Toddler Beginnings Week 1

Having the urged to start Mavi with the theme technique, I started out the Preparatory Curriculum this week.

Date:  February 15  to 19, 2010

Theme: Cow | Vocabulary: Calf | Shape: Square | Letter: A | Number: 1 |Nursery Rhyme: Hey, Diddle Diddle

Here's how I implemented Week 1

MONDAY

Theme: Cow

Vocabulary Word: Calf 

I introduced to him the theme by showing pictures of how that I printed out, and the books that we have that has a cow on it. It wasn't hard introducing him to the cow because he's already familiar with the animal and how to call it. When I showed him the picture, he immediately recognized it, saying "cow" without a hint from me. 

Then these days, he loves to identify letters on anything that he sees, so when he saw the label on the picture, he pointed to the letters C and O, saying "tceee" saying "ooooo". Although he knows the W, he finds it hard to pronounce the letter. His version of it is, "duboodu". He is also proficient in speaking the word calf.. he says it "cahffffff", exaggerating the letter F. Showing him the picture of the calf, which I also printed, I would say slowly "calf is a baby cow". Then he would answer, "beeebee". Then the whole week, during his free play time, I would play children songs related to the theme. The songs I played this week were: Old MacDonald Had a Farm and the Farmer in the Dell. 

I also printed out the poems suggested by the Bright Beaming Babies and highlighted the words cow and calf. Every time I read it to Mavi, I would show him the words, make him point to it so that he will be familiar with the word, not just the image or the picture. I pasted the printouts in a notebook so it won't end up being crumpled and end in the trashcan. In fact, I added pictures to the poems, to make it more interesting for Mavi. Will definitely compile all these poems so we can reread it again and again. 

TUESDAY

Shape: Square

To introduce to him the square shape, I first printed out a huge square and put a label on it. Then to catch his attention, I counted and put numbers on the sides of the square. He loves it!! He loves counting, in fact he remembers the numbers more than the word SQUARE. He can't pronounce it yet, he keeps on saying "ker". As part of the suggested activity, we walked around the house looking for square objects, just like our floor tiles, then counting the sides of the square, his object sorter toy from Playskool, and lastly, his favorite cookie is a square.

He enjoys this activity so much that after this day, he keeps on looking for square objects. I find this very effective because after I taught him the shape, he now knows how to put on the square shape on the right hole on his Playskool form fitter. I just handed him one shape at a time, so he won't screw up with the rest and get confused. So first, I asked him to look for the square hole on the box, when he pointed to it correctly, I showed him the object square and instructed him to put it on the square hole. From then on, he knows how to do it without my assistance.

WEDNESDAY
Letter: A
Maverick knows the letter A already, so this day was a breeze. He didn't consume much of my time so I get to work. I wrote the small and capital letter side to side and made him color it. The problem is that, my little boy doesn't like scribbling/shading, so after 10 seconds of holding the crayon and scribbling in any direction he immediately got bored. So I finished shading the whole letter.

THURSDAY

Number: 1 / One

This is the first time that I'm teaching him a number. He only sees the number on his videos. To introduce the number, similar approach to the letter A, I wrote the number 1 on a paper adding a label on it, and on the side of a paper draws a one dot. I told him "one", he said "an". I showed him the dot on the side, made him feel it by feeling the dot with his fingers on the colors. Another activity involving the number 1 is we wrote the number 1 over and over again on a piece of paper. I made him hold the crayons, and made him write the number 1 on a piece of paper, of course I'm doing the writing I just guide his hand.

Good thing we have this 1-2-3 toy form fitter again. He can identify the number 1 already and now knows how to put the number on the right hole. Unlike before, he doesn't know what to do with this toy. So now, he keeps doing it over and over again, dropping the number 1 on the hole.

FRIDAY
Nursery Rhyme: Hey, Diddle diddle

Nothing much on the nursery rhyme, it's just a repetitive recital of the poem. Even though we already have this rhyme on his book, I still printed it out and put it on the book just for documentation purposes.

THE LEARNING WALL
Since I haven't found a poster material, for the mean time, I used our wall for this week.

In summary, this theme-technique is quite effective. As a mom and a teacher-wannabe, I find myself enjoying all these homeschooling stuff. The only problem is the limited resources that we have since I don't mostly know where to find arts and crafts materials, English books are so limited, paper products are so hard to find.

I wish to add planned activities on our next lesson, that is, if I have enough free time to prepare since I'm also busy doing my technical work. And hopefully, we'll have some good weather so we can do outdoor activities again.

It's still winter here in Belgrade, so we only went to the amusement area of Delta City.  He wasn't scared of the loud music, in fact he was electrified when he saw all those lights on the floor that's in sync with the music.  He danced there as if no one was watching! He wasn't shy at at all. Some of the parents were even amazed at him.

When he saw the cars and other gaming machines at the amusement, he scrutinized them one by one.  Examining the buttons, the wheels, the pictures, the moving objects.. almost everything!!  I love it that he explores everything.  

Hopefully, on the next few weeks the weather will get better so we could go out to the parks or take a long walk or window shop at Kralja Aleksandra or Knex Mihajlova.