Nathanael's PreK years

What has Nathanael been up to when Mummy's homeschooling with big brother?

Mainly free and easy. Prepared some stuff for him to do. He chooses whatever he feels like doing.

This little boy has been enjoying this activity. Easy for him to do independently.

Teaching him colours. Prepare a sensory bin for him, focusing on a colour each time. This week's colour - red. And he's dumping more red stuff into the bin, telling me his red toys belong in here.

When he has enough, he's usually off to play on his own. His favourite area is the daybed. My 2 boys have been conquering my favourite areas in the house. First the swing at the balcony and now the daybed.

With one of the Leapfrog gadgets.

We love Leapfrog! Nathanael has been picking up his brother's Leapfrog reader pen and exploring the books on his own.


At least once a week, we do craft together during school time in the morning. We've done marble painting, paper folding, drawing and this week, making a sheep craft.

Marble painting.

Paper folding

It's a blessing when my 2 boys are peacefully doing their own work, not disturbing each other. A rare and precious moment here.

When we do Science, Nathanael usually joins us for experiments. Can be frustrating sometimes, especially when he is not supposed to touch the setups. But at the end, he still gets to enjoy some play with Zech.

Float or sink experiment

Exploring the different shapes of water

I've tried including Nathanael in pattern block or tangram activities in my aim to get the boys to work together, as two heads are better than one. Don't think he's quite ready for these. In the end, Zech solved the first one independently while I worked together with him on the second.

We tried the circle tangram recently again. Nathanael was more focused and he could contribute relevant pieces. Perhaps it always pays to give kids another chance. The boys did quite a few that morning.

Bought this from Popular.

In the afternoon, after lunch, Nathanael gets some homeschool time with me. Didn't plan for this but he always asks for school so I decided to have about 30 min of school time with him.

We do very simple stuff. My focus is not on teaching the letters of the alphabet or counting numbers, as I don't believe in starting young will gain him an edge over his peers. I have an example at home. Zech only started learning letters formally after he was 3.5 years old and at 5.5 years old now, I'm proud of my little reader who enjoys his books.

Doing simple stuff such as...

Pasting sticker dots.

Learning shapes. Made a felt board recently by recycling an easel board. Felt can be bought from Daiso. $2 per pack with different colours of felt.

Nathanael likes teddy bears so Mummy cut out some shapes from felt for him to create his own bear.

Activity sticker book from Popular. Used to belong to Zech. It's dry erase material so now Nathanael is using it!

Tear and paste book. Nathanel's favourite. There are other tear and paste book with different themes. From Popular too.

We do numbers too. Just counting from 1 to 15 using number cards.

Nathanael has learned to recognize his own and his brother's name. And that was how he recognized the letters N and Z. He knows B too because he stays in Blk xxxB. Hahaha! Talk about real life learning.

I'm looking forward to next year when I can do more with Nathanael. In the meantime, I guess he's contented with simple stuff.