Preschool: Trying to stay on track

This morning, hubs saw my work desk and commented,

"Are you not stressed with all these rubbish on your desk?"

"That is a few months worth of paperwork." 

And I hate myself for letting it mount.

Surprisingly he said, "I help you clean tonight?"

I wanted to say, 

Cannot, I have class with Tiger but oh well. Let's see what happens tonight

Here are some stuff we did officially as preschoolers (3 YEARS OLD)!!!

MATH

Patterning

SMART puzzles from FRANK

More patterning with Duplo printables I shared on our FB page.

We used the unifix cubes

READING

Got this cool stamp storing idea from Prekinders

The original M&D box was so snug, it was difficult for him to extract the stamps.

 PHONICS

Word Families {-at}

As in cat, hat, sat, mat, vat, flat, bat

We are using the books from Kohwai & Young since that was his choice.

Books 1 was letter sounds

Book 2 is what we are using right now.

Complemented Dr Seuss's The Cat in the Hat with some props.

We used a LEGO Duplo cat as a pointer (just for fun)

SCIENCE:  Life cycle of the butterfly

Printables from Sparklebox

I used The Very Hungry Caterpillar storyline to complement the lesson.

I jogged his memory by asking him questions like,

In the light of the xxxx? What happens next?

What did caterpillar eat on Monday?

Prompt when necessary is our motto :)

He was super excited about the life cycle since I drew arrows on the floor using 

a whiteboard marker.

He looked at me wide-eyed, "Can draw? Really?"

We made Father's Day cards for Grandpa

 Abandoned Father's Day card for hubs ;p

CHINESE

He can recognise several simple words in Chinese but for some reason

he does not want to say it out loud.

He will point out the words a the book and say, "Teacher teach this one today"

???

I don't recall laughing at his Chinese.

*shrug*

Can't wait for him to bring home some flashcards from Bao Bei

(they get to keep the words they are able to read)

Consonant Blend {ck}

I chose -ck to start with because it is easy.

Jolly phonics also recommended this blend in their introduction.

On top of that, Tiger was having a brief fling with nursery rhymes.

We started with lesson Hickory Dickory Dock.

After reading we searched for words ending with -ck.

 

He spelt the word out using letter blocks

Spelling clock as COCK

@.@

I cry....

I sounded out the word for him and he checked .

Correcting his own mistake.

I printed blend booklets from Sparklebox 

Got this water colour mini set from ToyRus Warehouse sale.

We painted CK purple (of course)

There were some glitter on the table.

So, he wanted to roll some dough over them.

I used the ugly mixed-colour ones

They were perfect for making /ck/ monsters

He went to bed with them.

The activities were meant for 1 week but he finished it in one night.

Homeschool rocks, no?

Then he was too cool for blending and ended the fling with nursery rhymes.

We moved on to word families.

Kids nowadays.

Reading: Ladybird Series 1A

Tiger's 2yrs 8 months

 

Months ago, he ignored the book and the flashcards.

Then,

finally, after three months of leaving it on the shelf, I was told
he has read it independently for some time.
Cheh....

I suspected he could but you know, boys.....

I was a little under the weather and perhaps he wanted to cheer me up :)

Or maybe he wanted to help me sleep with the book's boring-ness repetitiveness?

Who cares? He reads!

"Peter"

(smile + blow nose)

"James"

(smi...eh...what?)

Not James, darling...it's Jane

"James" he insisted with a monkey smile

"Peter and James"

"James and Peter"

"..........."

Roll eyes and pretend to be irritated.

Boys, pfffttt.....

 So, today, I rewarded him with Book 1B: Look at this

 "EVIL, kan?"

<<< >>>>

Sight words

 Ladybird Series/Peter and Jane

Sight words for kindergarten flashcards from education.com

Also, I labelled stuff around the house using Carisa's printables

<<< >>>

Phonics

We will be going through blending following this free 

curriculum from  Brightly Beaming Resources

They even have baby curriculum. I tried reading The Carrot Seed to Dragon.

She was only interested in eating it.

