Diary of a mum: A for apple

Every time I ended a unit and started with a new topic, I'd feel a twinge of pity that I could not continue further and deeper with what we were doing. Just as I feel the new unit would not spark such intense interest and curiosity as the previous, gathering resources and preparing for the lessons for the next unit threw me into another cycle of awe and amazement once more. Such is the wonder of our Father's world I think.

I was still experimenting with dyeing the flowers using food colouring to show Zech that plants need water. Tried white chrysanthemums and roses as I couldn't get white carnations but didn't work well. Was about to give up when I chanced upon white carnations at Cold Storage. This time, I cut the stalks at a slanted angle and cut them really quite short. Added lots of food colouring to make sure the flowers would get dyed.

Finally some traces of green and red in the flowers.

Thank God this time, Zech could see very clearly the red and green specks on the carnations. I even plucked out the petals to show him the colouring at the bottom.

Reluctantly, I moved on to the next unit, A for apple. A really fun and interesting topic I soon discovered.

For every letter Zech learns, I prepared a basket filled with items. This is his Aa basket with items beginning with A. Includes a little booklet from alpha tales, which I bought from scholastic.com. Really useful.

Taught Zech to make apple salad, apple 'sandwich' and car apple. We made a poster of fruits using newspaper cuttings. An apple tree was made by tracing Zech's hand as the trunk and branches. The apples on the tree were made using fingerprints.

I bought lots of apples. Red ones, green and even yellow ones. Zech sorted them according to size and colours.

Zech counted the number of apples while I guided him to make an apple graph.

Used some of the apples to make apple pie. Zech helped me with the apple filling. It's always fun for him to be involved in the preparation. The crust was ready made from Cold Storage.

Here's my apple pie. Hahaha! Fortunately, only the edges were burnt. Zech ate a slice and told me he likes it. That motivated me to try making another one soon.

Downloaded this stamping activity from http://www.3dinosaurs.com/printables/.

And of course, Zech had to learn how to write Aa. Fomed Aa with pebbles before learning how to write.

Some acceptable handwriting at last! For each unit, Zech usually does some amount of writing on the student sheets (provided by MFW) and a few other worksheets I've downloaded online. Realised the challenge for Zech is drawing curves. Thank God he's great with lines.

This unit's memory verse reminded Zech and me to bear fruit just like the apple tree. Zech made the apple prints and I wrote the memory verse for him at the bottom.

Made an apple tree for Zech and pasted it on the sliding door of our balcony. It works like a reward card. Look! Zech's bearing some fruits of the spirit. Bearing fruits is never easy but I'm sure glad after implementing this reward system, he has learnt to pack up and keep his room neat and tidy before breakfast every morning. The most important thing is catching him doing the right thing.

Did the usual stuff. Zech's gradually improving in this.

Always feel it's important for a child to learn outdoors, where all the five senses are engaged. So I made it a point to take Zech out on a field trip related to each unit. Last weekend, we made a trip down to a fruit farm at Lim Chu Kang, just next to Hay Dairies. No apple orchard in Singapore. But fret not! It's common to spot fruit trees here. There are many at the Botanic Gardens. In my mum's garden, there are quite a few too. Nevertheless, it's an experience for a child to venture down the countryside in Lim Chu Kang.

Know as Spring Orchard, it used to be a dragonfruit farm and now it's replaced with guava trees, which according to the old granny there, are easier to grow and bear fruit. We even bought 1kg worth of guavas home. Really yummy!