5-TOUCH class
He was up right at 6 again. A bit of a pattern. He was watching ABC songs on the iPad when Carly left and never had a clear “Miss mama” period. But after watching for awhile he did have a sad moment, but it wasn’t clear why – he wasn’t watching anything that he would consider ‘sad’. But he suddenly was done with the iPad and wanted to go on the subway.
So then we were playing with the cardboard bricks, making a tower. I saw the one that had a duck on it, and asked out loud, but more to myself “What is duck in espanol?” As I was taking out my phone, August said “Pato”. I had to ask Carly if she had taught it to him. Apparently they had covered it (I assume with the duck in the bathtub) but not for a couple days.
He was then playing with the magnets on the door, and picked up on the plus sign and the minus/equals pieces. He then got into numbers and math a lot for the rest of the day. We did some math problems on the table using the number magnets and symbols and Duplos, then he wanted the iPad. This time, he only did math stuff, namely Math Tree and then tracing numbers in Intro to Numbers. We then played with his wooden blocks (more towers) and made a smoothie.
We left about 10:30. As we put on our shoes, he pointed to the Korean poster and said “ah-chim,” which is ‘morning’. Then, as we walked through the park he noticed that the ice rink is now gone and said “Ice is closed.” I still feel bad for only taking him that one time. It had been snowing on and off all morning and was snowing as we walked to Home Plus. At the library he wanted to touch the snow on the big round posts, then he wanted me to do ABCs. I wrote on 3 of the posts, then we continued on. He gave the slightest opposition when he realized we were headed upstairs, pointing to go downstairs instead, but that was it. We were a little early, so we sat down and got his notebook out. But then I realized there were already people in the classroom, and asked if he wanted to go in, and he agreed, saying “Notebook in class.”
We went in and he was waving to people and said “Hi” to the teacher. Colored in the notebook for a few minutes before class started. Class, given it is the first after the new year, was about traditional games: so more of the jegi (hacky sacks) and more arrow throwing. But first was of course the outfits, little hanbok outfits. August considered it, as when she gave him a blue one, he kept saying “red one” (which was the color the girls had). So we went up and looked at the stack. There were also green and pink, but at this point he refused them all. He did try to put the headband on himself a couple times, but wouldn’t let me do it. As the rest of the kids were posed for photos together, he went off to his notebook in the back of the class. He was “all done class” at this point, but then luckily she brought out the toys. He did some throwing of the arrows and kicking at the hacky sacks, but he mainly wanted to play with the hacky sacks – looking at them as stepping on them. First he was playing with red and green ones (this is when he said “noksak” (green)), but then we got a silver and a gold one. When he had to put the jegi away I thought he might be upset. But instead he waved and said “bye” to them. At the end of class he went up to the teacher and said “handstamp”, as of course he remembered and wasn’t going to let her get away with out it. So he got his handstamps (although I think he only wanted one). He did more good bowing today, both at the beginning and end of class.
On the walk home we saw that our letters from earlier were almost covered by fresh snow. It was getting blizzard-like as we got home, and over the next couple hours the snow would stop, then there would be an intense flurry, etc. Had a teriyaki salmon sandwich for lunch, which he was excited about. Then tried to get him to sleep. He spent much longer laying on the bed than he had in the past. But still just wouldn’t fall asleep. So finally got him in the stroller and he fell right asleep. Slept from 1:44 to 3:01.
Still fascinated by ‘Q’. He says “Q for..” all the time. And it doesn’t have to be words that start with Q. If you say ‘square’ or ‘squeak’ he will say “Q for square” etc. It is also a joke, as he will say ‘Q for…’ and insert random things. Today he was walking around saying “Q for…square, outside, silver, Hangeul, Q, whiteboard, A, octothorp, at sign.” We also recorded a Skype message for Carly showing more of his punctuation knowledge, as he now knows parentheses, tilde, octothorp, at sign, caret, ampersand, and the math symbols. Think he still needs asterisk and percentage.
We had a nice music time today, playing on the xylophone and piano and tambourine and drum. He noticed that the tambourine is “heart” shaped. We also played a lot with his cards in the afternoon and doing ABC with them and on random surfaces, and of course the paper. But he was also requesting that I write “math” on the paper. So I would write math problems, then he would want me to trace them.
Around 5:20 he wanted to go “wait for mama”. So we started to go, but then he insisted on the backpack. So I quickly threw on our coats and we headed out. It was kind of nice, as he hadn’t wanted to go outside in the afternoon. This way we were able to get out in the still-falling snow for a few minutes. We met Carly on our side of the park. He got more snow in his mouth and said “yummy snow”, as he had earlier. He wanted to get out and touch snow some more, but he wasn’t dressed for it, and Carly didn’t want to stay out, so we headed in.
At one point in the evening he walked into my bathroom saying “Green, green, green” and then “Blue, blue” and pointed at the toilet and the mirrors. I realized he was talking about the cleaners we had used last weekend to clean the bathroom and he wanted to clean the bathroom again.
Since August didn’t want to go outside in the afternoon, we hadn’t gone to the grocery store. So after Carly got home and I had a bite to eat, I went over to Home Plus to do some shopping.
I gave him a bath today and he had a ton of fun. He was talking and singing like crazy, some of which I got on video. I said he must be having more fun in the bathtub than any other kid who refuses to sit down.
As we were trying to get him ready for bedtime, he wanted to read stories with both of us, and wanted us both in the reading area in the parlor. We went in, and one of us turned on the light. He then made a “nee nee” noise, as our light button beeps when you turn it on. We’ve never done that, so his invention. I had thought he had done something similar when we heard a siren or something a couple days ago.
Eventually Carly went to bed and he stayed up with me a bit longer, reading In the Garden and Alphabet. We got him to sleep right about 9:45.
In terms of reading, he is now picking out and spelling small words like in, on, is, an, and the. He started picking these up on his own, as we have focused on the more interesting words, but now we are helping him pick them out as well.
Something I haven’t been able to get on video is the “be-uh, be-uh, be-uh” noise he makes when he is upset and complaining, but not fully crying yet. It also reminds me of his “Aaah!” noise he would make at the end of a series of sneezes that I don’t know if I ever got on video. He kind of did it once on Sunday, I think, after coughing/sneezing.
He now knows ‘star’, ‘fish’, and ‘frog’ in three languages. Was really pulling out the animals in Spanish today.
New words/phrases: pato (duck), pez (fish), put it back, piece of purple (play dough), estrellas (stars), buel (star in Korean), math, something under (as he was writing on the paper and there were markers un
der it), open it, rana (frog), pájaro (bird), caballo, caimán (alligator), mariquita (butterfly)
Math:
Finding the Q:
Writing in the snow on the way to class:
Class. August with his notebook, while the other kids pose for photos:
Jegi:
Home:
