What my 3 year old has been up to?

For the longest time I have kept journals, since I was 12 years old, my aunt Julie gave me a notebook to write my thoughts in so it would help me better express myself, I used to write about me until I had children and now its all about them. I usually write in a notebook but now getting into the digital age I'm moving on with the times, and this is one of the main reasons for launching my blog, so I can record and document my children's progress and see what areas needs to be worked on more.

What my 3 year old has been up to this year?

My son had only established his speech when he turned three, and only had learnt how to say his name up until recently. Albeit, Abdurrahman it is a rather long name. Although his language skills lacked, I could see that his motor skills and problem solving skills were more his preference, and he is still is more inclined to these aspects.

We began casually homeschooling when he was 3.2 years old after a nudge from the dad, or a rather insistent nudge, but I found that DS wasn't ready and didn't understand many of the things I was trying to teach him, like colours, shapes, numbers and letters, he just didn't make the connections. So I decided to take a break, thankfully, and wait for the cues to show his readiness like being able to concentrate, take instructions, attentively listen, willingness to learn and having that understanding. Around 3.6 years old, when he demanded from me to teach him the ABCs and numbers, I started preparing materials for him in phonics and numbers, and allowed him to join in projects that his big sister is doing. Although he would show enthusiasm to begin with it wouldn't last long to keep him going through to the end, five minute is usually as much as he would endure unless it was something he enjoyed and would last forever, he would persistently ask to keep going on and on especially with the 20 ways to teach your preschooler to learn numbers, he particularly enjoyed the hide and seek post it notes. To summarize where's he at with the acedemics

Maths

Numbers: After a couple of months of having structured learning he has learnt number recognition from 1 to 10. Able to recite and count in order from 1 to 20, but unable to arrange physical numbers in order he wouldn't know what comes next if I asked him. He able to use counters and count objects with its correct number from 1 to 5. And he can write some numbers like, 0, 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 10.

Shapes: Can identify basic shapes, he likes to trace shapes and cut them out. 

Colors: Still need to work on identifying colors he gets his colors muddled up. He can only tell you what pink and purple are because it's his sister's favorite color and he knows that anything that is pink or purple belongs to her and he is not allowed to play it. 

Measurements: He can arrange things in order of size.

English

DIY 7 booklets of the Jolly Phonics Songs, 

Matching object to letter

Phonics: I am mainly going through the Jolly Phonics program which I had success in with teaching my DD who was also 3 years old at the time and learnt how to read very quickly. We have covered the first group of letters s, a, t, i, p, n. But he enjoys to go through the whole alphabet using wooden puzzles, flashcards, and matching picture cards and its letters as well as using miniature objects and matching it to its letter. He uses tracing dots to help guide him write and using the Jolly Phonics app was a big help to see the letter formation written from start to finish.

Quran 

We are working on memorization of Surah Ikhlas and Surah al Fatiha, at the moment he repeats word by word.

Supplications

He is learning a few daily supplications, the longer worded ones he will repeat word by word from me or his big sister.

In general DS has shown a huge improvement and readiness to learn. And enjoys having that one on one adult attention. For me homeschooling my second child is a lot more relaxed, because I've learnt with my first child and homeschooling other children along the way is that every child progresses differently and develop at stages despite being the same age as their peers. My more relaxed attitude is that there's no rush to push a young child in learning, it will come when they are ready, More importantly it's their first experience in learning so you might as well start off positively, they have the rest of their lives to learn. I believe that the quality time you spend learning with your young child is a lot more precious than pushing them to meet expectations and thus stressing you and your child out. 

DS other qualities that endears me are his loving nature towards me and his sisters, he has a temper but he doesn't fight them or cause trouble with them, rather he would apologize and hug his big sister if  he has done something wrong, giving her a long hug. Also when his big sis goes to school his favourite part when seeing her off to get on the school bus is a squeezy hug, and he would cry if she would forget to hug him because of rushing off onto the bus. When we come home from grocery shopping he would help his father with the shopping bags and bring them into the kitchen, then help me put everything away in its proper place, whereas DD5 doesn't bother to do this. Another neat thing about him is that he can play on his own for hours but up until recently he wants to have someone to play with. He loves to play with his animal figurine collection, his dinosaur collection, he would race cars in the hallway, build train tracks, make aeroplane's and cars with his Lego, and he enjoys looking through books.