From now on, I will begin this post with the ‘Tot School’ structure (see post “Tot School“). I’m still using the LetterofTheWeek’s curriculum, just that I’m including in this post playtime activities too. I realised that I hadn’t been taking photos of him daily since he could walk! This new way of presenting posts will make me take more photos and record our memories together. Am loving it…

This is what we have done for 14 months – Lesson 3 Wk 2
Date: 21st Sep – 27th Sep09

More details below: Long Post With Photos Ahead
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Books Read For the Week

-English

Daily: Guess How Much I love You By Sam McBratney

He likes to touch the pictures in books now. Example, if there's a tree/flower/animal, he will specially stroke it with his fingers.

Storyline:
Read about storylines, my review and Darius’ reactions here

Other Books:  Opposites, Hello,Baby by Mem Fox, How Loud is a Lion, Dr Seuss’ ABC.

Opening and closing the flaps for the difference in the pictures in the book

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-Chinese

Daily: Reading‘我长大以后’(Dolphin Media)for the second week.  Read about storyline & review here

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Daily: Found this popular series of book in the library，(中国第一套儿童情绪管理图画书 set of 8）. Started ‘我好快乐’

He started laughing when I went 'hahaha' according to the story. Since then, he will 'haha' with me and laugh everytime the moment I turn to this page where the bunny laughed til he hug his belly. He actually remembered...

Read about storyline & review here

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- Poetry
TwinkleToes from ‘When We Were Very Young’ By A.A.Milne.
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- Bible Story
Joseph Forgives from ‘The Rhyme Bible Book for Toddler’.

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Learning Toys / Motor Skills

We have quite a number of learning toys but all just left for him to free play. We hadn’t bought him new toys for a long time. Recently, we took out toys we bought in the past (kept cos too messy) and played them with Darius with more intention.

He likes to push and pull things now. So he was pulling and pushing this trolley and taking the blocks in and out.

Took out the ballpit for him to do the ‘Climbing through obstacles’ activity.

Doing a knob puzzle. He only knows to put the block down near the holes but does not know how to manipulate them to fit in.

A new toy we got recently for him. Stacking cups. He learnt how to stack them up after I showed him twice, but I have to pass him the correct cup for stacking and adjust the positions a little lest they slide down.

Revising the ring holders since we have been neglecting them. I think he has learnt how to put the rings back for sometime but his movements are much smoother now. He likes to take the rings out after he put them in though so I have to stop him and hand him another ring to place. He’s got to learn how to put the correct ring back himself though.

Picture from video. He was smirking and pleased with himself being able to clap

I’ve been actively sitting him on my lap and clapping his hands to the song ‘If you are happy and you know it, clap your hands‘ for the past two weeks in front of the mirror. He finally learnt how to clap his hands on Thursday by himself without me helping him to start the activity though he’s still doing it very cautiously with his fingers than with his palms.

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Nature For Tot

Managed to capture his laughter while he was running away from me, playing tag on the platform. His fav game with us.

He always examines the leaves while walking past. I do not stop his exploration because I can always clean his hands with the Pigeon wet tissue later.

His current favourite, stepping stones. But need me to hold onto both his hands because he can only step one foot on grass, one foot on stone.

We found a leaf with a long stem and he held it as he walked, swinging it with the wind. Usually he will just examine a leaf in his hand and throw it away. Interestingly,he would specially walked to the grass edge to throw the leaves. No littering on the cement! *grin.

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Exercise

We have been alternating between the playgrounds on our housing estate and the one in the other estate one road away. I haven’t taken photos of him at this other playground before because I’m lazy to carry a camera around. We often just go walk, sans things that need to be carried in a bag. It’s just me, him, some money, handphone and wet tissue all stuffed into my pockets. Other people around us probably know us very well because we stood out from the ‘crowd’. As every child I see is either in a pram, a tricycle or a bicycle or just an infant carried. Darius is the only young toddler for the entire duration we walked, who actually toddles for at least 30mins to an hour. I don’t carry him much because it’s his walk. I also make sure we go out in the sun and not in the shade for him to get his vitamin D.

This playground is virtually deserted everytime we go there. Nobody seemed to like it due to the falling leaves, ants here and there and strange huge animal statues that seemed dirty.. But we enjoy the peace here and this was where he first learnt to climb up the stairs at the first level.

Lately, they had repainted the animals statues white and clean. He has progressed to walking up the stairs at the second level now. It is still a bit high for him though so he struggles. We often end up sweaty and hot playing here. There’s the slide, the stairs, the statues to play peek-a-boos and catching each other. Endless fun here.

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Arty Crafty

We finally did brush painting! But this first attempt failed miserably as he cried the moment he was put into the apron and sat on the green stool. Then, I tried holding his hands over the brush to brush the colour yellow over the leaves we collected…. He just fussed and fussed. He hates paint on his fingers and in the end, he put down the paintbrush and poked it cautiously as if it was a dead animal. Not sure why he was so afraid. oh well…
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Art Appreciation

Title: Does a Kangaroo have a Mother too?
Illustrator:  Eric Carle

Darius looked through this book with me and would even pick it out of the stack of books on the green table and look through it by himself. Eric Carle’s art is really suitable for young children! And it’s a big book with clear pictures. I’m still learning how to ‘describe’ to him without reading the text in the book since this is supposed to be art appreciation.
Read More Reviews & Darius’ reactions here.

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TV Time

No Wink to Learn this week. We watched the DVD animation-chinese version of the chinese storybook (飞上天空的绵羊)from Dolphin media which we had been reading for the past two weeks instead. He likes it and watches intensely. We also watched the english vocabs after the story.

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Fav Pic of the Week

Captured him lifting his head and arms to feel the wind!

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