Sorting stationaries

Here's a sorting game we're playing this week.

I dug out various stuff from my stationary box and mix them in a container.

N had to sort all the items out. After he's done, he counted the number of items in each box. I deliberately took a specific number of items from each sets i.e. 8 ice cream sticks, 10 paper clips etc. N loves this game! He's been choosing this activity over and over again. :)

More about birds

I used Melissa & Doug wooden toy to teach N how to spell, 'bird'. After a while, i laid the alphabets randomly on the floor (without the board) and got N to spell on his own.

N used his bird figurines to match to the bird pictures i printed for him.

More tweet tweets

Here's more Bird activities we'll be doing.

I printed out some bird pictures from the net and made word labels. N will be learning the names of different bird species.

I have also a set of drawn pictures of birds. N has learnt the names of all the birds in English. So i decided to take another step and teach him the names in mandarin. He seems to be turn off by the mandarin words! Opps!

Parts of a Bird

In line with this week's theme, i made this so that N can learn about the different parts of a bird.

Instead of buying the costly Montessori puzzles, just google for a good bird (coloring for toddlers) picture, print a number of copies and highlight the specific parts on each picture. Make word labels and you're done! As easy as ABC! Although it may not look as pretty as the montessori ones but it is good enough to bring the message across.

It's a bird!

This week's theme is about Birds.

I deliberately borrowed this book to set the mood.

This book is great as it pretty much sums up the basics on birds.

Once again, i look for books with short sentences and large pictures. This book has taught us that birds have feathers, wings & beaks. They mostly eat seeds, berries and worms. N also learnt that Puffin birds eat fish.

WHY i keep my blog anonymous.

Because I have not told any of my friends about my blog, only a select few (like less than 5?) & i have my reasons.

1) I know of friends who yearn to be home teaching their kids but cannot due to work, financial or family commitments. I hate the idea that my blog would make them feel guilty or lesser as a mother for not doing what im doing.

I have to pause here and say that just because you haven't been teaching your child at home (for whatever reasons) doesn't mean he/she will lag behind. I believe these children will eventually catch up in one way or another i.e. in school or maybe when they become an adult. So don't feel bad if your child is seemingly slower acadamically. It is still too early to tell how they will be like in future.

Similarly, just because N is alittle more knowledgable than kids his age now, i am slow to assume that he'd be a straight A student. Because he is still too young for us to predict such things and one will never know what the future holds. Moreover, there are many aspects to the word 'intelligence' and it does not always refer to acadamics. A child is also considered intelligent if he/she excels in other areas like music, sports, arts etc.

2) Every parent thinks their kiddo is smart & i am no exception. However, call me odd but i dislike it when my friends start to view N as intelligent or smart. Because that would put a high expectation and thus unnecessary pressure on him to perform. Hence, i rather my friends see N as any toddler. Therfore, i am hiding this blog from them in case they form any of such impressions. Although like any proud parent i sometimes want to shout it out loud for everybody to know! :P

However, because of N's reserve personality and inability to speak clearly, he is often viewed as 'slower'  by people around us. When that happens, i find myself furiously defending him by telling my friends that he actually knows this, knows that etc. To which, they would politely praise him but probably walk away thinking im bragging. At times like this, i feel like giving them my blog to read but yet for reasons mentioned above, i hold myself back. In other words, i'd much rather they see him as 'slow' than 'smart' because then, N would exceed their expectations rather than fall short from it.

But why then did i bother to start this blog anyway? Because as i said, like any proud parent i want to talk about my son's achievement but more so, i just want to record it down. So what better way than hiding behind a screen name and still protect my interest.

So there! I've given you alittle trivia about me, the anonymous author of this blog. It's totally irrelevant to what i've been writing. Somehow i feel silly saying all these but i don't know why i just feel like blogging it down! :)

Transportation Art

N came back from his school holiday program with these art pieces. The theme this week is transportation. The kids (or rather the teachers) made a hot-air balloon, bus and a boat all from recycled materials. Love it!

DIY Animal Puzzles

Here's a simple puzzle game you can make without paying a single cent. Oh well perhaps just the printing & paper cost. Select any pictures you like, here i used my animal flash cards. I photocopied the pictures and pasted them over cardstock. Initially, i cut each picture into half and got N to fit it together.

Now that he is older, i cut them again to make it into a 4 piece puzzle. I mixed all the pieces and got N had to sort out the pieces, identify the animals and fit them together. It was real educational fun!

Country names in Mandarin

Every, and i mean EVERY, night, N would bug us to 'play flags'. Here's how we play it. I would display the word cards of country names and N would match them with a stack of country flags. At first, it was very fun, then, i got really, awfully, extremely bored because we play this EVERY day and night.  I then shoved the respondsibility to my husband who also found it fun in the begining but boredom is now knocking on his doors too.

Hence to make it more interesting FOR ME, i decided to print out the country names in mandarin! It got me all excited again! Today, i started with 4 countries, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea & Indonesia. N surprised me again, he remembered all the country names in mandarin almost instantly. Unfortunately, N is not as interested in tweaking the game, i had to coax to do it. It's interesting how we learn as we teach our kids. I never knew the mandarin names of some countries like Ireland, Iceland, Poland etc, but now i do!

Here's a closer look

Flowers

Summing up my flower theme with this activity:

I have 2 sets of flower pictures, one drawn and one photographed. I previously used the 2 sets seperately to teach N the various types of flowers. But to make it more interesting, i decided to merge the 2 by having N match the drawn picture of the flowers to the photographed ones.

N did wonderfully well, he matched all without a hitch!

Next, i got him to match the word labels to the correct flowers

Here's a closer look.

Days of the Week

Ever since i made this Day chart for N, he has been dilligently updating the board with or without my prompting. While my enthusiam for this is slowly dying, im proud to say N is still eagerly keeping this up.

When I ask him what day it was, he would intially refer to the chart but these days, he could answer me even without looking at the board. Last weekend, after church, i causually asked him what day it was. He remembered that he went to church to which he replied 'Sunday!'.

I've also added the chinese terms for each day of the week and went through with him. He has understood what 星期一 (monday) means and so on. He can even answer me in mandarin now whenever i ask him what day it was.

Activity Book

I bought this cheap activity book for about $3 for N. It's actually meant for 6 years old and above but there were a couple of exercises that i think N would like, so i decided to buy it, let him do a couple of pages and keep the rest till he's older.

Just i as expected, N loved it! He kept asking to do more till there was nothing left for him to do. Here's some of the pages we did:

Matching shapes (he drew the lines all by himself!)

Matching numbers to the words

Counting the number of stars & moon and then coloring the correct answer

Coloring the smallest number in each section

And coloring the largest number in each section.

He managed all the answers himself, no help from this mama. :)