Crafts: Projects for August 2010

We did more crafts for the month of August...


Rainbow - We happened to see a rainbow outside our window one afternoon, and ever since, Ian started to say "rainbow" whenever we looked out of the window at the sky.  Hence, this project was planned, to show him the colours of a rainbow.  Ian helped with cutting and tearing up the paper pieces, and he got to do one colour a day.  At the end of the project, he gets to paste the cottony clouds on.  He knew all the colours, except for indigo and violet.  This piece of work took us about 2 weeks to complete!

Hand-print Sheep  - A very simple project.  Ian helped with pasting the wool on the sheep.

Sun -  I traced Ian's little hand onto construction paper and cut them out.  Ian painted the paper plate yellow and helped to paste on the hand prints.  This little project has added some 'sunshine' to his room.

Useful reference for Family Crafts.

Development Assessment: 29 Months

We had our second visit to the Child Development doctor on 27 August.  The doctor was someone new to us because the previous one was away for this period.  We had to go briefly with her Ian's development all over again.

She did a simple assessment of Ian by showing some age-appropriate pictures, asking him to stack some blocks, and testing his responses to what she said.  The doc thought that he was doing OK, and told us to continue with the speech and occupational therapist, and then see her again in December.

On 31st, we visited the speech and occupational therapists.  The former did an assessment for Ian to test where his language and comprehension skills stood.  She showed him some pictures and he could answer most of it.  However, she noted that he could not comprehend when she used words ending with the '-ing' form.  Our homework was to reinforce his language and comprehension by spending some time on a daily basis, to play with him and teach him new things, by emphasizing and repetition, and by keeping our sentences short and precise.

The session with the occupational therapist did not go as smoothly though.  Perhaps it was Ian's nap time then, and hence, Ian was quite uncooperative.  The therapist began by drawing out a simple timetable to show Ian what he was to expect - a few minutes of table work (matching game), followed by a physical activity (which Ian loved), followed by table work again (drawing and colouring), followed by another physical activity (which Ian loved), and table work again (geometric stacker).  Ian could hardly pay attention at the table, until it was getting a bit frustrating to get him to complete his task towards the end.

Anyway, some quick statistics of Ian which the nurse took during our visit:
Weight: 14.5kg
Height: 94cm

We were glad that he had passed the 14kg mark convincingly this time!

Kumon Workbooks - Another 2 Accomplishments!

Ian has completed another 2 Kumon workbooks - More Let's Colour, and Let's Sticker and Paste for the past month.

His colouring skills did not seem to be improving after the 39 pages of exercises.  I wonder if he is tired of colouring, or because he lacks the concentration?

On the other hand, it was easy to go through the stickers and pasting workbook with him as he enjoyed doing the exercises.  At the beginning, he was not able to paste the stickers properly.  As we went through the exercises with him, his pasting skills showed improvement as he tried to align the stickers as he pasted.

The workbooks were rather costly, but it was worthwhile to see his fine motor skills improving so quickly.

Cheap Homeschooling

I read a book on teaching Montessori at home and found some of the exercises very interesting.  Taking reference from the book, I created my own DIY number rods (the real ones retail from $50-70 depending on the size).  Effort and cost?  About 2 hours of a Saturday night, and less than $2 for a corrugated board.  The rest of the materials were lying around at home (markers, scrapbooking scraps, glue).

We also got him a pair of tongs and fluffy balls for him to practise his dexterity with fingers. Surprisingly, he was able to use the tongs quite well, and thus we decided to introduce the Combi learning chopsticks.  Here is a short video of him using it (you will need to tilt your head a little)...

Ian's First Trip To The Zoo

It was a cloudy morning and Hubby decided to go ahead with a trip to the Zoo, that we had been talking about for a while.  Since Ian knows the names of quite a number of animals, we thought that it was good to let him see the real thing.

We reached there at around 9 plus and the carpark was pretty packed.  We parked the very last slot in the area under the guard's direction and walked our way in.  There was already a huge crowd, to our chagrin.  I quickly queued up for the tickets, while the men went to buy breakfast.  We had a quick bite and entered the zoo, while Ian ate the toast along the way.  Strangely, everybody was crowding around the entrance, and hence, we quickly made our way inwards.

Our first destination was the boat ride.  It was a breezy cruise around the reservoir, but we probably would not take it again.  The ride took us to nearby the kids zone.  Ian managed to feed some greens to the goats and he really enjoyed the attention from the goats.  We proceeded to the water play area, changed him into his swim wear and let him play in the water area for quite some time.  As always, he enjoyed water play thoroughly. 

When it was near to lunch hour, Hubby pulled him out and we searched around for a place to eat.  We walked aimlessly around before finding the Ah Meng restaurant.  Ian was tired from all the play in the morning and ate only a little of my chicken rice.  The food portion was small, and Hubby had to buy a second round of food. 

After lunch, we boarded the tram to tour around the zoo.   We saw a few of the familiar animals in the zoo and after that, spent around an hour on the tram while Ian slept on his Daddy's laps. 

For our last stop, we visited the Australian Outback station and saw 2 small kangaroos and an emu.  It was too hot and all the 3 of us were exhausted.  We called it a day and left at 3 plus.

Verdict of the trip: we would probably need to find more outings like this to build up our staminas!  But it was a good exposure to Ian to let him see some real animals, instead of on paper or on TV.

Shopping At Expo

It was pretty worth going to Expo this weekend, because there were Borders and Metro on sales.  We grabbed some books for Ian, all for $53+ and we received a $10 voucher for our next patronage.

Ian enjoyed flipping through the Big Bug Book and Mighty Machines, as they were both pop-up books.  I had to constantly remind him not to tear the pop-ups off the page!  I wonder how long the books will last with this little curious, rough guy?  (I have also started to buy more paperbacks and hardbacks for him instead of board books, since Ian has displayed some ability to flip through the pages without tearing.)

I happened to see the Scholastic reading line book set, and hence added it to my shopping cart as well.  I was surprised at the simplicity of the books and two of them in the series are pure picture books.

We were at the Metro sale as well, and did not buy many things because it was the usual things on sale.  Crocs was on sale as usual, but as Ian had just upgraded to size 10/11 last week, we decided that there was no hurry to stock up another pair as the previous one lasted him for over a year.  But, most importantly of all, the prices were not compelling enough for us to stock up.  Due to a cranky toddler, I only managed to find a pair of home shorts for Ian for $2.50 (cheaper and better quality than my neighbourhood stores), a nursery rhymes disc for $3, and Hubby got himself a pack of socks and snacks.  I also spotted some anime classic series going for $7.50, but eventually held myself back as I probably would not have the time to watch!

Cheeeeseee

Ian had a potluck party in school this morning, and had to dress up in red and white clothings.  His teachers painted his face for the National Day celebrations in school.  They had also made a hat that look like the national flag.

Ian had probably learnt to love posing for photographs from school, as he said "cheese" whenever I whipped out the camera.

Another mischievous shot...