What Is Tot School, see post “‘Tot School’”

This is what we have done with Darius at 17months Wk1. The 16th Week Since This Started.
Date: 14 Nov 09 – 20 Dec 09

This post is a bit late but better late than never! It’s still nice to look back at one whole week’s worth of work consolidated into a post so I think I’ll still keep this going as long as I could. Besides, I need this to recap to do my scrapbooking! (It’s currently on hold for the moment til I get my organisation of stuff done in my study room). The problem with updating is also that we did things but I couldn’t picture it as the moment of learning would be gone when he become camera-shy and start to ‘run away’ from the activity or stop doing. So, updating with pictures is getting a little difficult.

Read on for details below: Long Post With Photos Ahead
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New: I finally made use of the muffin tray I’ve gotten recently to do this sorting game. With a wave of inspiration, I used the shapes from the Playskool Shape Sorter. There was still three more spaces to be filled, hence I used three coloured wooden balls from another game. I showed him that he must place each item into each hole of the tray. He still wanted to put a different shape into the same hole at first. After I corrected him, he started putting them into different holes, but not in exact order. He just placed them where he see an empty one. Glad he caught the concept, though he still needed help when the holes started getting lesser. We did this for only 3 days so far. Gotta try this again soon.

(things learnt: Sorting different items into a compartment, Fine motorskills)

He wanted to play with the Stringing Beads and when I showed him how one hand must hold the string to go through the hole in the bead on another hand, he quickly followed and even initiated to do it the next day when we played again. See that picture of him trying to poke into the belly of the bead gal where there’s no hole? He did that the moment he took the string, experimenting with it. He also tried desperately to put in the string into the hole, twisting his hand constantly. He kept at it for a while, so determined was he to get the string into the hole but alas, he could poke it in but couldn’t pull from the other end to get the string out long. I had to pull it for him. So once the string passed through, he swung the bead on it to and fro.

(things learnt: Passing a string through a hole. Swinging an object on a string to note movement.)

Before the stringing, when I was taking the bead out, he immediately took them out too to stack on top of some beads. I was surprised at his initiative and pleased. He then stacked the tower and managed to reach five levels. I still had to shift or hold the bases because of the odd shapes. They weren’t meant for stacking, hence they kept toppling. So I chose the pieces with broader base.

(things learnt: Stacking with odd shapes)

New: I got this Farm Animals Counters from The Learning Store which has its warehouse located in an ulu area. Took efforts to get there but they didn’t have the bigger counter set I wanted. In the end, got these instead. Again using the Muffin tray, I asked Darius to sort the animals with different colours into each hole. He didn’t follow my instructions to place them in a row and wanted to put them above in another row instead when only three of a row was filled. He also did not want to fill up the third hole and placed the last yellow piggy on the third row instead. He wanted a pattern? He got bored after two tries and wanted out with fussing and crying. So had to stop. He does not like these counters sorting as much as the one above using the shapes.

All the counters in the box with 6 colours and Parent-child sizes, plus 6 different animals. Many possibilities to do different activities like counting, sorting animals, grouping same animals, or same colour, grouping Parent animal with Child animal or lining them up in a row. One day, we'll probably do this lining up when Darius is better with his fingers. Not easy!

Other activities we still do but not pictured: Sorting pom poms using the flower-shaped paint tray, Sorting the shape sorter.

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-English

Yip Snap Yap By Charles Fuge

We are both in love with this author’s simple stories and beautiful illustrations. It was great to find another book from him by chance in the Library. I had fun reading this to Darius because there’s a beat to the rhyming words when one reads it. Nice to hear and nice to view.

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Read Also: B is for Bethlehem, The Twelve Days of Christmas by Jane Brett for Christmas Day which was coming up.

Daddy and Darius can't get enough of this book. It was read at least three times in two hours before bed, and almost every day!

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-Chinese

Daily: New book from the Rainbow Reader Series from Popular. From Pelangi. He is very attentive with this and enjoys looking at the illustrations.
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小鸭找家 – An unexpected nice story to read. It is in a little board book format. He loves listening to me switching the voices to different animals who was helping the little duck to find his home.

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- Bible Story
The Lost Lamb / Children come to Jesus / The Blind Man from ‘The Rhyme Bible Book for Toddler’.
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He was into taking things and putting them into drawers, or behind doors all week. He took the orange I gave him and put it in the drawer, closing it. But he did not take them out of the drawers he put them into! Hence, we sometimes find objects hidden elsewhere. He also had the tendency to put the items on the floor of the toilet, and close the toilet door, reopening it again to take back his stuff.

He suddenly became adept at taking the cds out of the box when they are actually rather tight together and kept taking them out once I kept them back umpteen times! I wanted to let him ‘practise’ taking things out but in the end, I gave up and took the cds out to place somewhere else. Save the trouble of a mess on the floor and risk of him stepping onto them and spoiling the covers. He still does not know how to open up the cd covers though or else my cds would certainly be scratched.

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He finally made big strides on the grey stony paths instead of walking on grass in between. He would attempt to just step on the stones everytime unless they are really too far.

Brought him to the overhead bridge to walk and experience looking down at the landscape

Examining a leaf on his hand because he placed his hand on the steps wanting to climb up, instead of walking up.

Daddy brought him out back to walk at the big grassland

Day at the Singapore Botanic Gardens

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He started stepping down from a raised platform and was encouraged when we urged him on. He did it many times but still quite unstable and needed his hands to balance.

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Like the angle, a pity the person in the bg spoiled the picture...

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