Tuckshop Day (Rehearsal)

In conjunction with Tuckshop Day, Papa has opened a temporary shop to let Sophie practice buying with coins. We take a lot of things for granted, we realised. Without addition and subtraction or understanding of numbers in their tens and hundreds, money is a difficult concept to grasp. Thus, Sophie has to make do with whatever undertanding she has got about numbers. Anyhow, she was relentless during her tuckshop day activity, according to her teachers in school. She apparently "bought" 2 cups of corn and several pieces of fish cakes from the stalls and gobbled everything up. Of course the teachers returned her money ($2) but I guess it must have been a good experience for her.

"G" Based Activity - Gummy Counting

We did a couple of counting with food but I could not document anything. Today, Papa was around to help. Sophie was still not able to count well but we are improving and hopefully she would get better as we move along with more creature counters.

"G" Based Activity - Counting Goldfish

I draw a set of fish bowl and scanned it before printing 10 copies. Then I found a relatively-easy-to-cut-out picture of goldfish and printed 55 copies. It took a few days to finish cutting out everything but I thought it was worth my effort as it helped Sophie learn counting.

She is quite resistant to counting and my impatience does not help at all. She does not feel good about counting and she always answers me fearfully. I guess this new method would make it less threatening for her.

"F" Based Activity - 3 Little Firefighters (Sorting By Shape/ Colour / Size)

After reading the books, I duplicated the fire fighters' uniform and let Sophie practice sorting the buttons before pasting them down permanently.

"F" Based Activity - Reading (Frogs, Feet, Fish & Firefighters)

We are not really in the mood for heavy duty sort of activities today, so we stuck to just reading and lazing around. Perhaps the weather played a part in our lethargy, or at least one could always hope it would not be permanent. From our "Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1" we picked out My Feet by Aliki, From Tadpole to Frog and What's It Like to Be a Fish? both by Wendy Pfeffer. The latter two are much too hard for Sophie to sit through so I merely summarized and showed her the pictures. For our "MathStart 1", we could only find 3 Little Firefighters by Stuart J. Murphy. Sophie was quite keen in the story but I think the concept of sorting needs to be explored a little further so I intend to extend it tomorrow.

"F" Based Activity - Frogs, Fish & Flowers Figures

I got inspiration to do this from an American blogger mummy some time ago when she was hosting "Open-ended Art". She called it "Number of the Day" if I have not mistaken. Basically, we can let the child pick a number (e.g.1 to 10) and put up the corresponding number of items (e.g. frogs in a tree, flowers in pots or even candles on a birthday cake). It was a lot of work on my part, not to mention the effort of getting Sophie to go through the counting activity every day.

I was a little disappointed that Sophie did not really get all excited or enthusiastic about this activity. I think she really dislikes counting. She ended up up all stressed out because I got frustrated with her lack of interest. After a week of doing this, I shelved the idea and started thinking of alternatives again.

But while it lasted, I actually like this activity very much. It involved Sophie in the counting actively and it looked attractive (at least to me). If only it worked for her as well.

"D" Based Activity - Dinosaurs Worksheets

We bought this set of Dinosaur Activity Pack very long time ago. I was hoping that Sophie would be more gender neutral in her interest then. As it turns out, her brain is programmed to be “female” and nothing we do would ever sway that.



This was the easiest activity in the pack – jig saw stickers. Sophie could identify the correct sticker to match with the given picture clue.



I thought she was pretty smart to assume that the dinosaurs and eggs are matched according to their colours. And I was very happy that she could hold a coloured pencil and drew lines relatively well. However, the second activity sheet with the dinosaur bones, was a lot harder for her. I guess she could not find similarities between each pair to consider them a match.



Sophie insisted that one of the “shadow” was a seal. No matter how I tried to explain, she refused to accept that it was really a dinosaur. Because of that, she totally lost interest in matching them.



Again, this was easy for her because of the matching colours and skin textures.


