Upon drawing open the curtains, he pointed to his kindergarten nearby and said "That's my school. I cannot go to school because I'm sick. I cannot go to school." Indeed, he didnt go to school on Friday because he vomitted the night before. That's usually not a good sign.
I'd rather keep him home one more day instead of exposing him further to other kids' virus and germs. I'm praying hard for him to be able to go to school the whole of next week. I want to check out Mrs K, another teacher who's teaches 4yr olds, who's been there a long time and is supposed to be good. She's teching together with Mrs A next week.
If Mrs K is indeed good, I'll try to request for my son to be in her class. I hope they'll consider my request in the first place. They dont seem to be very "customer friendly".
We started the day productively, having done a few activities before he even had his breakfast. Mid-morning though, he spotted and wanted his dump truck. Since he's not so well, I allowed him to play with it for about an hour.
These were some of the activities we did on Friday:
He wanted to read his "Playful Pals" book of the "Now I'm Reading!" series. It's by Innovative Kids and more interesting than the Scholastic series. He remembered which books he's read in the series and didn't want to repeat those. I assisted him in sounding out the letters, while he blended them. Perhaps the size of the words were a bit too small for him.
It's highly repetitive, but in a good way. I like the way they've made it colourful, silly at times, focuses on a chosen vowel throughout a single book, includes rhyming, has minimal sight words, has guidance for parents, and has stickers as reward for reading it by himself.
Many thanks to Elly for loaning us her girls' big barrel of blocks. I'm able to do much more with 100 pieces than with his current 30 pieces.
Fine motor - there's improvement in the sense that he was able to place the triangular pieces (roof) on top of a very high stack of blocks without it tumbling over. He's also able to stack the blocks higher.
Block development play - he hasn't moved on to build bridges yet. It's still pretty much stacking one on top of another. But for the first time, I noted that he placed two cylinderical pieces side by side, to support a arch piece. (see photo below)
Creativity/imaginative play - he built houses. Some were just "single storey" houses and others were higher. All capped on the top with either triangular or semi circle pieces for the roof.
Measurement - Having built several tall blocks of different heights, I took the opportunity to explain the concept of which numbers are bigger than other numbers. Counting the blocks of the tallest and shortest towers, I explain that the tallest has the most blocks and the shortest the least, stating their respective quantities. Then concluding that x number is larger than y number.
I hope that he ultimately understands the number line better e.g. that numbers further down the number line are larger than the numbers early on; that if you add one, then you jump one digit down the number line etc.
I tried doing that a few months ago but wasnt getting anywhere so I abandoned it. But now that he'll be going to kindergarten, I want his maths skills to progress. His 4 year old peers are apparently able to add single digits either by using fingers or abstractly.
He is able to addition of "plus one". He knows that "plus one" means the next number. I've also recently, very slowly introduced "plus two" or more. I'm also introducing the concept of "minus".
3. Thomas the Tank Engine
By late afternoon he was tired and more cranky even though he had napped (that's expected cos he's a bit ill) and so was I! So, I brought out his battery operated train set (gift from Elly - thanks!) so it'd occupy his time while I tried to do a bit of paperwork.
After a while, he got bored and started experimenting by placing different object by the side of the tracks or on the tracks itself. I guess it was to test if the train was strong enough to push things away.
But I also didnt want him to ruin the train. So, I ended up playing with him and the train set. I brought out the blocks and asked what he'd like to be built. He did his "I got an idea!" but didnt say what. So I built various structures like tunnels, houses, tall buildings, and a forest. He joined in by placing more blocks on top of the tunnels. Later on, he placed roofs on the forest trees (cylinderical blocks), turning them into houses instead.
4. Jalan jalan
Early evening, I took everyone out for a drive around the nieghbourhood, just for a change of scenery.
5. Toilet training
At one point in the day, he actually said he wanted to shee shee (urinate) without needing to be asked. I was so happy. We havent had much opportunity to reinforce going to the toilet to urinate because he resumed his Neurosuit therapy and he's started kindergarten. I did bring him to the kindergarten's toilet but just twice in the week before. Other times he didnt want to go.
We've not been successful at all in getting him to poo in the toilet. He's terrified even though I got a bigger potty for him. Some kind of mental block perhaps.
As reward for saying he wanted to urinate in the toilet, I gave him a novelty pencil. I bought it at a knick knack shop in Genting at 3 for RM10. I previously saw it for sale at a "stall" in a mall in KL but was too expensive (RM10 each) so I didnt buy it.
As with most things I buy for him, there's a therapy or educational purpose behind it. This one was meant to get him to blow on the blades of the fan. It's cute, funny and cheap. He likes it, so he was willing to play with it.
I was very happy he could blow hard enough for the fan blades to spin. He did it a few times with various blowing strengths. I tried to get him to blow silently without using his vocal cords, but he couldn't. He best he could do was to blow with a soft "whooooo" sound.
Other stuff that we did
I've been writing this post since Satruday and it's now Sunday night. There much more that he did not just on Friday itself but also on Saturday. I'll unfortunately have to stop here and merely list in bullet points the other activities we did on Friday.
- Read aloud to him (storybooks borrowed from Elly - thanks!)
- Played with maths manipulative toy (maths concept of grouping shapes to form new shapes, fine motor, imagination to build new things out of the pieces, maths concept of sorting by colour and shape)
- Played with V-Tech (& found out that the cassette for Dora is spoilt, so used Nemo but not as suitable)
- Ladybird Start School series (just to teach writing strokes, so used finger to trace over some letters)
- sorted buttons into groups (fine motor, maths concepts)
- sticker activity using Guardian stickers (fine motor)
- cluck, cluck, kiss (for repeating rythm and pattern)
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