cut...snip...

After doing some hand painting, Albert practiced using the scissors. I made some strips of paper with 2-4 inches of lines in them for Albert to cut through. This is similar to what he did on therapy last week.

Mastering the proper holding and use of scissors is a very essential skill to survive in preschool since there's a lot of cutting and pasting activities done in school, plus it helps improve those little hand's fine motor skills for writing.

Book of the Week: Ten Apples Up on Top

Look!

Ten 

apples 

up 

on 

top!

We are not

going to let them drop!

Last week after A's therapy, we went to the bookshop, Powerbooks, here in Manila, and bought several Dr. Seuss books (pictured above), and 3 Adarna Books (shown below).

Adarna book:  Paradise of the Animals

Ako si Kaliwa, Ako si Kanan (I am Left, I am Right)

Papa's house, Mama's house

Little A insisted we also get the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Clubhouse Collection, which has 5 books and one page of  60 assorted stickers (which A gleefully placed on the back cover of one of  the Seus books. Next to Timmy the sheep, Mickey Mouse is his second favorite cartoon character.

That night, I started to read him first his much loved Seuss book, The Foot Book. After reading this  repeatedly seven times (thank goodness the book is very easy to read inspite of its 28 pages, or else I would be out of breath after reading it for the 3rd time), I introduced the next Seuss book on our list, which is Ten Apples Up On Top!. We skimmed first through the pages for pictures to make it interesting to A. 

I opened the first page and has not even started, when A pointed to the picture anxiously saying, "Kawawa sya. Hulog apple, o." . What he means was:  Pitiful lion! Apple fell (on his head). 

One apple up on top!

We then proceeded to count the apples as the story progress (initially there was only one apple, then it became 10 apples). A had fun counting each and every apple on top of the animals' heads. He would oftentimes falter and forgets to include the number 5 on his counting (he says one, two, three, four..six, seven) and I have to gently remind and correct him of this. This book is great for teaching counting, numbers, and of course, rhyming words.

We did only two rounds of reading for this new book (not that I am complaining, my.vocal cords must be singing " Hooray! To bed we must go!")

----------------------------------------------------------
Ten Apples Up On Top
a Dr. Seuss Beginner Book
339 php (US $8.99)


Paradise of the Animals
Virgilio Almario/ Joanne de Leon
an Adarna House book
65 php


Ako si Kaliwa,  Ako si Kanan
Russel Molina/ Ibarra Crisostomo
an Adarna House book
65 php


Papa's House,  Mama's House
Jean Lee Patindol / Mark Ramsel Salvatus III
an Adarna House book
65 php


Mickey Mouse Clubhouse:  Clubhouse Collection
(5 books)
379 php  (US $9.99)

All books are available at Powerbooks bookshop.

--------------------------------------------------------

Powerbooks has an ongoing promo,  just check their website for details. 

www.powerbooks.com.ph

Skills to Learn at Preschool

The other day I asked a preschool teacher, who happens to be a friend, on what skills should a child learn in preschool to be ready for grade school (specifically grade 1). This would greatly help me in guiding A on the direction to go by preparing appropriate and beneficial learning enhanced activities. Her list goes as follows:

- Recognizes and identifies all the alphabets.
- Recognizes and make simple rhyming words.
- Recognizes and can match simple words that begins with the same sound letter  (eg. apple, arrow, alligator)
- Can follow words being read from left to right, top to bottom.
- Can match words spoken with words that are written 
- Can identify basic body parts
- Can tell to relate experinces.
- Can repeat simple informations from a story.
- Can draw or write letters & words to express thoughts or  feelings
- Can write / spell high frequency sight words
- Can write his/her own name
- Recognizes written numbers 1-10.
- Can count the number of objects in a set
- Can write the number symbols of  1 to 10.
- Identifies and can compare (and creates) between two sets in terms of quantity that it contains.
     (eg. set A is more/ less/equal to set B)
- Can estimate quantities. (eg. give me one ball vs. give me all the balls)
- Can more or less do simple addition and subtraction with the use of concrete objects. (you use concrete objects like blocks, coins, toy cars, pebbles, apples or any fruits, cut out shapes, etc.)
- Can measure object's length (or weight) and can compare two objects in terms of their length. (eg. tall vs. short; heavy vs. light, wide vs. narrow, big vs.small)
- Can identify, draw, and describe basic shapes: circle, square, triangle, rectangle (eg. a triangle has 3 sides; a square has 4 equal sides)
- Knows how to use a scissors for cutting and following lines.
- Can follow simple one directional instructions. (eg. get that ball)
- Can follow two directional instructions. (eg. get that ball and and put it on the table)

There might be some other things she missed according to her like social, practical, more fine motor, and gross motor skills. It would be best to check the child developmental milestones and include them to the list.

