Lesson 5: Week 2

My notes on Mavi's homeschooling for Lesson 5, Week 1.

Date: December4 - December 10, 2009

Curriculum Source: Letter of the Week 

 

I have been busy this week, but despite of all the holiday preparation I still tried to homeschool him if I had the time.

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WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD!!!

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LITERATURE

For this week, we went back again to the Little Duckling book.  This time around he knows that he has to use his fingers to follow the groove the on the book.  I don't have to ask him for his fingers, instead, he does it by himself. 

I also tried a different reading style this time.  Aside from reading the rhythmic text on the book, I would make the sound of the animals on the book.  He definitely loves it, and would follow me from time to time.  Even my hand gestures, he would imitate it.

TOYS/MOTOR SKILLS

The Laptop

Mavi is not exposed to the laptop.  He is not allowed to touch it. But that was before... nowadays, he is authorized to touch and play with his Dad's laptop hahaha.. not mine.

But you see, he surprised us. He definitely knows how the thing works!!  He knows how to position his hands on the keyboards, and on the mouse.  We didn't taught him that! Maybe, during those times when his Dad and I are busy with our notebooks, he would observe us working on the laptop.

Crafts Project

I've read that the areas in the brain that develops slowly are those part that are in control of fine motor movements.  That is why, toddlers have difficulty to do simple tasks such as writing a pencil, tying shoelace or use a telephone.  So the purpose of this activity is to encourage Mavi to practice the skills that stimulate development of the fine motor pathways in his brain.

I used M&M chocolate in this activity.  Never leave your baby with these stuff, they'll choke once swallowed.  I took out 10 colorful pieces of the chocolate and his milk container.  I showed him how to pick up the chocolate buttons and put them one by one on the container.

I instructed him to pick up the chocolates individually and put it back on the container as I count the pieces for him.  So it is not only good for manual dexterity exercise but also teaches him counting skills.  He loves doing this activity over and over again.  At times, he would attempt tasting the chocolate, since he knows that I would get angry, he does the tasting thing cautiously hahaha.

High Five

For this activity, I draw an outline of Mavi's hand on a bondpaper, cut it and used it as a pattern to cut out his handprints in different colored papers.  It's supposed to be a felt paper, but since it wasn't available on the store near our pad, I only used the plain ones. Within a day, I would ask him to give one handprint of a certain color a "high-five".

 I pasted the handprint on one column of our house that isn't painted in white hehehe.

OUTDOOR GAMES/NATURE STUDY

Thank God for one non-rainy weekend, Mavi was able to play outdoors.  Nothing much here except that we would just play around, chasing birds, studying the leaves and running around like.. babies!

FREE PLAY

Since I have been busy, Mavi spends most of his days playing with his toys.  He loves this car, so for him to be able to drag it anywhere, I put a plastic on it hahaha.. we don't have a rope or a string so I used one of those plastic from the grocery.

Sorry, he has no photo with his phone toy.  He also loves playing it, talking to the phone and keep on saying "Hello?".