I was pleasantly surprised when Sophie could match the footprints to the dinosaur. I thought she would find it abstract. Apparently not for her.


This was the last activity sheet I gave her. It was quite easy because she only needed to point and count the eggs. I had a good laugh when she told me she wanted to crack the eggs to look for the dinosaurs inside.

"D" Based Activity - Books

Progress is slow with Sophie at home. She is still coughing and barely getting better from her flu so I stopped all kinds of challenging activities. We are so tired of fighting so we just compromise on tasks we find absolutely necessary or agreeable for us. Perhaps reading is one of the easiest and most acceptable activity for both of us. We can hide in our air-conditioned playroom or bedroom to past time.

Some time ago, we bought MathStart (Level 1) by Stuart J. Murphy for Sophie and she has always been quite fond of most of the stories. I like the subtle ways that Mathematics concepts are introduced and used in daily situations. Today, I let her pick a few titles she would like me to read to her and concentrated on Double the Ducks and Bug Dance, since we are still stuck with the letter "D".

Recently, I also sent Papa to September 21 to get Sophie Let's Read And Find Out Science (Stage 1). Although they are a wee bit too difficult for Sophie to appreciate fully, I believe she will eventually grow more interested and learn a thing or two. Some topics (books) are by nature easier to grasp than others. However, I tried to get her interested (at least in the illustrations) in Dinosaurs Big And Small by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and Ducks Don't Get Wet by Augusta Goldin. In fact, Papa was saying that this set is very educational and he has learnt quite a bit from reading them. Also, they are not purely non-fiction with tons of information, they are somewhat written in storylike style.

Unfortunately, they are quite expensive so we could only buy them in stages. We would have to hold back on Level 2 and 3 for MathStart and Stage 2 and 3 of Let's Read And Find Out Science. Then again, I wonder if they would ever be out of print... hmm...

Playing With Dinosaurs

"C" Based Activity - Counting Cookies

We continued with counting with “cookies” instead of “cars” today. Sophie was not too keen as usual, but with lots of smooches and hugs, she pulled through.



Sometimes I wonder if she really knows or she is just lucky. Maybe she just needs lots of practice.



She is so cheeky, she deliberately did something else when I asked her to count the “cookies”.



Sophie also wants to be involved in EVERYTHING we do. Although it is a happy problem, it still frustrates me at times.

Cookie Sequencing

I “stole” this idea from Cherrytots. They have picture (insects) cards of different sequences (e.g. ABABAB) and the children can match the sequence with real figurines (insects). Once they can match the sequence, they can then extend it.



I modified it to suit Sophie’s needs. I reckon that she could not really complete the task in Cherrytots partly because she was not interested. So, I took pictures of all the plastic cookies, printed and laminated them. Then I cut out each shape and pasted a magnetic strip behind it. Now I can create any sequence to test her.



However, it was really challenging to get Sophie interested in doing sequencing. She would deliberately create the same “ABAB” sequence using different cookie shapes.



Ultimately, I still had to make it a game in order to get her motivated. What a playful girl!

"C" Based Activity - Clock

New markers always excite Sophie. I have been saving these for her open-ended art box, but we never get it going so I decided to let her use them. She was really eager to test out each and every marker.



I let Sophie stain the clock face with watercolour so that it would not look cluttered with marker marks. It looked alright after it was all done with huge number stickers and foam hands.



I am only teaching her “o’clock” and “half past”. Everyday at Playschool (Australian Network), Sophie would learn time this way so I wanted to reinforce that.

"C" Based Activity - Counting Cars

I had intended to let Sophie count her toy cars, but she lined them up and formed a rainbow and started playing with them instead.



So, I used another way to get her counting. I wrote the numeral “1” and the word “one” on the left side of my small whiteboard and drew 1 dot on the right side. My little white board has a magnetic sheet at the back so I could attach it to my easel board. I think it provided Sophie with some boundaries and structure as she counted. Then I took out her magnetic cars and taught her counting.



