Parenting: The Kiasu Mom

Tiger hates his YAMAHA lessons.
We are talking about crying and dragging his feet to the class kinda hate.
Then I get irritated because it's money wasted, time consuming, ungrateful brat, bla, bla, bla...
I get moody too and hence the weekly music nights became Nightmare Wednesdays.

Last month, while I was daydreaming in class, his teacher announced, "We will be having our JMC concert in  June and we will be singing the these songs," She wrote the songs down on the board and continued, "One student will be chosen to play the key board"

The sleepy kiasu mom was suddenly awaken, "One student? Play keyboard? Like the alpha male? The leader of the pack?"

I look over at Tiger with my 'semangat face', "Psst, we are going to be the pianist, okay?"

He just blinked at me. 

Class after class, I shot him my laser glares. Sing louder. Play properly. Sit up straight. Smile.
Teacher's coming, Teacher, coming, play nicely. Dance la, why you dance like that one?

Looking at him struggle to coordinate his hands and legs, I have concluded that he is
1. Not a musical person
2. He dances like his papa....bwahahaha. (The traitor doesn't read my blog, so I can make fun of him)

His allies, namely papa and grandma were forcing me to quit his class after watching his dramatic defense against evil-music-class-mama. Sorry, no losers allowed in this house. You will learn to be responsible and understand that not all things in life is a bed of roses. Sometimes, you just have to struggle a bit.

So, last night, I held his hands before class and I said, "Tiger, I am not going to scold you today, Just enjoy your class but sing as loud as you can, okay?"

He smiled and agreed.

And he really did enjoy himself last night. Singing, dancing, and laughing with his friends.

After class, we bought some onigiri and he said to me, "Mama, I love ebiko. Thank you"

Did you enjoy the class?

Yes, I like.

Cause mama didn't scold you?

Ya.

No more kiasu mom for now. Maybe later...

Preschool: July Report

Tiger's still very into homeschool at the moment.

I am not allowed to laze around after dinner.

He will creep next to me and say, "I want to study"

No matter how tired, I will always smile and play along.

Reading

He is able to decode and blend simple ones.

When reading a new word, I usually sound out the first letter and let him guess.

It's okay to get it wrong, as long as the child tries.

He uses play dough for spelling purposes only :)

He enjoys creating his own words and then ask,

"Is this a word?"

'Reading' to his sister

Fine Motor

I'd prefer he strengthen his small hands muscles with fine motor activities

instead of writing at this age

but he loves this ABC stencil (you can get from any book store)

Tap a shape

He was like Wow for 5 minutes....quickly became blah.

Will have to try again later with this one.

Threading with straws

He came up with this pattern :)

Another blah tray...

Math

He loves the Master of Addition CD from Shichida

despite the weird singing

Geometric puzzle

I demonstrated with the red rods.

He was to self correct.

In this picture, you can see he got the height component all wrong.

I just watched quietly as he corrected himself and declared,

"I'm done. All correct"

I just smile and shrugged, as in 'no biggie'

 but really, I LOVE moments like this.

Patience, concentration, self-satisfaction, no praise.

Geography

Brillkid

We were quite disciplined with the lessons this time around.

This picture was taken on Day 1. 

Look so interested, right?

By Day 2, they were pressing all the keys 

=.="

By Day 3, Lil Dragon was pointing when the image showed POINT.

^.^

Girls.....so cute!

YAMAHA

Tiger had a problem doing 'v' with his finger...weird...

Until this week, that is. He secretly asked his nana to help him and

surprised me in class :)

 He kept signing 'v' and asking,

"You want two?"

"Mama, that is two is it?"

Chinese/Bao Bei

Taadaa!

Model student...woot! woot!

 

His papa was more thrilled than I was 

=.=''''

First time la...give face a bit....

His progress: 

3rd week: 1 card

4th week :4 cards

5th week: 4 cards

6th week: 8 cards

Teacher's report: Very serious during flashcard session.

I like to think it was due to our home practice. 

^.^

 The best part about including Lil Dragon in class?

They are more than siblings now....more 'friend',

can play nice together

Montessori: Musical Bells

Montessori bells are off the charts expensive and

honestly, I cannot afford them.

