We had our first playgroup session this morning and did craft instead of art. I was rather conservative and decided against a open ended art exploration experience for the little ones. Afterall, craft experiences are useful to teach concepts.

This turtle craft project had to meet the subtle objectives of teaching the letter T and colours red and green ; with the triangular collages and turtle. Incorporated a little bit of printing and collage on the ‘shell’ of the turtle. However like most craft projects for toddlers, the mummies ended up doing the bulk of the work.

The key challenge of developing lesson plans for toddlers is that learning objectives are difficult to achieve, unless the concepts are repeatedly and consistently taught with many different experiences throughout one week. Unlike preschoolers, who can usually grasp the concept with one or two lessons. It is afterall much easier when the child is developmentally ready.

So it is usually wishful thinking to hope that the toddler internalises the concepts after 1 or 2 lessons after his/her playgroup classes at Julia Gabriel or Busy Buddies. Perhaps the only objective that can be achieved is socialisation. Toddlers will be too distracted by other toddlers in the class to pay any attention to the concepts taught.

But that’s how it is when I am like some parents, who hope that my kid can read some letters and numbers even before he enters preschool.

It is getting rather challenging to get Kyle to spend more than 10-15 mins concentrating on any task lately (besides his indoor tennis and golf). Guess that will mean I will have to find another 101 other ways to set the stage for his play experiences.

Recently L mentioned that she has ran out of activities for her 21 month little girl. She has tried painting, dough, crayons, bought her new pretend play toys (which I believe have kept her busy for a while).

Most moms I know of are giving their little ones lots of art and craft activities. I think it is fantastic that they are leading the pathway for creative development for their child. However, I will use a methodological approach to focus on the growth of the whole child. This approach will be suited for toddlers below 3 years and can include developmental norms in the areas of physical, language and communication, cognitive, social and emotional growth.

Before I plan for new activities for Kyle, I completed 5 separate observation assessments of Kyle in different settings; meal time, solitary play, parallel play, outdoor play and dough play. From there compare the assessment with development norms of a 17 month old child and then evaluate it to determine his needs, interests and abilities. From there, I will plan for a balance of experiences to support, enhance and foster the developmental areas. Movement needs to be a fundamental area for this programme, it is probably one of the best ways to keep his ‘octopus’ hands and legs occupied. As for the music bit, he has to be content with my not so great voice without music accompaniment, while I wait for P85 to arrive in Oct (I am dying of anticipation).

After this, I will embark on a multi-sensory approach for his alphabet experience. However, I am not certain that he is developmentally ready for this, will try out the letter ‘S’ first and its related activities to see if there is any potential interest. Most likely have to be prepared to arm myself for more activities, in case of any sign of a lack of interest. Regardless, there will be no flash cards for him, at his age, there is no way flash cards are going to work for an active, super-inquisitive toddler.

This is the start of Kyle’s home school, it’s time to start on my own kid and not be too occupied by other people’s kids. Looks like I am going to be even busier now vs those few months back when I was a FTWM.