The Bub in the Belly

One of the first sets of playdough we had came with a plastic fridge and all sorts of tools to shape the playdough. Ryan enjoyed that and we played with it regularly. It was a nightmare to clean though. All the little bits that were stuck in the crevices of the fridge and in the various tools drove me nuts. The perfectionist in me would be cleaning and scraping and saving every last bit of it. There would also be little bits everywhere on the floor or on the table or wherever. Let me repeat - it was a nightmare to clean up.

We only played with two small tubs because I refused to open any more than that. I also disliked mixing the colours up because that would mean that I would have to get new playdough for the next session. So we never made all those wonderful replicas of hamburgers and sandwiches and whatever with all the different colours in one creation. I prefered to keep things open-ended so our creations were usually some shapes and whatever fantastical things we imagined up on our own. I wish that I could say that they looked pretty but they were all mono-coloured and boring, heh heh.

Despite my efforts, we accumulated more and more playdough sets. Even as I thought that we were finally going to finish up a tub of playdough (yay!), I got saddled with five more tubs (!). I just couldn't keep up. It seemed as though everyone we knew gifted Ryan a set. We even ended up with a second plastic fridge which was identical to the one we had. As much as we appreciated the gesture behind the gifts, we couldn't feel excited every time the gift wrap revealed yet another plastic playdough contraption. My anti-excess mentality kicked in and I got quite turned off - how much playdough do you need right?

Then there were all those bright plastic toys that came with the playdough - the more there were, the less I wanted Ryan to play with them. We opened up the Sesame Street themed sets, like the Elmo that you see in these photos and, I think, one dinosaur themed one, but left the rest unopened (till today). I still restricted the actual playdough to two or three tubs and by that, I mean the original two or three tubs that we started out with.


When Ryan started preschool (at 3.5 years old), one of the things that greeted him on his first day was a table of playdough. I was so happy to see it because it meant that I could pack away the playdough at home!  There were tubs and tubs of playdough at home, most of them unopened, and several plastic playdough sets. I happily packed them all away.

Of course, I was in denial. Because the container wasn't going to vanish overnight and I couldn't just throw it away.

So when babydoll was old enough (ie. not mouthing everything in sight), I dragged out the container and opened it up for her. This time I had no problem opening up more tubs and mixing colours and in fact I fully encouraged it, because that's the way to use it up the darn thing, right? It's still a nightmare to clean, but I'm good with that because now I throw away the little pesky bits instead of stressing about making sure I collect all of the bits to keep for the next session. We still have a long, long way to go before we get through all our tubs of playdough, though. A long, long way.


And yes, it is still a great experience for the children. I remember Ryan taking some time to get used to it; now he handles it with no fuss at all. Babydoll also had an uneasy first session with it, but took to it much faster than her brother.

At the moment, I keep a tub of playdough out at all times, within the children's reach, so they have access to it at all times, together with a tray of shape cutters, rollers, and things like popsicle sticks, googly eyes, straws, feathers, chenille sticks, lego blocks, etc. Once in a while, I will drag out the big container with all the plastic equipment for them to have a go but I find that I'm much happier and more willing to initiate a playdough session if we don't have the plastic equipment around. I prefer having the children go back to basics, creating without boundaries, and working with other "non-playdough" equipment. I feel that I can really see the benefits of playdough this way.


So you see, sometimes it's not the children who need time to adjust and to learn. Sometimes the parent needs time too, hah!

On this occasion, she started sucking on the straws, as if testing to see if anything would happen!


I especially love that she placed a yellow bumble bee on her handiwork. Lovely! I wonder if she imagined the bee among the flowers that she'd planted - hohoho, aren't I being presumptuous here!

When she pulls on the tabs, each one yields a unique surprise!


Thank you, Alicia!

Recently, I re-started Ryan's math work. I re-looked the activities that I offered to Ryan and I tried to understand why a particular activity may or may not convey the intended lesson. Take, for example, the basic counting exercise - present some items or a picture of some items to the child and ask him to count the items. This is a typical activity and I'm sure that you see it all the time.

