Irfan and me

This holiday, I can say that I had spent a lot of time with Irfan. He is also having his holidays, so I seized the opportunity to spend time with him, every hour of the day. Alim was away on a rugby trip for a few days so for about 5 days, it was just Irfan and me at home.
I think when school reopens, I would be the one having difficulty parting with him, especially the first day of school. :( I never thought I could enjoy the company of a2+ year old as much as I did. At this age, these toddlers are able to have a two way communication and they do make sense, well..most times.
His concentration span has a also improved a great deal so I could actually enjoy some quiet moments with him completing 4 to 6 pieces puzzles. I'm surprised he could actually complete these puzzles at one seating with full concentration; given the abundance of energy he has.
One day, we spent almost half the day, moulding playdoh. He wanted me to mould 3 people; ayah, ibu and irfan. His job was to add in the eyes, nose, mouth, ears and shoes. He also requested that I built 'ayah's car' for the family to go out shopping.




Irfan in blue, ayah in green (check out the Elvis cum P Ramlee hair) and me in pink.

Playdoh is definitely one of my favourite toy now, not only it encourages creativity but you can teach a million and one things to your toddler through playing play doh. From our little activity, he managed to learn a lil about colours, body parts and size. I just tried to extend what he knew and introduce a few new ideas which Im sure he didnt know. The other day, we moulded animals and he told me that birds must have wings, snake is long and must be rolled and an elephant have a long nose. I took the opportunity to introduce some animals he didn't know and moulded them, whilst making him put the body parts. Great teaching tool, isnt it and most importantly it's a lot of fun!
Over the holidays, one of the things I wanted to do with Irfan was to expose him to more things, and especially to work a lil on his phonics and his colour recognition. But the most important thing is to weave them into play and make it fun, fun , fun! That way, both of us can enjoy the activity and he can also pick a thing or two.
I have been introducing him to colours for a while now, but he is taking a pretty long time to recognise them. Actually I find it surprising that he could recognise shapes quicker than colours. So during the holidays, I looked around the house and collected objects which are blue, yellow, green and red and mixed them all up. I deliberately chose items which he liked, which are as real as possible, like bananas, oranges, apples, peas....things which he likes touching but seldom got a chance to. I took 4 boxes and put 2 same coloured items in each box and ask irfan to find other items which are of the same colour. Of course, he enjoyed the idea of walking around finding things and putting them in boxes.
From this activity, I realized he is able to group based on colours. But the problem is, he could not remember what the colour is called.
Now, Im thinking of how to teach him names of colours in a fun and exciting way. Actually I liked it that I have to find creative ways to make sure the activity is interesting enough to sustain Irfan's limited attention. It keeps the activities fun.
Another exciting and powerful teaching tool, is playing make-believe. At 3 years old, they enjoy make-believe play so I took the opportunity to capitalise on this interest of his.
At the moment, his Mickey Mouse and teddy bear are his faithful companions. He will always take mickey mouse for himself and hands me the teddy bear. The other day, Mickey mouse, teddy bear, irfan and me went to a 'make believe' restaurant and we ordered different kinds of food and drinks. There were really a lot of teaching opportunities just from the pretend conversations we've had. I followed his lead but I also tried to put in some details and asked him some questions which made him see other possibilities Halfway through 'eating' , he said Mickey Mouse urgently wanted to 'pee', so he rushed Mickey Mouse to the pretend toilet. Soon he came back, said, "Dah pee" and started eating. I asked him if Mickey Mouse had washed his hands because he had just went to the toilet and his hands are full of germs.
I really had so much fun playing with him and every lil playtime with him can be a teachable moment. He is talkative and once I get his full attention, he is very responsive and engaged. So my challenge is always to make my activities exciting and able to capture his interest. But sometimes, he comes up with the activities and I just simply play along.
I wonder who will he play with him when school reopens. He will learn in school for 3 hours and when he gets back, he will usually be watching TV. I must admit he has learnt quite a lot from TV; some good and some not so good things. But it would be great if there is someone to play with him and make play, a fun teachable moment.
School will start in 2 days, and I am sure 'looking forward' to it.

Irfan's first teacher-parent meeting

It's been a while since I wanted to write about this but just couldn't find the time.

A few weeks back, Irfan's school had a teacher-parent meeting. I was of course looking forward to this although I kind of knew what were some of the adjectives his teacher would use to describe him. :)
As a teacher myself, I also knew that we are trained to sugar-coat our words when speaking to parents and to always highlight the positive first and then to carefully but clearly weave in the not so nice aspects of the child's behaviour.

