Christmas Sensory Tub

This sensory tub is especially for this holiday season. I decided not to spend extra money for this sensory tub, thus I get whatever I can find that the colours in red and green in this sensory tub. 

Things in the tub:

• Used fruit juice bottles
• Bells
• Bottle caps
• Paper stars
• Paper hearts
• Pom Poms
• Blocks
• Craft sticks
• Empty bottles
• Spoons and scoops

While playing with this sensory tub, they are practicing their find motor skills like scooping, spooning and measuring.

Advent Calendar Activities: Day 15 - 25

Day 15: Tell the Christmas Story (nativity) from picture cards. 

I had printed out the nativity bible cards. Y had to sort it in order and then retell the nativity story. (I forgot where I got the source of this picture cards )

Day 16: Watch a Christmas Movie. We watched the movie at home. The movie is found on YouTube - Mickey Mouse Christmas movie.

Day 17: Make Christmas gift - salt dough beads. I had found this on Pinterest. So decided to give it a try. 

We used the disposable chopsticks to make the hole of the beads. However, some holes were too small after baking in oven. Kids were using felt tip marker to decorate the beads. Kids really loves their own creation. They used the beads to make a necklace. 

Day 18: Bake cookies - raisin cookies. This was our first attempt in baking cookies. The look of the end product was not good looking, thus no photo taken. 

Day 19: Family game night. I bought the Monopoly junior - party theme from Westgate during opening sale. Y loves this very much. However it still a bit tough for F. 

Day 20: Pray for the needy.

Day 21: Play with felt Christmas tree decoration. There different colours of felt in different shapes as ornaments for the Christmas tree.

Day 22: Watch nativity movie which found on YouTube. 

Day 23: Eat dinner by candlelight

Day 24: We went to church for Christmas Eve service, and we sang a lot of Christmas songs there.

Day 25: Merry Christmas!

Homeschool Theme - Desert Animals

Y is so interested in animals. So this time round I decided to teach him about desert animals. I bought the safari toob of desert animals, then created the 3 parts card for these animals. 

The self check for the matching is done by the color dots. 

Advent Calendar Activities: Day 6 - 14

These are the advent calendar activities that we had done for day 6 - 14.

Day 6: Pray for family and friends in the festive season

Day 7: Have a family camp out in the living room

Day 8: Read a Christmas story from the Bible (Read with me Bible)

Day 9: Nativity colour by number - I printed it from Internet.

Day 10: Read a Christmas book - We read the book Santa Duck and His Merry Helpers

Day 11: Make a Christmas paper wreath. The doughnut shape cardboard was cut from cereal box. And the paper strips are recycle papers from magazine and pamphlets. We are using Christmas colours for the wreath - red and green.

Day 12: Do a Christmas maze

Day 13: Count the blessings from God

Day 14: Drive around to see Christmas light - We went to Orchard road to see Christmas lighting. It was drizzling.

Advent Calendar Activity - Day 1 to 5

On day 1, we learnt the new Christmas song, "Christmas isn't Christmas". We never heard this song before until a friend told me about this song last Sunday. 

Day 2: Kids colored Christmas coloring page which I printed them from online coloring pages.

Day 3: Make paper snowflakes. Instead of using white paper, I decided to recycle the papers from broucher, pamphlet, etc. Thus, they were colourful snowflakes, which I used them to decorate the house (paste on the cupboard in the living room).

Day 4: We were also using unwanted broucher, pamphlets, etc to make paper chain for decorations.

Day 5: Kids are working on nativity word search, that I found from Internet. It is quite difficult for F, but Y enjoyed it.

Advent Calendar 2013

This is the 1st time we start the Advent Calendar, actually it is last minute plan to have it.

These origami pockets are fold by using used wrapping paper, and hang at the window. 

