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 15 months – Lesson 5 Wk 2
Date: 19 Oct 09 – 25 Oct 09

This week has been a trying week for me as I ‘battled’ with his whining and tantrums. After he turned 15mths, he has changed into a different kid. Last week was quite bad too but this week was worse. From babycenter, the description of what a 15mth old would do described Dar perfectly. So I had a not so good week, having bad moods throughout the day because he cries when I attempt to ‘teach’ him stuff. I almost want to give up on updating this Tot School post but on looking through the photos, seemed there’s still some things we did with him.Luckily, Daddy was home on Monday & Friday and he took Dar out for his walks & did some stuff with him. Hope the next week would be better…

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

-English

Daily: The Lion & The Little Red Bird By Elisa Kleven

Not very interested at first but was okay after mid-week

Daily: Ten Tiny Babies By Karen Katz

He always spots little details.The moment the page turned, he would turn his head to look at the picture on the left bottom corner. I think the creative author knew babies would do that.

Other Books: Animal Babies on the Farm(names baby animals & their mother), If you were my baby (animals getting ready for bedtime)

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-Chinese

Daily: We are reading ‘快乐的森林舞会’(Dolphin Media) 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 ‘我想要爱’ for the week.

Read about storyline & review here

Love is difficult to express so this book does not have a lot of emotions. What a book to read when my 'love' for him hovered below zero many times this week.

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- Bible Story

Where Did Jonah Go? from ‘The Rhyme Bible Book for Toddler’.
An Excerpt:

God Spoke to Jonah.
He said, “Go! Go! Go!”
But Jonah didn’t listen.
He said, “No! No! No!”

Jonah ran and tried to hide.
He found a ship and went inside.
But God sent stormy winds outside
To blow, blow, blow!
This was fun to read and Darius always makes some ‘goom, goom goom’ sounds to respond to the go,go,go, no,no,no,..same words repeated in a sentence.
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Learning Toys / Motor Skills

He started doing this about a fortnight ago but I only managed to photograph now. He will put his Fisher-Price Learning Phone to his ear and listen the to the sounds. I think he learnt from us because he’s always excited(make a lot of noise, laugh) to see us holding a real phone to our ear. The sound is a bit loud though… I wonder whether it would damage his ear in long term.

We got him a MegaBlock Toy Bus and he learnt how to open the lid of it and take out the blocks. He doesn’t want to put them back though. He likes to play with the wheels and turn them with his fingers to see them spin. Sometimes, he moves it along the floor. The interest doesn’t last very long though.

Daddy brought out a torchlight and he was so delighted with it. But we were worried that the strong beam might hurt his eyes since he keep shining it directly into his face. Funny thing is when Daddy bought him to the dark room to show him the projected light, he started crying in fear! Then, I remembered that we were given the little Olympic pointers from Vincent’s colleague who went china. We took them out and Daddy had fun projecting the images for him while he chased them here and there. We laughed and laughed so much.

We bought this windmill some weeks ago to do some outdoor activity as suggested by letteroftheweek but it was too big to bring outdoors..! And so far, we couldn’t find a place to put it so it was left in the toybox. Darius always take it to roll on the floor no matter how we try to tell him to hold it upright with his hand. Suddenly one day, during free play, he held it with his left hand vertically and started spinning the wheel with the right! He did it for sometime. That was amazing to us.

Bought the bowling pins from Popular Toa Payoh during the weekend and tried Bowling. It was fun as Dar quickly learnt that we allow him to knock down the pins. He’s really afraid of anything toppling over. He also learnt to let go of the ball towards the pin to knock them down. Too bad, the ball was too light and kept bouncing off even though he was aiming very accurately.

He took the Pringles can which is intended for another activity to roll on the floor.  He will push it, see it roll, then crawl after it. He does this for balls too. His own way of playing.
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Nature For Tot

Daddy let him walked into the bush to touch the leaves.

His new haircut made his big head very obvious and also made him look more like a 'naughty' kid.^_^He's trying to be defiant here by squatting on the floor and not walking when he was not allowed to choose his own direction.

He always like to examine this long tiled bench, especially where places are chipped.

Daddy let him chase the black cat in our estate all over the place. Quite funny.

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Exercise

We worked on stepping up on his own this week. Over raised platform and stairs. He could do it but still needs constant encouragement.

An exercise we started last week if we go to this playground. Now he is able to hold firmly and stand straight instead of letting go. This is to expose him to climbing vertically.

Just a thought, I’m not sure whether people reading this will think me strange for letting him do all these exercises so early. My explanation is that Dar is a very unmotivated toddler in terms of motorskills. While other kids would run around, crawl and climb all over the place, he’s quite ‘inactive’ compared to them. From young, he could sit quietly on my lap without fidgeting for a long time. He would never learn to stand, walk or crawl if I never ‘teach’ him to do it or expose him to it. He only started flipping at 5months plus by himself after I tirelessly helped him to flip over every day. He’s too cautious and too dependent. He needs constant motivation and encouragement from me. Therefore, I need to specially make him climb up playground steps, walk up and down the stairs, climb through tunnels, and now strengthen his hand grasp.

I still remembered how he cried and cried for half an hour when I first let go of him just right in front of me and tell him to take one step towards me, repeating again and again. It would seemed to anyone watching that I’m torturing him. Instead that very night, he started laughing and kept playing this game with me, so happy that he could take a few steps on his own. When he first walked up the stairs by himself, he cried bitterly too. Similarly, when he first walked outside independently, when he walked down the stairs by himself, when he stood on the bars in the above picture…the list goes on. You wouldn’t believe how cry baby he is. But see how he loves to do it now. Everytime he achieved something because I repeatedly want him to do it by himself, no matter how he cried and cried, his confidence built up one notch.

I’m still his most favourite person in the world. He clearly does not hate me or fear me for forcing him because after he mastered it, he enjoyed it.

If I never did all these, I’m sure he will not be the active toddler he is now, stepping on his own or walking independently. Hence, my method of ‘teaching’ him is always exposure to new things and empowering him to be independent. I believe for him, he can achieve greater with my little push than just doing it on his own with no direction.

see this article. I think what I’m doing is “embrace challenges and task mastery” .

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TV Time

Still watching the DVD animation-chinese version of the chinese storybook (我想飞)from Dolphin media which we had been reading for the past two weeks. but mostly watching the LeapFrog Letter Factory. He watches it very intently and would turn towards me sometimes to see me sound the phonics.

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Fav Pic of the Week

I like how the sun cast a shadow of him walking.

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