Year end holiday - Day 1

I am guilty of not being consistent when it comes to doing activities with my children. This time, I am trying to make myself accountable by committing myself to post pictures of the activities we did every day - for the whole 6 weeks of holiday. It may sound overwhelming, but I am giving myself some allowance by posting once every few days, at best.

So, this is today.

Other conscious teaching :

1. Piano lesson

2. Table manners (meal outside)

3. Manners outside 

It's the process that counts!

          The process for these are easy, and gave me opportunities to talk to her about 

1. colouring in circles (without worrying about colouring within the lines), 

2. draw lines for the feet, triangle for the beak and dots for the eyes. 

3. write a number 2 for the flamingo's neck

4. For the flowers, I guided her hands to just dab wet brush with the proper colours. 

5. A chance to go through her colour identifications too. (she pointed to the colours I 

    mentioned we will be using). 

6. It is also a chance for learning to imitate an art piece. I saved the picture for the 'Flowers 

    in a pot' in my smartphone and showed it to her, and as we painted, I encourage her to 

    refer to the picture. 

A flamingo

Chicks

Flowers in a pot

          

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!

Montessori inspired examples

I have begun collecting montessori presentations from youtube for easier reference in future. Hope this is allowed. If it is not, someone please let me know, and I will remove them as fast as I can. Thank you.

sound blending

Number rods worksheets

2013 - May #2

Joy:

This is occasionally a successful lesson, it depends on her co-operative mood.

We have been doing more sorting. I try to get her to practice flexibility in using her left hand. She would still sometimes get buttons with her right hand, then transfer to left hand.

Jay:

He breezed through the sandpaper alphabets. Mostly because he's doing phonics in school too. But I had to correct him in his sounds. His teachers teach by memorization. For eg, if I were to give him /b/ - he would go '/buh/, /buh/ bear. or for /l/ - he would go /le/, /le/ lamb.... gosh, I foresee more arguments about this in future. 

The above picture is him practicing his phonetic sounds. He got to see the words printed in capital letters, but he had to take the lowercase letters to form the words. - still needs to work on the phonetic sounds. But this is just beginning.... 

A little more updates on Joy's speech:

I did a recording with her doing a session on sandpaper numbers. Actually it's a second session on the same afternoon. The first session was a success, so I figure that perhaps I can try to do  a repetitive second session for recording. Yay! Joy did not protest to seeing herself in my smartphone which I place in front of her. It's a pity I couldn't upload it into this blog for obvious reasons.

Anyway, she is saying the numbers : 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9

Plus, giving the correct numbers to me each time. Her daddy is so proud with her when he sees the video!

Montessori Language

Here's a few presentations for language.

Sandpaper letter

sand writing

Using the moveable alphabets