Homeschool Theme - Christmas

For the past few weeks, the homeschool theme was Christmas / Nativity. The activities are taken from preschool packs below:

• 1+1+1=1 Nativity Pack
  
• 3 Dinosours - Nativity Pack
  

Here are some photos of the activities done. The top photo is the Christmas Cupcake puzzle made from popsicle stick puzzle and cut out from newspaper. The bottom photo is one of the activities from the Nativity pack.

Homeschool Theme - Rainbow

This week's homeschool theme is Rainbow.

I introduced kids a simple science experiment about colour - absorption colour wheel, which I got the idea from Chasing Cheerios. Kids are very excited to watch the color water travels up the paper towels.

Kids are very excited to watch the 2 colors mix together become new color.

Some of the activities that I used in this homeschool theme are from this Tot Pack by1+1+1=1.

Other than that, we borrowed the following books for kids to read:

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.

Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale by Marcus Pfister.


Kids also watched the storytelling of "The Rainbow Fish" from YouTube.

Homeschool Theme - Solar System

For the past 2 - 3 weeks, the homeschool theme is Solar System. My son, Y, loves this very much.

I used the Solar System Preschool Pack from 1+1+1=1 to teach my kids.

These are the books that I borrowed from library and read to kids.

There's No Place Like Space: All About Our Solar System (Cat in the Hat's Learning Library) by Tish Rabe (Author), Aristides Ruiz (Illustrator)

Scholastic Reader Level 2: Starry, Starry Night by Wade Cooper

Apart from the that, we sang the Solar System song and planets song from Youtube.

The Solar System Song


The Planets Song

Cloth Diaper Review - Cots n Tots and Alvababy

I bought new cloth diaper from Gmarket for my new baby coming soon. There are 2 brands - Cots n Tots and Alvababy.

Left: Alvababy - Cute, I love the patterns.
Right: Cots n Tots - Colors are bright.

Left: Compare between Cots n Tota (top) and Alvababy (bottom).
Right: Alvababy's size is wider and longer than Cots n Tots's.

Left: Compare between 2 different cloth diaper of Alvababy. Suprisingly, one of the cloth diaper (bottom) is bigger than any other cloth diapers bought.
Middle: Branding of Alvababy.
Right: Compare between Minky (left) and non-minky (right) version.

Overall, Cots n Tots's cloth diaper are softer in both insert and cover than Alvababy's cloth diaper. However, the size of Cots n Tots's cloth diapers are smaller than Alvababy's cloth diaper.

Not yet try on baby, so not able to comment on the absorption.

Homeschool Theme - Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

My kids love the book 'Chicka Chicka Boom Boom'. So I decided to use this book as the homeschool theme for last few weeks.

Bill Martin Jr. (Author), John Archambault (Author), Lois Ehlert (Illustrator)

I bought some foam alphabet and kept the frame for kids to do it as puzzle. F likes it very much, and almost play with it everyday. After she had done with the letters puzzle, she did the letters color sorting (as shown in bottom right).

The print the coconut tree from Kiz Club - Story Props and stick it to magnetic board for kids to play it together with the book, and foam letters.

Marble Run Maze

I had some cardboard at home, so I decided to make this marble maze. I got this idea from Teach Preschool.

I used the cardboard to make it into a box. After that, I used some plastic straws and cut them into different length. Then stick them on the box using tapes.

My son Y wanted a start and end point so I used marker to mark it. He loves to play with it. Sometimes he will put more than 1 marbles per time.

Homemade Letters Paper Beads

I want to teach my little ones about letters. The size of alphabet beads that I had found in the market are consider too small for me.

I decided to make my own alphabet paper beads.

I am using white A4 paper and cut it into strips, with one end is 2cm and another end is 1cm. I used black pen to write the letter at the end of 1cm.

Lego bricks and Duplo

We have normal Lego bricks (for 4+ years old) and Duplo bricks (for 1.5+ years old).

Quite a sometimes ago, my little girl F came out an idea that using both types of bricks together. I was puzzled whether it will be working since the size are different.

But she managed to put both sizes of bricks together (only limits to one type of normal brick size).

It is such a good exercise for her fine motor skills.

Homeschool Theme - Shapes

Last few weeks, the homeschool theme is "Shapes".

I taught kids the shapes in both English and Chinese. Throughout the last few weeks, they automatically searched different type of shapes around the house.

Left: Using wooden blocks to make patterns.
Right: Using craft sticks to make shapes.

Use color sticks to make shapes according to the shapes given.

Here are some of the activity books related to shapes.

These are some of the books that used for this theme:

Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh

My Very First Book of Shapes by Eric Carle

Noah's Ark Play

Y wants to play LEGO Duplo. After he took out all the bricks from storage box (bought from Ikea), he came an idea of asking me to gave him his animal toys to play with.

He started to build a stair with LEGO Duplo bricks and use it as stairs of the storage box (Noah's ark). He arranged the animals in order (not really 2 by 2 since we do not have 2 animals toy for each type of animals) to go into the ark.

I didn't took the end result which all the animals board the 'ark' and they were safe from flood.

Monster Game

I got this idea from Pinterest and decided to make one for Y and F. Y likes it very much. However, F afraid of the monster box that had done.

Thus, I use a white empty box and cut a whole for her to play with like 'monster box'.

She is enjoying putting in letters into the 'mouth'. This activity helps in her fine motor skills and learning alphabet.

Teachers' Day Gift

This year's teachers' day I made these small gift for Y teachers.

