Books Read in May - Javier

We borrowed a number of books with story related to bird for this month, mainly due to we are doing a Lapbook on Bird.

I’m sure the author of the first 3 books is no stranger to most. These were a hit  with Javier, he wants me to read it to him every night. He could almost read it with me by memory.

Books Read in May - Jayden

For this month, the books that got Jayden interest is Guinea Pigs add up and Speed, Speed Centipede! After reading “Guinea Pigs add up, he knows that a ‘she’ and a ‘he’ will be able to produce baby.

Vegetables or Fruits?

 We had a simple activity of learning classification of vegetables and fruits.

Homeschooling Week 42 and 43

This is a long overdue post which I had no time to update. So here’s a quick update on what we did for our Bird Theme learning. Beside the activity listed here, we also did a Learning parts of birds here.

A play-date at Sembawang Shopping Centre

Well… It’s school holiday.. so that means its time for relaxation, school free, rush free, homework free(not exactly), and having lots of play-date!!!

My boys were so excited when I told them that Bing Heng would be joining us for the water play at SSC.

They love TimeZone!!!

My boys have started appreciating the fun stuffs that they can do in Time-Zone now. Whenever we passed by one, they will be pestering us to go in. So after our movie, we went to the Time-Zone after much persuasion by the boys.

Well, my 2 boys certainly have difference preference here. One would go for bowling, throwing basket ball, kiddy ride… while one for run straight for the Animal Kaiser game machine. I’m sure you would be able to guess who I am talking about.

Our 1st Movie togather

After must consideration, we decided to bring both the boys to watch this show. The reason being that they love Kung Fu Panda 1 so much, and that pretty much convince me that Javier would be able to sit through the whole show. Well, it is really too bad… at least Javier managed to sit through the whole show without really doing something drastic like crying and shouting during the show. But he tends to have a lot of questions for me while watching, I was so busy answering his questions throughout the show.

Term 2 @ Hope Kindergarten

After the meet up with the teachers, we brought back the school work which Jayden had done in school. It sure is alot of worksheet that we brought back, but at least Jayden doesn’t complain it to me.
Beside that, there are holiday homework for them to do. I was telling Jayden to try to do the holiday homework whenever he is free at home (the best is to complete it by today… :P), and he replied me that teacher told them to do only 1-2 pages per day. :D

The worksheet wasn’t too difficult, and he managed to complete the English homework this morning. (He would always choose the English over the Chinese work to do first at all time.)

Learning @ Edelweiss for Term 2

Time seems to zoom by in a flash, and school term 2 has already ended. Just a short summary of what Javier had been learning in school for this term.

Javier learn Chinese

I have just started Javier on 四五快读，I am quite happy with the progress and he enjoys the daily flashcard revision.

Some activities we did

They were still full of energy after Jayden came back from his Berries Class at 9plus , and asked me for something for them to do. So I whipped out these printables and it pass to them to keep them occupied.

Great Website for printable

I would like to share some of the great website with nice printable which I normally get my learning materials for my boys.

Confession of a homeschooler	Alphabet Theme
Montessori For Everyone	3-part card / picture card with very good quality
Musing of me Fun Resources for young learners	Holiday Theme
Pre-Kinders	Theme, Science, Maths, Literacy
Home School Share	Lapbook
File Folder Fun	File folder games
Mr Printables	Nice, cute printables
1plus1plus1equals1	Preschool lapbook

 

Meet the Parents Session

Time seems to past so fast, Jayden would soon be graduating from his K2 in another half year time to another new stage of his school journey.

Today, I met up with his English and Chinese teachers to better understand about his progress in class. Both teachers comment that he is serious and take pride in his work and can do his work independently , pay attention in class. (huh… I was thinking are you sure you are talking about Jayden???? keke.. I know I sound bad, but he is never like this at home… :D Even my mom laugh and seems inconvincible when I told her this. :P  )

But on some occasion, he do has his moment when he hand in slack work; when he wants to finish his work fast to play toys or with his friends, he tend to zoom through his work too fast, with careless mistake here and there.

How do you make 9?

I printed some maths activity sheet for Jayden from here. I think this is a good practice for him to make him think and analyze how to solve it.