These are activities planned for this year Advent Calendar, and hopefully I am able to follow it throughout the countdown to Christmas.
Day 1: Learn new Christmas song
Day 2: Colour a Christmas colouring page
Day 3: Make paper snowflakes
Day 4: Make paper chain
Day 5: Do a Christmas word search
Day 6: Pray for family and friends in the festive season
Day 7: Have a family camp out in the living room
Day 8: Read a Christmas story from the Bible
Day 9: Nativity colour by number
Day 10: Read a Christmas book
Day 11: Make a Christmas paper wreath
Day 12: Do a Christmas maze
Day 13: Count the blessings from God
Day 14: Drive around to see Christmas light
Day 15: Tell or act out the Christmas story
Day 16: Watch Christmas movie
Day 17: Make Christmas gift
Day 18: Bake cookies
Day 19: Family game night
Day 20: Pray for the needy
Day 21: Play with felt Christmas tree decoration
Day 22: Watch Nativity movie
Day 23: Eat dinner by candlelight
Day 24: Sing Christmas songs
Day 25: It's Christmas! Enjoy and stay with family!

Community Garden Opening Ceremony

Finally there will be a community garden in my neighborhood. Today is the community garden opening ceremony and tree planting day. 

While waiting for the ceremony, we saw this caterpillar, but I do not know what species was that. It is climbing on the wall. There are a lot of the same species of caterpillar at the nearby plants.

My kids and daddy were helping to plant a pot of herbs into the soil. 

Kids had so much fun digging the soil and watering the plant. It is a good experience for them since there is not much open space in Singapore for them to plant.

Go to Science Centre & SEA Aquarium

A friend and her family came to Singapore for vacation this week. Thus, I brought kids to go out with them. 

We went to Singapore Science Centre and the temporary exhibition - Titan of the Past. 

There are detail information about Triceratops and tyrannosoraus. There are also some other dinosaurs exhibit there. 

This is about t-Rex eating triceratop. 

The next day, we went to SEA Aquarium at Resort World Sentosa. This was the first time we went there since opening. Kids love this place a lot. But due to school holiday, there were a lot of people. 

This is leafy sea dragon. 

Moonlight jellyfish.

This is very interesting, they are upside down jellyfish. 

There are also sharks - white tip reef shark, hammerhead shark, nurse shark. (I didn't take nice pic of sharks, so didn't post here).

Origami instructions are given for us to try out.

Slide at home

School holiday already started. The kids are at home and asking me,"what can I do today?" Hmmm... I decided to put one of the mattress to lean against the bay window to make it like a slide. 

After kids saw the new "slide" they are so happy. Y quickly climbed on the bay window and slide down. FF is trying to climb up of it. They are having fun. 

Counting and alphabet order

Time to do some homeschooling with kids today. 

Y can master numbers from 1 - 100. So I decided to let him skip counting by 2s. I got this from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Initially he doesn't know how to do it, after explain to him, he found the tactic to  count by 2. He already master it well. It seems a bit easy to him, maybe I should try counting by 3s onwards for him to try. 

For F, she is doing counting from 1 - 10 using lucky stars. 

This year, I managed to teach F letters from A to Z and the phonic sound. This exercise is a review for letters that she had learnt and alphabet order. This material is free download from Montessori for Everyone 

Big Cats

Last 2 weeks, we were working on the theme - Big Cats. 

This sensory tub for this theme was made for them. There was a paper tree done by Y. The big cats are from safari toob. Trees are from some other toy sets. Craft sticks are used as grassland and river (blue).

This small booklet about big cats facts was made for this theme.

These are some of the Youtube that kids had watch to learn more about big cats.

Speed Kills : This is Why You Can't Outrun a Cheetah


Speed Kills : You'll Never Hear a Leopard Coming


Jaguar Attacks Crocodile

Fine and gross motor skills

These are some recent activities done with kids, some are Montessori activities. 

Kids are using tong to transfer marbles and arrange on the mat. It is a great activity for fine motor skill. 

I put a tub at a certain distance from play yard, and kids try to throw colorful balls into the tub. 

Lastly, I bought the clips from Daiso, they got heart, star and rectangle. Initially kids use them for color shape sorting. After that, they connect them together become necklaces, and also arrange them in different shapes as shown in the photos. 

Homeschool Theme - Sharks

Sharks are Y's favourite. Thus, I decided to do the theme - SHARK for the past two weeks. These are some of the activities that we had done in this theme.

Two small booklets made for this theme, first is type of sharks (first row) and second booklet is facts of sharks (2nd row). 

They also read about sharks from 'Life in the Water' from Educational Technologies. 

This is the sensory tub for this theme, the sharks are from Safari toob. Pom pom, marble and ribbons in blue acts like Oceans. 

