My 2 Little Darlings Jayden & Javier: Homeshooling

For this week homeschooling, the initial plan was to teach Javier letter I instead of J. But I have a hard time getting some of materials needed. So I decided to skip letter I for the moment and skip to letter J first.
Of course, both my boys really like this letter.... cos J stands for Jungle and they get to see alot of animals for this week homeschooling theme. :)

Theme for the week: JungleIt is quite easy getting the materials that I need for this theme. I get most of my ideas from this mommy blog and here. Reading through sunflower homeschooling idea really makes my lesson planning so much easier.

Based on the Jungle theme, I introduce them a new vocabulary word: Vine (which means plants with long, thin bendable stems; they grow along the ground or climb up trees.)

Besides that, I also introduced some new words to Javier which begin with J: Jacket, Jam and Javier!

When I introduced new words to them, I like them to explore the items. For example, taste it, touch or smell it. In this way, they would have a more deep impression of that items.

Learning Alphabet J:

On Monday, We did a Letter J tracing. Recently, I notice that after holding Javier hand to trace the letter for 1 time, he can trace the letter himself after that.

On Tuesday, We did a dot art Letter J. He has better control of this dot marker now.

On Thursday, we did a marker tracing on the J card which I have laminated. I printed it from here.

This is traced by Javier himself. He like to trace this letter J card. I think this is quite a good idea for the kid to practice tracing, as we can erase it over and over again for them to practice tracing.

On Friday, we did a pasting of green paper on the Letter J. Since we are learning green colour for this week, so I decided to let incoporate 2 learning activities into 1 craft. Javier can learn green and letter J from this activity.

Alphabet Games

I trace some outline alphabet on the paper. He will take the alphabets and put into the correct letters. He enjoyed this game alot. He would do it daily to practice alphabet recognition and also a revision on the letters which he had learnt.

Besides the alphabet, I also trace the outline of his name.

Doing Crafts:

We did 2 crafts this week based on the theme of Jungle.

Craft 1: Jungle painting.

Steps: First I put some paint on Javier hand to print the tree stems, next I let him use pom pom to dip into the paint to print the trees for the trees.

Lastly, I cut some small stripes of green paper for the vines, so I let Javier paste it on the tree.

Our jungle craft

Jayden like this craft so much, he keep asking me to let him do it also. He did not 1 but 2 of this craft,

Craft 2: Jungle animals Train

We did a jungle animal train. I printed the template of the craft from here. This craft is a great hit among my 2 boys. They keep playing with this train until Javier broke the monkey hands. :(

Poem we read:

We read a poem on Jungle Adventure. We have a fun time reading this poem, cos all the animals are Javier favourite. Even Jayden likes it alot, he will read this poem to Javier. We behaves likes monkey swinging, the animals stompinig about. :) I even use the binoculars we did in letter B to act as a jungle explorer. Of course, my little copycat followed what I did. :)

Books We read:

If I were a Jungle Animal by Tom And Amanda Ellery

This story is about a boy name Morton who thinks playing baseball is boring, boring, boring - especially in the outfield where the ball never, ever comes. He's sure that he would have more fun if he were a wild beast roaming in the jungle.

Javier wasn't very keen in this book, but I still make it a point to read it togather with him everyday.

Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz (* Javier favourite book for this theme)

This is Javier favourite book for this week. He likes the colourful illustration of the animals. The book is about a day-long safari that introduces young children to different wild animals. It features catchy rhymes which young children likes.

Now my boy are so familiar with this book. Javier would would take this book for me to read it to him everyday.

Learning Numbers: Four 4

We learnt number 4 this week. I like to use this book to teacher Javier numbers. Partly due to farm animals really got his interest and he likes to count the animals.

I cut a piece of paper and wrote 4 on it for Javier to paste 4 pieces of stickers. He still don't know his numbers well. So he will keep asking me 'anymore" meaning whether he paste enough stickers already?

Numbers Game:

We did a number sorting game today. I draw the circles for Javier to put in the marbles. He became bored after doing it for 2 times.

Learning Shapes: Rectangle

I find that Javier learnt the different shapes quite fast, I only mentioned to him once or twice, he will remember it. It might be due to he has a special liking for shapes, since young he likes to play with shape sorter (I mean all kinds of shape sorter... :) ) Thus maybe hearing me says the name of the shape ample of times, he already know some by heart. :)

Some rectangles object I showed Javier

Using the same technique for the square and triangle, I draw the outline for the rectangle to let Javier used the foam (which I have cut out) to form rectangles. I used 2 different colours for the long and short length for the rectangle. In this way, it would be clearly shown to Javier that rectangle is make up of 2 long and 2 short sides.

Learning Colours: Green

First I showed Javier some green objects and a book on green colour. I also let him colour the rectangle green.

Green Objects which I showed Javier

2 in 1- Learning green and Rectangle in one activity.

Colour Matching Game:

Javier is supposed to match the respective colour dots to the "J". I find that he does not learn colour as well as shapes. Till now I have already introduce 4 colours to him, but he is still not very sure of the colours.

Learning Chinese:

We read a 儿歌, 唐诗 and story books for our chinese activity.

儿歌：两只老虎

My boys were so familiar with this song, when Javier saw this poem printout, he even can sing part of the song with Jayden. I chose this song cos I know that they will like it. Everyday they would sing this song to me. Javier can sing almost the whole song himself except line 4 which he is not too sure.

Books we read:

We read 2 books "动物＂and ＂收起来＂ this week. Both are my boy favourite. He will automatically take these 2 books for me to read any time of the day. He even know the title of these 2 books now. He will tell me, mummy read "收起来 " or "动物".

For "动物", he can recognise a few of the chinese words and by looking at the pictures, he can say the name of all the animals in chinese.

I find that this series of "我会读" is very good to teach young children chinese, but it is really hard to get these books from the library. And brand new set is really costly, thus now I am sourcing 2nd hand sets to get for Javier.

This series of this 小熊宝宝绘本has very cute and attractive illustration which my boys likes alot. I ordered this set from dangdang spree which is going to arrive soon, can't wait to get hold of these books.

唐诗：悯农

This is a popular poem which I find it really meaningful.

Practical Life Skill:

1) Poke & PeekFocus: encourages fine motor development and eye-hand coordination.
Materials: Colander, tin bowl, toothpicks

Step: Invert the colander. Let the child insert the toothpicks into the holes. Add a tin bowl underneath the colander and it will give auditory feedback to the child. Javier likes the 'ding ding' sound when the toothpick hit the tin bowl.

2) Pouring water from one bottles to the other.

Focus: Hand and finger strength, pouring, concepts of empty/full, heavy/light.

3) Sorting

Focus: sensory awareness, sorting, matching

Steps: I put some macroni and stones into a big bowl. And get Javier to sort the 2 different items into 2 serparate bowls.

Other Activities:

1) Matching Game I: I make some animals cards for Javier to learn about the different jungle animals. He likes to match the animals to the animals in the book. First he would tell me the name of the animals and then put the cards on top that animal.

2) Matching Game II: Using the animals cards again, Javier would match the toy animals to the animal cards. Usually I would put the cards and toy animals in a basket and leave it on his table. So that he can play or look at it anytime he likes. Every morning he wakes up, he will take these toy animals and do the matching game himself. :)

3) Jungle Scenery Cut and Paste Activity

I put double-sided tape behind for Javier to paste the animals on the jungle scene.
I printed the template of this activity from here.

4) Jingle Jingle

This is just a simple activity for Javier to learn sound. I put some coins into a glass bottle for Javier to shake. He enjoyed this activity alot, he even took out the coins and put into the bottle himself for a few times.