Activity Books Completed in December 2013

#1. Chinese Enrichment for Nursery

I bought this book from an expo fair a while back, and Ian had been doing it on and off, over the span of a few months.  His chinese at the beginning of the year was rather weak, and he could not really recognize the words when he first started to work on this book.  At almost the end of the year, we could see that he had greatly improved in his language, and could recognize many more words in this book.  The book focused mainly on words recognition, IQ games, and tracing simple words such as one to ten in chinese characters.

#2. Kumon More Let's Sticker and Paste!
Another book that Isabelle loved.  She appeared not to like the sticky feeling of liquid glue on her fingers, and demanded to wash her hands once she had glue on her fngers.  I let her try using glue stick and it seemed better.  She was still unable to control the amount of glue to squeeze out on the paper though.

#3. CQ Sticker Game Book (Age 2-3)
One of the 3-book sticker books series.  Unlike Ian, Isabelle did not display a great interest in sticker books.  At each sitting, she could only keep focused on one or two exercises.

#4. Chinese Book of Cutting for Preschoolers
A book similar to the Kumon's series of cutting exercises, which Isabelle enjoyed tremendously.  Needless to say, she completed the entire book in a matter of days.

Enrichment Classes - A Roundup

Another roundup of the classes that the 2 little ones are currently attending, or will be attending in the coming year.

For Ian:

1. Piano - His last group class has ended mid of this month, and he will be moving on to a 1-to-1 lesson from February next year.  He has attended a trial class with the new teacher, and it seems that his foundation is on the weaker side, considering that he has attended the group class for almost 2 years.
2. Creative Writing - He has completed the pre-creative writing class that lasted from June to November, and has attained the teacher's recommendation to progress to the creative writing class in January.  As the course is meant for primary 1 students, the teacher warned that he may have difficulty in writing as compared to the other students in the class who are true P1 kids.  Nevertheless, it is still a good exposure for him.
3. Abacus - This is the beginning of the last term for him.  I think I can hear his relief that his most torturous class is going to end soon.  Ironically, we are starting to see an improvement in his abacus after we made up our mind to end the agony.
4. Junior Math @ TLL - Since we were not seeing any result in his mathematical concepts after putting him through more than 1 year in the abacus class, we have scouted around for another alternative to help to build up his foundation.  At long last, we found him a place in the super popular/expensive enrichment school.  After just 4 lessons, it does appear to us that his concepts have improved a little.  And we are pleasantly surprised that the school teaches them (K2 kids) symmetry and measurements in the first 2 or 3 classes.

For Isabelle, she is currently still in the HGR program.  Ian has to give up his HGR class in exchange for the new class at TLL, but he is enjoying the new class just as much.  And he volunteers to do the homework everyday, which is such a total opposite reaction to his abacus homework.

Here was his welcome gift from the first lesson - ingenious!  The balloon dog appeared to be walking as you dragged it across the floor.  Isabelle loved this balloon so much that she snatched it from him the moment he walked out the class with it.  Unfortunately for Ian, he only got to play with it when she was in bed.

A hard-earned gift after sitting in the class for close to 2 hours.

[Crafts] Alex Toys - Paper Bag Puppets

Both kids got off school after lunch today, so I let them entertain themselves with a box of paper bag puppet craft kits from Alex Toys.

While Isabelle needed plenty of help from me, Ian could do the work all by himself.  Since Isabelle could not finish hers/lost interest to finish them, Ian gave his assistance and finished up the rest of it all.  The box contained 5 puppets, and it took them about 2-3 hours to complete.

And now, my boy is targetting at another box of craft kits in my stash...