One of the expected adjective the teacher used was 'active'. "Irfan is an active boy", his teacher said. "He's always bursting with energy, very cheerful and eager to learn." she continued. And lastly she added, " If he is absent, we will all feel like something is missing, we can really feel the difference!" I suppose the teacher is pretty well trained in speaking to parents coz not only did she use neutral words but she used a variety of synonyms which basically means, he just can't sit still in class, wonders around, talks a lot and has problems concentrating for long.
Which, I totally agree! That is Irfan at 3 years old! Apparently he is the same in school and at home.

In terms of learning, his teacher said he is very good at hands-on activities for eg, practical life activities like dry pouring, arranging tower blocks from big to small, shallow to deep and other visual discrimination activities.
He's also pretty good at maths and is able to count without skipping and is able recognise numbers.
But he's taking a longer time for language, he needs lots more practice in mastering his phonetic sounds and recognising the letters. Same goes for Arabic letters. He tends to get the sounds confused.

His developments are detailed in this developmental portfolio which I really really liked. They describe how the child is doing in each aspect of his learning. The last section is a checklist of a list of objectives. The teacher will indicate the date the lesson is being introduced and the date the objective is mastered by the child.







He looks pretty sedated in the pictures. :) hehe

Now, at 3 years old, Im giving him a break from all this academic pressure..let him enjoy being a carefree child for many more years coz he still has a long way to go.Imagine all the loong years of education we've all had. All the exams, stress, the fear of failing....all that can wait.
most importantly I just want him to have the right attitude towards learning; that it can be fun, it's useful and that learning should not competitive. I guess that's why I put in a montessori school coz it's a lot of play, outings, unstructured and not so much like a real school although I'm still not sure if Montessori is the right way to go for Irfan. I dunno if he can cope later in primary 1 when the classroom setting is different and given that he can't sit still. Im just hoping he will slow down a lil as he ages and by 7 is able to sit still during lessons and be engaged in his work. I asked the teacher if he is more active than the rest of the kids and the teacher said he is one of the more active ones but is showing progress compared to the first few months.

He seems to enjoy school so far so maybe i'll keep him there for the year.

For now, Im just enjoying every single day I have with him at home. And Im really learning a lot of stuff about him which I didnt know earlier. Now he has pretty much his own ideas about things and i find them interesting and most times, surprising :)

A much needed rest

After all the hard work, we decided, for this break we just didnt want to do anything. We just wanted to go for a long nice drive, check into a nice resort and just do nothing but sleep, eat and maybe swim a lil.


Irfan, me and our room on the left of the pic

Avillion Beach Resort is a nice water resort in port dickson if you like waking up to the sight of the endless sea and sound of the waves.
Although the sea is not exactly clear blue waters, but it's not too bad. Our resort is right above water so we can either enjoy the sea breeze at the verandah and just stone or do some fishing from the verandah itself.
The day bed faces the sea so the last thing we see before we sleep and the first thing that greets us in the morning will be the endless sea.

Irfan, like most kids are quite easy to please. The 24 hour pool was enough for him. One thing I like about the pool, other than it being 24hrs, is that it's just beside the cafe, so while the kids swam, we can have a leisurely breakfast or drink and keep an eye on them. And on top of that they have a small pet farm within the resort where kids could feed and play with the rabbits, chickens, peacocks and tortoises. With the private beach a mere walking distance from our room, Irfan could not stop building and mostly destroying half built sandcastles. So Irfan did enjoy the place as much as we did. Looking out for kids activities has become our priority nowadays:) We have learnt that restless, bored kids always lead to trouble which means no rest for us!

Another plus point which I liked was the beautiful sunset which we can see every evening at around seven, right from our room! (depending where your room is located)
Nearby the resort, you can find strings of night market and pretty delicious seafood, at a very cheap price.

It's no Banyan Tree but pretty nice for the price we pay. So if you like taking a nice drive up to malaysia, do drop by port dickson and check this place out:)

The downside? Parking is always full at the resort itself, so most of the time, we have to park at the resorts' parking lot across the street.
And secondly, we found a bat in the open air toilet in our room. It was just comfortably resting quietly at the corner of the floor but looks disgusting all the same. So Alim, took it out and left it somewhere (I really don't want to know where! as long as it is out of my sight!!) and I was spooked a lil after that and did not dare to step in the toilet. But luckily no more bats after that!

For lazy people like us, waking up to the beautiful sight is actually all we need. We really had a much needed rested break and will be enjoying the last weeks of the holidays before it's back to work!










My favourite place; the daybed has windows which opens up to the sea. I slept a lot here:)









For more photos go here