Toddler Beginnings Week 3

My notes on Mavi's homeschooling for Week3

Date:  March 1 - 5, 2010

Source:  Bright Beaming Resources

The following lessons were taught to Mavi this week.

Theme: Cat| Vocabulary: Claw| Shape: Diamond| Letter: C | Number: 3 | Nursery Rhyme: Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

I didn't highlight the books that we've been reading compared my previous posts.  English books are so rare here so we barely have new ones.  So what I do is just read the available books to Mavi over and over each week.  I usually read the book every morning, before we start our lesson.  It came to a point that Mavi knows this routine, so every day.. he'll have tantrums and fuss if we don't read a bbook.






MONDAY

Theme: Cat

Vocabulary Word: Claw

Maverick is already familiar with the cat, so what I emphasized this week is the vocabulary word "claw". Instead of telling him the meaning of the claw based on a definition, I told him simply that a claw/s are the nails of the cat. I demonstrated the hooked figure of the claw through my hands... and he followed it. So everytime I say "claw" I would do the gesture and he would do the same.  He can easily pick-up with the word, so now, he can speak the word "claw" plus the hand gesture.

As instructed on the curriculum, even though Mavi knows what a cat looks like.. I still would ask him to point where the cat is. That is, when I already posted the cat picture on our Learning Wall. Then to add up some fun, I bought this coloring book for him of cartoonish animals. He likes the book very much because it got lots of picture  in strong-attractive colors. Of course, he doesn't know how to color the book yet, so I do color the pages. I find myself enjoying this activity hehehe. When Mavi sees me coloring the book, he would try to follow me as well. With that, I gave him crayons and a large drawing pad and make him doodle. I learned that to encourage the little one, I need to show him or actually do the things I want him to do.

It's a good thing I have thousands of children songs, some are almost the same but sang in different ways by different artists.  It's also good that we listened to them everyday, depending on the theme per week. I created a playlist for each week to make it easier for me.  Mavi dances with the song if he likes it.

Songs for this week:

• A Cat Came Fiddling Out of a Barn - from Mother Goose English Nursery Rhymes
• Lady and the Tramp: The Cat Siamese Song - from Lady and a Tramp Disney Album
• Pussy Cat Pussy Cat - from Kid's Songs Album I bought at SM Bacolod:-)

P.S. Sometimes, he says "ca .. ca.. ca... cat!"  He got this from me, since I would pronounce the letter C first then blurt the whole word.  

 
TUESDAY

Shape: Diamond

To introduce the diamond shape, I printed out in a piece of paper a diamond and add a description. We also have the Playskool form fitter and fortunately, it has a diamond on it. I took out the diamond block and described it as diamond, and matched it to my printed diamond.

I also cut-out from a green art paper diamond shapes of different sizes. We glued the green diamonds on the drawing book. To my dismay, he wasn't interested on this activity. He hated the glue and doesn't like the sticky feel of it. The green paper ends up sticking on his fingers and he can't paste it on the drawing book anymore because he's peeved with the paper sticking.

Instead, I made him play with the Playskool form fitter using the square and the diamond.  I didn't give him the rest of the shapes since he doesn't know them yet.  So as of now, he's good with fitting the square and diamond shapes on the holes. Though at times, he cannot properly fit the diamond because he's not holding it correctly.

WEDNESDAY

Letter: C

For letter C, I printed out the funny-letter C from a random educational website.  I printed out two C's for Mavi to shade and the other to stamp.  Mavi can accurately pronounce the letter C and can recognize it on any writings.. may it be on a piece of paper, a box, on a toy or even on TV.  Since he knew letter C already, I didn't dwell on this as much.

WEDNESDAY

Number:  3

For our number 3 activity, instead of printing out the number three and by just showing it to him, this time, I make him write the number.  So I took hold of his hand, and write the number 3 on the paper four times.  He doesn't like it when we write something together.  He struggles to take his hand because he wanted to do it by himself.  Of course, he doesn't know how to write yet, so I have to guide his hand writing the number 3.  I managed to calm him down and made him write the number. This is just to familiarize him with the number itself.  Then, we pasted stickers on each numbers while counting them.  He loves the stickers but doesn't know how to paste them (again!).  The sticker ends up sticking on his fingers and he panicked.

To add a little fun on our counting activity, I made these cartoon images of fishes and shells.  I count these to him, starting from "one fish, two fishes, three fishes"... then "one shell, two shells, three shells".  He only listens when I count, and then he took one of the fishes and run around the house shouting "tsis" meaning fish.  Aside from that, I also made him match the numbers. So I showed him the "1 fish" and asked for the "1 shell".  He quickly identified the number "1 shell" and I told him to place the shell on top of the fish.  I did the same thing for the number 2 and 3. 

Now, here's is a little project of mine, as suggested by the Bright Beaming website.  This is our counting book.  Each week, when we learnt a new number, we would paste the dots on the page and do a review of the starting from 1 to the current number.  With this, he can see that the dots are increasing in numbers.

FRIDAY

Nursery Rhyme:  Pussy Cat Pussy Cat

I just recited this poem to him, with actions at the same time.  He learns fast when I do some faces and hand  gestures.  All throughout the week, we also listened to the Pussy Cat song version. So at least he knows that there are a lot of different ways to learn a rhyme, either by singing, reading or reciting.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen!
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.

We also reviewed the letters, shapes, colors and numbers that were previously learned.  For the current ones, I would just ask him to point to the learning poster.

THE LEARNING WALL

Mavi has been seeing me writing a lot lately using my pen.  I think this is the reason why that for this week, he's into pens too.  Anything that's that looks like a pen, he would use it to write.  So to make use of that interest, our activity this week was all about doodling and scribbling.  With that, I bought him a large drawing book.  I make him use the green colored pen so that he'll be more acquainted with the color.

He's starting to learn how to hold the pen correctly, and for that I am so proud.  Before he would just hold the pen anything he likes and then starts tapping it on the pad.  Now, he's really beginning to carefully hold it, making sure he holds it correctly like Mommy.  I did this by showing to him how I hold my pen.  Then I would position his hand correctly on the pen and guided his hand while writing.

To make him write, I draw the small and big diamond shape.  I sang writing the small and big diamond in a high tune, such "small diamond", "big diamond"... he loves it!! So while I was drawing and singing the diamonds on the drawing pad, he would also do the same, drawing his own diamonds.. while singing too.

Weekend: Since we were blessed with a good weather, we brought him to the children's playground at the park. Of all the things that he could do there, the sand pond attracted him most. We didn't bring any toy with us, and he kept on borrowing the toys of the other kids. He loves loves loves the sand! He kept on running in and out of the box, and there was this instance that dived into it and didn't cry at all!!