Messy Art: I Am Absolutely Not Too Young To Paint

Tiger's 19.5 months

and he loves art/painting/making a mess

I love it too...

So, we a team  =)

There is a plaster art store in Empire Shopping Gallery in Subang Jaya (opposite Kidzsport) and luckily, they don't have an age limit. So, my 19 month old toddler's good to go...he he.

You only have to pay for the plaster of choice and they provide the paint and space.
I chose a photo frame for him so that he could give it to grandma/daddy later.

The frame was a little gloomy and ermmm, dirty but that's not the point..

I can spend the whole day watching him paint.

The way he holds the brush, the way he focuses...

It must be love....

He tried to 'chop chop'
=.="

Happy boy!

He kept laughing when he tipped the frame over and I shouted, "Oopsie daisy"

Another smile for the proud mama.

Gosh, I love the moments when he is genuinely happy like this..

the best part is, they seem to be infectious and I get the same smile too  :)

The professional artist shot, complete with the thinking look..

Arrghhh, he is so sweet,  I can eat him....

When he finished and we were cleaning up, he tried to clean ALL the tables, chairs AND floor!

Nope, we didn't get a discount :(

He's such scaredy cat, he likes his rides stationary.

Yeah....he is scared of loud noises and fireworks as well.

Still hugs my legs when he is around strangers, which I must admit, I LOVE...

makes me feel like a protective Tiger Mama....ROOAARRRR!

Mommy's Favourite

My two fav little people in the world

Reading: Phonics Play

Tiger's 19.5 months

Tiger has a thing for reading and phonics at the moment and I am following his lead.

Hence, I created a phonics station which consist of:

Alphabet chart (no pictures)

A fold able table

Leapfrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic set

Letters s, n, a, p, i, t

Pretty simple..

Here he was dancing with the magnetic set.

This was his favourite fridge magnets, by far....

We also have the Alpha Pet Explorer but this is a clear winner for phonics

Here, he was looking for the alphabet T on the chart

The bottom part of the chart says: Let's learn to write!

Bwahahaha...no way, my lil' man.

Then, he would think it's ok to write on my super clean walls.

Instead, I just gave him some puffy stickers to match

This boy loves stickers. Which kid doesn't?

First I ask him to look for the matching magnet. Easy enough.

When he gets it right, he gets to place the sticker on the chart.

Even if he did not get it, I'll still have to let him sticker or else....he's going to cry...

Yeah, he's sensitive =)

He still needs help finding the letters with the chart being so big.

To avoid frustration, when he asks for help, I'll point from a distance

When he sees it, he will shout "There!"

As he says, "peh, peh, peh", he places P

I am doing so many letters at once because he already knows most of those I laid out.

We will move slower with those he needs more exposure.

Certain letters like P and the vowels are easy for him.

He calls Letter N, 'Mmm"   =.="

A little problem with T as well..

Is it too much?

Hmm, we are talking about a boy who is hungry for more everyday.

He prefers 'study' than going out

and cries for school whenever I come home from work.

Tot School: Week 18

Tot Trays: Week 18  a.k.a OCD Mom Week

Tiger is 19.5 months

Little Dragon is 16 weeks :)

OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

After a few weeks of preparation and another week of celebration for CNY, we are officially picking up from where we left off.

Tiger really enjoyed the past 2 weeks of crafty goodness. He called his handprint dragon "chop-chop". I think it was his favourite =)

After spending some time looking back at the previous posts, I came to realize that we were slacking a little in some areas and leaning heavily towards trays and crafts. We have not been practicing our Chinese as well. My bad...

So, in order to restore some balance to our schedule, I have decided to lay out the trays according these headings: This is where the OCD comes in

1. Math

2. Music

3. Language/Chinese

4. Sensorial

5. Practical life

6. Puzzle

These are Montessori-inspired and planned according to Tiger's interest and my observations:

Math

I have laid out his 'Doman' math dots cards (for flashing)with some beads.

He did not enjoy the tray very much the last time,

so I added some colourful math flashcards (no numerals) and his abacus (not in pic)

Music

 Musical note 'd'

His corresponding flashcards, tuning fork and bell

Puzzle

This Melissa and Doug puzzle is his CNY gift from his 'ang pow' money.