I see now that most of the activities done during A's therapies are based on what's on this list. Now that I have I guide, it will be easier to create activities to supplement A's learning and therapy.

Thank you teacher!

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Therapy Updates

My son is doing good in his O.T. sessions. Much improvement were always noted weekly  and we are happy with his progress. He now can sit to do table activities, likes to be read to especially at bedtime,  can talk in simple phrases, and follow simple one-direction commands.

For Gross Motor:
  - Jumping on trampoline.
  - Obstacle course:
         - walking on balance beam. Walks in tandem on the beam but not with heel to heel pattern.
         - kneel walking on the mat; jumping forward 5x on mats
         - Did good to match oreo cookie complex shapes matching after verbal & physical prompts
  - Jumped fairly well on wavy path and stumbling occassionally.

For patterns, relationships, spatial:
  - Did a 7 piece form board puzzle and able to recognize and name one of the items in the puzzle.
  - Did 3-6 pc. interlocking puzzle, but therapist has to hand him one piece at a time.
  - Did a 9 pc. interlocking puzzle well.
  - Finished a star mosaic; worked continuously with minimal prompts until finished.
  - Able to imitate 4 spool pattern (color pattern) upon demonstration by the therapist.

For fine motor:
   - Colored a 10 inch 2 part drawing. Initially needed much prodding to use the up-down strokes in coloring,
      and when filling up the white spaces with color.

 
-   Then the next session he was able to color a 3 part drawing and filled it 100%  with color without deviations (or lampas).

 - Colored another 3 part drawing and traced his name.

- Able to copy vertical and horizontal lines.
- Able to accurately trace and imitate drawing of circle.
- Able to trace squares accurately with prompts to follow the left to right, top to bottom sequence.

- Fairly able to imitate an action song.
- Able to exhibit good fine motor control and bilateral asymmetric coordination of the hands when he scooped  with no spillage macaroni shells using a spoon.

- Able to correctly match & identify simple pictures of ball, ice cream, telephone, apple, boat, butterfly.


For the last session:
  -  He can say aloud to name and point parts of the face correctly.
  - Able to imitate & copy a 6 block bridge pattern with moderate prompting.
  - During free play, he was hesitant to take the slide with 2 other kids present.

Matching Game: Wildlife Animals

Today we did object & picture matching of wildlife animals.

I bought assorted small toy safari animals such as zebra, tiger, rhinoceros, etc. last week.

The toys complement with these set of  animal flash cards.

This is easier to teach kids names of animals rather than merely pointing them out on books or on tv.

Afterwards I let him play with the toy animals freely and kept the flashcards.

Book of The Week: THE FOOT BOOK

source


Left  foot
Left  foot

Right  foot
Right 

Feet in the morning.

Feet at night.

I have been reading to the little one, a Dr. Seuss beginner book, THE FOOT BOOK.  

A friend once said years ago, that almost all her 4 kids loved Dr. Seuss books, and that there must be no child who does not laugh with these books. I agree! The little one laughs all the time when I read him this part of the book:

He now even tries to say the words by himself, "many many feet" as part of the phrase "how many, many feet you meet".

So every night for almost a week, he'd bring this book to me to read to him (for 5x or more repetition in one sitting).

 I was lucky to find this book at Booksale and bought it for only 35 php.

New Attempt at Scribbling

I remember posting my son's 1st freehand drawing using the Magic Sketch board
several months ago in my old friendster blog.

It was a face figure.

He does not like doodling at all so any attempts on my part to teach him grasping a pen or color was always met with indifference and walkout :)

What he would make me do instead was he lets me be the one doing the writing or drawing, with him very intently watching. 

Every time I hand the pen or color to him for his turn, he would not take it and instead prod me to go ahead doodle or color some more.

Then I bought him a Leapfrog Scribble & Write.
Almost a month into his O.T. and he seems eager now to grasp colors and the pen-stick that comes
with his Leapfrog.
Then last week I saw him do this.

Actually I was not sure if its his favorite red toy car he's trying to copy-draw, or his pet, a little hermit crab.

Both were within his reach and beside each other when I saw him glancing to and fro their direction and to the Leapfrog pad.

He drew this afterwards.

