Fun Class - H for House!

Start the lesson by singing Greeting Song. Your child should be very familiar with the procedure now.
After singing this song, your child should be settled down and looking forward to your introduction of what he is going to learn. While his attention is still on you, introduce letter "H". You may show him a freely card of letter H, or just show him an A4 paper printed with letter "H".

This was what I'd shown my girl in the previous lesson and I let her trace the letter.
Let your kid listen to the phonics song of letter "H", that goes like this:
"Hare and hunter h h h, Hare and hunter h h h, h is the sound of H!"
In the previous lesson, I let my girl take out the pictures of items start with letter H from a bag and paste them one by one on the A4 paper mentioned above. For this second lesson, I let her label the pictures. She would spell out the words before pasting them on the pictures.

While your kid can still focus, prompt him on the word "house". You should voice out the phonics of each letter and let the kid say the letters. You may prompt the letters one by one and let the kid spell out the word and read the word. For my girl, I did not prompt her for the first few lessons, but as she is able to capture the concept now and I started prompting her in my previous 2 lessons.
E.g. of how prompting works:
You say "heh", kid says "H"
You say "O", kid says "O"
You say "woo", kid says "U"
You say "ssss", kid says "S"
You say "end with....", kid says "E" (E is silent sound here)
You say "spell the word", kid says "H.O.U.S.E."
You say "read the word", kid reads the word "house".


The craft for this lesson is to cut out papers in a few different shapes and paste the shapes into a house. In this craft the kid learns the different shapes and colours. For younger toddler you may prepare the cut outs as follow:

Let the kid paste the different shapes to make a picture of house.

For me I added in some drawings like "sun", "flower" and we had fun scribble on it.
We had fun dancing around with the closing song of "Hokey Pokey".
As usual, my girl gave me a kiss and ended the lesson :)

The lesson plan:
1) Greeting Song, click here
2) Introduce letter "H"
3) Introduce phonics of H, sing phonics song of H
4) Let the kid label the pictures of objects starting with H
5) Prompting, spell out "house" and read the word
6) Craft
7) Colour the phonics sheet (optional)
8) Summary
9) Closing song

Development age: 2 years 7 mths
(every kid learns on their own pace, this is just a milestone of my girl as a guideline)

Language Assessment at Infant Language Centre of NUS

I saw the request for toddlers to participate in a research on infant language development on Motherhood Forum and I signed Chloe up for that. The purpose of the research is to understand how babies learn their first words. In particular, this study is on bilingualism in children.
As transportation is fully covered (if you drive, they pay for your parking at NUS; if you take a cab, they pay for your cab fare by using your cab receipt on arrival x2), I do not mind bringing Chloe there for some fun.
When we were there, Chloe was asked to sit on my lap and listen to a set of words accompanied by pictures. We were video recorded and Chloe was monitored on her eyes movement as in the pictures that she looked at in response to the words. After watching the set of words and pictures in English and Chinese, I was asked to fill out a questionnaire on Chloe's language history which took me about 10 to 15 minutes.

At the end of the session, Chloe was given an assessment of her vocabulary development using standardized assessment instrument, she was asked to point to the picture after hearing the words in English and Chinese. The results was emailed to me after 2 weeks. Part of the analysis says this:


I was not surprised by the results, and it was never my intention to assess whether she's better in English or Chinese. However, this assessment has highlighted a few problems to me. No doubt she had demonstrated that she knows quite many English words, but her vocabulary is not strong. I think this problem lies on us, as we seldom read or show pictorial dictionary to her, and the worst is, when we speaks to her, we tend to say "this and that" instead of name the object. Besides, I presume she's speaking Chinese with babysitter but I overlook that in Singapore we speak Chinese by mixing English in between especially when we say the common names. E.g., when the researcher asked her about 巴士 (Ba1 Shi4 i.e. bas), she was unable to answer this question and I'd never thought that she does not know this simple word since I have been pointing her to the buses whenever we see one. This has triggered me to ensure that we speak better language to her and speak pure English or Chinese (this will be quite hard, imagine you got to say one sentence fully in Chinese without English term) to her. Our initial arrangement for her is that, I'll speak English to her while my husband will speak Chinese to her, but recently she had been speaking English to us more often and she starts to express her thoughts in English sentences, I guess my husband is not doing a good job and need to put in more efforts then, haha!
If your toddler is around 31 months old and you're interested to volunteer for the research, you may refer to the following for more details:
You may contact Ms. Calista Chan by email (psycjc@nus.edu.sg) or by phone at 6601 1718. Visit them at http://blog.nus.edu.sg/babytalk.
You'll be paid $20 for your contribution.