I have decided that he gets to use roughly 5% of his money for spending every year.

The rest goes into our joint account/college fund.

He will have to calculate the amount if he wants the money when he is older.

If he gets it wrong, NO PRESENT!!

Did I mention that I am evil?

This puzzle is actually easy for Tiger but for some reason he loves it.

Since it is self-correcting, he doesn't require any help.

He practices phonics with this as well.

Sensorial

Since I wasn't going to spend a fortune on the pink tower, this is our replacement =)

We are also practicing our colours with these.

I think Tiger's colour blind :p

Everything's purple, occasionally blue.

Language

Since he has been showing some interest in Chinese lately, we are focusing a little more on these.

We are repeating the series again, this time with corresponding cards.

Practical life

Dry pouring with heart-shaped clear beads (in preparation for Valentine's)

I wanted to use beans or rice but the thought of picking them up over and over wasn't too thrilling.

 

Home practice basket

His ESP, linking memory and speed play materials
I have prepared the pre primer Dolch as well.
He used to hate flash cards, so we'll see how this goes
I am a whole word & phonics lover. So, we'll do both.

Phonics station

This is a new addition to his room since he is rather keen on phonics

We are starting with the commonest letters s, n, a, p, i, t

He already knows s, a, p, i; therefore this is not a lot.

 

Tiger's never really been a fan of flashcards and I have not pushed him.
This week, we are a little heavy on the cards but if he isn't keen,
I'll remove them and bring in the back-up trays. Again the OCD-ness....

Linking up to

1+1+1=1 

H is for Homeschooling 

Tot School: The Crazy Tot

Tot School Report: CNY Week

This is a summary of Tiger activities during the crazy Chinese New Year Week.

I should have posted these last week..but..

we have been busy.

He was 19 months then

Here is a list of crafty stuff we did in the past two weeks:

Chinese Zodiac Story

Handprint dragon

Greeting Cards

CNY Worksheets

Glitter Dragon

Tack-it Blossom Tree

We also did some bubble wrap printing

Although, he was more interested in hand printing  =)

We did a lot of tot trays as well:

Here is the link for the setup:

CNY Week Tot Trays (Week 17)

He enjoyed the ornament mug tree

He loves shapes and this pop-up book.

Here he was saying "star"

He knows square and circle, sometimes triangle  =)

I added a Math tray but he didn't like it.

This boy just want the numerals and not the dots  =.="

I'll have to replace the dots with Thomas the train soon

So, we replaced the math tray with these sticky alphabet.

Then, one of the days, he went into crazy tot-school mode and

did all of these in the span of an hour, in unschooling style, totally unplanned...

Crayoning:

 He doodled over the entire 'mahjong' paper

Puzzles:

Took the clock puzzle from the shelf and completed it (with some help)

Magnetic 3-piece farm animal puzzle:

Again, he chose this activity himself

He is able to match the colours but require some help to put the pieces together

Reading

Practised his Chinese with the ang-pows.

Here he was pointing to a character as he reads in gibberish.

Sensory bin

More sensory fun, one-to-one correspondence, scooping,

making a mess  =)

Singing

He was very into Chicka chicka for some time but right now, not so

???

So fickle

More puzzles:

He is a little cuckoo about puzzles, as you can see ..

He enjoyed this Giant Alphabet Floor puzzle.

Required a lot of help.

He generally ask for help when he becomes frustrated.

So, I pointed out where to place them but he pieced them together himself.

Reading

We ended the day with some reading in his little corner.

He is already used to reading here =)

He can also find his fav books from looking at the book spines.

After the adrenaline-driven frenzy, he was still bouncing everywhere whereas I was totally exhausted.

Favourite Tot School Moment:

Reading to Starbucks bear, who seems to understand gibberish.

On rare occasions, Tiger goes into crazy tot mode. Most of the time, however, we play school for about an hour with far lesser activities.



Art & Craft: Our Chinese Zodiac Story

I promised Tiger a Chinese Zodiac story and we did it in the simplest manner.

This activity was done before Chinese New Year but I forgot to post it :p

First, I printed the animals of the zodiac from here.

Then I cut a sheet of pink A4 into half to prepare the background for the race.

If you don't know the story, you can print it here

He wanted to add some round stickers.