We did “1” to “5” for this session because that is as long as Sophie’s attention allows her. She also needed a hug each time she got it right. Sometimes I feel that she is someone who really needs to be physically loved, especially when she is upset or fearful.

"L" Based Activity - Length

We printed handprints and footprints for measuring (length) today. I wanted to keep it simple and interesting for Sophie so I decided to forgo the ruler or measuring tape. Also, I picked familiar objects so that Sophie would find it more enjoyable.



It was not easy for her to grasp the concept of length although she could line the prints and count them.

Like I said, I wanted her to be exposed to the ideas and concepts, not master them... yet. Arousing her interest in learning is far more important to me than mastery at this point. In fact, she became very excited about measuring with a measuring tape (cannot read it though) after our session.

"B" Based Activitiy - Counting Bears

We are still learning to count. It is really frustrating for me when Sophie would not work with me.

"B" Based Activitiy - Beanbags

Sometimes, I wish Sophie was "easy" to teach like some children who learn by staring at flashcards. She is constantly teasing and playing so it takes a lot of patience and understanding on my part. On good days, we managed it well. On others, we ended up crying in each other's arms.

"P" Based Activity - Pipecleaners Counters (Graph)

I realised I am no longer an interesting teacher. I used to be very animated and creative in school but now, I seem to have lost half of my enthusiasm and energy. I find myself struggling not to sound bored. Maybe I am just losing my touch or perhaps I was never good in the first place. Anyhow, we kept the second half of her pipecleaner counters for today since Sophie was not able to concentrate for too long a period.

"P" Based Activities

We began our day with painting. I admit I was a little lazy this morning and I could not think of anything else easier. However, once we got our engine started, I found myself more motivated to do more challenging activities later on in the day. Sophie was still her usual self though. She just enjoyed the moment and play with her paint.



I have never made any play dough before, but I thought it would be great to make this our first attempt, especially since I bought a nice stainless steel mixing bowl last week just for this purpose. Of course, it really helped that I got the recipe from Through The Eyes Of Children.

This was the first time I let Sophie participate in "cooking" because I am always paranoid that she might hurt herself at the stove. She actually loved it. I guess it felt like something very "adult" to her. We were supposed to wait for the dough to cool before kneading it, but we were too eager to wait that long.





I thought it is worth mentioning that Sophie really hates yucky, sticky and rough textures. When the dough was nice and warm, she liked it because they were more or less stuck together. However, the moment I put in some fingerpaint, the dough became all gooey and difficult to knead. Sophie definitely could not handle that.





In the end, I had to mix all the different coloured dough together so that it would be more manageable for her. Even then, I had to coach her before she could knead the dough and enjoy playing with it.





So what could I possibly do with a huge lump of blue play dough? I shaped it into an oval shape before sending Sophie off for her nap. I guess I needed some time to think. Aha! After her nap, we used the dough to make a porcupine with pipecleaners quills.





As for the remaining pipecleaners, we cut them up and created a graph for counting. We only managed to do 5 colours because Sophie found it quite boring. Frankly, so did I.

5 Little Monkeys & Mr Crocodile

Sophie’s teacher at Cherrytots recited this fingerplay song last week and she seemed to like it very much. I did not manage to learn it well because I only heard it twice. Anyway, Sophie did not seem to mind at all especially with the laminated pictures of monkeys and Mr Crocodile to fiddle around with. I placed magnetic strips behind them and used her blackboard as a storyboard.



It was Sophie’s turn to have her way with the props after we had recited the rhyme. I think she might have enjoyed this part more… It is interesting that she has somehow developed interest in songs, rhymes and fingerplays over the past few months.

"M" Based Activities - Mice, Monkey And M&Ms

We made two different animals that begin with “m”. At first, I only wanted to make a mouse, but we ended up with a big mouse and a baby mouse. Then we made a monkey mask.

Then we feasted on M&Ms as we learnt to count 1 to 5. Sophie was sneaky and she tried to eat without counting but I was quick too!