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Easing into homeschool routine

Since the end of November, I have been diligent in unpacking all materials I may need as the children’s learning materials. Some are still i...

Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts

Friday, 26 July 2013

A quick update...

I have been lacking the motivation to write any post recently. But I still take photos of our lives around here. As I go through them and sort them into files, I thought, well, why not just make a quick pictorial post of of our month of July. It's gonna be August next week. 



Left to himself, Jay would draw and colour anything under the sun. His drawings are getting more complicated and with more details. His creations are always so colourful. Once, I bought 4 drawing books (I got tired of collecting his pieces of A4 papers and paper plates) - and he finished them up in 1 week. :0 Well, at least he's kept busy...

He's been asking for cute snacks to bring to school.
All credit to the daddy : )

Joy is certainly improving a lot. She has started to observe and try new food. Before, she wouldn't come near this nutritious dish (which my son called the 'black' soup). She actually finished her lunch and it's her first time with the beef too.
She had her first ice cream too. Before, she disliked anything cold. When we gave her an ice cream, she looked at me licking mine. She tried to smell and licked it.... and didn't want to give it back until it's all finished. She even used a spoon and dug into the ice cream cone...  :)
(yeah, I know ice cream has casein - she did get out of control a few days after - but at least she got to try)
Once, she even 'stole' a whole plate of fried prawns. MIL fried the prawns and left them on the table to cool. While she was busy with other dishes, Joy took off the dish cover and took the whole plate into the living room to enjoy. hmmmm.... Our first reaction was to laugh at this, though I know we should not encourage it.
We know that this girl will never let herself go starving. Whenever she is hungry, she would look everywhere in the kitchen for things to eat. She will even open the fridge at home or at MIL's house to find food. There are a few occasions where she was quiet and when we searched for her, she was sitting in a corner, enjoying crackers she got from the fridge.... 



We celebrated Joy's 6th birthday this month too! 
She chose the cake herself. - and can't wait to play with the butterfly.

Jay has been very busy too. He's practicing for singing competition. Actually, he begged his way into this competition. He told me that he wasn't given the chance to sing in school coz the teacher always let other classmates sing. When I met the teacher, I was told that the few classmates were preparing for singing competition and my son answered confidently 'Yes!' when the teacher asked if he wants to join the competition. He has to present 3 songs in 3 months for collective points. There's 2 more songs to practice for next month. 

We went to an old play area in town. I think both the children will outgrow this soon.

 
Another first for Joy. She has always been afraid to even climb and sit on one of these musical rides. This time, she attempted a few times and finally managed to sit on one. She did scream a little when the ride began moving and singing... but I held her tightly until it stopped. She is beaming happily when it's finally done. I think she knows it's another achievement for herself.

Another happy news is that Joy is going to Kindergarten 2 class now. She was in kindergarten 1 class until June - where the children are 1 or 2 years younger than her. They are often too 'helpful' and loved to help her to do everything.

 Now she is among her same age, most of them are not as willing to 'help' her (the teacher told them not to - though the innocent angels did ask, why - since the teacher always tell them to help each other... hmmm... I'm glad I don't have to answer to those questions)

Well, the point is, since there's no one to help her, she began doing things for herself. She is starting to write (though poorly), but it's a good start. Her teachers commented that she is imitating, observing others and trying things on her own... plus, she is speaking more in school. (though her golden voice can only be heard only when prompted). Praise The Lord!



Monday, 24 June 2013

2013 - June #1

There's a bit of guilty feeling as I typed the title. What? it's almost the end of the month, and I've just started with the first post of their activities??!!!

Yup... I'm guilty as charged. But I am gearing up to our normal routine.


My daughter's painting. She is eager to paint. 
I guess, we have not been painting for quite a long time.


My son's painting.
(I drew the pictures.)



Not sure what to call this activity. 
I used white tissue papers and glue them to form a flower. 
He needed to softly dab the tissue with proper paint colour. 
This is not done yet. I'll get him to draw the root, and later to label the parts. 

Wednesday, 29 May 2013

2013 - May #10 (son)

Joy has a tutor coming in every morning for about 2 hours. I had to prepare enough activities for Jay to occupy his time from disturbing his sister, and to satisfy him. (He kept asking why sister have tutor coming, but he has none - I told him his mommy is a teacher too and we can't afford to have 2 tutors)

Too easy. I had him explain why certain foot belongs to certain body. 
He can really explain well.

He drew and coloured a helicopter even before the tutor arrived.

Some time with the Pink Tower and Broad Stairs is a must nowadays.

A quick revision.

Angry Bird helping with his colour word recognition.

Extension exercise. I did the grey - to explain.

He still needs help with word recognition. I need to help to glue (following his instructions)
and he will write and colour. Not bad. He spent almost half an hour on this.
Then, It's play dough time - as a reward. :)

2013 - May #9 - night

The kids seemed energetic last night and refused to sleep. So instead of allowing them to watch more tv, I ushered them into the study : (by the way, they loved going into the room... the boy is so motivated to learn anything, and the girl just love being able to 'play' with her favourite books)

Suddenly forgot what to call this activity...

He has been eyeing this for a long time and wanted to give it a try. 
Still needs more practice.

Colour by word.

He's loving this tracing cards.

Tracing. 

The girl - fine motor skills with her left hand,

Colouring. 
(Had to colour the border and keep reminding her 
to keep her eyes on the picture)

We read a few books together, with Joy walking around.

2013 - May #9

Here's some of what we did today:

Jay:
Helicopter

Bicycle. To him, this one doesn't need pedals.

This is suppose to be a factory of some sort. He specifically told me the smoke comes out of the brown tunnel.

I gave in and let him create. 


More practice on sight words and making sentences.
( I got these free from here. )

Vocabulary in English. At the same time, trying to create awareness of the first letter sound and the letter. There's follow up activity to this. 

Alphabets review. Stamp the correct letter.

Or circle the correct letter. He finished all the 26 letters in one sitting. 


 Joy :
Colouring practice. With her left hand.


More handwriting practice. She can actually do this. I told her repeatedly that I am very proud of her. She just smiled at me. (For the record, we have to place her pen on the beginning which we marked as beginning. Then she would do her tracing or printing)

Felt items to help with her speech imitation. 

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

2013 - May #8

More improvements for Joy :

Watching Nemo together with little brother.

Colouring practice.

I am so proud of her. She wrote the letter 'C' by herself. 
Her holiday tutor discovered that she is actually very interested and concentrated 
when she is given marker pen or coloured ink pen to trace or write.  
She even traced her own name - all by herself! 
But when given a pencil - she refused to write. Perhaps it's the colour? 

2013 - May #7

Enjoying himself:

Learning to arrange small number rods properly.

He got the idea to arrange into triangle. 

Another way of sequencing numbers.

Putting away.

I left him awhile with Pink Tower and Broad Stairs.

He designed a 'helicopter'.

And Nemo lives on it.

He insisted I took this photo.

From another extension pictures I filed away. He still needs help with this, but he gets to practice patterns and the term biggest, next biggest... smallest..etc.

We practice reading digital time. It's been awhile, and he seemed to have forgotten.
We also did some addition, but he seemed bored with the repetition.