We used Tack-its to line up the animals.

They are a lot easier than using glue at this age

As I read the story to him, first in English and then repeated in Chinese, he searched for the animals.

We asked Grandma to label the animals in Chinese for us

*Cause Mommy's Chinese sucks*

 

Tiger pretty much ignored the zodiac until last night.

He suddenly decided to read the Chinese names of the animals, albeit in gibberish.

So, the zodiac line has a special place under the map for now :)

Next to the map is the new setup for his phonics station.

We are moving out of the CNY theme into a no theme week

&

I finally changed the tot trays after 2 weeks :p

Making A Greeting Card for Grandpa

I'm back! Happy Chinese New Year (4th day) to all of our Chinese readers

This activity was done last Saturday but since we were busy visiting people's house to collect ang-pow (Tiger) and giving away ang-pow (Mommy), this is a late post.

After the last glitter mess incident, we did the work outdoors ^.^

First, I let him play with the ELC easy painters to decorate a poster with his name.

Then we took out the printout that he had already chop-chop earlier

and added glitter to the wording.

As with the first time, he liked to play with the glitter more than the intended use.

=.="

The product/card which I laminated.

Grandpa loved it but he ermmm, had some difficulty reading the character with all the glitter

@@@ Happy Chinese New Year @@@

Activities: Red Packets/Ang Pow Time

As part of the Chinese New Year traditions, aunties like myself have to hand out red packets (紅包, hóngbāo) containing money to younger, unmarried relatives. So, will those who are old enough please just get hitched already? This is the first year hubby and I will be handing out the red packets. We didn't celebrate CNY the last two years after hubby's grandfather passed away.

I have fond memories of helping my own mom with the red packets. She used to have different categories like RM 10 for relatives and close friends, RM 5 for friends, RM 2 for workers, etc.

The packets are usually red for good luck. I have completed 200 packets for friends and relatives. That was no easy task..phew!

I wanted Tiger to help me and start a little tradition of our own one day. This morning, the opportunity presented itself.

This is his morning face.

No calender time because he saw my purse.

He loves to remove all the knick-knacks and hand out my money.  =.= "

So, I thought, why not try to do my siblings' red packets?

Yeah, the four bloodsuckers are in a different category.

Yawning away....

Hrmmm, you wouldn't think money's boring in a few years time..

Another yawn   =.= "

I showed him how to fold the money and he just kept going.

His uncles would be thrilled with the bulging cash.

Of course, I took the extras out  ^.^

 Tiger's work...Pretty neat!

There is one packet with an extra RM 50..thanks to Tiger!

Wonder who's getting it?

He also made two more for prettichubbi and himself  ^.^

@@@ 3 days to Chinese New Year @@@



Shopping: Tiger's First Play Kitchen

I have been eyeing the IKEA play kitchen for some time now.

Unfortunately it is not foldable and not storage-friendly.

It's not like I live in a mansion.

Then I saw this cutie in the shop.

This is an impulse buy on my part since Tiger loves to pretend cook and eat.

It is very pink but it is for mei mei too   ^.^

This is a picture of the original set:

Picture from alibaba.com



Mommy replaced the ugly blue windows with a cute cloth from Daiso.

I also left out the tacky stickers.

Then I printed out some labels for the stove, sink, oven and refrigerator

 and velcro-ed them.

A laminated sign board with Tiger's Chinese name completed the setup.

He already has some felt fruits and tons of utensils.

Tiger couldn't manipulate the tight stove knobs but hey, no problem.

Since this is a Made in China product, I'll leave it on and Tiger only have to slap the stove to on & off.

Just like a super high tech touch-stove!

The middle lid of condiment container was broken.

So, I made some clip art labels and mod-podged them.

His old place mat for table setting.

No chopsticks for now.

Little J came to play twice and they didn't fight...

Well, more like Little J didn't bully Little Tiger  ^.^

The cutest little chefs having a huggy huggy time after a hard day at work.

These little boys are best friends now.

They can actually share a chair!

This chair is probably the most stable and comfortable one you can get for RM 30+

Available at kids.net.my/gift2kids/ USL

The New Setup, again :)

Guess who's cooking for reunion dinner this year?

@@@ 4 days to Chinese New Year @@@