25 August 2018 (2Y3M9D): The car Baby FECS built all by herself
I started on a new job 5 months ago, and haven't had so much time to be with Baby FECS. It is always a challenge for moms, and I feel it keenly, although my fellow colleagues who are moms don't. I guess we are all different.
The last few times we interacted with LEGO Duplo - the LEGO Duplo playground, Baby FECS wasn't quite interested in building, but in playing with it. Today, Our Little FECS was helping to clean up some LEGO and Baby FECS went to disturb his work. Then Daddy FECS noticed that Baby FECS began to build the LEGO car herself. This happened by coincidence. Our Little FECS didn't really start actively building LEGO until 3 or 4 years old. Thus, Baby FECS is an earlier developer in this aspect. In fact, Baby FECS, is an earlier developer than Our Little FECS, in all aspects, except language. It must be due to the gender and birth order difference.
It is, of course, comforting to see that Baby FECS is developing well, despite the fact that I am working full time. Work is going great, and actually relaxing compared to spending time with a toddler!!! I even master programming and succeeded in automating a report with programming a macro. I have always been wanting to learn programming since I started work in 2005, but it was only recently that I got to do it after 13 years. I wish I could work half-time, but this is not a possibility. But every other day, I swing between the thought of quitting and continue with my full time work. Baby FECS is growing up so fast. Her language development is not as advanced as Our Little FECS at this age, and I reckoned that it is because I started this new job as she turned two years old. I don't get to see her as much, and that means I don't get to speak as much Mandarin to her. Oh.. oh... I am so torn...
25 August 2018 (2Y3M9D): The structure Baby FECS built all by herself. I called it a boat.
Objective(s):
1. To learn the concept of big to small (by thickness) Materials:
The Montessori Brown Stair Presentation:
1. Place the stairs randomly on a mat.
2. Place another mat across the room.
3. Show your child how to arrange the prisms from small to big horizontally by bringing the stairs one-by-one at a time to the other mat into a stair and align them.
4. Dismantle the stair and place the prisms randomly on the mat.
5. Invite your child to try to build the brown stair on the other mat.
Objectives:
1. To give a sensorial feel of the concept of fractions to small children.
2. To show that a whole may be divided into parts.
Materials:
1. Fraction Skittles
2. 1 tray or mat Presentation:
1. Take out the whole fraction skittle, trace the edge of the base with 2 fingers and say, "This is one whole," and hand it to the child to feel it.
2. Take out a 1/2 skittle, trace the base and say, "This is one of 2 parts," and let your child feel it. Take out the other 1/2 and say, "This is two of 2 parts."
3. Put the two 1/2 skittles together next to the whole skittles to show that two 1/2 skittles are equivalent to a whole skittle.
4. Take out a 1/3 skittle and say, "This is one of 3 parts," and give it to your child to feel it. Take out another 1/3 and say, "This is two of 3 parts." Take out the last 1/3 skittle and say, "This is three of 3 parts."
5. Put the three 1/3 skittles together next to the whole skittle to show that three 1/3 skittles are the same as a whole skittle.
6. Take out a 1/4 skittle and say, "This is one of 4 parts." Take out another 1/4 skittle and say, "This is two of 4 parts." Take out the 3rd 1/3 skittle and say, "This is three of 4 parts." Take out the last 1/4 skittle and say, "This is four of 4 parts."
7. Put the four 1/4 skittles together next to the whole skittle to show that four 1/4 skittles make a whole skittle.
8. Repeat with a three period lesson to reinforce the learning. Video Demonstration:
Objectives:
1. To observe and grade by height and/or size.
2. To give the child preliminary concept to mathematics.
3. To train the eye to fine differences in dimensions
4. To recognize difference and similarities (when using more than one set)
Materials:
1. 4 sets of knobless cylinders - red, yellow, green and blue boxes
Directions:
1. Show your child the red box or let him choose a box and have him bring it to the table.
2. Take out the cylinders and put in front of you in random order.
3. Scan the cylinders by finger and select the thickest cylinder.
4. Arrange the cylinders into a stair from the thickest to the thinnest, saying "This cylinder seems thicker."
5. Show your child how to put them back into the box.
Variations:
1. Grade 2 boxes.
- Take out the red and green box.
