consumerism.