First Semester Review

Few days ago, I received Javier’s report book from Edelweiss Kindergarten. It certainly look pro, very much like the report book during my primary school days. There is also a CD attached which has some photos of Javier during his class lesson, celebration and school outing.

Bento #8 – Beep Beep

Recently, Javier is crazy about this book which I borrowed from the library. This book teaches pattern sequencing which I think would be good for Javier. He felt in love with the cars in the book and kept asking me to buy the yellow, red and blue cars for him.

So I decided to make a Car Bento for them for dinner. Well, sadly to say, the meal time for today did not go as well as planned, but at least he managed to eat  all the food which include the grapes. ** Bravo** since he is not a fruit lover, I was so happy to see him finished all the grapes. (I guess sometime I need to be harsh to him when it comes to eating. At least after I talked to him sternly, he will be more willing to eat his main meal. If I just let him be, he will only be eating plain rice for his every meal. :( )

When they get togather…..

Today, we decided to send Javier to school since Jayden is on medical leave. It’s rather convenient such that there is a free shuttle bus near our place that will bring us straight to Sembawang Shopping centre which is just next to Javier’s Kindy.

Below is just some shots of my boys as we make our way to the bus stop. When my 2 boys get togather, it will never be quiet anymore… ;( Beside chit chit here, chat chat there, they also like to make funny expression, do funny stunts to entertain me!!!! :D

Bento #7

Bento consists of plain rice mixed with pork floss, baked salmon, apple and grapes.

Noticed the expression on the rice, woohoo… .I managed to get it from Daiso last week. There is a total of 4 expression punchers sold there and I bought all four of it. :D

Marble Painting

We did not have any plan to go any places as Jayden is not feeling well since Saturday. Instead, we engaged the boys in home activities and craft sessions as requested by Javier. 

To do this marble painting; You'll need :
- Poster or tempera paint
- paper
- container (Any shoe box, cake box or box lid)
(and I make a clever decision to to this art in the corridor, as it can can get quite messy when the boys get absorbed in the painting.) and washing the corridor is much easier as compared to cleaning the house)

Just some activities on a boring day

Since we did not go out, and in order to keep the boys busy (especially Javier; he loves to do all sort of activities, especially painting and craft, if not he would be up to his mischief if he gets too free.); I did quite a few activities with the boys.

We did size sorting of their soft toys from smallest to biggest. (learn thru play), the boys love it!!!!!:D 

Bento #6 – It’s all about shapes

Due to the last minute cancellation of the lesson today, we stayed home all morning. And thus I decided to make a simple Bento snack box for my boys.

Bento consists of cut out shaped bread spread with peanut butter, boiled hot-dog, quail eggs and jelly.

Learning Date and Time

This is a toy that was bought more than 6 months ago during my KL trip with D and was long forgotten by me after I stashed it away in the storeroom. And few days ago, as I was digging for some stuffs in the storeroom and I found it. It was a really great toy to teach Javier on calendar and time!!!

Bento #5 I heart you

Deeply motivated by my boys reaction on the Bento dinner on the previous meal time, I decided to do another Bento today. :D

We had a meal full of hearts tonight.Bento consists of heart shaped hot-dog, fried chicken wing, heart shape egg, stir fry minced pork and heart shape rice rice mould. I had also cooked a pan fried Ngoh fish which I did not include inside the bento.

 

Learning Parts of Birds

Since we are doing Theme learning on Birds, I also include learning of the parts of birds as part of our Bird Theme learning. I think this is a great method as I realized that my boys were able to learning very well from this method. Normally I will paste this list for the parts of birds on the wall for about 1 month and revised with them as and when we like.

   Parts of the Birds

Bento #4 - Mr Smiley

A simple bento consisting of Rice with chicken floss (for hair), raisin (for eyes and nose), hotdog (mouth). Besides that there is also quail eggs, baked salmon and fried hotdog.

Are You My Mother?