- Grade the red as in Presentation 1.
- Take out all of the green cylinders and encourage your child to arrange them from shortest to tallest in front of the red cylinders.
- Repeat with Red and Yellow Boxes, Green and Yellow Boxes, The Red and Blue Boxes, Green and Blue Boxes and Yellow and Blue Boxes
2. Grade the red cylinders in reverse, and this time in front of the green cylinders so you are now comparing them in the other direction.
3. Superimpose one over the other but always keeping the one with the larger base on the bottom.
4. Grade 3 boxes at one time.
5. Grade 4 boxes at one time.
Language:
No language is required, but you can say, "This cylinder looks taller, this cylinder is wider."
Set 1 and 2:
Large - Small Large - Larger - Largest Small - Smaller - Smallest
Set 3:
Thick - Thin Thick - Thicker - Thickest Thin - Thin - Thinnest
Set 4:
Tall - Short Deep - Shallow Tall - Taller - Tallest Deep - Deeper - Deepest Short - Shorter - Shortest Shallow - Shallower - Shallowest
Control of Error
Visual - it is up to the child to learn from their own observations and make the correction on their own.
Additional Information:
The knobless cylinders have been sitting on our display shelf for months. I have not had the time to review the lesson plan. This evening, J (5Y0M9D) asked to play with the knobless cylinders today. He started with building models with it - rocket, vending machine, fortress for a good 20 minutes. While he was doing it, I was reviewing the lesson plan. Then we watched a youtube demonstration together. I asked him if he would like to grade them according to height and size and he said he would. So he started working on the knobless cylinders building them into towers.
We are slowly getting more organized and I think it is about time that we follow a curriculum to ensure that all grounds are covered. As I mentioned in the last School Time post that I bought the Brillant Minds Montessori Reading and Writing Kit Program. Here is how the curriculum overview and order go with phonics, writing and reading:
1. Lowercase Sandpaper Letters
• Trace the lowercase Montessori sandpaper letters daily using 2 fingers and saying its sound "k".
• Do this one set at a time preferably in this order: cmf, pta, wno, hgz, jib, rkl, suv, dye and qx.
• Move on to the next set when your child has mastered a set.
2. Letter Sound strips
• After tracing the set of letters, present the corresponding sound strips for cmf.
• Starting with the letter c sound strip, point to the c and say "k"; point to the picture of the cat and say "k... cat"; point to the cow and say". Do the same for the rest of the pictures, ending by pointing to the cursive c which for Joshua, it is easier for him to grasp the concept of cursive if I say, "dancing... k".
• Repeat for the remaining sound strips of the set (m and f).
• When your child has mastered a letter sound, place the sound strip on a key ring.
3. Uppercase Sandpaper Letters
• Introduce the capital sandpaper letters by encouraging your child to trace and match them to the lowercase counterparts.
4. Pre-handwriting Skills: Drawing Lines
• Have your child draw lines within the boundaries with 5 different fat-tipped markers.
• Encourage your child to concentrate on staying within the provided lines.
• The program advises that this exercise should be repeated daily, and provided a CD of worksheets (As it is copyright protected, I could not share them here).
Here is a good video on how to demonstrate pre-handwriting activity:
5. Pre-handwriting Skills: Spatial Orientation & Fine Motor Development
• After drawing lines, use the same sheet to paste pasta, another handwriting preparation spatial orientation and fine motor development lesson in the program.
• You can prepare such a worksheet by drawing two lines and assisting your child to place the glue line on the worksheet until he is proficient in doing this himself.
• Have your child paste pasta, beans, etc. between the line by following the glue line.