He drew the flower and car once again on paper using pentel pen to show to his grandparents  the other day.

Last tuesday and thursday his lessons were connect the dots for simple lines, circles, and cross:

being able to copy-draw a circle is a physical developmental milestone for a 3 yo child

one of the physical developmental milestone for a 4yo would be to copy a cross drawing

Now my son loves doing simple connect the dots activities that he finished almost 

every similar kind of activity in this activity book I bought him a month ago (Patterns, Sorting, Matching):

Excel Easy To Learn Books; Bought it at P59.75

I am creating more connect the dots activities for him today.

10 Reasons Why Jigsaw Puzzles are Good for your Kids

Jigsaw Puzzles are a great way for children to learn, have fun, and have a special bonding time with their parents or siblings.

The benefits of jigsaw puzzle in kids includes:

(1) Development of fine motor skills.  Jigsaw puzzle is made up of smaller pieces that the child has to pick up with their fingers and fit together to recreate the big picture that it was.

(2) Hand-eye coordination.

(3) Sorting. Their understanding of colors and shapes will broaden.

(4) Matching. Same as above.

(5) Concentration and Focus.

(5) Perseverance.

(6) Creativity and Imagination.  Once the puzzle is finished, try to talk about the finished picture with your child. This is also a good way to introduce new words in his/her vocabulary. Make him/her describe or name what are seen on the picture. Make the child tell a brief simple story regarding the picture.

(7) Visualization

(8) Improves or develops self-esteem. Since doing any kind of puzzle takes time and concentration (and kids usually have a shorter attention span than adults), finally being able to finish one is a real achievement, and would indeed give your child a happy can-do feeling. This fosters their growing independence too since they will realize that they are able to do this activity with no or  little help.

(9) A fun activity to bond with your kid. 

(10) If building the jigsaw with one or more friends, he/she learns of the concept of  sharing, teamwork, and being able to get along well and communicating with others.

Puzzles are safe, inexpensive, and promotes cognitive, emotional, and social skills in children.

 It would be best to do puzzles in a quiet comfortable place with a flat surface, free from distractions. My son likes to do this on the floor where he can view each and every piece spread out clearly.

Choose age appropriate puzzles. Manufacturers includes age indications on the carton. Start your child from a 3-4 piece puzzle and increase the number once he/she is ready to tackle a bigger sized picture.

Vary the sensorial experience for your kid by getting wooden or cardboard puzzles (textures).

It would be good to choose a puzzle picture that your child has interest in (like in Albert's case, its vehicles like airplane and cars), and try to link the picture to your child's lessons.

You as parent can assist them in case the child encounter some difficulty by giving tips like "try to turn that one to this way". You can hand them a piece but let them match it on their own.

Namaste!

Jigsaw Puzzle

My son loves doing jigsaw puzzles and I just learned it the other day after a session in his OT that he is now interested in puzzles. Teacher Amy gave him 3-6 pieces of interlocking puzzle and he did pretty well though teacher has to hand him one pieces at a time.
So I went looking for a 6 pieces jigsaw puzzle at the mall, but found only a 15 piece.

Albert lost no time doing the puzzle. The design was an airplane with passengers on it.

I saw how he really love doing it and he does not have to be shown how. I laid out all the pieces for him to see easily, and he just started getting one piece at a time, trying to find where each piece best fits. He must have done this puzzle four times in a row without showing any signs of boredom or tiredness.

I'm thinking of getting the other design with a pirate's ship on it next time.




ABOUT THE PUZZLE:
"High Flier!"
15 pieces jigsaw puzzle, 47.5 x 35cm
Frank Educational Aids Pvt. Ltd.
For 2+ years and above
Bought it at Mindwerks, 2nd Floor in Cash and Carry Makati
Php 249.75

Where Albert Goes For His Therapy

Today was therapy day for Albert again.

He goes to HELP Therapy Center in Makati. An hour once a week for his speech therapy with teacher Joey, and an hour twice a week for occupational therapy with teacher Amy. I had a hard time finding before slot for speech therapy and have asked many therapy centers from Alabang to Manila already before. It was when I inquired for availability of a kinder slot in a preschool  in Makati, Kids in A Day School, that HELP was referred to me.