I bought a set of these sometime ago from a kindy teacher and they sounded great.

You can get similar ones here

Instead of matching to another set of bells, I use the keyboard and tuning fork for matching.

What DID we do all day spray painted hers

I have no intention of doing that.

Nah ah. I love the colours.

They also correspond to this:

I was also so tempted to get a set similar to this from ELC

but my conscience said NO!

Btw, my conscience has my husband's voice.

Instead I bought some song cards with colored notations.

They came with corresponding stickers that I put on the keyboard.

In order to play a song, we lay the bells down and used the clapper.

Oh, he also uses it for his 'Ice cream shop'

Lil Dragon loves the bells too and when the two of them 'share',

I end up with migraine.

What else do you do with musical bells?

I bought a ton of this shoe boxes from Daiso.

Perfect for storing toys and such.

Tot School: No Theme Week @ 22.5 months

No theme means:

Pro:

He is likely to be bored with the trays because Mommy didn't put much thought into them :p

I have to admit that the tot trays were pretty pathetic..ha ha.

So, he wandered off to choose his own activities and I got to see his latest obsessions.

Cons:

I know a lot of parents are advocates of free play but I prefer to have a little structure.

I find that he learns a little more with a theme.

For example, during Space week, he learned the names of the planets.

According to Tiger, they are: Meh-ry, V, Eaff, Much, Ter, A-turn, ____, Neptune.

He is still crazy about the planets :)

Category box.

Out of all the chips I laid out, he was only into shapes, numbers and animals.

Too simple? I am not sure..

Treading

Tiger is finally working independently on this!

He created a block-snake in the end :)

Similar set from Bumbletoys. (RM 25)

Geography

He ONLY wanted to put puffy flag stickers on the map and

wasn't too interested in the flags puzzle.

The globe is still a fav.

World map with flags RM 38

Numbers obsession:

My little number geek.

Stacking

"I am tall enough!"

M&D STACKER FROM MOTHERCARE RM 49

Puzzles:

Brainstorm Puzzle.

These chunky pieces are a little easier to manipulate compared to the tangram type.

Meant for 3 years and above but the simple ones like this fish diagram were pretty easy.

Excellent for fine motor as he had to place the pieces accurately.

He named the pieces according to the alphabets they seemed to represent :)

Brainstorm puzzle. Similiar from kids.net for rm59

More numbers work:

EVA puzzle from Giant

Art and alphabets

We dot painted some alphabets from Making Learning Fun.

He requested for alphabets ONLY

Outdoor

Played with bubbles

We also went to the park to feed the tortoise and took a loooong walk.

Books

Flanimals pop-up book by Ricky Gervais

Pretty scary

Noah's Ark play set by Rod Campbell

From Bookxcess for less than RM 20

Learning about animals more than the story

Noah's Ark from Bookxcess

Others:

Kinderbeat

We attended our first lesson last Saturday and surprisingly, he did not cry!

Major relief for me because he initially asked to "Go, Go"

 Translated: Let's go, I don't want to be here.

I had to coax him gently.

Fortunately, he participated in all the activities and was able to follow along.

He even gave his teacher and classmates hugs.

At home, he requested for Kinder Bear songs repeatedly :)

Tweedlewink

He didn't munch in class this week as I gave him the ultimatum.

 No eating or get out!

No larrrrr, he spilled the cookies, so there wasn't any left.

Which was great despite the wasted food.

He is enjoying vocabulary part, especially phonics :)

and actually stayed focused during Science and Art this week.

Woohoo!

Brillkids

He is more into Little Reader than Little Math at the moment.

He would parrot along with Little Chinese as well.

I still have to bargain by offering Youtube videos in between lessons 

=.="

Flashcards

Speed play is ON!

He is enjoying the large, colourful animal ones.

but still rejecting the Doman ones

Hit songs

Snuggle Puppy

Planet Songs

Solar System

Five Little Monkeys

We are in the midst of Umbrella/Weather Week at the moment.

I didn't get the chance to take pictures of the trays because he went on a rampage of activities :)

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