• Joshua counted all the way to 24 while pasting the pasta. It has been fun for him:
• After Joshua has finished, I find it helpful to file his work up as follows:
6. Tracing Letters with pasting stickers
To reinforce the letter C, trace the letter C today from 1+1+1=1. You can use stickers, stamp, pebbles, petals, play dough, etc. to trace the letter:
7. Sound-to-Letter Matching & Writing
• Prerequisite skills are the sandpaper letters and sound strips activities.
• Present the letter c worksheet for the child to identify the picture of the cat by name of the letter:
• Have your child choose and circle the correct starting letter of the word (help him if needed).
• Repeat this worksheet several times until mastered, but it is ok to present the other worksheets in the set before mastery on the particular worksheets occurs, but remember to rotate the unmastered sheets.
8. Letter-to-Sound Matching
• Prerequisite skills are the sound to letter matching worksheets.
• Present the letter c worksheet and ask your child to choose and circle the pictures which start with the letter c sound (help him if needed).
• Repeat this worksheet several times until mastered, but it is ok to present the other worksheets in the set before mastery on the particular worksheets occurs, but remember to rotate the unmastered sheets.
9. Writing Letters
• Prerequisite skills are the mastery of the level 2 Handwriting Preparation activities and at least introductory experience and practice on the Level 3 materials.
• Introduce the worksheet in the following sequence: l, v, x, z, w, i, k, t, f, h, m, n, u, o, b, d, c, e, a, r, s, j, y, g, p and q.
10. Writing the First Letter of a Word
• Prerequisite skills are the worksheets in Part 1 and the Writing Letters Activites.
• Present the first worksheet and ask the child to identify the first picture by writing the correct first letter for each word (help him if needed).
• Repeat this worksheet several times until mastered, but it is ok to present the other worksheets in the set before mastery on the particular worksheets occurs, but remember to rotate the unmastered sheets.
11. Reading Stories with Short Vowels
• Prerequisite skills are strong knowledge of the phonetic sounds of the alphabet letters.
• Read to your child the book "The Rob and Max Story Collection for Early Readers":
• Prior to reading, the program recommends a review of the following letter sounds for each story respectively:
Story 1: w, o, h, i, p
Story 2: t, s
Story 3: r, b, f, a, l, u, n
Story 4: m, x, q, e, d
Story 5: j, k, v, y
12. The Silent e Rule
• Prerequisite is basic writing skills.
• Introduce the Silent e Rule worksheet, explain the rule that when words end with an e, the first vowel of the word says its name, and the ending e is silent e.g. bike.
• Encourage your child to write the correct vowel sound in each of the words in the worksheet.
13. The 2 Vowel Rule
• Prerequisite is basic writing skills.
• Introduce the 2 Vowel Rule worksheet, explain the rule that when 2 vowels appear together in a word, the first one says its name and the second one is silent, i.e. when 2 vowels go walking, the first one does the talking, e.g. seat.
• Encourage your child to write the correct vowel sound in each of the words in the worksheet.
14. Reading Stories with Long Vowels
• Prerequisite is completion of the first volume of "The Rob and Max Story Collection".
• Read to your child the book "The Rob and Max Story Collection for Early Readers Volume 2: The Long Vowels":
• Prior to reading, the program recommends a review of the following letter sounds for each story respectively:
Story 1: a
Story 2: e
Story 3: i
Story 4: o
Story 5: u
Additional Information:
At 89 USD, the Brilliant Minds Montessori Reading and Writing Kit is expensive if you consider only the tangible items contained in the kit - only the sandpaper Letters. But I think that value comes from the thought and concept behind it, the tons of worksheets included in the CD and its effectiveness.
I find it simple to implement and I am glad to have a well-organized curriculum that is not too complicated to follow.
I sometimes get confused by all the activities when I read in blogs and books - they are all very well and good, but rather ad hoc and haphazard. However, I find that the author's ability to design a concise, systematic and simple program that take into account the most important elements is of great value to me. Everything is served nicely as a kit with 190 worksheets, making my life easier as a working mom.