He almost slept through the entire afternoon and would  have been absent from his OT and S.T. sessions today had I not persisted in waking him up around 2pm--just one hour from the start of his OT. Then it rained so hard that we were almost soaking wet as we hailed out a cab. From where we now live, cabs without passengers are often hard to come by so we must be out in the street at least 30 minutes to 3pm so as not to be late for the therapy.

inside HELP's waiting area

The therapy center is a simple bungalow house, with rooms each for evaluation, S.T., O.T. There's also a waiting area with seats and magazines for moms and yayas waiting for their charge to finish. Inside the O.T. room, the floor is rubber padded, with toys, small tables, pillows, and addie slide. There was 4 therapist with 4 kids doing therapy at one time (one hour), and yes its a bit crowded since the room was small, but it was comfortable enough and airconditioned. Sessions would commence with both the therapist and the patient/student sitting on the padded floor. It reminds me of play areas you find inside malls.

For the speech therapy rooms, there are I think 3-4 cubicles for each therapist. The cubicle Albert uses has a an elongated table facing a blank wall. This is good since it lessens distractions. The room is airconditioned too. I was only able to sit in during his evaluation, which consisted of teacher Joey showing pictures of action words, common household items and etc., having Albert point the answers, making him say out loud the answers (which was in vain since this has been my son's problem, he just would not answer verbally), and making him follow simple directions like "put this cup here inside the box" (which my son had some difficulty following unless you show how it is done  first). The result of the evaluation suggest there is a lot of work that needs to be done. Hay...

One notebook for each kind of therapy is required and must be brought at all times during the lessons. Inside, the therapist would scribble lesson reminders, homeworks, and feedbacks of how the session went.

Parents/yayas do not usually accompany the child inside the room during the therapy session. So I placed the two notebooks inside this small plastic attache-bag for Albert to bring with him inside.

Initial evaluation is 1,500 pesos.
Each succeeding session costs 525 pesos.
Method of billing is monthly.
You have to call at least one day before your scheduled slot if your child will be absent. Unexcused absences is still billed as done.


FEEDBACK FOR TODAY:
For O.T:
Today's feedback from teacher Amy was much better. Albert is now fairly compliant with given tasks and commands presented to him. He is still easily distracted, that sometimes you have to hold his face to focus on the work at hand, and have to use a firm tone of voice to get his attention. He became talkative towards the end of the session. He was able to finish the tasks as needed, but had some difficulty in doing a 9 piece form board puzzle (the was about cars & trucks), but got around to it after teacher showed how to do it and after the 3rd to 4th round. I admit this to be true since Albert's learning style based on my observations was a mix of that of a Looker and Mover (I will feature a post about these in the days to come).

An alphabet form board puzzle. this is similar to the cars form board puzzle Albert did today

He also needed some verbal prompting to continue finding the match while doing the complex shape matching using oreo cookie matchin' middle. 

source: amazon.com

The same was also true when he was doing the 3-6 pieces interlocking puzzle. Teacher have to give him one piece of the puzzle at a time, but he did okay and finished the puzzle.

He did well with the sorting pegs for 5 basic colors  (I bought him something like this and so maybe that's why he was able to do it easily aside from the fact that he knows the RYGBO quite well already), and with matching the pictures on the form board (We also did something like this at home using the flash cards of animals and matching some of them with a small toy animal figure).

FOR S.T:
Feedback was basically the same as last week's. He still needs to work on verbally naming and recognizing household & toiletries items (cabinet, shower, mirror, toothpaste, towel, etc.), clothes (jacket, cap etc.), action words (bath/ligo, clapping, etc.), following simple directions or commands like "put this cup under the chair", recognizing quantities like "all" "one", and answering simple open/what questions like those pertaining to body parts (practice daw using mirror). He was mostly inconsistent and needs to imitate teacher's actions to be able to follow. As to the body parts, I was quite surprised that Albert was inconsistent in naming/recognizing them since he fairly know these last year pa with school. Maybe it is not a good idea to have 2 therapy sessions one after the other in one day. He must be tired already when he goes for the speech room

I will post more pictures of the therapy center next time.


Namaste!




Therapists in Action Corp.
HELP Therapy Center
1655 Penafrancia St. Santiago Village Makati
(02) 896.5195
email:  TIAction@gmail.com

Matching Fruits

Albert can recognize and name his favorite fruits like apple, banana, orange (for him its "ow-waynj").
Lately I have been teaching him lychee (they must be in season right now since I find them plenty in groceries and the market).

I bought flash cards for fruits at National Bookstore for 85 pesos.

There are 36 assorted fruit cards per box.

Even though the boxes looks exactly similar to each other from the outside, I found upon opening, that the second box I got had illustrations and types of fruits that are slighlty different from the other box. So this means, some of the fruits from box 1 would not have a similar card from box 2.

