J's learning journey - Almost 2 years on

I disappeared rather quickly after my last post, and for a long time because
- life happen (quite literally!) but that's another story,
- I had little opportunity to use the laptop and blogger mobile wasn't working too great for me, and
- when I finally get to turn on my laptop, my inspiration disappears once I logged in. The thousand thoughts on my mind just went *poof* and I end up doing something else.

However, these few months, I found my previous logs and posts about baby and Lil' J to be very useful. There are so many little details I've forgotten, and would probably never remember had I not written them down. That's why I'm back this time, for a short documentation (which may end up a grandmother's story) of J's learning journey thus far. For future reference.


For the first two years, I mainly let J explore and play on her own.
There was hardly any planned activities. Not that I didn't want to; it didn't work out.
I did attempt sensory bins but the first one resulted in alphabet pasta strewn all over the place, and other invitation-to-play activities doesn't seem quite inviting to the little girl.
So, after pulling quite a bit of hair of and soaking in mom-guilt that I haven't done enough, I let it slide.
It wasn't a conscious decision. It was more of a "I'm-too-tired-to-fight-it-anymore".
We visited grandma's more because I couldn't cope. From there we tried to take her to places and give her more experiences.
Grandma let her play with oobleck, containers, vegetables ends and bits, stickers, or doodle. Whatever she wants. It was mainly sensory play, without the purposeful set up. It turns out that J likes it better when it's not "structured". And that I feel more relaxed now that I didn't have an expected outcome in mind.

I did a few thematic activities when J was around two.
It looked fun. It was fun.
But a part of me felt like it wasn't really genuine. J didn't like the activities that didn't involve her favourite - painting, or field trips. All the sensory bins (yes, I attempted again) I laid out, she didn't like it. Towards the end, I was confused about whether she learnt anything, or not.
During our activities, I had to make it sound and feel like it was "Oh! So fun!!!" just to get her interested.Somewhat forced.
To be very frank, I was bothered by what I saw on social media. The play activities laid out by other mothers look awesome, and inviting. And most importantly. it seemed like the children enjoy it so much that they could spend a lot of time playing with the set-up so why can't my kid do the same?
There were many days of doubt, and guilt.
Mine could only sit for a long period flipping through her story books, or spend hours on pretend play.
Hey, she could spend a long time with books and pretend play and I was complaining?! I don't know what I was comparing, and why.
I wasn't contented with what I was doing with J. I didn't feel I did enough, I had to constantly remind myself that it's okay.

It was only until our first family holiday that I realised what brings J joy. Which, I realised, was more important.
Playing in the creek.
Running in big spaces.
Trying out new things, like stepping on mud. (She actually removed her rainboots sneakily to step on the mud)
Falling in dirt.
Climbing a ladder.
Playing in sand and at the playground.
Just cuddling us.

All the simple things.
No planned activities. No intended outcome.
But so much learning took place.
I saw how empathetic she was.
How brave when she climbed up the high playground while I was freaking out below.
How she didn't fear when she fed the animals, or touch the reptiles.
How she observed wool and drew it in her journal later.
How she self-feed the entire trip.

Then I realised, I should let J be J.
When we returned, I had a short part-time stint which meant time away from J. Those days I wasn't working, we would just have fun together. No more thematic learning.

We set up a mini craft station where she had access to papers and drawing materials.
When we included glue and scissors later, she was so proud.

Then I saw her create. Freely.
She asked me to cut out shapes of birds and cats, and she decorated them after.
It progressed to paper towel roll art whenever she spot empty ones in the kitchen.
She was so happy, so was I.
She continued reading. This time, she could retell stories by looking at the illustrations.
She couldn't do it word for word, and she replaces some with words of her own but the gist of the story is there.


Then, school started, and I noticed how much she was learning in school.
So, we continued just having fun reading and letting her roll with the creativity and imagination.
I still have doubts.
I still try to slot in activities for her when I can.
But now, I know better what kind of activities suit her.

This is what I learnt.
There are many online which I can learn from, but I also learnt that not all are for J.
I cannot do printables and worksheets with her.
I cannot do activity cards for number recognition - J will remember the answers and the cards will be useless after the first use.
With J, it's always best to sneak in learning in daily life.
Unless she brings an activity book and requests for it to be done. Then she'll do it. Just a little bit.

I've also learnt that her attention span is not as long and she need tasks to be broken down to bite-sized.
She hates colouring with crayons and colour pencils. But to fill in a shape using other methods, she welcome them.
She likes cutting, and creating, and doodling on her own.
She enjoys painting -most are abstract.

She's learning to spell her name - much later than some of her peers, I believe. But she did it because she was ready. When she's ready. That's the key, isn't it?



It has been a long journey.
For me.
But I'm glad I wasn't too late in discovering what suits her better. Not best, because how would I know what suits her best? I can only keep trying. :)
And I'm glad I decided to let J, be J.

The Letter 'S'

Hello! I'm back a lot faster than I expected!

J received her first school parent-child assignment and I'm really excited.

We do crafts at home but they are mainly spontaneous ones. Planned activities don't go so well in this house. But parent-child assignments are different - there's opportunity for discussions and sharing.

This week, they learnt about the letter 'S' and we were encouraged to make a snake with recyclables.

It has been a really fun process so I thought I would like to pen it down.

We started with discussion the day she brought the activity sheet back.

We talked about the various materials we can use (kitchen towel rolls, old stockings, paper, socks... ) This kid knows what I have in my craft stash. 

This is our first project so there was a lot of prompting.
I asked if she wanted her snake to be a sculpture or one that can have movable parts.

She wanted one that could move so we decided on a pull-along toy, to be made with paper towel rolls.

I tried to let her work on it on her own as much as possible.

She picked out the origami papers she wanted to use from my stash, which I kind of regretted packing them neatly into an origami paper box because she can see ALL the papers I have. 

I stuck double-sided tape to the kitchen rolls and taught her how to roll it over the paper. She then stuffed the ends in to secure the paper onto the kitchen roll. Easy-peasy for small hands.

I left her be to work on the rest. She needed a little help and guidance but was pretty much able to complete it on her own.

The eyes are plain circle labels with pupils she drew on using a Sharpie. Using a Sharpie is a big deal for J, because as Momma puts it, those are "markers for grown-ups". I would have used the pistachio shells if I hadn't tossed them into the bins.

The tongue was some scrap paper we found in her scrap paper bag that was coloured over with red marker. That scrap paper bag is full of small pieces of paper from her cutting sessions. She is so into cutting lately. Imagine the horror to find "confetti" on the floor every time she works on crafts when I'm doing my chores/having a shower. 

I didn't know how to string the tubes together so that the part stayed in place so we dot The Husband's help on that.  I had J string strips of straw with a string, then using one longer straw as a needle, to string all the stringed straw pieces into the tubes.

Whoa. That was quite a mouthful.

Then I stuck double sided tape onto the straw and stuck them on the inside of the roll to keep the string in place. This feels so complicated as I'm typing this out. I'm very sure there is an easier way but I have absolutely no idea what it is.

After stringing all the tubes together, our simple snake is done!

J decided to stick animal stickers onto each section of the snake. Now it looks like a train.
Aaaaaand our first project is done!!

She had some fun pulling the toy all over the house.
So glad that her first project is like building a toy to her.


Note: The snake hardly survived being pulled around that it was falling apart on Sunday night. I had to secure more tapes onto it. I hope it stays okay through the week!