E for Earth

We did more Ee activities, with some focusing on 'earth', since Earth Day just passed. This also reiterated one of the word/image we did in the 'E for Elephant' lesson.

Alphabet

We started off going through the feely card and the A4 sheet of images. EV loved the 'Elbows Everywhere' phonics song and jived happily to it while waving her elbows. As it's easy to confuse the sounds of 'a' and 'e', I played the 'Ants on my ankles' phonics song to her again, made the sounds with exaggerated facial expressions, and wrote the two letters for her. I also wrote the word 'elephant' with her, describing the tall letters like 'l', 'h', 't' and the letters with parts that drop down like 'p', to help her recognize the word.

We had some colour chips on hand so I used them for alphabet teaching. I asked EV to create 'i' using the chips, which she did by herself. After that, I made the letters 'T' and 'L' and she named them.

Colouring

I used a colouring sheet from Kidszone. Besides the images for elephant, egg, eleven and empty, it also has an area for tracing E and e. Out of curiosity, I asked EV if she wanted to trace the letters. To my surprise, she gave a positive cue. She traced the letters while I held her hand. 

Things happen when you least expect it, and that was what happened today. EV spoke a full sentence. While she was having great fun colouring the elephant, she said 'I want to colour the nose'. She coloured half the elephant's trunk.

She also coloured the 'earth'. She called it a 'ball' the moment she saw it, which got this response from me: 'Yes, the earth is round like a ball.' I explained that the earth is where we live, while showing a picture of the earth, and pointing to the sea and land. As usual, she asked me to colour with  her, and we later traced the letters E/e, and the word 'earth'.

In line with the 'earth' theme, EV also coloured a yellow flower. Halfway, she decided to test her grip ability again, this time with three crayons. I took the opportunity to get her to practice counting the crayons - 1, 2, 3.

Shapes

We also did some shape matching, which also let EV do a bit of vertical line writing practice.

Handwriting skills

I introduced circle line tracing to EV. With a little guidance from mummy, EV tracked big and small circles. Here she is proudly showing off her work.

Art

We made a earth paper collage next from DLTK. She did the gluing and pasting all by herself.

Coordination skills

EV wanted to do more pasting and cutting after the earth paper collage. So I pulled out the Kumon First Steps Workbooks for her to work at her own pace (I had cut out the activity pages from the main books earlier). I was pleasantly surprised when EV created a 'flower' with the glue stick and one of the Kumon sheets. What a great imagination!

E for Elephant

This week has been kind of topsy turvy, with AA having a bad stuffy nose, and relatives visiting from Melbourne. The letter of the week was E and we did E for Elephant. Tot Club started as usual with the greeting song, which EV clapped along with a smile. We then did the feely card, writing the number '8' together. We sang the 'Elbows Everywhere' phonics song and EV had great fun knocking elbows with mummy.  

The images for the Ee A4 sheet where elephant, eleven, eye, earth and eel, and we wrote the words for each image after they were pasted. Besides elephant, I focused also on the words 'eleven' and 'eye', getting her to repeat the spelling of each word letter by letter after me. We also did the prompting for 'elephant'. 

Art
The colouring task of the day comes from 1+1+1=1's Animal ABC printables. At one point, she tested her gripping ability by colouring with two crayons. I let her do it for a while as part of her self exploration, and when she stopped, discreetly passed her one crayon to hold. I must say, she's got a pretty good grip.

The next art piece was from Jann's class. This elephant paper craft required colouring of the ears and trunk, before pasting to a blue envelope. EV really enjoyed the process, and of course, the end product. What's touching is that EV kept saying 'Mummy colour', so this paper craft is really the fruit of both our labour.

Chinese
Recently, I bought a set of the 我会读-幼儿启蒙读物 (Wo Hui Du) Level 1 series for kids between 1-5 years old. I had gone through book 1 on 'My Family' once or twice with EV. During the session, I had the book just beside me, thinking I would go through it again if she was in the mood. EV definitely was. When EV saw it, she immediately said 'Chinese, Chinese!'. Seeing her keenness in that area, I went through that book with her, instead of doing the maths activity I had planned. The first phrase was 爸爸 and EV said it as soon as she saw the page. Despite having just seen it once or twice prior, EV clearly recognized the characters and was able to recite it from memory. It was quite a heartening experience for me. EV is showing interest in Chinese, and picking it up!

Maths
Using a numbers sheet from 1+1+1=1's Animal ABC printables, I got EV to count using buttons. We did 1 to 10 first, and also traced them. Later, she practiced her hand and coordination skills by putting the buttons back into the bottle, by pouring the buttons from the bottle cap.

Music
We sang Skidamarink, and I did the actions. EV loved it, and kept asking me to repeat. By the third time, she could follow the actions, and jive to the tune.

Review: Cardboard Threading Toy

This is a learning toy that I bought through Jann while attending her class. Though it's recommended for ages 3 and up, we have already been letting EV do threading with blocks since she was a year old. So she's quite familiar with the threading concept. This threading set ups the activity level, by challenging her to match the correct pictures together, for example, a shoe to a sock, and threading the boards together. EV also needed to understand how to thread through several holes so the pictures stay in the correct positions. EV needed a little help in these areas. 

Effectiveness
This is great in developing EV's hand-eye coordination, as well as test her observation skills as she matches one picture to another.


My ultimate rave
The cardboards are big and the threads provided are thick - great for her little hands. I also like the bright colours'


My ultimate rant
The cardboard material means that the pictures are easily bendable. EV already bended one of the pictures in half even before we started the game. However, this also explains why this toy is such a value for money.


Overall value (4/5)

Craft fun: '10 Little Rubber Ducks' paper craft

Again again! That's what my little EV always says when she wants to do something another time. So over the weekend, we did another session focusing on the letter D.


Art
I found this very cool craft based on Eric Carle's '10 Little Rubber Ducks' from A Mommy's Adventures. EV painted a white A4 paper blue to resemble the ocean in the story. Instead of tissue, I got EV to crumple small pieces of paper and pasting them to the duck template. Halfway, she decided to switch to colouring, so mummy did the rest. Here's our masterpiece.

EV loves painting, so I also got her to do two paintings - D for dinosaur and D for dog. For the dinosaur art, EV chose to use a brush. For the dog art, she started off using a brush, then decided to use her fingers instead halfway. Here's her blue dinosaur and red dog.

Handwriting skills & numbers
For handwriting & counting practice, we used printables from 2 Teaching Mommies. 

Big & Small
Using a sorting activity from Confessions of a Home Schooler (lots of D for Dinosaur activities here), EV picked out the biggest and smallest dinosaurs. I also showed her how to sort from small to big, and vice versa.

Story Time
We read '10 Little Rubber Ducks' again. By now, EV knows the word 'duck' very well and I go through the spelling, letter sounds and some prompting with her often. Obviously, it's too early for her to do prompting, but with regular exposure, I'm sure she will be able to do it eventually.