Toddler Beginnings Week 4

My notes on Mavi's homeschool activities for Week 4

Date:  March 29 - April 4, 2010

Source:  Bright Beaming Resources

Theme: Lighthouse| Vocabulary: Beacon| Color: Blue | Letter: D | Number: 4 | Nursery Rhyme: Lavender's Blue

The materials I used for this week's activities were playdoughs, colored pens , printouts and lacing toys.  I bought the Play-Doh which is safe for children as well as colored pens that are washable and doesn't have a strong/toxic smell. 

Read on for the details below.  Warning, long post ahead!!

MONDAY

Theme: Lighthouse

Vocabulary Word: Beacon

Theme:  Lighthouse

For this week, I introduced the theme by showing him a picture of a lighthouse and a beacon.   I was a little bit hesitant with the theme because Mavi has never seen a lighthouse yet.  He might lose interest but much to my surprise, he loves the lighthouse idea.  He can't accurately say the word yet; he can only utter "tataus".

Stacking

Then to make it more interesting, I stacked all his playdough containers and told him that it's a lighthouse.  He was so excited seeing his toys all mounted up, so he suddenly insisted to do it by himself.  I also took all his stacking cups which he stacked beside the playdough.  I was surprise that he can now balance the cups and the containers while stacking!   He was so happy seeing his work.  Then he started putting the pictures of the lighthouse beside the playdough which I find so cute.

I don't have available Children's Songs to share for this week. 

TUESDAY

Color: Blue

To familiarize him with the color, we shaded the diamond from our previous lesson with a blue crayon.  Since it's color time,  I gave him blue colored pens and crayons for him to fiddle on the drawing paper.  He can fluently say the word "blue" but still can't associate the color with things.  Sometimes though, he can point to a blue color if I ask him to, for example, to point to his blue toy or to pick up his blue bag, but this is not consistent.

That day, I made him wear his blue shirt and shorts, plus socks.  I showed him his blue bag, and filled it with his blue toys. He just kept on saying "bulooo bulooo" while getting excited with his toys.

WEDNESDAY

Letter:  D

Again, I printed out the capital D on a piece of paper.  I made two copies, one for him to play with and the other for me to color so he can follow.  Mavi can already pronounce letter D accurately... as in "deeee".  But I still have to teach him small letters of the alphabet, especially the ones that doesn't look alike for their big and small letters.  So what I did was just write a big D and small D on a piece of paper and kept on pointing it as D the whole time.

Since I still have extra blue stickers, I asked Mavi to paste the stickers on the letter D, that he didn't obliged as he doesn't like pasting anything on a piece of paper.  Instead, I gave him a blue colored pen for him to fiddle on the letter D.  He likes to write nowadays, on anything!    The only disadvantage of making the little boy write is that he wants to write onto anything, on the sofa, the walls, the carpet... so I need to keep my eyes on him every time he has a pen with him.

WEDNESDAY

Number:  4

For the number 4, we just did the same activity as we did on the past week, writing the number 4 on a piece of paper. I also added and counted 4 stickers below each number.  Up to this point, Mavi still doesn't know how to paste or use the stickers.  But somehow, he's a little bit patient when  I teach him how to paste the sticker on the paper.  His attention lasts only 3 minutes, after a few sticking, he would fuss already.  I don't know if he's just tired or just doesn't like the activity.

FRIDAY

Nursery Rhyme:  Lavender's Blue

I wasn't able to read him the rhyme this week as we stayed the whole day at the mall to do our groceries for the Holy Week.  But I still plan to read this poem to him next week.

THE LEARNING WALL

The nursery rhyme post is not there because the little boy apparently removed it from the wall.

Now, to improve his fine motor skills, this week, I taught him how to lace.  Fine motor skills require movement of small muscles, in coordination with the eyes.  However, I have read that this skill requires time, patience and plenty of practice.  Since he was still a baby, I have been giving Mavi stimulating activities to jumpstart his fine motor skills. Of course, no one is good at everything, but as a mother, I wanted to help my child develop each area, not just intellectually.  My homeschooling is not to over-stimulate him, or try to make him the next Einstein, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs... these activities are for him to discover his unique potential.

Okay, so for this week, I introduced him to two manipulation activities.  One is the playdough for rolling and forming it into anything and lacing activities.

For the playdough, we played with the blue and green clay colors.  I have already introduced  him the green color, and I was thinking that it was already proper to make him distinguish between the blue and green.  Little by little he's beginning to distinguish the colors but again, it's not that consistent.  I asked him three times to point to the blue ball or green ball (ball means the clay formed into a ball), so far, he got 2 out of 3 correctly.  But that's just the playdough, for the rest of his stuff; he still misses if I asked him about green or blue toys.

His lacing toys were bought months ago, but at that time, he couldn't figure out what to do with it.  I kept if for a while and took it out again for him to play because he's been showing interest on putting things into small spaces.  The ribbons that came with his lacing toy was too short, so Alvin and I bought  some shoe laces in pastel colors.  Mavi can only put the ribbon on one hole and he doesn't want to hold the object in lacing. He would just put it flat on the table and started to insert the ribbon on the hole.

To make a variety, I made this lacing capital D out of a cardboard.  I don't have a puncher (yet)  so I only used a cutter to make the holes.  I made Mavi do the lacing but he can't put the ribbon on the hole because it was too small for him hehehe.  So what I did was hold his hand to do the lacing.  After three holes, he fussed and wanted to play with the letter by himself.  Anyway, this is just our first time to do a lacing, activity, next time, I will improve the holes so it won't be difficult for him (needs to look for a puncher!).

Below are some materials I bought this week for our activities.

Weekend:There was an activity on one of the malls here, so we made Mavi participate in viewing and feeding the rabbits and the little chicks.  He was so fascinated with the little animals!