One-Week Activity Log

Too difficult to do a proper activity log! Kept forgetting to take photos or to note down what we did :P So here are the few photos I did take, and my inspiration for some of our activities/books we are reading.

Monday morning: Messy play with milk, dishwashing detergent, food colouring

Sticker play in the afternoon

Did a jigsaw puzzle together

Tuesday afternoon: Did 3 sticker books with Jiale while Didi was napping. No morning play that day as I had a gynae appointment.

He asked to play with flour : )

Playing with Geomag

Hao Xue Bao talking pen

Wednesday morning paint play with marbles & other round items

New Chinese nursery rhyme sound book which just arrived in the mail

We definitely did a lot more than what the above pictures showed. Other than the main activity in the mornings, it was hard to remember to take photos each time we engaged in an activity. Other than the child-led activities we did, I used the book 'Playful Learning' as a guide to choose our library books and activities.

In the picture below of the library books we were reading last week, the Big Cats and Cheetahs books were a follow-up on our recent visits to the zoo and Jiale's interest in these animals, and the Monster Trucks book is his all-time interest. The other books were recommended in the Playful Learning book, which has themes such as 'Mathematicians at Work' (Black Dot Adventures), Scientific Investigations (Cloud Gazing, The Life Cycle of A Seed), Exploration of Art & Artists (Open-Ended Art Explorations), Growing Globally (Wake Up, World book on how children around the world live, My Map Book), Nurturing Young Authors (Making Lists), etc.

For most of the topics, we did not go very deeply into them. Some of the books were too advanced/wordy for Jiale, so we just read through. Mainly, it's a guide for me to introduce new ideas/concepts to him, so that we are not stuck on 'academic' topics. I did a few Themed Learning with Jiale before, but it's not often that he gets so 'obssessed' with a topic that it's worth a theme on its own. So in between such 'big' themes, I shall just do small bits here and there with him. If he shows more interest in anything, I will then go further with him. This method also allows me to have a clearer idea which books to borrow from the library, cos it's very difficult to go browsing with the boys in tow! Now I just reserve online and collect the books from the service counter.

For the Seeds topic, we grew a few green beans and the boys water them everyday. One of the seeds did not make it and I explained to Jiale that it did not get the nourishments (nutrients or sun or water) it needed and thus it died. For the Ten Black Dots book, I gave the boys black dot stickers of course :p

Extension of My Map Book - I drew the plan of the boys' bedroom. I could see the quietly amazed & incredulous look on Jiale's face as he watched his 'room' appear on the paper.. it was priceless.. the moment you know something has 'clicked' in a child' head : )