These are homemade sticky note pad, which made from scrapbook paper, color paper, glue, paper clip binder.

Y also want to participate to make his own gift for teachers, so he made lily flowers from his handprints. (I forgot to take picture of them)

Sponge Stamps

I found from website can DIY foam stamps using bottles lid. So I was collecting bottle lids now.

However, I found this sponge stamps from Daiso at IMM which cost only S$2, which can save my time effort for DIY the foam stamps. But I am only able to get the upper case set, lower case set of sponge stamps are not available. Maybe I still need to DIY for is set.

Homemade Playdough

I found some expired flour in my kitchen cabinet. I do not wish to waste those flour, so I decided to make some play dough for kids to play. This is my first try, the result seems like not bad.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of water
• 2 teaspoons of cream of tatar
• 1/3 cup of salt
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• food coloring - red, yellow and blue

Steps
Mix all the ingredients, excepts food coloring in a saucepan. Cook over low/medium heat, and keep stirring until a dough ball forms by pulling away from sides. Knead the playdough with hands until of proper consistency. Divide into balls and add few drops of coloring for each ball. Knead until the dough is a consistent color.


I provided biscuit cutters for kids to play with playdough. This is one of their work. They like to pretend baking cookies.

My First Pizza Muffin

Today is my first try of baking pizza muffin. I found this recipe from a recipe book. So I decided to give it a try for tonight's dinner.

My son loves this very much, however my girl doesn't like it. Maybe due to the reason that she dislike capsicum. Next time I should try to put in other ingredients to try instead of capsicum.

Ingredients

• Cake flour - 30g
• Shredded Mozzarella Cheese - 80g
• Fresh milk - 100ml
• Tomato Sauce - 40g
• Olive Oil - 30ml
• 1 egg
• Capsicum
• Carrot
• Onions
• Garlic
• Minced meat (stir fry)
• Oregano - 1/2 teaspoon
• Basil - 1/4 teaspoon
• Baking Powder - 1 teaspoon
• Baking Soda - 1/4 teaspoon
• Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
• Caster Sugar - 10g

Steps

1. Dice carrot, capsicum and onions into small cubes.
2. Chopped garlic.
3. Put cake flour, oregano, basil, baking power, baking soda, salt, sugar into a bowl, and mixed them.
4. Put in other dry ingredients - carrot, capsicum, minced meat, onions, mozzarella cheese into the bowl in step 3, and mixed them.
5. In another bowl, pour in milk, egg, olive oil and tomato source and stir until mixed.
6. Pour the wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mixed them.
7. Put the mixed batter into muffin cup and bake for about 20 - 25 minutes at 180C.

Homeschool Theme - Tree and Leaves

For the past two weeks, kids are working on the theme "Tree and Leaves".

They traced their handprint as tree trunk, and fingerprint the tree. But they request to use spoons instead of using fingers for it.

I introduced parts of tree, flowers and leaves to Y, which I didn't took any photos of them.

These are some of the books which I borrowed from library for kids to read:

The Grand Old Tree by Mary Newell Depalma

Trees (Walkabout S.) by Henry Pluckrose

Homeschool Theme - Butterfly

For the past two week, the homeschool theme is Butterfly.

I had show kids the life cycle of butterfly from YouTube.

This is the Montessori - parts of a butterfly, which I download it from Liat's Montessori

These are the butterfly craft that kids had work on. They are pasting small butterflies which I cut them out using craft punch of the butterfly shape.

There are some other activities that they had work on, which the materials are from:

• 2 Teaching Mommies

These are the books that borrowed from library to read for this theme:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (好饿的毛毛虫)
I also show kids the video from YouTube about this story.

Butterflies (Penguin Young Readers, L2)

Butterflies (Watch Them Grow) by Nick Winnick.

From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Sally Morgan - publisher Chrysalis Children's Books.

Sensory Tub: Letter B

Last week, Y's nursery class is introducing letter 'B', and thus, the letter of the week at home is also 'B'.

This is the first time I had done with sensory tub. Both kids like it.

Things inside the sensory tub:

• Buttons
• Bride Bear
• Bricks (Lego) in Brown and Blue
• Balls (different type of balls)
• Flash cards (animals/things start with 'B')
• Bottles
• Brush
• Bell
• Banana (Toy)
• Letter Bs (Foam, magnetic/wooden B)
• Sandpaper letter B
• Boy (figure)

Letter Matching & Patterning

Y wants to do letters cloth pegging on string. This exercise helps his fine motor skills by doing pegging using cloth peg. At the same time, he is practicing upper and lower, and alphabetical order.

We have 3 colors cloth pegs, i.e. white, black and blue. I didn't expect him to do color patterning using cloth pegs, but he is doing that - lower case letters pattern is white, black and blue; upper case letters pattern is blue, black and white.

Homeschool Theme - Ocean

For the past few weeks, I only gave my kids on the theme Ocean. Sometimes I was too tired, so I didn't manage to do it as weekly theme.

I decided to introduce about Marine mammals to my boy. And thus, these are the materials that I had done for him.

• A fact book about marine mammals.
• A description book about all the marine mammals that I am going to introduce to him.
• 3 parts card for the marine mammals.

This is the exercise that I had given to my boy for this theme.

This theme's materials are from preschool packs:

• Homeschool Creations
• 2 Teaching Mommies

These are the books that I borrowed for my kids to read from library:

One Big Ocean by Catherine Nicholas


Looking at Animals in the Oceans by Moira Butterfield


Animals Under the Sea by Deborah Chancellor