Fun with ABC

Being a SAHM is really NO easy job! Why do I say so? Amidst the housework, laundry, cooking that you have to do, there is still playing and learning with the LO.

I started researching on the internet for ideas on how to go about teaching J his ABCs. My objectives are simple. At 16 months going onto to 17 months, I am not expecting that he would be able to say, write, know or identify his ABCs immediately. It's more as an exposure for him and help him develop a love for learning & also show him that learning can be so much fun!

As a teacher myself, I have seen the intensity of our education system and the toll it takes on the children. At the Primary levels that I teach, the content that the children have to learn at 7 years old are really quite "deep". Even I, as their teacher, feel that certain content may not be age-appropriate for them. Also, the short curriculum time does not allow children to explore their own learning interest and penalizes children who are slower in understanding concepts. There are current changes to the education system in Singapore, but all these policies TAKE TIME to change. Hopefully, by the time J goes to school, the system would be seeing more improvements! :)

 Enough talking about the school system...so while searching for a possible plan, I came across this website where the author comes up with her own "Letters of the Week" to homeschool her 3 children.

If you are interested, do check out this link: http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preschool_age_3.html

 It was indeed a gem found. I really like her ideas...However, I also found that some ideas may not be that suitable for our local context. I only found this after J has turned 1, so did not managed to follow through all her plans. Her "Letters of the Week" plans are meant for 2 years old onwards. So, I try to modify and customize my own "Letters of the Week" for J's learning.

Today is the start of our 3rd "Letter of the Week" lesson. So far, I have been quite pleased with how it has progressed with J with Week 1 and 2. We start off Monday with exploring items in his little suitcase (got this for his 1st birthday party as deco....$$ well-spent. Super useful) Any box will do...recycle your shoebox also can. I put different items starting with that week's letter and a cut-out of the letter using different materials.

Tuesday is supposed to be a reading or learn a song day. So far, I have only managed to do singing because I have no time to compile a reading list. For Wednesday, we have been doodling...using pencil. Will be trying out various materials too in the weeks to come. Or hoping that my hubby can do a 'Chinese day' with him. [Sounds strange? Not really. We are doing bilingual education with J at home, where I speak only English and my hubby speaks only Mandarin to J]

On Thursday, we explore a shape/colour. And on Friday, we explore a number. Weekends? Rest and lots of play for the little boy!!! ;D

As for today....since we started on the letter 'C', I cooked a Chicken, corn and carrot soup for the whole family!!! hee....After dinner today, hubby was suggesting I make carrot cake or corn cupcakes tomorrow!!! hahaha....even daddy is picking up his ABCs all over again! yay :)

Suitcase filled with items associated with letter 'A'

J exploring the use of a pencil & his finished product

His all-time favourite...playing his piano

All these are just mental notes for me right now...I'm hoping that I would be able to put these plans into writing for reference. :)

For mummies who are also thinking about what to do with your LOs, why not try this out?!

Oh yes...forgot to mention also that as you are trying the plan out with your LO, it is good to have an idea what kind of learner he/she is. For J, he's a kinaesthetic & auditory learner.

Basically, he needs to SEE and TOUCH things in order to understand & explore them. And he loves music and anything with sounds, hence HEARING activities are also good for him. So accompanying the suitcase, we also bought the Leapfrog letter factory toy which when a letter is inserted and pressed on, it sings the letter and its sound. We found that he was very interested in the learning and he is actually picking up the letters quite well.

Letter Factory

If anyone have other good ideas, please please please share with me! So I can explore with J. Thanks. If you do try them out, let me know if it works for your LO.

**If anyone has good ideas on how I can get J interested in learning colours and shapes....pls leave me a comment! Haiz...He is totally not keen on shapes and colours. Not even with activities.

Sensory Activity~ Painting

Recently, the term "SENSORY" came up very strongly to me. So I decided to go onto the internet to see what sensory activities I can do with J at home.

Given his young age, he does a lot of exploration using his senses, especially his sense of touch and taste. I came across finger painting on many webpages and thought it would be a great activity for him and decided to give it a try. I tried 2 different types of finger painting: Mess free painting and finger painting.

I knew painting would definitely get J all dirty and colours will be hard to come off the clothes. And so mess free painting was the best choice.

 The materials can be prepared in less than 5 minutes and you are ready to start.

 

 

It was J's first time working with paint. The colours caught his attention. However, it was not long before he spotted the scotch tape surrounding the zip-lock bag and decided that was more interesting than painting. With J tearing off all the scotch tapes on the sides, it was the end of the painting activity. I reckon he probably didn't really understand what the objective of the activity was.

Anyway, tearing off the scotch tapes is also a form of sensory activity too. So, I thought maybe the activity was not messy enough for J, hence, I went in search for actual finger painting activity instead. Knowing that J will definitely give the paints a taste, I searched for recipes for an edible homemade paint.

I got on to mixing my paints and let J try again after he woke up from his afternoon nap. The colours that I mixed turned out great and most importantly it cost me very little compared to commercially produced ones and it's completely edible. I need not have to worry about J tasting them.

So this is J, getting his hands and clothes all tinted with paint. Overall, he again didn't really like the activity, probably because it's rather new for him. The "masterpiece" you see is 90% done by ME! He merely touched the paint in the corner of the paper and went on to colour the floor instead. Hee...As I expected, he tasted some but no expression from him, so I think it did not taste that good to him either. Those edible homemade paints...don't they just look so pretty! :)

I will definitely let him try again tomorrow since there are still more paints left and maybe this time he would be interested! Yeah...

At this age, it's not so much the final product that I hope to achieve but rather just exposing him to new things.