Tot Learning Lesson Plan (26th Sept to 16th Oct 2010) – Part 1

~Yvette is 2 years 4 mths~

We took 3 weeks to complete (our first lesson) all the learning activities I planned for Yvette for 2 weeks. Mainly because Yvette was unwell, as well as I am still figuring out a lot at my end on what to teach her.

I am not leaving the ABC out. It will be part of it. The ABC will mainly on worksheet. (To practice her pre-writing skill.) I have removed the Alphabet Activity Theme and was replaced by two lapbooks. (What is lapbooking?) I am using Thematic approach to teach Yvette this round. I also want to focus on  Pre-writing (which I think she is ready now), Reading, Learn thru play and not forgetting the practical life.

Lapbook Topic 1: Are you my mother? By P.D.Eastman

This is our first lapbook topic. Yvette loves this book very much. She loves the ending particularly – The baby bird finally get to see his mother. Yes, the main character of this book is bird and so, our lapbook is all about bird. I have learnt so much about Birds while teaching Yvette. (Remember I mention before I am someone without much general knowledge.)

It is quite easy to find material on this topic as there are already a site providing all learning material. I got most of the learning material here and expand the content myself. (You can also find this site with more details write up about the lapbook using the materials provided by the Homeschoolshare.) (Note: I did not use all the material provided.)

Here is our lapbook which we took about 2 weeks to complete.

It quite a comprehensive lesson plan for first timer like me. I simple love the content after it is done.

We did a nursery rhymes – Two Little Black Birds. I use my two index figure as bird. As I sing, I used the table as the wall, I placed my two (bend) index figures and pretend – one is Peter and one is Paul. (Hope you all can picture what I am trying to do.)

A list of new words were introduce to Yvette. I am quite sure she had not encountered all these words. Perhaps she have noticed some as not all are difficult and they are Flap, Glide, Wings, Feather, Fast, High, Beak, Vent, Gizzard & Collar. Out of these 10 words, there are 3 that is totally new to me.

Vent – I didn’t know it is referring to the small hole in the body of a fish or a bird through which waste or eggs come out.)

Collar – I didn’t know it is referring to an area around an animal’s or bird’s neck that is a different colour from the rest of its body.)

Gizzard – This is totally new to me. It is referring to the stomach of a chicken or other bird.

Yes I am learning too. And I am impress Yvette could remember the word Feather and she could tell me F for Feather after she finished the art work using the feather to paint!

I didn’t show Yvette this picture. As I think it is too hard for her now. I will definitely revisit this lapbook in the future. But something interesting I found in this site. You might want to do this.

Picture taken from this site.

We did simple activity like colouring and numbering the birds. And Yvette traced the two ducks from the Stencil Book I brought not long ago.

We did some difficult one.

There is a puzzle game in this lapbook. It about The animals & Their babies.  I added a flap teaching Yvette the animal and their babies.

Yvette doesn’t has much difficulty in getting the Maths Pattern right. So far, I think she is quite good with it. We did another activity about patterning too.

Yvette could identified two birds for this learning exercise. Rooster and Owl. Good enough.

Something interesting about Bird that can’t fly. I know Penguin and Ostrich but I didn’t know they can’t fly. @_@ Anyway, I keep it to two for now. There are more birds that can’t fly and they are Emu, Cassowary, Rhea & Kiwi.

We read 5 books, in fact 6 books for this topic.

Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman is the everyday book D read for Yvette before she sleeps. She knows the book very well by now.

Wow Said The Owl by Tim Hopgood is a good book illusrating Owl has different life style –  Owl sleep in the Day and wake up in the night. This is a good book that introducing the concept of describing and identifying objects using their colours. It cover the rainbow colour too. In fact, a good book for student who write essay at P1? (P1 starts essay writing? I am not sure.)

Sky was a warm and wonderful pink in the morning; Yellow sun; White fluffy clouds; Bright blue sky; The Leaves on her tree were green; Pretty red butterflies; Orange Flowers; Clouds turned gray.

Penguins by Liz Pichon is about Penguins at the zoo lead predictable lives—swimming, eating fish, playing penguin games, looking at people.

Birds by Kevin Henkes is a hit. It is the inspiration for the art work Yvette did using feather above. Thru this book and together with the Little Hand book – Birds (that was brought long ago), Yvette could identify the difference between Flamingo and Ostrich.

The little hand book –  Birds and Let’s look at Animal Wings are more like a reference book for me to show Yvette. But she really loves the hand book a lot.

There is one book I failed to get it listed by this mother in one of her entry.

There is no right or wrong way to lapbook. Try it. It is a lot of work but then it is fun. It is about everything, anything!

Geography: Learning Country using Lapbook – Austria.

My objective on teaching Yvette Geography at this age is not for her to tell me about the location of the country. I just want to show her some pictures related to the country and I just need her to learn the flag. We will definitely revisit all these as she gets older.

Simple?

Anyway, we covered Austria and Yvette could tell me Austria and 奥地利，every time I flashed her the card. Again, good enough.

Step By Step Reading Plan for Yvette

I know Yvette could identify many words now but yet I think I should buy some early reader book to boost up her confident and as well as making a habit for her. So, I got the 10 books from Red Train Readers for Yvette. These books come with appealing illustrations and simple-to-read text will help Yvette to read confidently to me.

I got these (10) books from Popular for S$2.79 each after 10% discount. I can also get similar books from the Thomson Plaza book store for only S$1 but I couldn’t wait as I am doing new learning curriculum with Yvette. (Anyway, the book store is back according to Sam at Thomson Plaza. Hopefully I got time to go down to get these books for Yvette.)

Let’s make Cookies is the first book and Yvette can read it to me without much of my help. The words cover in this book (including 3 words from the title) are as follow: Roll, The, Dough, Cut, Out, Squares, Circles, Ovals, Triangles, Rectangles, Hearts, and Stars, Into, Oven, Of, And, My Mouth, Yum.

Yvette often leave out the “s” when she read to me. Think this will take awhile for her to read them correctly.

Anyway, this is a long post and I couldn’t believe I have covered so much in 3 weeks. Of course, all these learning activities were done in piecemeal. I help Yvette to revise the lapbook while working with her on Austria on the third week. For reading, we read all the books I have listed here for 3 weeks and was really surprise Yvette had the attention span for it.

There will be part 2 coming.

Stay tuned!

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