Lesson 9 Week 1

My notes on Mavi's homeschooling for Lesson 9, Week 1.

Date: January 28 - February 04, 2010

Curriculum Source: Letter of the Week 

I tried to lighten up my activties for our homeschooling because I started out a new personal project. That means, I have to spend lesser time for our homeschooling so I can work.  That's why this time, I really have to think of the quality of activities that will be given to him, instead of the quantity.  Unlike before, I used to cram almost all activities in one day, which in effect would left me so tired and achieve nothing for myself.  You see, I plan the activities ahead, say two weeks before so I have enough time to purchase some learning toys or materials for the little boy. It's hard to get hold of things here, so planning ahead is really a must.

PLANNED ACTIVITIES

Animal Puzzle

I gave him back this animal puzzle.  I kept it for months now because he kept on throwing the pieces.   Now, he seems to be aware of what to do with pieces in the puzzle.  First I would get the pieces out of the tray, and put them one by one while I describe the animals.  He loves these animals, he can recognize the elephant, rabbit, bird and giraffe.. the zebra, he calls it "horst" (horse).

While I demonstrate, he would listen to me at first, but after 2 pieces, he got excited and wouldn't allow me to continue.  He would grab all the pieces from me and try to do it by himself.  And.. he doesn't until now he doesn't how to fit the pieces yet, though he knows where to put the animals on the tray.  So my aim here is to get him to fit the pieces on the tray.  That skill he has yet to develop.

We tried it three times, and he there times that he would miss on the rabbit and giraffe.  He always put those two animal puzzles on the zebra's location.  He loves the zebra and elephant, so I guess this is the reason why he puts the other animals on their locations.  I am just happy because my little boy can actually say the names of these animals, though he cannot pronounce it properly, but at least he can call them now.


Elephant  (Papant)
Horse (Horsthst)
Bird (Burd)
Giraffe (Waf)
Rabbit (Babeet)

I am still trying to look for other ways on how to teach him do the puzzle effectively. I plan to get him more puzzles in the future.  For me, this is a terrific thing to make children understand spatial relation, improve their hand-eye coordination and develop math skills.

Sorting of objects

Our landlady gave this toy to Mavi as Christmas gift.  I don't know what to do with it yet.  But since it got lots of colors, and each color has a pair, I used it for our color matching lesson, sorting and combining similar colors.  He doesn't understand color yet.  I still don't know how to teach it to him also hehehe.. still figuring out.  He's fine with letters and objects, but with colors, it's kind of difficult to teach.  He calls everything "blue", though he can speak "yellow".

Nesting and Stacking

I bought this Playskool stacking cups last week. Mavi loves this!  Instantly, he knows what to do with it, that is to pile them all up.  Though he still has no idea that he is supposed to stack the cups according to sizes.  But he knows how to stack them all randomly.  I was thinking that I should introduce the Big and Small first before going to the stackng activity.  But sometimes, I tend to forget the goal and Mavi would immediately stack them before I can get to teach him the sizes.  Haaay.  So probably, after Week 2, I might "hide" this cups again so that by the time I will re-introduce it to him, I can teach him big and small first before stacking.

He would play with these stacking cups on his clothing box.  We don't have a table and chair for him yet.  Maybe on his 2nd birthday, Daddy can buy Mavi his own table and chair for learning hehehe.  But, knowing me, I would probably start my hunt now.

Oh and after he finished playing with the cups, this is what he would do, climb on the box.  He likes to climb on things these days.  I allow him to climb, and do the things he loves to do with my supervision of course.  I allow him to hurt himself as well.. the milder ones, so that he will know  "the cause and effect". 

Animal Flashcards

These flashcards used to be pages of his book.  So instead of being useless, I used it as his flashcards for animals.  He can now identify and say the name of most of them, like the cat, pig, rabbit, lion, butterfly.. but he's not liking the dog and giraffe.  Really, he can identify them all.  I introduced this to him when he was 10 months old, everyday, I will show the pictures to him and now, surprisingly, he memorizes the animals.  Am so happy!  Even if it's not on this flashcards, he can recognize it already.