'____'

Tiger has shown ability to decode words but more comfy with CVC words.

Tools we love

He loves the pattern phonics flip chart from Brillkids.

 He sounds out nonsensical words and 

I write them on the whiteboard while asking him,

"Is that a word?"

He sounded out /f/ /a/ /b/ as f**k (rhymes with duck)

Leapfrog's Fridge Magnet

<<< >>>

We made the house reader-friendly since he is sooo into reading now.

Sometimes, he goes through 10 books with me at one go.

Some popular ones at the moment:

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

If You Give the Pig A Pancake

The Gruffalo

Brillkids series

<<<< >>>>

Peter and Jane during my time:)

 Unlike me, they have not aged :(

See Jane on this cover? Just stop smiling already....

 

Note:
I believe in my son and we do whatever he fancies. Tiger really kinda suck at play. He hates getting sand in his pants and dirt irritates him. Even swimming is like yuck!
Toys never really fascinated him even since infancy.

Nope, he is not autistic (it did cross my mind), just an overly sensitive child, you know, the clothes tag and sock lining is irritating type.

I was in the midst of searching for our direction (Montessori/play-based) when he showed me he wanted to read and continue with phonics/blending. So, I guess we will continue to be doing this crazy schooling thingy and see where he wants to go.

I am not a teacher or early childhood education specialist. We do not follow any particular method and I don't give a 'duck' about whole word versus phonics method. So, nope, in case you are wondering, we do not have any problems with uppercase/lowercase/ b vs d and p vs q despite the fact that I threw everything at him at once.


It wasn't like he couldn't read prior to this post. But he wasn't flipping from first to the last last page and really reading each word. So, this is a milestone for us.

Your child may be reading the encyclopedia or manuals to build a rocket. So, Peter and Jane is no biggie. Tiger is by no means precocious child, just a happy kid who happens to like books at the moment. He may suddenly want to play with dough only tomorrow.

Tiger was NOT an avid reader until he turned 2.5 years old. So, don't worry if your child is not ready yet. When they are, they simply can't stop :)

Tot School: 29.5 Months

Tiger did not get new trays for the week.

Instead, we just extended his tot tray activities to keep them fresh.

Okay lar, mostly because I was lazy and wanted to spend more time with Fifty Shades.

FYI, I am on book II already. *Cheeky grin*

 *Clear throat* 

Back to Tot Schooling stuff....

We added his 'taking pen'/flags to his Geography lesson.

Some figurines from Happyland.

He requested for this Grid Memory game from Popular Bookstore.

Yay, money not wasted :)

Another extension.

We added some three-piece puzzles to his vocabulary/animals set

Some time last week, Little J joined Tiger's class

Tiger went bonkers because he simply loves having J around.

There is a little bro-mance going on cause Lil J ask for Tiger too

So cute!

It is really funny to watch the two of them since there is a language barrier.

Little J is primarily a mandarin speaker and Tiger is practically a banana.

Last week, I caught the two singing Oppa Gangnam together...LOL!

Who needs words when you have Oppa?

Fridays are Messy Arty Days since I usually return home late.

By the way, late would be eight-ish.

Yeah, once upon a time, 'late' was 3-5 AM. *wistful look*

Just kidding, wouldn't trade motherhood with noisy strangers,

 intoxication, secondhand smoke, hangover, etc.

Here he was feeling very artsy, hence the expert brush pose with palette in hand.

I was going to give him the plain art paper but he kept gushing over the cover.

"Wah, so nice".."Mama, nice"

So, I just said, "Nah, use the cover lah"

Environmental friendly, yes we are.

Most of the time, he did puzzles simply because he wanted to.

Like this one which is a copy-copy from M&D.

I LOVE this pic because he was bending his back so much, he looked pudgy,

Haha, like a 9 month old Tiger.

Human body puzzle.

Definitely not a hit. Infact, his exact words were:

"Mama, no nice. Keep."

I switched his art material from his art center with flashcards.

While I was doing that, he was doing this.

"Tiger help mama clean, nice hor?"

I just smiled at him but inside I was going, "Yes, my love...so nice."

We are going easy on the compliments.

 Being the oppurtunistic mom that I am, we did these as well.

We traced A to Z, every single card.

These cards are available in MPH & Popular.

A nice alternative to sandpaper letters

Or you can use glue and sand to make them more tactile.



See the bulging diapers?
Reading, tracing, sounding phonics like a pro but still in diapers
Tsk, tsk, tsk, shameless.

He is seriously a phonics nuts.

Proof:

 

He went to bed with these and then complain that the letters were coming out.

They were homemade, DIY!

That meant they were cheap, hehe!

This week, Christmas?

Oooh, rub hands with joy

Phonics: We Made A Coconut Tree

He made me do it!

Literally.

For real.

I present to you our very own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom coconut tree.

 

He still smiles by squinting.
This picture is also the reason why Tiger will never be a model.
Unless China is looking for a Welcome to China face.
Then, please, call me.



His dance moves are not for the faint-hearted. 

Review: Leapfrog Learning DVDs

We are HUGE fans of Leapfrog toys. 

Initially I listed out the Leapfrog toys that we have but it made me look like such a shopaholic. Let's just say we have a few and we love each and everyone of them.

Anyway, the important issue is the fact that the one Leapfrog product that I really wanted to get my hands on was the Learning DVD set. They have been raved to death by parents everywhere, including those from kiasuparents.com. If the Singaporeans claim it's good, you better believe them!

We have Let's Go To School, Numbers Ahoy and Math Adventure to the Moon from ToyRus but  the box set has eluded me for the longest time until I thought of a member of the family. She graciously loaned it to us and it's high time I return them since Tiger is totally in love with them. Grandma is not helping by giving him a free rein over his TV time.

They are pricey if we poor under-developed, third world country people are to buy from Amazon or Singapore. During our last excursion to Popular in Ikano, I saw some Scout and friends series (Phonics Farm & Number Land) and  as well as the ones I have listed above.

It is really worth the splurge for the box set?

For Tiger, these are the only 'cartoons' that he watches. So, my alphabet junkie definitely enjoyed getting his daily dose of alphabet-high. Despite the fact that he is already well versed with his phonics, he is addicted to the Letter Factory. From all the testimonials of blogger moms, this definitely seemed like one of the better phonics DVD set.

Of course, I would rather he obsess over the frogs and phonics compared to Oppa Gangnam Style, no?

Speaking of DVDs, I am awaiting the arrival of my Shichida DVD. Will post more info once I get my hands on it.

Do you have a well loved educational DVD to share? Do give me your feedback if you have tried Hooked on Phonics or the Scholastic Series. Thanks!

Phonics play: SMART puzzles

We usually end our nightly 'school' sessions with games or puzzles.

Sometimes we just play with puzzles all night if Tiger wants to.

This Alphabet Match Up from SMART is one of his favourite at the moment.

Actually anything with alphabets will do :)

He calls it "A B C"



Pic from kids.net.my



These are pretty reasonable at about RM18.90 each

 I managed to get several for RM10 each during the Toy R us warehouse sales.

Here's a link to kids.net.my for their selection of SMART puzzles.

Sometimes, I get to be lazy and sit aside to observe.

Other times, he would make me put on the puppets to play with him.

I can tell you that it is no fun handling pieces of puzzles with your fingers wrapped up in fluff.

He loves this game, especially when he thinks I am trying to beat him in finding the next piece.

Looking for 'u"

Neat, huh?

The moment he completes the puzzle, he would mess it up and start again.

As usual, I choose puzzles according to Tiger's interest and ability instead of the recommended age.

Since the single and double-piece puzzles no longer interest him, we have moved on to these as well.

Nothing to do with phonics but pretty interesting as the pieces all come in different sizes.

Each individual puzzle is 4-6 pieces.

These are available in Popular Bookstores for RM17.90 each



Pic from popular.sg



We are attending a right brain school trial class this weekend.

I will share our experience with this Shichida method school in the coming week.

Have a great weekend!

I know we will.