Tot School: January 2013

We did these from late December to early January 2013.

Play dough Christmas Tree

Prepared a bottle of store bought dough with glitter (tree)

and some bento pick sticks (ornaments)

I helped him shape a tree and he poked away!

The dough was a little too sticky for his liking.

Play dough: Soft stuff from ELC
Jewel bento sticks: Daiso
Tray: Daiso



Christmas Sensory Bin

We kept this for a while because he really liked it.

So much so, he carried it around the house asking everyone to 'scoop' with him.

I made him wear the hat (Thanks, yi yi for leaving it behind...hehe)

He used the christmas tree as a chicka chicka tree and then added alphabets to the bin.

We also read some christmas books I bought from Big Bad Wolf :)

Played some guessing games

Tangrams

He is starting to enjoy this.

Occasionally, he calls the hexagon octagon.

Tangram set from Taiwan
Printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler
These from Preschool Alphabet blog are more complex



Geography and vocabulary

He LOVES this puzzle. It has some holes to place animals from that continent.

(Again, thanks to yi yi, Ashleyprettimommy)

I paired it with a picture atlas.

As he identifies the continents, I just read some facts to him.

Surprisingly, he enjoyed it.

When I put it down, he will tell me, "No, mama read some more"

Puzzle: From Guangzhou
Atlas: From Popular.
Saw the same book in Bookxcess for
a fraction of the price I paid

As the puzzle takes shape,

he pointed to the world map on the wall and shouted,

"Mama, same oh, see?"

"Yes, same. Both are maps". I smile

He gave me a serious look and explained patiently,

"No, mama. This is Earth. Okay?"

Pfft...stubborn-nyeeee

Self-chosen, pre-writing activty

This was around since Christmas week.

He just randomly picked this one from the shelf.

Placed it on the table and went to work quietly.

Two weeks later,

Puzzle from USL Education
Bought during sale.
40% off, I think



Sensorial

I made him 3 pairs of smelling bottles using aromatherapy oil.

Then I used the idea from Counting Coconuts to label the bottom with stickers

for self-checking.

Bottles: From sundry shop. Rm 1 each



Writing/alphabets

Another one of his ga-ga activities.

I think he killed a small tree with the papers he went through.

Then I got the brilliant idea of making him trace repeatedly with different colours.

Oh yea, things like this makes me feel clever nowadays...bwahaha...

See, how serious nerd boy is?

Until this fellow came home and disturb us...

The clowns video-ing themselves

Whenever I try to clean:

"I COME HELP MAMA"

Errrrr, not really...........

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

Puzzles: Fun Thinkers

For the past two weeks, Lil Tiger's been identifying similar objects in his surrounding environment and telling me, "same".  When I dressed him up like Daddy in white shirt and jeans, he was super thrilled :)

Last night after blazing through his trays and Little Reader, he asked for puzzles. I was planning to print out some simple matching cards for him when I remembered the Fun Thinker set.

Fun Thinkers set is designed for 4-12 year old. This product originated from Germany and it is represented by Grolier Asia in Malaysia. Each set comes with a hinged plastic grid and sixteen number tiles. I was told that since I bought from Grolier, there is a lifetime replacement guarantee should any cards or tiles go missing. I have yet to verify this claim but trust me, I will make a fuss if they don't since the salesman gave me such a hard time after purchasing. I am nice but only to a certain extend.

The Fun Thinker books are 11 paperbacks of different subjects:

English Levels

1. Level 1 Word Play
2. Level 2 Sounds Like Fun
3. Level 3 Word For Word Fun

Math Levels

1. Level 1 Number Count
2. Level 2 Figure On Fun
3. Level 3 Facts, Figures & Fun

Thinking Skills

1. Level 1 Shhh, I'm Thinking
2. Level 2 Mind Your P's & Clues
3. Level 3 mind Puzzles

All Around Fun

1. Rhymes & reasons
2. FunThinkers™ Match-Frame

I flipped through the books and decided that the first few pages were simple matching activities which were fine for Tiger's level.

Since he is crazy about puzzles, this was a hit. Or is it like Daddy's saying, "New toilet, nice to poop"?

Matching colours (thinking skills)

 Find the Uppercase (English)

He kept asking "Where's a?"

  Counting (Math)

He was a little upset that the numbers were not in sequence.

So, he removed the grid and did his own matching

^.^

Here's a video from Youtube showing how Fun Thinkers is used.

We have the Piccolo and Primo sets as well. Call me a kiasu :ppppp. After he is bored with this, we shall try Piccolo.

These sets are expensive, very expensive, very very expensive. I think I have made my point. You can get similar products (made in China) for a puny fraction of the price like Wisdom Star (Piccolo-like) and the Xiao Tian Cai (Fun Thinkers-like).