My 2 Little Darlings Jayden & Javier: Homeshooling

We seems to be still in a holiday mood.. so the flow of the lesson is more relax and not very well-planned. I guessed I still need some time to warm up my engine before we will be able to pick up the pace. Although I still feel quite lazy to start the homeschooling with Javier, nevertheless I feel that they seems much more well-behave when I do lesson with them. So here we go.....

Theme for this week: Monkey. I got some of my printable materials here.

During his lesson, he wants his animal friends to join in the lesson. He insist on wanting me to wait for him to arrange the animals neatly on the floor before we starts the lesson. :(

Based on the Monkey theme, I introduce them a new word: Tail (which means the section at the rear end of an monkey that is adapted to allow them to grasp tree branches.)

Beside this word, I also introduce a few words that starts with M: Mango, Macaroni, Mushroom and Milk. Towards the end of the letter M learning, Javier is able to match the word cards to the picture (sometimes with a little assistance from me :).

Trying out the macaroni, I told me I need to cook it beforoe he can eat it but he wants to bite onto it and try it.

Now he likes to smell all sort of things. :(

Learning Letter M:

On Tuesday: We did a letter M tracing.

On Wednesday: We did a M&M lettering... of course this is the most 'delicious' activity for Javier, as he got to enjoy the m&m after doing this activity.

On Thursday: We did a sticker pasting M activity. Actually for most of our letter learning activity, it is already for routine for Javier.

On Friday: We did a dot art Letter M

For this activity, he did it so fast that by the time I turned and look at what he was doing, he has almost complete dotting the M. Although it doesn't look very much like a M, but it is a 100% effort by Javier. Well done, boy!!!!

Beside this activity, we also did a 'Finding M' activity worksheet. Javier likes doing these worksheet, for this worksheet he even wants to circle the letter himself!

As you can see, some of the 'M' are circle by him. Although his circle is not very perfect yet, but I think he did a great job.

Doing Crafts

We did 2 monkey related crafts this week.

Craft No1.: A monkey mask

This craft requires painting and pasting. On day 1, we paint the monkey face and ears and let dry. On day 2, we paste the mouth and the ear on the paper plate which we have painted.

Busy painting... swish swish swish...

I cut out the shape for Javier to paste onto the paper plate.

I know the mask doesn't look abit like monkey... :). But as long as the boys enjoy the process is much more important rite! I guess I just lack the talent when it comes to art! haha... Even my boys keep exclaiming 'bear bear'.

Craft No.2:

We did a cut and paste monkey. The cutting was done by me and Jayden, while the pasting was done by the 2 boys.

Poem We read:

We read "Three Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. Actually I modified it from the original of "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" poem as I find it too lengthly.

While reading this poem, we have some action to go along. And of course, what does monkeys like to do... "JUMP".

Books We Read:

I managed to get a few story books related to monkey and my boys likes the book alot!.

Monkey & Me by Emily Gravett

The little girl with her monkey imitate what animal they are going to see next at the zoo, and then the reader can guess what animal it will be as they turn the page. The repetitiveness of the verse, Monkey and Me, Monkey and Me bring rhythm to the story. The illustrations are simple, but full of action and emotion-just right for kids. As I read the book to them, they will shout out the the next animals that is going to appear in the next page. This is a must read book for Javier everyday!

Where's My Mom by Julia Donaldson

The story is about the monkey who loses his mom. His friend, the butterfly, offers to help monkey find his mother. The butterfly asks the monkey to describe his mother and for every description, leads the monkey to an animal-unfortunately not his mother but another animal-the elephant, the spider, the bat, the parrot, the snake, the frog etc...all based on the descriptions the monkey gives. The illustrations are beautiful and vivid. I truly enjoy reading this book to him just as much as he enjoys listening to the story.

Goodnight Monkey Boy by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

As I was reading this story, it seems that the "monkey boy" in the story is exactly the same as my 2 boys. And while reading the story to them, I teased them and asked them whether is it right to do the things that the "monkey boy" did.. They still dare to say "no", yet they did it everyday!!! :(

Learning Shapes: Hexagon

Hexagon was taught this week with an activity using sticks to teach Javier about Hexagon as I don't have any object with this shape to show him.

Learning Colour: Pink

I borrowed a book by Eric Carle to show Javier pink and I also show him some objects which are pink. Lastly we have a colouring activity on the Hexagon cut-out shape.

Not in the right mood to colour, he simply scribble some colour on it and told me 'finish already'. :(

Learning Maths:

I did not teach Javier any numbers for this week, we just revise no. 1 to 5 as I realise that he still cannot recognise them.

We also discuss about big and small... well... I gues I don't have to teach much for this! He simply know it very well himself. Cos everytime when he ask for food, he will say 'I want big big one'. haha....

Nevertheless, I still let him sort the big and small dinosaurs, more like playing with the dinosaurs rather than learning!!!!

Learning Chinese:

We read a 儿歌 and a book for our chinese activity. We also read through the 唐诗 which they have learnt previously. I am glad that they can still remember it. (Jayden can recite almost all of the 唐诗 , while Javier can recite part of each 唐诗).

儿歌: 猫捉老鼠

Book we read: 青蛙小弟睡午觉

Javier loves this book, probably due to LOVES FROGS and the many types of animals that appear in this book. As he turns each page, he will say in a very funny tone the animals which is going to "creep up" the book.

Practical Skills

(1) Scooping and pouring of Red beans

(2) Matching and capping the bottle

Actually for this activity is solely by Javier initiative. Quite often, he will take out all the water bottles and uncapped it and recapped it back. He enjoys doing it, and I just let him do it whenever he likes. But I make sure he capped all the bottle and put it back in the cupboard. Normally he is quite a obedient boy and will put all of it nicely back in the cupboard.

Learning Science: Sound

I just did a simple experiment with my boys using some objects that start with 'M". First I show them each of the objects in each container. Next I covered it up with the lid and shake it. So I do so for 3 containers, in this way they will know that each object will create different sound. Although it is a very simple experiment, but they love it. Each time when I shake the container, they will exclaimed the answer "LOUDLY". :)