Birthday treat at Singapore Zoo

It is free admission to all birthday boys and girls at the Singapore Zoo regardless of ages! We've tested it yesterday on my husband's birthday and it was a great fun for us! On top of the free admission, he got a free scoop of ice-cream and enjoyed 10% discount on all the retail and F&B stores, it was really a good treat from the Singapore Zoo!
As everyone knows, there are lots of fun in the Zoo, a little planning might make your day an even more enjoyable one!
Things to note:
1) Bring your stroller or pram, your little one might be too tired to walk the park with you. Although stroller, scooter and wagon can be rented there, the prices are not cheap. Even if you have bought the tram ticket, certain places still require walking, thus a stroller (umbrella stroller is highly recommended) is a must.
2) Bring your snacks. Cheers minimart is just located at the entrance of the zoo and there're quite a few vending machines and shops in the Zoo, however do note the price of the snacks are more than double the price you get from stores outside. I would suggest you to bring your own snacks for your little ones, but you can have your lunch in the Zoo, although the foods (including KFC) are also more expensive than the market price, is ok to pay a little more to avoid the trouble of preparing the food, isn't it?
3) Go in the morning. Many shows are started in the morning, it'll be good if you can catch the shows in the morning, and slowly explore the parks after lunch. If you go in the afternoon, the afternoon sun could kill off your interest and it'll be a little stress to make sure you're on time for all the shows.
4) Study the map and programs. Take some time to study the map and programs, plan your trip before you start walking around. A proper planning can avoid wasting too much of your energy walking around finding the right place.
5) Is ok to miss one or two shows. Many of us are aiming to catch all the great shows in Zoo, but it is really ok if you've missed one. Do not plan your itinerary too packed, choose the ones that you are most interested in.
6) Arrive at least 5 min before the show start, or else you'll not be able to get a seat.
5) Buy your ticket online. If you're not getting any special deals, you may consider buying the tickets through Singapore Zoo website, as the queue at the ticketing booth can really be long.

Information corner:
Opening Hours
8.30am to 6.00pm daily
(Last ticket sale at 5.30pm)

Adult S$20.00
Child (3 to 12 years old) S$13.00*
All prices include 7% GST
Prices quoted are subject to change

* Admission for child below 3 years old is free.

For other information, see their website here.

Picture time:
Let's study the map first.....
Chloe get to see the real hippo! She was pretty scared of it.....

Chloe touched the fish curiously






The Asian elephants show
Sealion show at Splash Safari

Penguin!

There're many other animals that we enjoyed while riding the tram, we walk the path and see a few animals selectively. We'll definitely go to the Zoo again, probably will be on someone's birthday :)

Resource: Pictures of objects start with letters A to Z

This post will be continuously updated till letter Z. The pictures are to be used for the teaching of A - Z phonics. You may download it and use it for your home teaching.

Letter A:


Letter B:


Letter C:


Letter D:


Letter E:


Letter F:


Letter G:


Letter H:


Letter I:


Letter J:


Letter K:


Letter L:


Letter M:


Letter N:


Letter O:


Letter P:


Letter Q:


Letter R:


Letter S:


Letter T:


Letter U:

Letter V:

Letter W:

Letter X:
As there are just a few objects begin with X, you may use "box" and "fox" to teach the sound of X.

Letter Y:

Letter Z:

Guidelines on using the pictures:
1) Cut the pictures out and put them into an envelope
2) Kid takes the pictures from the envelope one by one and name it before pasting on a piece of paper.
3) Spell and read the words before labeling the picture

Refer to my Fun Classes for example.

Fun Class - H for Horse!

The material for the craft today:

Chloe asked me what is the stick for, I told her I'll beat her by using that if she's not behaving herself, she then said "mummy don't beat Chloe"...haha!

I had changed the sequence of the lesson, as the craft need time to dry after painting, I let her start the craft after the greeting song.
I told her we are learning H for "horse". Instead of listening to the phonics and etc, I let her colour the craft and put it aside for drying.

After she painted the craft, I let her listen to the phonics sound of letter "H". I then took out the A4 paper with letter "H" printed on it and let her trace the letter.

I let her pick up the pictures from a bag and paste them on the A4 paper. She would pick up the pictures one by one and tell me the name before pasting it on the paper.

(this paper will be used in the next lesson where she'll label the picture)

I then prompt her to spell out the word "horse".

She would spell the word and read the word, you may see the following video:


As the craft was coloured by brush paint, it took a longer time to dry, I let her colour the phonics sheet to kill off the waiting time.


After the craft is dried, just paste the 2 'heads' of the horse up with the paper stick in the middle. You may let your kid play with it while singing the closing song Banbury Cross.


Chloe enjoyed herself in the class, after saying "thank you" and giving me a kiss, she galloped away with her "horse" to the living hall to show off her new toy to her brother.

The lesson plan:
1) Greeting Song, click here
2) Tell the kid we are learning H for "Horse"
3) Brush paint the craft, put it aside to dry
4) Introduce phonics of H, sing phonics song of H
5) Let the kid paste the pictures of objects starting with H
6) Prompting, spell out "horse" and read the word
7) Colour the phonics sheet (optional)
8) Summary
9) Closing song

Development age: 2 years 7 mths