We have already started with apple, banana, orange, pineapple, and lychee.
I bought a few actual of these fruits in the grocery to reinforce our lesson.

2. Action words

Teaching Action Words

Albert had his first speech therapy session (or the post initial evaluation) last tuesday.
He goes to HELP therapy center in Makati.
After the session, his speech therapist, Teacher Joey, told me that the child needs to practice at home recognizing and naming the common action words like hop, cook, write, etc.

So instead of heading home after (after 2  hours of therapy, Albert wants to sleep already),
we trooped to the nearest National Bookstore to get some teaching materials.
I found these visual or flash cards.

Each box  has 36 action words with the word written below each.
It is sold at National Bookstore for 85 pesos.

I know, nothing beats the real thing
(ie. showing and naming aloud to him the word "cooking" when you are actually in the kitchen cooking meals).
But since school activities would mostly  require your child to identify words that are drawn one dimensionally on paper, flash cards are good complimentary teaching aides.

The images are large enough also.

I bought 2 boxes (one will be group 1, and the other group 2)
 First I choose those action words that are commonly seen and used.
 For say the 1st week, I will show him 5 types of action words.
If he remembers and names them without much difficulty in less than a week, then go ahead and introduce the next 5 batch of action words.
Keep adding until he goes through all the cards and do well.

To teach, I use the method similar to the one we did for learning shapes (read my post "1. SHAPES" for details).


Namaste!

Matching Shapes

My son knows the basic shapes even before he started schooling last year.
I made these last year to reinforce what he learned at school.
Now I have to take them out again to teach him the pentagon, octagon, oblong, since I found out he had some difficulty recognizing these during his initial evaluation session with his occupational therapist.

Materials needed were art and colored construction papers, plain white index cards, glue & scissors.
I added construction papers instead of using solely art papers because I found the colors blue, violet, and orange art papers were not the good ol' shades of blue, violet, orange.
Like, for orange, its art paper shade is darker, making it harder to discern from that of a red art paper.

HOW  TO TEACH IT:

For each shape, I made three (3) copies.
Learning is easier when it is fun and when kids are actively participating.
Separate the cards into 3 groups. Each group should have one copy of each shape.
For group 1 cards, lay one copy of each shape on a work mat (with us, I just use a brown folder that is spread open on the table or floor).
Say aloud the name of each shape (and color too) to your kid as you place the cards.
Then gather the group 2 cards. Pick one card from this group and show it to your kid.
Ask him first if he knows what shape is shown in it.
Then holding the card, place it beside each cards laid out from group 1 and ask him/her which one is similar to it. Do this until your child points out the correct same shape card.
Name aloud the shape after, with your child repeating after you.
Do the same for the rest of group 2 cards.

Albert  always had fun doing this activity. 

Let me know how it went with your kids eh?

Namaste!

ABOUT THIS BLOG

Hi dear readers and fellow parents!

Welcome to my Teaching Albert Blog.

My son's name is Albert, and he's a preschooler and our precious gem.

I created this blog to chronicle our journey and struggle in raising and educating Albert.

Two months ago he was preliminarily diagnosed with communication disorder by a developmental pediatrician (Dr. Villadolid of Manila Doctors Hospital). He speaks approximately less than 20 words, could not sufficiently express himself through words when asked common place questions, speaks almost intelligible sentences, but has good eye contact, sociable and playfully active, loves doing puzzles and sorting toys, loves playing with toy cars and blocks or legos, can dress and put his shoes by himself when he wanted to (which is occassional). As with all parents, it was disheartening to learn of his condition, and yes I do feel guilt for not  recognizing earlier, and for not seeking consult immediately. Early intervention is always best,  and  the doctor said the situation is not yet late for a good remedy.  A twice a week of speech therapy and occupational therapy were the prescribed treatment. We are enrolling him in a good montessori school in Manila, and at home we have started to do a bit of homeschooling. I chronicle and share some lessons and activities Albert has done both at home or at his therapies.

I am not a trained teacher, and am even far from being a natural even. But  I believe, one of the most sacred job and role of a parent is that of a teacher & guide to his/her child, and when a baby is born  there is no "teaching your kids for dummy" manual accompanying them. I know that I will grope, ask advice from more experienced and able moms & dads, pore over countless books and websites, adjust and add here and there, until I get everything right. So for parents out there like me (or anyone actually) who has one or two nuggets of wisdom and better or more teaching technique to share, please do not hesitate to let me know.


Namaste!,
Happynes