Tania's Homeschool September Recap

Pheeew...Ever since Tania's Birthday, our life was one full hectic routines. We got our cousin sister wedding at our house just 1 week after Tania's Birthday. On top of that, our Language center is in full swing, it was end of the terms for my students at Polytechnic SOOO... in the end... I fell sick. The hectic day took it's toll on Tania's learning schedule. we didn't get to do as much as I hoped to but we were able to sneaked some sessions through out the day. So here is a recap of our learning this month.

Learning About Light and Dark - Source of Light

Tania always loves doing shadow puppet with candle light during the night when our city was out of power for few hours (it happens a lot). So that morning she helped me to hung some laundry on our little patio when she discover her shadows. We discussed about shadows, what made shadow, about source of light (sun, lamp, candle etc) also talk about how and why shadows look big, long. tall etc depending on the distance and angle of the object from/to the light source. But bottom line is... she loved her shadow dance.

Learning Numbers

 We still continuing with her session on numbers. Tania has mastered the alphabet and currently being introduce to letter sound which will lead to reading. So now is the perfect time to harness her number skills. I mentioned and showed the counting puzzle on my previous post and we continue to use it in different ways. Instead of matching the center (number) piece to the pictures of things. We took the center piece out so she can do sorting and ranking. She likes the idea and want to 'play' it over and over again. She also use her imagination and took her soring and lining up as the keyboard (piano) and pretend to play a tune. She is getting the hang of numbers and we are now begin to embark on Addition.

Point of View

We have a small pocket camera that we allow Tania to use. So one day, Tania was fussy and was not in the mood for play learning. She wanted to play with the camera. I did not pushed her to learn So I set her a task to take pictures of things that she finds interesting and important to her. After 1 hour of her going here and there in the house while I finished my work. She came back and said, "mommy I think I have all that I need".

She actually took many good shots (not blury and good focus). Her hand is more steady now. We then imported the pictures to my laptop. I asked her to tell me the reason beging every picture she took. I am ever so impressed by her articulation, her thoughts and her wisdom. Later, I told her to pick 4 of her most favorite the pictures which I will share on my blog out of the 137 pictures she took. (yeah!! trigger happy finger). After a while she said, "Aww MOM! 4 is NOT enough! Can we have 6? Six is a good number". I told her that that was a great idea. And she happily picked the above 6 pictures. Here are the reason/story behind her pick of the bunch

• Top left : My feet - I need my feet to go everywhere. My shoes will be sad if they don't have my feet. Especially my pink Cinderella shoes. it can make me run and walk and run very fast when I wear  my running shoes. 
• Top Middle : Your (Mommy's) Hand - because you always scratch my back when I am going to sleep at night. You can use your hand to make me cookies and fried noodles. I love your hands mom because I love youu... **she made puppy face*** AWWW
• Top right : Your wallet, the candle and tissue. You put your money in the wallet so we can buy food and clothes... AND shoes! We also need candle so we can play shadow puppet when the electricity went out. And the tissue is when I have yuck things in my nose or when I spill something on the floor
• Bottom Left : Snow globe - because I can see snow... like in Brighton. They are so pretty. But you said I cannot play with it if there's no adult to help me holding it. 
• Bottom Middle : Daddy - I really really love my daddy. He drive Nuning (our motor cycle) and take us every where and take me swimming and carry me on his shoulder and he's very very good at reading me books.
• Florescent Star Sticker : it's my pet star. It fell down from the sky and broke one of it's star leg. But actually daddy and I get it (won it) when I play the fishing game at the mall.

Dealing with Fear

Ever since her 4th Birthday on Sept 8th, Tania entered the 'Creepy Crawlies' phase. She is absolutelly terrified of every single creature even little ants. Simon and I think it is because she is more aware of her surrounding. We tried every day to comfort but also to help coax that fear out of her.
One morning, Tania screamed out loud and was stuck to our sofa just because a tiny spider was in her path when she was going to the bedroom.
I went and sat with her. She hugged me and trembled and we sat there watching the tiny spider. After a while, I asked her what makes her scared of the spider? She said it was because she cannot see the face. She doesn't know which one is the face to look at.
So I took a glass and a piece of paper and caught the tiny spider. Tania scrambled to the other end of the sofa and started crying. I sat on the other end of the sofa just holding the glass. I told her to clam down and that I wont gave the spider to her. We are just going to look at the spider from this distance.
I told her that she is much bigger than this spider and that the spider is more afraid of her. I told her that the spider is really scared now in the glass. It wants to go home to it's family. Tania started to listen. Then I inched closer to let her look at it. Then I showed her the spider face. Every time she react positively, I inched closer until I was right next to her. In the end, she was brave enough to hold the top of the glass. After few minutes her fear is gone and she wanted to hold the glass all by herself. I am so proud of her...

Right!... Those are some of the highlights of this month...