One activity is that I would place them on the sofa, and allow him to pinpoint on the animals I'm asking him to identify.  I don't spend too much on the flashcards because after around 5minutes, or 10minutes he'll get bored because he knows them already. One tactic of mine is that I expose him to same activities every other week so that he won't lose interest easily. So to keep his excitement and interest on something, I put a gap in between.

For his 18 months, I plan to get him a new set or may I say, a real set of animal flashcards to introduce new ones.  But I am also thinking that maybe instead of animals, I can show him facial expressons this time, to add variety, anyway he knows the animals already.  Hmm, still thinking.

LITERATURE/READING

Book of the week

Our book this week is the Buzzy Bee Follow Your Finger book.  Similar to the Duckling book that we bought him late last year but this book is more about colors. I love how they put up the glitters, because it doesn't stick on your finger when you brush on it.  Mavi's not interested with the glitters though, but this book is good for teaching the little one about colors because it got lots of huge flowers with different colors on it.

See the snails? Whenever he sees it, he would say "car! car! car!"

Digital Letters

From an online forum,  I got a few websites where you can teach your kids on letters,shapes and colors plus some mind games.  Maverick loves the digital Alphabets! Out of those 4 websites, I often use the Kneebouncer and Starfall, they're both interactive and with sounds.  Once a day, I would expose him to this learning online sites.  We would only spent a few minutes on this one because he likes my powerpoint version so far, for some reason that I don't know.

Learning online is a good activity for the Daddy as well.  I made sure that once in a while the two boys will have their time of bonding and playing.  And our Daddy loves this online learning sites as well!

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

Since we are still on our Alphabet lessons, I sill allow him to watch Barney's ABC and Sesame Street's Learn the Alphabet.  Barney would be in the morning, and the Sesame Street in the afternoon when I do some household chores.  But I have a feeling that he's getting bored with these videos.  I think he wanted something new... and I have to look for more free stuff online!!

CHILDREN SONGS 

I have a Disney's Children's Favorite Songs and it is composed of  of 4CDs.  I like this collection because it's so different from the normal Children's songs out there.  It's sort-of a country music type, sang by a male singer that sounds like John Denver hahaha.  The songs of course are the famous nursery rhymes plus other songs that I haven't heard before.  It's easy to listen, very relaxing unlike some collections that there are too much going on around it that at the end you can't hear what they were trying to sing. 

ARTS AND CRAFTS

He's pretty much aware of the crayons now.  What I do is that, instead of scribbling, I would draw some shapes like circle and square on the paper and shade it with basic colors like red or blue.  He love's it.  He is amazed by my drawings hahaha.  He would attempt to follow but all he could do was scribbles.  That's okay, we have a long way to go before he can finally write a letter  As of the moment, I just want to familiarize him with crayons and how to write so he can exercise fine motor skills and manual dexterity.   

FREE PLAY

He loves to play with his slippers.  Since it still too big for him, he would practice putting it on.  I didn't teach him that, he just did it by himself.  And one more thing, I forgot to mention that he doesn't want to walk without his shoes on.  Yes, I was so surprised and I find it so funny!  I instruction him to walk on the carpet barefoot, but he doesn't want to be put down, and he would cry and say "shush shush".

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

Aside form homeschooling, there are other things I am also busy with on baby care, such as feeding him with the right food, vaccination issues, and my attempt to Potty Train.  I am still in the process of researching and reading about techniques and some procedures that work.  Aaaah, and I still got my personal projects!! Oh I pray that God will give me enough time to do all of these!

So who says that stay-at-home Moms are nothing but bums? FYI, we are the busiest being alive (mult-tasker too!).. and have the most difficult job in the world.  That's why God loves Mommies, because they think more of their kids /husband and less of theirselves.

Till next time!