Homeschooling – 22nd Week (12-18 July 2010)

This is a overdue post for our homeschooling. When we do this homeschooling Letter O, I was still feeling “hardworking”, so we did a lot of stuffs on practical skill and crafts. But after soon after we start letter P, my energy just seems to zoom right to the bottom…. Nevertheless, I am now trying to find back my zest to do this homeschooling as I know Javier enjoys it alot (at least currently, he still enjoys the lesson we did, although sometimes when he feel moody, he wouldn’t want to participate in the activity we do).

Theme for this week: Octopus. I got some of my printable materials here.Based on the Octopus theme, I introduce him a new word: Tentacles. Beside this word, Javier also learnt owl, oil, orange and onion.

Learning Alphabets:

On Tuesday: We did a Letter tracing of letter O. Now Javier is able to trace the letter himself by following the dotted line. This is the completed work solely  done by Javier himself.

On Thursday: We did a dot a dot art. He can handle this dot marker really well now. This is the the dot art of letter O done by Javier.

On Friday: We did a letter tracing of letter O again, but his time on a laminated sheet which can be erase.Javier likes to erase away the ink and rewrite the letter O many times. I think he enjoy erasing it alot.

On Sunday: We did a pasting of stickers for Letter O for Octopus. Recently I noticed that he have lost the interest to paste stickers. Although he can do most of it himself, but on many occasion, he would request me to do it with him.

Doing Crafts: We did 3 crafts for this week which are an Octopus, an Owl and Onion Stamping.Craft

No.1: Octopus. I cut out a out of shape “O” and let Javier use the dot marker to make lots of dotes on it. Then we paste some green tissue paper for the tentacles. He is so pleased with the arts, that he will show it to anyone coming to our place.Craft No.2: Owl. The method is quite similar to the Octopus, We did a dotted on the letter O which I cut off the day before. Next is pasting of head and eyes for the owl. Lastly I add the eyeball for the owl using marker. Craft No.3: We did a very simple art of stamping Onion. But Javier really enjoyed it. So much so, that he painted his palm red (with a bit of my help) and print his handprints on the paper. He was giggling and laughing away as he did this art.

Poem We Read: We read a poem “The Owl”. The funny Javier always giggle when I read the last sentence “Tu-whit, tu-whoo”. :(

Books We Read:

I did not managed to get any books related Octopus for our theme, instead we read these books for this week.

Commotion in the Ocean by Giles AndreaeA different ocean animal is featured on each page. Along with the picture is a short poem about the animal. My boys likes the pictures and the rhyming text cos the both really likes reading books on sea animals. So naturally they likes this book alot.

The Zoo I Drew by Todd H. Toodler  This is a zoo animals books which teaches alphabet. It is the favorite book for Javier among these 4 books which we read this week. He would take it for me to read everyday.

Wow! Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood This is the 2nd time which I borrowed this book from the library. The 1st time when we read this book, Javier was still quite interested with it. For this 2nd time round, he doesn’t like it anymore, every time when I read it to him, he can’t wait for me to finish the book and pass me another book to read. But Jayden loves this book alot, he likes me to read it to him every nite.

This book is beautifully illustrated which teaches colors and a bit about owls.

Zoo by Bruno Munari’sThis is a very simple book about animals in the zoo but with great illustration, it is also a must read book for Javier since we borrow it.

Learning Math:I teach Javier the different sizes from small, medium to Large. This activity is quite easy as Javier only need to match the same size octopus into the respective category.

Learning Shapes: I introduced Pentagon to Javier this week, however he is quite confused between Hexagon and Pentagon. I tried to show him the 2 shapes and get him to differentiate the between the 2. But I guessed I have to try harder, as he is still confused as this point of time.

Learning Chinese:

For Chinese, we read a儿歌，唐诗 and read a story book about ants.

儿歌：大章鱼

唐诗：相思This is a very interesting books which teaches about ants and how their ant's colony looks like.

Practical Skill:

We did scooping and pouring of red beans using a funnel. Actually this activity was solely initiated by Javier. He just went to the cupboard and took out the red beans and told me he wants to do pouring. And he did enjoyed himself so much that he started to monkeying around after a while. The next activity which Javier did was also based on his won initiative. He likes to help me to collect the clothes in the hanger when he is in a good mood.

Other Activity:

We did quite a number of activity beside learning the letter O. Following the picture, Javier got to put the respective colour onto the picture. The 2 of them like to play with this and keep fighting to do it. I was so tempted to get this Giant Train puzzle after seeing it in Sunflower blog. It is still abit difficult for Javier as he needs my help to fix this puzzles. But 1 good thing after playing this puzzle for a few times, Javier recognize all the 1-10 now. This 3 piece puzzle was chanced upon when I bring my boys for a playdate at Yvette place. I noticed that Javier like fixing this puzzles alot. So I decided to get 1 set for him at kiddy palace. This is one of his most favorite puzzle for the moment. We also did a Large Floor puzzle on the Ocean animals which Javier keep asking me to do it with him over and over again…. He is now hooked on puzzle fixing… everyday during his free time, he would says “Can I play puzzle?”