Through her eyes #5 - Dumpling's daily activities journal - a FUN FUN FUN way to learn time! :) + FREE PRINTABLE!

Dumpling is getting the hang of telling the time and has been very excited in being able to "read" the wall clock. One of the things that she usually does these days upon waking up is to look at the clock immediately and tell us the time. If she is not quite able to (as in to the exact minute of for e.g. 7:37am because my wall clock does not have the numerals for minutes labelled on it), she'd sneakily wait for the minute hand to travel to the positions she knows and then read it off proudly (and LOUDLY, I must add).

For some strange reason, one fine day while rummaging through the storeroom, she found my beloved Gruffalo paper plate (which I hoarded for 2 years!!!). While all I saw is 'partyware', she saw a 'clock'! And asked for us to use it and make it into a clock! Here it is!

We made this together with a braid fastener in the middle to hold the hands and we have been using this to revise and to work on our "time" sessions. Along the way, I dug out an old resource which I have and that is a dry erase book which the kiddos can fill in the time and draw in the hands.

It then occurred to me that it would be a lot more fun for the kiddo if the activities listed in it are about her day instead. The idea is to make it 'applicable' for her where she tries reading and recording the time before she begins some of her daily activities!  

I printed mine into a booklet and above is the book cover

Since she likes looking at the wall clock once she wakes up, I incorporated that as part of the 'time' which she needs to record in this journal too  

 The page is designed for homeschooling and non-homeschooling kiddos

And I have included some fun evening activities as a checklist too!

Now, have you gone all excited about this journal? I am pleased to share that you can download this activity journal here! 

Edit: I printed my copy as a booklet but the file is in A4. You can laminate it and then write on it with markers so that it can be reused over and over again. :) This is our last stage in the journey of learning and writing out the time where we have already learnt the basics.  

I received several questions about how one can start off teaching time. I started off teaching Dumpling using a resource which I blogged about here. As an overview, the steps which we went through are:
- introduction of long (minute) and short hands (hour)
- teaching of o'clock (long hand pointing to 12)
- teaching of half past, quarter past and quarter to (use pizza slices, foam etc if you need to, to show half and quarters)
- teaching of counting in 5s so that the child is about to read in blocks 
- drawing of hands (Gruffalo clock is wonderful for that. We progressed from gear clock to our DIY clock where she needs to manually move each hand)
- writing the time in digital clock format (using digits)

For multiplication by 5s, it will take a bit of time. Manipulatives are good. We also used hands & feet - 5 fingers and 5 toes. There's a certain element of rote learning in this but the idea is to let the child understand that each block equals to 5 mins and if the child is stuck, he/she knows how to count in groups of 5 to get for e.g 40 the minutes (half past = 30, and then add on 2 blocks of 5). There are loads of songs on YouTube which are useful in getting the child to remember them too. 

(Please note that as with all the other free downloads in this blog, it is for personal usage and is not for any form of sales. I would also appreciate it if you do not edit it and then sell it as the entire purpose of this is to share this resource so everyone can use and enjoy the pack.) 

This is part of our Fun with Math series! 

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Advent Activities - A Christmas Title for Kids: Mortimer's Christmas Manger

As part of the Advent Activities series, Jennifer and I will be sharing some Christmas titles and reviews. To kickstart, I am excited to share on "Mortimer's Christmas Manger", a title which I chanced upon. 

 

A recent title which Dumpling and I read, I really did not know what to expect though I saw a few preview pages and read the reviews. I did not expect to enjoy the story and thought it to be yet another Christmas title but I was pleasantly surprised. 

Mortimer's Christmas Manger is a simple yet heart warming story told from the viewpoint of a little mouse and is written by Karma Wilson (the author of the popular "Bear Snores On" and "Bear Stays up for Christmas"). The tale tells of a mouse's search for a new house and finds his way into the Nativity scene where he creeps into a manger every night. During his little adventures, he learnt about Baby Jesus and realised whose house he was sharing. 

With all the commercialism of this season, this book shares, in a gentle manner, the spiritual aspect of Christmas which is certainly a nice change. I especially like that the author, chose a seemingly small and insignificant animal to spin the story around, very much like Jesus who does not discriminate.

We especially like the ending where even Mortimer... well, I will not include any spoiler here. :) 

We read this before bed and strangely, I felt touched and humbled. It was certainly a nice story to end the day with. 

Now, since the story centers around the stable and the entire nativity scene, here's some extension activities to share! :) 

Extension Activities Suggestions:

1) Re-enact the Nativity Scene with your children using these printables:
From Activity Village (For older children who are able to colour)
From Gospel Hall (No colouring involved but will require parental assistance in cutting and folding. Cool factor: Includes a 3D stable print out!) We did this last year and it looked amazing!  

2) Nativity Calendar Printable

3) Nativity File Folder Games (Colour introduction for the young)

4) From 1+1+1=1: Nativity Preschool Pack

5) Nativity Pre-K Pack from Over the Big Moon

ENJOY!!!! :)


This activity is part of an Advent Activities series where we aim to share on a daily basis the various activities we are doing as we lead into Christmas! 