I had initially thought that if Ryan could count off seven items where there were seven items, that meant that he understood seven as a quantity. I was wrong. Chanting one to seven in such a situation was merely rote counting. Simply rattling off the numbers in sequence does not mean that he learns quantity. In the way that he recited one, two, three, four, to seven as he pointed to each item, he could have equally have recited do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. Or red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Or something even more random - Peter, Paul, Mary, Joseph, Ryan, Richard, Rachel. You get what I mean?

For writing skills, I have been thinking about introducing copywork but was hesitant because I was afraid that Ryan might find it too boring. I was also not sure how to start off - with one word? with two? - and so I wanted to read up more on it first.

As it turned out, he was given some Shichida homework which provided me with the opportunity to try some copywork with him. He was supposed to write down five ways to save electricity. After we discussed the topic, I wrote down the five ways on a piece of paper and asked him to copy them onto the Shichida homework sheet. Some of the sentences were pretty long, like "Switch off lights when you leave the room" but he kept going at a steady pace and finished all five sentences in one sitting.


Ryan was very pleased with his work! I'll show you the completed work when we get it back from his sensei.


In case you're wondering, Ryan is wearing a Super Grover T-shirt with an attached cape, which we bought from Universal Studios.

In other Shichida news, here's what Ryan's sensei wrote in his term report for last term:

"Dearest Ryan, you have amazed Teacher Hirin with your ability to recite different sets of linking memory every month! Wow! Your memory is moving so fast like a bullet train! You demonstrate superior work in writing activities, addition matrix, understanding composition of numbers and able to draw simple drawings too! Teacher Hirin enjoys your little conversations with Mummy and I'm more happy to see when you are happy with the achievement you made in class! You are shining bright like a star, Ryan! Hip Hip Hooray for Ryan! :) "

Ryan had a bit of an upset in his first Shichida class this term (which was two weekends ago). Towards the end of the class, he was returning the materials to his sensei and after packing them into the plastic packet, he gave it a little push. He didn't expect the plastic packet to be so smooth, I think. The packet shot quickly across the table and landed on his sensei's desk (he was sitting right in front of her). Although he gave it only a light push, it seemed as though he had shoved it forcefully. His sensei remarked that he should have been more gentle. He got upset at the thought that he had upset her (she wasn't actually upset, but Ryan is quite fond of her). I had to talk to him quietly and calm him down. I told him that he could apologise to her and things would be all right. He was too upset at first but eventually agreed, so, after the class, he went up to her straightaway and said sorry. He was so contrite that he didn't want to collect a sticker, although his sensei offered him one. Ah, my little sensitive soul.

Ok, that's all for now. Come back tomorrow to see what Rachel has been up to!

Easter Sunday was a family day for us. Ryan went for swimming class with Richard while I went shopping with Rachel at Spotlight. The boys met up with us at Plaza Singapura after swimming class and we spent a good part of the afternoon having lunch and shopping there.

Back home, we just hung out and relaxed, doing whatever the littles wanted to do. Ryan wanted to try out his new stencils which we picked up from Popular Bookstore on Friday.

Yesterday was quite a nice day for Ryan too. After violin class, he attended a birthday party of one of his classmates, which was held at The City at Liang Court. After that, we went to IKEA for lunch and some shopping. Back home, Richard and I sorted our massive CD collection while the two littles played around us. Then out for dinner and back home for an early night.

A reader asked about the addition cards and counting cubes that Ryan was using in one of the photos in Friday's post. The addition cards are from this pack published by Trend Enterprises which I got for RM4.50 in Malaysia. I bought the subtraction and the multiplication packs too. I'm not sure where you can get it in Singapore although I know that you can get it online from a number of sites. In any case, the equations are really basic, so I suppose you could simply write your own! I used these because I wanted Ryan to get used to the format of vertical equations.


