Last week marked the end of N's 1st school term of the year. Im going to jot down what he has learnt in school and at home
School
The teacher said that N had been picking the pink object box almost the whole term. But instead of building words, he was more interested in matching the words to the objects.
Also this term, the teacher has introduced to him tracing of the metal inset, which she said he could do pretty well.
As for mandarin, although he isn't reading aloud for his chinese teacher, but he could read for me at home when i revised with him. So we've all concluded that he IS listening and absorbing in class but refuse to show any verbal evidence...yet. However, he is begining to participate during circle time, dancing along the music which is vast improvement from the initial days.
At Home
Let's see. He has self-taught the alphabetical order. (If you've read my blog, you'd know i never taught him the alphabets nor the order. He mostly learnt it from reading books, watching educational DVD and listening to music).
He has also learnt the food that some animals eat. Now he knows:
Chicken eats corn, horse eats sugar (for snacks), cow eats grass, owl eats mouse, monkey eats banana, cat eats fish, birds eat worms, rabbit eats carrot and frog eats fly. He learnt it all through playing
this activity.
He has also learnt the concept of buttoning and is now more interested in attempting to button and un-button his own clothes.
He was introduced to new shapes & its names, parallelogram, quatrefoil, pentagon.
He learnt the words from eleven to twenty.
He learnt new mandarin words on animals.
He learnt the various species of birds & insects and knows how to classify them
He can now identify and sort transportation by sky, sea & land,
Thanks to the iphone he also learnt the crescent shape and the fruit cantaloupe.
He has started to sing songs like 'twinkle twinkle stars, abc, He is able (christian song)' etc (yes, he is rather delayed in this aspect). This is a huge improvement because he would never have done this in the past.
Hmm, it seems he has learnt more at home doesn't it? That's why i've been thinking if he is better off at home with me and it doesn't help that this school is more expensive than some other Montessori schools around here. But i also its because i am his mother, so i know him inside out and i know what method is best to teach N. While the teachers don't readily plunge into a subject unless they are convinced he is ready.
Yet, it is through the school that i realised he is not responsive to other adults or teachers. That makes me want for him to stick to school even more so that he can learn from other adults too. Also, he seems to be warming up- very slowly though, to the teachers which makes me even more reluctant to change a school environment for least he has to start all over again!
Well, i'll just have to observe more this term and see how it goes!
N knows his shapes very well and can even match the shapes to the words. The montessori kit came with 3 new shapes which i never taught him before, they are, quatrefoil, pentagon and parallelogram. So i wanted to teach him the names and shapes so i wrote all the shape names on a paper and had N match them. I subtlely taught him the 3 new shapes and he remembered them in an instant! Good job my boy!
N couldn't form the triangle despite being told to use the black lines as a guage. So i duplicate this idea from another montessori mama blogger (as always, i forgot who). I traced the triangles and had match the triangle. It worked like magic! 
I bought Melissa and Doug. 'see and spell' wooden toy. It was kind of expensive but i thought it was very clever and the moveable alphabets were too hard to resist (it can replaced the real montessori material!). The aim of the game is to have N match the correct alphabet onto each wooden piece (see the 'Cow' on left). N loves this activity! He kept asking for more!
Here's N practising his fine motor skills. While he was doing, i realised there were insects in the rice! EEEks! I kept it for too long! I had to disrupt his moment. I tried to offer him it again later (after all the cleaning) but he wasn't interested anymore. :P ops, i was totally ill-prepared. Sorry baby!
Encouraged by how well N could trace, i decided to give him more exercises to do. I found a couple of templates from a book i bought some time ago and got N to trace. This is the zig zag line...
Curvy lines
Straight lines
It's part of my 'practical life' activity. I cut out 2 pieces (one red and green) and sewed a button on one piece and cut out a hole in the other.
The purpose is to get N to button the 2 pieces together. N gets to practise his buttoning & fine motor skills with this activity! Im so proud of myself! Its very easy to make and i made it within 1 hour. I was too excited about this and had N do this activity this morning. I was afraid he was going to give up quickly like he did to some of my tediously made materials. But thankfully, he seemed to enjoyed it and was concentrating hard. :) PHEW! 
Using the counters, i revised with N the concept of More and Less. I first took out 2 numbers, say '8' and '1' and had N to put the correct number of counters under each numeral. When he is done, i would ask him which has more counters, '8' or '1'. With the visual aid, he was able to tell me '8' has more counters than '1'. I took away the counters and left the numerals on the floor. I then asked N again, which number was more. He was able to tell me that '8' is more than '1'. I took out another set of numbers and played with him again.
I was making materials for my next activity that required tracing and cutting. I deliberately did the tracing in front of N so that hopefully it creates some interest in him & therefore later want to do tracing of the metal insets. So there i was tracing his vehichles wooden puzzles on a red felt cloth and N was curiously hovering around me. Much to my delight, he WAS interested in the tracing. He was completely amused by the shape ive traced on the cloth and volunteered to lift up the puzzle piece after i was done tracing. When i thought my task was completed, he took the cut out felt pieces and matched to the puzzle pieces! So i did an impromptu activity with him there and then!
The iphone must be the greatest invention on earth. With the iphone, i am able to teach my son lotsa stuff AND have him revised on it. I downloaded an application on animal sounds and N, by playing with it, became familiar with the different sounds each animal makes. Sometimes i would play the animal application and have N stand away from me (so that he cant see the pictures on the phone) and have N tell me what animal makes that sound. Since he has mastered this, i decided to make it more challenging by having him point to me the correct animal in mandarin words. N did awesome, except that he got the 'horse' and 'donkey' mixed up! It was fun, N loves this game! :)
Here's a sorting game. I got all the coins and had N sort it out in pairs. At the same time, as he picks up the coins with his fingers, he's also exercising his pincer grasp skills.
One of the goals i gave myself this year was to expose N to more Mandarin words. I have realised that i have been focusing too much on English language. I played a matching game with N using animal pictures and its mandarin words. With this, he has learnt that animal names in mandarin. I also got him to read out the words aloud for me. Although his articulation is not perfect, but i am happy enough that he is able to sound out the words.
Since this week's letter is 's', i had N trace the letter using the templates i printed out for him. To my delight, he did it very well! Look, he did everything by himself!
N is begining to talk more recently. Oh yes, just a background, N is delayed in his speech. But thank God he has started to talk just weeks back. Well, better late than never! However, his articulation is very poor. So i decided to play with him more phonics activities to help him. This week's letters are 'S' and 'm'. Instead of using pictures, i thought i should use words instead. I personally think words are better visual aids than pictures when playing this game, with the words he can see why a word say 'song' has the 'ss' sound at the begining. I deliberately chose 'm' to be the second letter because the two letters have very distinct sounds. I have been playing this with him everyday and im pleased that he is picking up the concept very well! 
N enjoyed the matching sea animal game i set up for him last week. Since he loves transportation, i decided to set up the same game but on vehicles this time. 
