What Is Tot School, see post “‘Tot School’”
For the curriculum of activities I’m doing with Darius, go Letteroftheweek.

This is what we have done for 14 months – Lesson 4 Wk 2
Date: 05 Oct 09 – 11 Oct 09

I don’t have much new stuff this week even though I’m taking a relaxed break now since one of my projects are completed. We don’t have that many learning toys to play with. So most of the stuff are repeated. I will only blog about what’s new or what’s different from last time we played with the same learning toy.

Meanwhile, I’m surfing sites for learning toys or materials to do with him. Most are still too difficult though! I’m still enjoying the reading with him. It’s just relaxing no stress, reading alouds of various books. What all these is doing is to help Darius develop his ‘print awareness‘, one of the six early literacy skills that a child must have before he can read himself. I’ll usually point out the Title of the book first, read out the title, then start reading the story (if words are big, I’ll point the words as I read), ending with a look at the back cover, then go back to the front cover again to read the title.

Print awareness is understanding that print is organized in a particular way – for example, knowing that print is read from left to right and top to bottom. It is knowing that words consist of letters and that spaces appear between words.

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

-English

Daily: While You Were Sleeping by John Butler

I took his fingers to count the animals one by one on each two pages.

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

Other Books: Counting – A child’s first 123, Cluck! Cluck! Who’s there? (Lift the Flap book), My First book of Bedtime Prayers (read once only), Eric Carle’s My Very First Book of Words, Hush, Little Ones by John Butler (read by Daddy)

the illustrations are beautiful! He did stare a bit longer than usual

-Chinese

Daily: We are reading ‘我想飞’(Dolphin Media) a new book from the 15 books set for the second week. Read about storyline & review here

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Daily: Reading this series (中国第一套儿童情绪管理图画书 set of 8),this book ‘我不愿悲伤’ for the first week.

Read about storyline & review here

oh my...He finds it funny that the rabbit is boo-hooing. He actually chuckles when he see the picture or animation of an animal crying. Er..should I be concerned?

Other Books: 我喜欢书，给我

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- Nursery Rhyme
A Wise Old Owl lived in an oak,
The more he heard, the less he spoke;
The less he spoke, the more he heard;
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?
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- Bible Story

The Wall Falls & Ruth is Kind from ‘The Rhyme Bible Book for Toddler’.
An Excerpt:

But we can march
And not say a word.
Only our trumpets
Can be heard.

One last time
The trumpet blows
And when it blows
Then everyone knows…
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Learning Toys / Motor Skills

Hubby bought this toy during mid-week and after we showed him once how to put the ball, he immediately put it in and see the ball escalates down the slopes.

Then, we gave him another one, and he decided to take each in each hand and try to put both of them into the hole. So he discovered for himself that only one goes in after the after. He could play this for a while before he decides that throwing them and chasing after the balls is more fun. So three out of four balls are somewhere hidden now, will have to do a thorough search of the house. *sweat

Know how to take out but does not know how to place it back

I saw this Melissa & Doug wooden puzzle at Toys ‘R Us (this product is not on their site and Toys ‘R Us also have limited selections) and bought them even though it’s advanced for Darius now, as we don’t stay very near to the toy store. I like it that it has pictures underneath for matching. He knows how to take up the little pegs with his fingers but does not know how to place them back yet. Well, just for him to get some exposure. I love their chunky puzzles (the pieces stand out) & sound puzzles too but didn’t get them.

This was a first birthday gift from Darius’ aunt. He was too young to play with it then. Now it’s just the right time as he starts to get more interested in cars and wheels.

Experimenting with putting the bolt into the toy plier and clasping it. (We did ask him to clasp properly but he chose to do that instead…hee)

Playing with the toy car Daddy built. He bent real low to observe the wheels at work. He’s always interested in how toys move and will specially take moving toys up to look at the rotating wheels.

Daddy teaching him how to put the screw into the bolt

He managed to successfully put in the bolt using his hands and fingers. Fine motorskills at work. ^^

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Nature For Tot

He loves walking fast on long pavements

Caught him clapping his hands as he walked!

When I said 'hua' (flower) to him, he repeated after me, 'wu-wah...wu-ah'

We are blessed with paths & surroundings that are full of nature. Thought to let him walk along it one early morning. The cost is a long 20mins walk to the MRT station. Regretted after that cos it was too far and we were both worn out coming back.

Finally on Sunday, went to the big grassland behind our housing estate. His first time stepping on sooo much grass! He was afraid initially due to the sinking softness and uneveness. Started fussing. Things got better after some swinging activity and he laughed as he explore walking on the grass.

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Exercise

I wanted to do more tunnels climbing but this week, the playground was always full of dew in the morning and the tunnels were wet. I did do some strength training with him but he’s smart now, refused to grab hold of the bars so I left it. One early morning, I decided to put him into a tricycle and walked a bit further to a basketball court up one estate.

That's how far he walked away from me.

I brought him here to kick a ball. It was only 8:30am but the sun was soooo hot! He's smart not to chase after the bouncy ball when it went too far. We couldn't stand it only after a few kicks and went back. Right after at 10plus, a heavy thunderstorm!

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Arty Crafty

No arty things this week
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TV Time

Some Wink to Learn this week. We also watched the DVD animation-chinese version of the chinese storybook (飞上天空的绵羊 & 我长大以后)from Dolphin media which we had been reading for the past two weeks. He likes it and watches intensely during breakfast time. For some unknown reason, he always chuckles when the bear in the story 我长大以后, is crying. He’s still confused about emotions? He chuckles also at the running dog in the story 飞上天空的绵羊. I think he knows that’s a dog? As he will stare at real dogs now and follow them. We also watched the english vocabs after the story.

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Fav Pic of the Week

He just loves walking on a long path so much!

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