Sunday 18 December 2011

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Reflection for 2011, Curriculum and Goals for 2012

I started Montessori activities when Joshua turned 2 years old. It is now the end of the year, and over the 9 months, we have more or less exhausted the Montessori Practical Life Activities. The Montessori activities no longer challenge Joshua nor interest him as much as when we first started out. I can see that he is getting bored and needed more challenge. I will scale down on sensory tubs and Art & Crafts as Joshua is not very interested in those types of activities.

I have achieved almost all of what I set out to achieve this year. Joshua now has rather good fine motor skills exceeding perhaps a little children his age. However, I haven't been so good with having more conversation with Joshua, which is very important for language development, due to the lack of time and tiredness from work. I have to improve on this area next year.

It is the end of the year, and I am reflecting over the activities and curriculum for the next year. I will put less focus on Practical Life activities and will not be spending time creating new activities, unless new ideas pops up and I just have to share them.

For the next year, I will spend more time on strengthening his language skills, on pincer grip activities, language and Maths activities as well as more conversation time with Joshua.

Curriculum

Thus, in a nut shell, my curriculum for next year 2012 will be:

1. Pencil grasp exercises
2. English alphabet
3. English nursery rhymes
4. Chinese Characters
5. Chinese Tang Dynasty Poems
6. Maths - Counting
7. Bible Reading (Chinese and English)
8. Music - Singing and Sukuzi Piano classes
9. Science - Encyclopedia (English, Chinese and Danish) and forest walks
10. Sports - Cycling, catching balls, swimming

Action Plan

Here is the Action Plan:

Daily Montessori Activity Programme for Each Week:
1. Monday Pincer Grip - For fine motor skills development, I will focus more on pincer grip exercises. I will be repeating activities and introducing new actitives that allows Joshua to practise his pincer grip.

2. Tuesday Cutting with Scissors, Gluing and Pasting  - Joshua's scissor usage skills are getting quite good, but can still be perfected. For Montessori activities, I will be giving more priority to cutting activities.

3. Wednesday Numbers and Counting - For now, Joshua seems to be showing some aptitude for numbers and interest in them. I will incorporate activities that continue his progress on Maths.

4. Thursday English Alphabet - I will be spending more time and energy on teaching letters, but it would depend on whether he is interested. He is not particularly interested in it so far. If this persist, I will focus more on reading and talking to him.

5. Friday Chinese Character - I will spend once a week to introduce a new Chinese character.

6. Saturday Free and Easy - I will pick any Montessori activity that comes to mind and repeat some of the Practical Life activities.

7. Sunday Jigsaw Puzzles

Bedtime Routine: Talking, Reading and Singing:

For Bedtime routine for next year, I will concentrate on talking, reading and singing.

1. Music - Joshua loves to sing right now. I will research into more Chinese and English children songs and sing it with Joshua. I have no problem with Danish children songs, as he gets a lot of inputs from the daycare. I will see if Joshua is mature enough to start formal Suzuki piano classes.

2. Reading Science - Joshua seems to gravitate towards books on Science and he loves enclylopedia. Florian on the other hand love to pick the enclyclopedia during reading time. Thus, I will delegate this task to Florian. We will try to incorporate more educational forest walks into our weekends, but I am not going to turn it as a goal for next year.

3. Talking to Joshua about his daily life at the daycare and asking questions.

4. Knowing God - Now at 2.5 years old, Joshua started liking to listen to Bible stories, but it has to be the Rhyme Bible Storybook, and not any other Bible story book (I bought him two Bibles, but this is the only one he likes and me too. The rhyme created by Linda Sattgast flows so beautifully. I will continue to expose Joshua to God through FIBC Nursery. Currently Joshua is no longer interested in going to church and the nursery. If you wish to purchase a rhyme Bible, don't buy any other, but this:


Bedtime Routine Programme

I am going to try out the following Bedtime routine programme for next year and fine-tune along the way:

1. Monday: Read the English Rhyme Bible

2. Tuesday: Sing English children songs

3. Wednesday: Read Chinese Children Bible

4. Thursday: Read English or Danish enclyclopedia

5. Friday: Sing Chinese children songs

6. Saturday: Read Chinese enclyclopedia

7. Sunday: Read English nursery rhymes


Weekends:

1. Sports - This is something which I have not spent so much efforts on this year, which I hope to spend more time on next year. But this year, Florian has been playing catching ball with Joshua. I can't do everything myself. I will be delegating this department to Florian.

2. Zoo - Joshua is getting very interested in the zoo. Thus, for next year, we will be increasing our trips to the zoo.

This has been a year on high gear, juggling work and Montessori, but I am glad that the basic collection of my Montessori activities are not complete. Any addition from now on would be considered bonus.now

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