We have finished the second week of the structured lessons I started with Darius. Using suggestions from the site, letteroftheweek, I adapted them to fit Darius’ learning.

This is what we have done for 13 months – Lesson 1 Wk 2
Date: 24thAug – 30thAug

• Literature - English : 1 is One by Tasha Tudor
• Bible – Still reading the first story, “God Made Everything” from ‘The Rhyme Bible Book for Toddler’.
• Poetry- “Happiness” from When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne
• Classical Music – Still on Mozart: Violin Concerto #2 in D Major
• Musical Exploration- Introduce bells and shake them with rhythm to a song.
• Mother Tongue – Still reading Story ‘ 火车要开了’ (dolphin media books), Children Song : 坐火车
• Art Appreciation – Artwork of Jan Brett in Fritz and the Beautiful Horses
• Other Learning - WinkToLearn Flashcard DVD in Chinese, Audiobooks of Fairytales, Other Storybooks read randomly during mealtimes or before bedtime.

I skipped Sign Language, Outdoor Game, Lullaby & Puppetry. Mainly no time to slot in during the week or do not have materials on hand.

I’m looking at children book review sites lately to find good books that is suitable for him in case the book in the booklists is not available for borrowing.

Found a nice site: TheChildrenBookReviews. Also Amazon.com is a good place to read reviews or look at first few pages of books (click the ‘Look Inside’) before buying or borrowing them (search ‘ Books For Toddlers‘). I found a few good books that way. Another place for my research is Youtube.com. Type, ‘children’s book‘ or the book title you heard about into the searches (e.g. Owl Babies). Amazingly, you can sometimes find animations of the books or people who uploaded videos of  themselves reading the books. You can then decide for yourself whether you will like reading this book to your child.

Detailed information below:

Book Read for the Week: ‘1 is One‘ by Tasha Tudor.

Storyline:

Darius didn’t take a liking to this book immediately.  It’s not really my kind of book at first glance but it is a Caldecott Honor Book (see that silver ‘thing’ on the cover) and it should be good.

The first two days, I couldn’t even read past the third page without him trying to flip the book or fidget. It was probably due to the illustrations having a ‘vintage’ look (it was written in 1956!) and some pictures were even black and white.

But strangely as I continued reading for three days, the book grew on both of us. He started listening to me reading the entire book on the fourth day right til the number 20 (previously he could only last til 10). He even looked closely at the illustrations, the numbers and the way my fingers underlined the words across the page as I read. On the fifth day, he even laughed when we reached ‘Number 4′, 5, and 6 for some reason. He would specially turn his head up to me and laughed. After that I read again on Sunday, and he laughed at the same page again.  ^_____^ This shows that young children really does need to keep reading the same book for a while for the words to ‘sink’ in.

Word I picked out from the story and learnt for this Week (my own initiative): No words this week since we are reading a book of numbers.

Excerpt:

1 is one duckling, swimming in a dish
2 is two sisters, making a wish
3 is three swallows, up in the sky

——————————————————————————
Mother Tongue
‘ 火车要开了’ is the first book out of the set of 15 books packaged with DVD animations. My plan is to read one for two weeks and switch to another.

Storyline:
Tom lives in an apartment in a dark grey city. One day, he fell asleep during an art class and started dreaming that he was on his toy train going through colourful worlds of animals. The book introduced some colours, green, red, yellow, blue, white, black with grasping illustrations in a fun way.

Excerpt:
轰隆隆！轰隆隆！轰隆隆。。。哇！火车穿过了绿色的鳄鱼大桥。

Song: I used the chinese children song, ‘坐火车’ to supplement the learning of train.

Me Reading To Darius:

——————————————————

Poetry: “Happiness”
From Book: When We Were Very Young By A.A.Milne
John had
Great Big
Waterproof
Boots on;
John had on a
Great Big
Waterproof
Hat;
John had a
Great Big
Waterproof
Mackintosh—
And that
(Said John)
Is
That.

He doesn’t have any feelings for just rows and rows of small wordings in the book. So though I read the poem, he wasn’t paying much attention. But it’s good to expose him to some poetry.

I just borrowed another famous book called, “A Child’s Garden of Verses” by Robert Louise Stevenson with illustrations and in both English and Chinese Text. I also have the e-book version downloaded from the e-resources of the National Library. Hopefully, he can learn to like poetry.

——————————————————–

Musical Exploration- introduce your toddler to different kinds of bells such as jingle bells (found in rhythm instrument sets), hand bells, brass bells, cow bells, or whatever bells you may have access to.  I would not recommend using any type of an easily breakable bell.  Put on music and shake or ring the bells in time to the beat.

According to the lesson curriculum, was supposed to introduce to Darius different kinds of bells. But I do not have the materials on hand and only have a toy bracelet of bells. Nevertheless, I let him play with it and swing it for him to hear the sound.

———————————————————-

Art Appreciation – To show Darius the artwork of children’s illustrators using books.
Book: Fritz and the Beautiful Horses
Illustrator: Jan Brett
She has a website at http://www.janbrett.com where there are activity pages and free colouring pages for children to use.

I tried showing the book to Darius without the storytelling. Just flipping and looking at the pictures and pointing out the horses’ pictures. He wasn’t interested at all when there’s no accompanying ‘audio’. argh. Jan Brett’s artwork is very detailed and realistic and a good choice for appreciation. However, Darius just doesn’t get the idea yet. I think he needs more time in this activity.

————————————————————-

There’s a lot of stuff I didn’t do for this week because I was too busy or he was being cranky due to teething. I find that following this lesson plan doesn’t really require a lot of my time. Reading a story can be quite fast. I can read three books in less than 15 mins and we never do it a second time since we will read it tomorrow.

How We Read Aloud to a child can be very different. For me, I always read every word and page, lingering only a little for him to look at the illustrations and closed off the book with no explanations or any interruptions. I want the story to flow for him so he can immerse himself into the language and plot. I think if we keep pointing out a certain illustration, “see what the sheep is doing?” then continue with the story, it will be like watching a drama on tv. The hype of the plot is spoiled with the injections of an advertisement.

Our routine goes like,

Morning after breakfast : Read 1 bible story, 1 English storybook, 1 Chinese storybook. Say the Nursery Rhyme of the week to him. Show him the Word of the Week.

After reading: Morning Exercise time – I choose a motorskill to work with him.

Afternoon after lunch: Depending on the week’s lesson plan, we read poetry, listen to children’s song/classical music, play indoor game or do musical exploration. I also play the WinkToLearn Chinese Lessons for him. Sometimes, I let him view the animation of children’s songs.

After his afternoon nap: We might go for a walk again or just free play.

Nighttime before bed: Daddy read a few story to Darius with one being chosen exclusively to read for the week.

No related posts.