Head over to my partner-in-crime Jennifer to see a really cute spiral craft she made! PLUS, have a go at some Trivia questions she researched and posted up! Do you know that the sleigh is pulled by 9 reindeers - why the odd number? What other the other reindeers besides Rudolf? All this and more! :) 

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If you have any posts where you can share on the spirit of giving (gifts), joy of sharing (resources/tips/ideas) or the importance of loving (musings/parenting thoughts/values, etc.), please do link up and grab our badge! 

Advent Activities - On Board the Polar Express!

Dumpling and I do a mixture of both religious and non religious activities so besides the biblical stories/readings, we also read other classics such as Polar Express. :) 

I have been waiting for a new pack on this title having used others from other homeschoolers in the US for the past 2 years. So much so that when this pack came out, I shared the link at the start of Nov!!! :p 

We basically borrowed the title from the National Library Board (tip: reserve in advance as a lot of these Christmas titles are taken up very quickly during this period) and we bought the DVD too. 

Synopsis:

A Caldecott medalist winner, The Polar Express is about the story of a boy who has lost the belief in Christmas and in Santa. It also tells of his wonderful adventure on board the Polar Express to the North Pole to see Santa and his elves. :) Since its release, more than six and a half million copies have been sold, and every December it faithfully reappears on national bestseller lists.






For the extension into our homeschool activities, I printed the activity pack here. The pack has a good mix of simpler activities for younger tots (e.g pre-writing exercise, colouring, size sequencing) as well as activities for older children as seen below (e.g. time telling and copy work) 

We had a go on tracing (and then proceeded to spell them out phonetically) on another sheet provided behind this as part of the pack... 

We did word hunt game (Dumpling really enjoys this game) 

And there were other fun activities such as simple 1-on-1 correspondence using hot chocolate cup and marshmallows (perfect for introducing this to the younger kiddos - you can even use real marshmallows!) and this other spatial awareness game below 

As an extension, Dumpling and I also built a vocabulary list on some of the key words which were punched out on the ticket by the conductor - "Lead", "Believe", "Learn", etc. Though not biblical, this story is quite a joy for the little one. 

I will be sharing some other literature based activities which we are doing in the weeks to come. :) 

Here's some additional links to share:
- The official site 
- Games and Activities
- Free activity pack by Homeschool Share (some great pages for the older children, we attempted some pages before)
- Free activity pack by 3 Dinosaurs (good range of tot activities with pages on beginning sounds, tracing, math puzzles, etc.) 
- Free Polar Express train ticket template
- Lastly, if you do not have the book or you wish for a read aloud video as you guide your child through the book, you can view a clip of Lou Diamond Phillips here. Activity pages are also available on the same page! Enjoy!!!!

This activity is part of an Advent Activities series where we aim to share on a daily basis the various activities we are doing as we lead into Christmas!

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If you have any posts where you can share on the spirit of giving (gifts), joy of sharing (resources/tips/ideas) or the importance of loving (musing/parenting thoughts/values, etc), please do link up!

FREE Printable - A smurfy good time!

"La la la la la la, sing a happy song, la la la la la la, smurf the whole day long," Dumpling has been singing this song every now and then. To encourage her interest further in the Chinese language, I even bought a set of smurfs books in Chinese.

So, on a quiet afternoon when I was on leave and everyone was sleeping and inspired by other homeschooling blogger mums such as homeschool creations, I started creating a Preschool pack from scratch just for the fun of it. 'Cos I know that Dumpling will certainly love it. I am creating a Chinese version but that will have to wait till later as my schedule is a bit packed with planning of some new ideas and initiatives.

The images used in the packs are from Free Smurfs Clip-art Pictures and Images and Smurf Pictures Smurfette Pictures Papa Smurf Images. Please note that this clip is for personal use and not for selling or to be used in any profit purpose. Please do NOT host the file anywhere else but link them to this page for the download (do not link to the download directly as I may end up shifting the files to other sites and the earlier link you have will not be applicable).

Thank you and enjoy!

For easy convenience, I have decided to upload the printable here. The pack consists of:

- Pre-writing exercises

- Mazes

- Literacy exercises - starting consonant sounds, rhyming words, antonyms, etc.

- Math - one-to-one counting, patterning, etc

- Logic activities

and finishes off with a creative thinking page

Here's some pictures to share:

We have a DVD on one of the series and I also extended the rhyming exercise with a Learner Rod readers set which complements one of the rhyming exercises

For exercises such as these below, I leave her these days to attempt on her own while seated next to her

A "trick" question in one of the activities on "Prepositions" :)

For the pack activities, this was about how much we attempted this morning before heading off to church. So, this pack should last through  1 - 2 more days. :)

And inspiration struck! I extended to to the below

Dumpling loves to draw maze lately and I personally think it is a great exercise to develop critical thinking skills. So with a Geo board, off we explored. We did this together and I gave her a smurf figurine to "walk through".

Here, she made small amendments to the walls as she continues to develop her maze 

And tada! Finally, the maze is completed with the walls and the routes she wanted.

Finishing off with "villians" for more thrills!

You can view some smurf clips on YouTube and here's one: