Musings and Learning Big/Medium/Small

            I have long realised that I cannot do the same activities with both my kids, on the same day. I mean, the activities may be suitable for them, but they have different level of concentration and 'willingness' to attend to the activities. Most of the time, Jay is the enthusiastic learner and finished all that I planned for him (sometimes even asking for more). On the other hand, Joy's set of activities will keep on piling in her basket. If she only did 1 activity today, all the rest will go to her basket, to be continued next time. The problem is, activities keep on piling in, as I prepared more and more activities for Jay. I always prepare 2 sets of each activity, if I think Joy will be able to do them. I don't want to prepare one activity 2 times. Most of the time, I consider myself only planning for one, preparing for two. Jay is way ahead of his sister, and paving the way (activities) for her. Recently, I made another change in my approach. I have reverted back to my earlier approach with Joy - Folder games and laminated worksheets. However, the pile of activities will still have to be done. Slowly. But surely.

This is an activity I do with Jay the other day. I wanted him to learn to recognise the English words for 'big,medium and small'. He already know the words in Chinese.

 I read the English words to him, asked him to help me spell them out loud, and match with the Chinese cards.

Then I gave him pictures of different sizes to sort. When he is done, and I checked, he paste them onto the paper with the correct label. Big and small is easy for him, but he needs reminding with medium sizes.

# I'm going to do this with Joy soon, but she needs real objects to start with.