Tuesday 17 April 2012

Print

J Summary (3Y1M12D) - Tea Time with Mommy


Today was the second day of kindergarten. It was another day of sunshine. I took leave from work today to be with J at the kindergarten and had time with J thereafter too. We had our mommy and J tea time again. I fulfilled my goal. Daily time with our child is so short as working mom. I had to seize every second of our time together, when I am on leave. It is n...ot always that I managed to do it. But I thank God, I found the energy to do it today. It helped a lot that I am on leave.

We started with ringing of the bell. This we learned from the kindergarten today. They rang the bell for lunch time. I also happened to buy the bells that arrived last week, perfect timing and in J's favourite orange colour, of course.

After we prepared everything, J rang the bell. We started our tea time. We prayed for it. We had a great time.



J set the table, also for daddy (but daddy was at work of course). He was really happy to have the tea time together.

I contemplated to put his favourite musli bread on the table, but decided not to. If the bread was there, the fruit will remain. I was right. The bread wasn't there. The fruit was all eaten up.




J had the most fun pouring "tea" for all the tea cups. That was probably the highlight of our tea time, to a 3 year old child. He felt proud to have the chance to handle real porcelain. That's part of Marie Montessori's that really hit home for a 3 year old's child.

J enjoying his "tea". Such simple joy... to him... and to me.


Tea is an Asian tradition, perfected by the Japanese. It was thus a joy for me to see J sitting straight with respect and enjoyment, when drinking "tea".

More practise with pouring... he took it seriously and took pride in his work.


J poured for all the "guests".


We talked about how his day at the kindergarten went, what he did, what he learned, how he felt - as much as it could for a 3 year old. It was a lot of experience for him to be able to articulate all. It was a good rounding off to have a de-brief session in the form of tea time to help put words to his experience.


Today, we learned counting to almost 20 at the kindergarten. We practised over tea time. J's idea to count each of the pieces of the fruit.


We read a verse from the Bible. I chose Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."


He asked me to show him the page where he could read the story of Easter and Jesus' resurrection. It is his favourite Bible story for now. I turned to the Gospel of John. He asked me to point where on the page it is.

Being with him for the past two days, I now understood why it could be tough for a child to be in a new kindergarten for the first week. So many changes, all alone, all the new friends. He may not understand the verse I read to him. But somehow somewhere, I would like him to know that he can trust God for the changes in his life. Life, after all, is full of changes... and it starts now. But God is our anchor in life, and I hope he would remember that.

I also learned from J these two days. He is a very emotionally strong boy, always smiling, just like my nephew Jeffrey. Something mommy could learn from.


J loves to ask the "why" questions, which I could not answer. Today, it was my turn to ask back. He said, "boys should eat pears, and girls should eat apples." I asked, "Why". He said because... it was so. He got my point - why sometimes I could not answer all his questions, as he could not answer mine now :-)


J's laughter really encouraged me and brought me joy.


We rang the bell to mark the end of our tea time and promised each other that we would do it again. It was a really nice time. I captured the moment with my camera. The words just flowed... and I have got to captured them down as well.


J did the clean up with the tray. No activity ends without a clean up, as long as I have the time to implement it.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

My Favourite Books

Montessori Materials