Sunday 8 January 2012

Tot School: CNY Countdown

‘Un’schooling Tiger Week 17: Chinese New Year Countdown Week (Part 1)


Tiger is 18.5 months
Little Dragon is 13 weeks :)

Since we are counting down to Chinese New Year (CNY), we are a little more 'semangat' this week.

I have decided to do a post of the trays setup followed by his activities the following week to slow down a little. So, here they are:

Fine motor: Hanging ornaments
A mug tree stand (stolen from kitchen) and some ornamental firecrackers and pots of gold.
Tiger was having difficulty with his Christmas ornaments because the strings were short
and the Christmas tree made it tricky.
We'll see if he likes this.

Matching Colours
Gold lumps with paired coloured bases.
I flipped two over for demo purposes :p
If Tiger don't want to match, he has the option of dropping them into the appropriate cups.
He has NEVER matched colours but he can do 2 piece-puzzles of nine different animal faces
?? rebellious or stubborn
Maybe learning colour is his Achilles tendon? Still calls everything 'purple" ^.^

Music tray:
Note: Middle C
A hollow box with the 'C' tuning fork and bell.
He is crazy in love with the forks (purchased from Tweedlewink)
Some corresponding flashcards.
There is one card with the highlighted 'C' on keyboard which I forgot to include.

Wringing: Nuts & bolts
Tiger has been unscrewing bottle caps and spilling water everywhere.
This is just to reinforced his skills and umm, spill more water.


Stringing:
Flower sponges and a pipe cleaner
We haven't done stringing in a while.
This is a stolen idea from Tweedlewink
I wished the flower sponges were pink in keeping with CNY but they only had blue (Daiso)

Vocabulary and Sensory:
Since Tiger ignored the stacker last week, I pimped it out a bit.
Added his favourite pop-out shapes book.
Sensory component is via the touchy-feely flashcards from ELC (30% off).
Very colourful and textured like the Osborne books.


That's all for the trays. I have decided to put out 6 each time and have a few back ups in case he gets bored or simply uninterested.
I have learnt to take the cue from Tiger and pursue HIS interest instead of mine. We'll see if this week's trays are a hit.


The boo-boo tray:
This is a flopped tray. I was trying to make a tree from pipe cleaners for him to place some pink tissues...
What a joke!
In Malay, we'll say "Tak jadi...."
In Hokkien, I'll say "Ka Na Sai"


Update on the World Map:
Tiger has a sudden renewed interest in his map.
He just realised that I replaced the car stickers with flags and he was PISSED!
Threw a tantrum and requested for his cars stickers.
He signed driving and said "Booom, boooom" ( He can say car, btw)
Simply because he was cute, I gave him two...hehe..

A look at his 'new' map
Tiger and the maid (accomplice) removed all the puffy car stickers!!
I had no choice but to put on the flags which aren't as cute.

 Our CNY wall.
Please excuse the ugliness. This is Work In Progress
It will be gorgeous by CNY :)


@@@ 14 days to Chinese New Year @@@



Linking up to:
Tot School at 1+1+1

7 comments:

melissa said...

Everything looks great! I love the idea of the tuning fork and bell, and am now on a hunt for something similar. You seem to have some really great stores there!

Jessica_littletiger said...

Hi Melissa,

Thanks for always stopping by :)

Music's one of Tiger's fav too. I contemplated buying the forks for some time because they were rather pricey but since he loves music, I just bit the bullet and got it.

Here's the link if you are interested: http://www.rightbrainkids.com/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage6/product_id,177/category_id,47/manufacturer_id,0/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,26/

The bells, I bought from a kindy teacher but these were made in China, so they may not be that accurate. More for fun than pitch training.

Unknown said...

You always have some really great activities! I especially like the music works. Thank you for sharing.

althea said...

Hi, I chanced upon your blog from 1+1+1=1 and am truly impressed with what you have accomplished with your little tiger in such a short time. I am a working mother like you and has also recently taken to "educating" my boys. How do you manage to brainstorm and plan so many activities?

Deb Chitwood said...

You always have such wonderful activities! I had missed you at Montessori Monday and just found this post in the linky. I pinned your awesome music activity to my DIY Sensorial Extensions Pinterest board and pinned your Chinese New Year posts (lovely activities!) to my Kids' Chinese New Year Activities at http://pinterest.com/debchitwood/kids-chinese-new-year-activities/

Jessica_littletiger said...

Hi Althea,

Happy Chinese New Year!

Thanks for stopping by :)

Most of the time I check out other mommies' blogs for ideas and also, we practise what was done in our Tweedlewink lesson of the week. No point paying so much and not practise ;p

Most of the blogs and children sites have tons of ideas and free printables. Easier for mommies like us. The trays wise, I just work with whatever I have and watch out for things that may be useful :)

Just have a look at the blogs that I follow; listed at the right hand side. Some of them are montessori-infuenced, some play based, some right brain, etc. A good mix with lots of ideas, have fun!

Just email me if you need any help..cheers!

Jessica_littletiger said...

Thanks Deb!

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