I had decided to do this lapbook, partly due to I like this story alot and since Mother’s Day is just around the corner, I feel that this would be good lapbook to do with the boys. Normally I would take 2 weeks to do a lapbook with Javier. I feel that it is a very comfortable time frame for us as I normally cannot do much learning on Thursday and Friday as I need to bring Jayden to his enrichments, so most of the learning would take place from Monday to Wednesday and Saturday.

Birthday Dinner at Sheraton Hotel

We had a quiet dinner buffet at Sheraton Hotel tonight. I am glad that my mummy is able to come over to babysit my boys for us.

I like the ambience here, cosy and quiet. A ideal nice place to have our meal and we can really have a nice, long chat as we dine. Frankly, we rarely can sit down to have a nice talk with my 2 boys around.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Yes, I am a year older today!!!! We got a nice yummy birthday cake from Bakerzin. 

And, I am glad to have my loved ones with me on this special day. I will work harder to become a better mother, a better wife, to have more patience with my kids in the years to come!!!! Lastly, “Happy Birthday to me!” :)-*

Dinner at SSC Aston

We had a real early dinner today at 5plus today. D seems to be falling in love with the food in Aston, and he suggested we dine here again. Btw the last we ate here is only 4 days ago:(

Qian Hu Fish Farm

D wanted to buy a fish tank and so we decided to go Qian Hu. So while D shop for his fish tank, me and the boys went around looking at fishes and koi.

Simple Drawing

Since 2 weeks ago, he has been getting Mr Men series book back from his I-creative lesson weekly, he has been getting inspiration to draw simple-like drawing as seen in the book.

I noticed that beside watching show during his free time, he enjoys drawing too. I have decided to sign him up for a June holiday Art Workshop since he is keen to attend drawing class now.

Javier at 39 Months

Language:

Can recognize a fair number of sight and phonetic words like; pat, water, fun, come, it, look, fish, no, here, is, dog, cat, mat, rat like, jam, yam, ball, tree, three, has, more, less, car, claw, ….

can read word by blending eg: c-at, s-am……

Able to recognize some Chinese words, like; 小，大，子, 一。 I did not really test him on the words he knows, so I am also not too sure what other words he can recognize.

Can recognize the Chinese words; 红，紫，蓝，黄，橙 和 青 from our previous home learning. (But not sure he still remember it or not.)

Able to read the readers brought back from school without missing a word. :D

We went cycling…

There was no plan to go any place today. So I just spent the morning doing housework, and then had an last minute decision to go East Coast Park, since our last trip there was a long long time ago.

As usual the boys were excited to go out, in regardless of any place; just mention water…. park.. and they would jump for excitement.

Sorting Mini Fruits

This was an impromptu activity that we did on Friday.I had wanted to use this fruits to do just the pattern sequencing with him, but he wanted me to do the sorting of the fruits with him also.

My boy love to….

watch the Thomas train goes round and round the track.

Belated Mother’s Day Dinner

We had our Mother’s day dinner tonight at Neo Garden Restaurant. Although we did not celebrate it on the actual day, but we enjoyed our dinner there togather. The boys have another 2nd round of playing at my brother’s place after the dinner which they were so looking forward to. :D

Our dinner

Kick!!!!!

Currently, Jayden is busy learning his yellow belt stunts for his coming grading test in June.

He is still enjoying his taekwondo lesson greatly, but me and D feel that he lacked discipline as the instructors are too lenient with him. As he is one of the youngest there, the instructors tend to be very lenient with him and won’t scold him even when he misbehave. He was talking and playing with his friends when the lesson is going on.

My colourful Parrot

That is what Jayden told me when he show me the is craft that he did in Hope Kindy today. I like this craft alot, its very colourful, and well-coloured.. and Jayden is much better in his colour combination now. When turn the stick, the parrot flip to and fro.

I like most of the crafts that Jayden did at his kindy, it’s very creative and attractive. I have even put up the crafts on one corner of my wall. :)

Mini Bowling

Due to his school excursion, he came home at 12.15pm. And since he didn’t want to take his nap early, we have plenty of time to do our home learning and play some game. For this bowling activity, we decided to use our seven dwarfs as the pin. We took turn rolling the ball, and I had to admit, he is much better than I am in getting a strike. :(

More or Less?

