A preschool day

This week Joy didn't get to go to my parents. We celebrate Mooncake Festival today, and there's a family gathering for lunch today. Hubby had to go to work half the morning, so I'm left with 2 preschoolers today.

Joy woke up at 5.30 am and Jay at 6.30 am. I didn't expect them to be that early (as I purposely let them play a little later than usual last night. hi hi, cheeky me.)

Joy practiced a little of her speech, asking for food and milk. Jay played with ipad for awhile before asking for TV. (after I had him sit down for a session of flash cards, and Joy joined in too voluntarily.) Here are some of the things we did for the day.

We did revision on colours. With Jay I put out all the cards on the black mounting board. I  asked him to give me certain colour, in full English. My intention is for him to get used to sentences in English. " (name), can you give me the colour ***) We talked about the things with the colour, at the back of the flash cards, and I tried to get his attention to the colour words. He got very excited and ran here and there, showing to me the colours he found around the house.

With Joy, I minimized the cards to 3 cards at one time. I discovered that she could give me the correct colour card if I said the name in English, but not in Chinese.  Tried to teach her a few times, before she lost interest and ran away. It took me less than 15 minutes with her. Oh, forgot to mention that I had Jay as my assistant, to shadow Joy. He helped me to direct Joy's hands towards the correct card, made her take it and give it to me. Good job, my boy!

 It's the same with shapes. I tried to get Jay to notice the words in English. He already knows all the shapes in both languages. Jay took out the lid of his shape sorting set and showed me the relevant shapes too.
Joy would point to the correct shape I called out. 

We did more on numbers. First, I got Jay to arrange numbers flash cards in sequence.  Then  reading the words in random order. Lastly, I had him match the number to its word. We did this for numbers 1 to 10.  (He still needs to work on seven, eight and nine.)
* Joy is excused from this. She got restless after the colours and asked for milk and watched us doing this activity. I did try to show her the cards as I discuss the numbers and words with Jay. (it's rather encouraging that she did look at either brother, me or the cards, most of the time)

 Two of Joy's favourite things this morning. As she played with the colours, I emphasized the name in Chinese or English. The book is a Baby Einstein See and Spy book I bought second hand. She is very interested in this page and kept asking me to tell her the names of the animals and shapes. After a few times, I asked her to point to the names as I call them out. No problem here. (as long as she is interested)

For the rest of the day, I just emphasize colours and shapes with Joy, and have her finish her written homework from school. (She would only sit still and co-operate for half the page and needs a break before getting on to the other half.) Most of the time, I made sure she practice her speech. Oh, we did lots of spontaneous singing and tickling too.

Jay gets lots of free time for pretend play. Lately, he is very into being a mechanic, repairing his car and tricycle. At the same time, he learnt the parts of cars - those that I know of. hi hi. This mother is really not into cars. I really have to do my homework related to my boy's interests. Oh.... there's lots of reading aloud today. I'm glad my boy is so enthusiastic about reading aloud, he sort of forced me to read. He he he