The counting cubes which Ryan was using are these 2 cm cubes from this Connect-a-Cube set which I bought from Growing Fun. There are ten colours and ten cubes of each colour. The cubes take a bit of effort for Ryan to connect and disconnect, which I feel is great for building up strength in his fingers. We actually have a variety of counters that Ryan uses for math; this set is just one in our collection.

It's Good Friday! How did you spend it? We had a quiet, peaceful day. Some friends invited us for a morning picnic at the beach but Richard had a meeting in Johor Bahru in the morning and I didn't feel like venturing out so we declined and I stayed home with the littles. The main reason is that Ryan has been doing some serious toilet training, meaning we're not putting him in diapers, and I didn't want to have to go searching for a toilet at the beach while still hanging on to babydoll.

Richard left early in the morning and spent 2.5 hours stuck in traffic getting to his meeting. He was back in time for lunch, so we still had half the day with him.

Anyway, I tried to make good use of the morning at home by giving Ryan some stuff to work on.

Here he is, working on his addition.

Ryan did some mazes with Richard when Richard got home. That was about all the "academic" stuff that we did. Ryan spent most of the time playing with various sets of alphabets and numbers. There was also some reading and some imaginative play with a cardboard box. Lots of talking and singing. And then there was this -




 Hahaha, it was a really nice way to spend a morning. Hope yours was just as great.

Hello, how was your weekend? We had a fairly quiet weekend at home. I took advantage of the slowness to undertake a little sewing project for Rachel, but I haven't got a decent photo of it, will share when I do.

I had a gala dinner to attend on Friday night. I slipped into a slinky gown with a train and felt glamourous while Richard was left alone to fend for himself with our two children. I didn't get any SOS signals and I didn't have to rush home, so - job well done!

Some quick updates:

Rachel has been doing a half-flip throughout the past week. Lying flat on her back, she now turns over onto her side easily. Pretty soon, she will plop over onto her tummy! Exciting!

As with Ryan, I do not initiate "tummy-time" with Rachel. I simply place her on her back on a mattress, trusting that she will get onto her tummy in her own time, through her own process of self-discovery. There is lots of research which explains why parent-initiated "tummy-time" is not good (and incidentally, Montessori does not recommend parent-initiated "tummy-time" either). Read this excellent article, if you are interested. Among other things, it says, "When we place babies in positions that they are not yet able to achieve on their own, we may place them at risk of injury, of developing poor co-ordination and posture, and equally importantly, we risk cutting off their own inner agenda, and their self initiated exploration." Do watch the video of baby Liv in that article - excellent!

As for Ryan, he has been doing more jigsaw puzzles lately. The one in the photo above is a 25-piece puzzle from Orchard Toys called Dolls House. 25 pieces is a very comfortable size for him right now, he can complete it in a blink of an eye. We have introduced him to 54-piece puzzles, which he can still do, taking a longer time of course. He doesn't like to look at the picture provided for guidance; he usually just goes by colour, shape, etc. and maybe his gut feel?

I wanted to share this particular puzzle because we also use it to play "I Spy". I have been playing "I Spy" with Ryan when we are in the car and when we are just walking about outside. I play it as a phonics game - I ask Ryan, "I spy with my little eye, something that starts with /k/". Richard incorporated the game into this puzzle by "spying" objects in the puzzle and getting Ryan to point them out. For example, in the photo, Ryan is pointing out a dog. We also use it to talk about different rooms in a house - kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc. - so, it's really quite useful.

I haven't posted about Ryan's home learning activities for a while now. We are in the midst of figuring out how everything fits together now that he is attending pre-school (and sleeping much earlier) and we have not found our rhythm yet. Nevertheless, we are doing what we can and the fun continues rolling on.

Here's a little snippet of our Chinese language activities.

Revising numbers from 1 to 10.

Matching Lego bricks with the Chinese characters for colours.

 
I haven't got any photos of our other activities, so this is all for now. I'll try to get photos before I update again.