Here are some great videos about sharks from DiscoveryTV on YouTube:

Lego Plinko

Now is school's term 3 holiday. Found this plinko built using Lego bricks, so I decided to make one today for kids to play.

I put the plinko in a box (moon cake box) so that marbles are collected in the box. 

Activities in this week - Learn about world biomes

This week kids are introduced about world biomes, mainly focus on tropical rainforest. 

 

A sensory tub about rainforest, using paper stars, craft sticks and rainforest safari toob. 

F also works with foam blocks to form objects. 

We had a big box, Y and F pretend that is their house and put things inside and play.

Lego play - imaginative play

My kids, Y and F saw us using iPhone and iPad. They wish to have their own one. Thus, they make one for themselves using Lego bricks! (Need to imagine)

Are they cute?

They pretend they play games, typing, web search etc in their iPad and iPhone. They also pretend they take photos from these electric gadgets.

阅读分享：共读绘本，教出全人格的孩子

最近读了这本书，作者教导父母亲如何与孩子共读绘本，享受天伦之乐。



爱上绘本就可以学到的十种能力 （文摘之此书）：

1. 溝通力：能感同身受地去聆聽對方，並將自己的感受也確實傳達給對方
2. 想像力：思考、釐清自己想做的事、能做的事
3. 自發性：自主思考該怎麼樣才能實現想做的事，並付諸行動
4. 道德心：能判斷是非善惡
5. 親切心：瞭解對方的立場和狀況，自動自發去幫助對方
6. 專注力：專心一致地把一件事貫徹到底
7. 好奇心：對第一次接觸的事物、陌生的世界滿懷興趣
8. 探究心：快樂地去深入挖掘感興趣、關切的事物
9. 價值觀：堅持自己的信念，同時也認同對方的觀點
10. 自尊心：無條件地接納自己、相信自己去挑戰

作者教导父母让孩子爱上绘本的五个阶段：

1. 用绘本提升孩子的认知能力
2. 乐在重复，培养“快动” （此书的“快动”是“快乐地活动”）
3. 让孩子慢慢习惯有剧情的绘本
4. 以黑白绘本锻炼孩子的语言理解能力
5. 绘本课程的完成阶段 - 纯故事

Spelling for K1

Y is having English spelling in K1 since term 2. Although I really dislike to ask my kid to memorize words on how they are spelled, but still have to cooperate with school for the curriculum that they set.

To reduce the stress of learning the words, I make those words into puzzles. I hope my kid can learn through play, and not by force memorizing the words.

Earth Day Sensory Tub

22 April is Earth day, I prepared this Earth day sensory tub for my kids. I spent quite a lot of time making those lucky stars and paper beads from unused papers.

Materials used are as below:

• Lucky stars (made from advertisement pamphlets, magazines, etc)
• Paper beads (made from used paper, advertisement pamphlets, magazines, etc)
• Used fruit juice bottles
• Vitagen bottles
• Ice cream cup from Mcdonald
• Used plastic spoons
• Bottle caps
• Used glass jars (not in the picture)

Kids love this, they do pouring, scooping, counting, sorting and other activities with sensory tub. They also learn to screw and unscrew the bottle cap.

Letter H

Kids learn about letter H this week and I had gave them to do this activity. The dot-to-dot page was downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Instead of using dot-to-dot markers, kids are pasting hearts (Heart starts from 'H') onto the circles. I am using heart's craft punch to punch out the hearts. Y likes to punch the hearts by himself, so he was doing punching and pasting all by himself.

Homeschool Theme - Chinese New Year and Valentine

We have done some coloring from Chinese Childbook.com.

We made a heart shape using domino and play with it for valentine.

We decorate the house using red packet paper lantern. Are they nice?

All About Me

For the past 3 weeks we are working on the theme - "All About Me". This theme is similar with the theme at Y and F's kindergarten, which is "I am special". Thus Y requested that not to have the same theme in the future.

Top: Learn to write Chinese character name.
Bottom Left: Printable books from Internet (forgot about where I got them).
Bottom Right: 3 parts card of Body Parts - Arm.

These are the books that we read for this theme:

No Two Alike by Keith Baker

I Can Do It Myself by Diane Adams, Illustrated by Nancy Hayashi