I will try to follow the systematic approach to phonetics, writing and reading as suggested by the curriculum and work towards having Joshua completing the program. It nevertheless still requires self-discipline and determination from me as well as self- motivation and desire from Joshua, so please pray along with me in our journey towards English literacy.
You can have a glimpse of the Brillant Minds Motnessori Reading and Writing Program from Amazon:
I wish there is something similar in the market available for teaching Chinese effectively to early readers. However, there isn't. Currently, Chinese is taught to children in a very traditional Chinese way that does not quite inspire love for learning. It is more about discipline and rote-learning. I will have to develop the Chinese curriculum myself. It is exciting, and I have lots of ideas, but I am constrained by time as a working mom.
I will give an update to this curriculum in this post after we have completed it.
We also bought the Brilliant Minds Maths Curriculum (only the CD, but not the materials, as we bought our Montessori materials elsewhere), and I am looking forward to try it once our Montessori materials arrive (the packages are currently at the Danish customs).
Materials:
1. 1 bowl containing 10 paint swatches of different colours and shades of matching pairs.
2. 1 tray or mat.
Directions:
1. Go through one round and name each of the colours of your child.
2. Hand one colour to your child and say “can you match this green colour?”
3. After one round mentioned in point 2, invite your child to match the pairs himself and ask, “What colour is this?” Encourage your child to say the name of the colour.
4. To mark completion and a sense of achievement, ask your child to wave the empty bowl after he has finished.
5. Thereafter, go through one round of naming the colours together, and if your child wishes, ask him to repeat the name of each colour after you. If you are a bilingual or trilingual family, take this opportunity to name the colours in 3 languages at this stage. It also provides variation to this activity.
Additional Information:
Joshua tried this for the first time and he enjoyed it. The curriculum right now at Joshua’s kindergarten is on colours. So this activity is good to reinforce what he is learning at the kindergarten. We named the colours in 3 different languages, English, Mandarin Chinese and Danish.
Completed :-)
Cost:
Paint swatches: 1 set of 10 for 16.99 DKK from Søstrene Grene.
You might be able to get free paint swatches from your local paint shop. We couldn't. If not, you can also get it from Amazon:
Or this original one from Montessori, but it is pricey:
This is a very known Montessori Activity. We adapted ours from one of the Montessori books:
Objective(s): To train fine motor skill development.
Materials:
1. 1 basin half-filled with water
2. 1 bath-sponge
3. 1 tray
Directions:
1. Pour the sponge into the basin of water and show your child how to squeeze the water out, saying, "this is how you squeeze a sponge".
2. Encourage your child to try.
Additional Information:
I made a post some time ago on squeezing sponge. I just realize that bath sponge is a great tool to use, much more squeezable than the other sponge, especially for more older children. J (3Y2M25D) tried this on 1.4.2011 and he liked it quite a lot. At this age, he didn't just squeeze it, but he used it to scrub his body and feet.
Objective: To provide a fun and active way for young children to learn the 10 commandments
Materials:
1. 1 dice
2. 1-10 homemade disposable number mats
3. Masking tape
4. 1-10 commandment flags. The following are child friendly version:
1. Love God
2. Don't worship other gods
3. Respect God's name
4. Rest on Sunday
5. Love your mommy and daddy
6. Don't hurt anyone
7. Keep your ways pure
8. Don't snatch someone's toys
9. Always tell the turth
10. Don't wish for your friend's toys
Directions:
1. The children take turns to roll the dice and jump the number of space indicated by the dice.
2. When the child stops, he picks up the respective 10 commandment flag, and the teacher reads it out.
3. The child rolls the dice again and repeat until he hops to the no. 10th commandment.
4. The next child's turn to roll the dice and hope.
Additional Information:
I made this game and hope to try it out at the next Nursery lesson.
Rochelle taught me this today, which I would like to share with everyone.