I got inspiration from this mummy blog, I like the activities that he did with his boy. And I have use some of the ideas for planning the activities to do with Javier.

I use a few examples to explain more and less to Javier. After using this red dots card to explain to him, I used the mini fruits again to show him group which contains more and less.

I can spell my Name!

Although he will sometime miss out the e in his Name; such as he will spell J-a-v-i-r. Nevertheless I feel happy to know that he managed to spell it. 

We do some activities like using the magnetic alphabets to form his name.

When I formed his name using the uppercase letters, he go a step further and find the lowercase letters to form his name. :D

Pam & Sam booklet

We have proceed on to the 2nd booklet of the word family emergent reader series, as Javier can already read the 1st booklet quite well.

Javier’s Term 2 Excursion – Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden

This picture was taken early in the morning with Javier all gear up for his excursion. He was already getting all his stuffs ready the night before…. deciding which school bag and cap to bring. :D

For the excursion this time round, Javier is going to “Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden” with his kindy. This is a place that provide play and exploration in the garden where children learn about plants, nature and their living environment.

Although we had brought him there for 2 times, he doesn’t have any idea of this place when we talk to him about his up-coming excursion. But I know he would enjoy this trip alot, as he would be going there with his group of friends.

Sink or Float

I have been wanting to do this experiment with my boys for a very long time. But plain laziness of me delay the plan again and again… Until I saw the photos posted in the Facebook of my nieces doing it and enjoying it so much… that I make myself promise to do it with my boys soon.

First, I explain what is float and sink.. and why….

Before & After Puzzle

Both my boys love puzzle, they will be very keen to try out the new puzzles which I bought for them.

Learning Time

Since I did some clock learning with Jayden about 2 weeks ago. Javier has grown a strong interest in clock reading too. Javier had learnt how to tell the time by the hour (eg: 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock …).Every now and then, we would just whip out the clock, and I would ask him to make 8 o'clock for me. He would move the long hand to 12 and the short hand to 8. And sometime, I would get him to read the clock also. Sometimes he like to ‘test’ me also, so I would gladly play along! :D

At his moment, I will just stop here and only teach him to read time by the minutes when he is older to minimize confusion.

Pattern Sequencing

As mention in my other earlier post, Javier is quite weak in pattern sequencing. So today I used some rubber fruits which I bought at popular today to do some sequencing activities with him. I’m glad to see some improvement after this activities.

Chick –n- Place Game

This is a place value file folder game for children who are ready to start learning and
practicing place value skills up to the hundreds. Children draw an egg and read the number word. Then using the chicks, they place the into the egg shells to form that number word correctly.

I printed it for Jayden to revise his value placing. In this activity. Beside that we also talk about 823 is make up of 800 + 20 +0.

You can print this activity here.

Counting by 2’s

Just a while ago, I heard Javier’s saying 2,4,6,8,10. I was a bit taken aback as I did not teach him this. So I call him over (I was in the study-room and Javier was in the living room), so I told him to repeat what he’d just said, and he dutifully do so. :D I ask him where did you learn this from… and guess what he told me; he said he heard Jayden reciting it and learnt it from him.

I’m happy to know that he has learn part of the 2x table effortlessly.. so I went a step further and teach him all the way to 20. :)

But at times, I heard him recite the number 6 as 8… but I guess all this is part of learning and practice makes perfect.

Addition again.

This is a simple math file folder game for children who are ready to begin working on early math skills. 

Since we are now doing addition now, I decided to print it for Javier to practice his addition. I think after doing a few activity on addition, he has already grasp the concept of it. I use the marble brought from Daiso for Javier to use in the counting.

We learn Music

Well… not really but more on my boys learnt about the various music instruments. I bought 2 puzzles last Saturday and one of the puzzle theme is animals playing various musical instruments (this one was chosen by Javier). This is his new ‘LOVE’ for these few days. He would want us to fix the puzzle with him a few times a day.

Honestly, for the past few days I wasn’t really in the mood to fix this puzzle with him and push this responsibility to D and Jayden. Today I finally sat down and did some learning with the boys as we were fixing this puzzle. The box of puzzles consisting of 2 sets, one is on shapes and the other set is on musical instruments.