Age: From 2.5 - 5 years old
Objectives:
1. To teach the concept of praying to God in a fun way.
2. To teach counting.
3. To train fine motor skills with cutting with scissors.
4. To provide opportunity to practise writing skills in a fun way for the older children.
Materials:
1. 1 piece of construction paper
2. 1 scissors
3. 1 pencil
Directions:
1. Tell the child that as usually when we pray, we fold our hands. Thus, today we are going to make a pair of hands.
2. Fold the paper into half.
3. Trace the hand of the child very closely to the edge of the folded side of the paper so that you only get to cut it on 3 sides, with the left hand side as the folded side untouched.
4. For older children, let them cut out the hand themselves. For younger children, help them to cut the hand.
5. Open it up like a book. Take this opportunity to revise Maths with the children, and invite them to count the fingers. For younger children, count the 10 fingers with them.
6. Tell the child we are going to list down 5 - 10 people whom we could pray for this coming week.
7. Ask the child who he would like to pray for and invite your child to write it down for each finger. For younger children, write down for them the names of the peope he would like to pray for. For older children, it is a chance for them to practise writing :-)
Additional Information:
This is a fantastic idea from Rochelle that I learned and I would like to record it down. The pair of hands above is traced from Joshua's left hand. I asked Joshua who he would like to pray for and we talked about the following people:
1. Amy
2. Anna
3. Jeffrey
4. Jesus
5. Chen Ying
6. Daddy
7. Mommy
8. Farfar
9. Farmor
10. Ye Ye in Singapore
11. Nai Nai in Singapore
12. himself
Joshua was so thrilled to show it to my Superstar, when we reached home, that he did not take off his shoes, but rushed straight in to Daddy.
We were going to my Superstar's parents' place for dinner, and before we leave, Joshua said WAIT, and ran to pick this to bring along and show to Farfar and Farmor.
We don't have enough fingers to write all the names down. This evening, I hope to take this pair of hands out and use it to pray with Joshua.
Thank you to Rochelle for such a fantastic idea :-)
Objectives:
1. To teach recognition of Chinese characters in a fun way.
Materials:
1. 1 set of 8 name card size cards with picture and the Chinese characters.
2. Another set of 8 name card size cards with only the Chinese characters.
You can make your own, or if you are a working mom and do not have the time, you can buy a set here:
It contains simplified Chinese characters used in China and Singapore, pinyin and English translation for billingual children.
Here is another good option from Amazon with very nice pictures, the Chinese pin yin and English translation:
How to Play?
1. Display all the picture cards face up on the table.
2. Put the word cards in a pile face down.
3. Ask the child to pick the first word card, turn it around and read the Chinese character to him.
4. Ask the child to match the Chinese character to the picture. He gets to keep the pair.
Additional Information:
As a working mom, I know my time will be very hectic and limited, once Joshua comes along. Thus, I have planned 4 years ahead. I bought and read most of the books as well as the teaching materials when I was expecting Joshua. The risk of such a strategy is that the things you bought may not be as new, but given my very hectic time constraints, it is a risk and down-side that I gladly accept. Joshua discovered it last week and asked to play with it. Finally I found the time this week!
I have classified it as from 2.5 years old, because for some children, you can already start this at 2.5 years old. My friend's son, Daniel, could already recognized 40 - 100 Chinese characters between 2.5 years old to 3 years old (Whoever said that learning Chinese is difficult! I found it hard to believe, especially from my fellow Singaporeans with that complaint. It is all in the attitude of parents.) For Joshua, it suits him better to start this at 3 years old as I devoted his second year to Montessori Practical Life. Joshua also has to juggle three languages, thus, he was not ready to start any sooner.
Joshua (3Y1M22D) tried this yesterday and he enjoyed it very much. He was not very good at it initially, but quickly understood the concept. However, he is looking more at the pattern than really reading the Chinese character. That is nevertheless a start. Amy and Joshua played it today. It went very well. Amy is a very motivated and determined girl, amazing at her age. After this trial run, we hope to introduce this game in our next Chinese playgroup.
