Last year, we had a very enjoyable few months in a co-op playgroup, and were very sad when the year came to a close, as most of the children, including Noah, were off to N1. A few of us are still SAHMs, so we decided to try restarting our playdates, but in the late afternoon instead, after school and nap-time. I’ve decided to rename this series of posts, to better reflect what we do, since our sessions are essentially geared towards homeschooling, albeit on a weekly, rather than daily, basis.
The format of our sessions are still the same, though there are a few changes in the “student population”. The age group is more varied, with the two younger girls from our previous outdoor playdates joining us, and an older boy, who is there more as a helper, as he is the older brother of the other boy in our group.
This being the month of Chinese New Year (CNY), we decided to focus on CNY as our theme. The teacher in me still enjoys making worksheets, so I created a simple one based on four different items associated with CNY. I took photos of the items that I planned to show the children, printed and cut them out, so that the children could match them to the correct names. You can download my simple Chinese New Year Intro 1 worksheet if you want!
Red Packets
Lion Dance
Couplets
Paper cutting
Chinese New Year Intro Worksheet
During our session, I talked briefly about each item, and stressed the importance of giving all the red packets they will receive to their parents, so hopefully, they’ll remember that! The children seemed to like the lion dance puppet best, which I bought at the Hougang Central CNY Fair for about $11.
Looking at the red packets
Working on his worksheet
Mummy L read a CNY-related story to the children after that, and they looked really adorable, sitting in a row. (Check out her list of CNY-related books in her Friday Flips post!)
Listening attentively to the story
For craft, Mummy E taught us to make firecrackers with straws! It’s really easy, though Noah lost focus after a while, and took quite some time to complete his craft.
Firecrackers craft
Group photo!
We were all very impressed by Mummy T and the amount of effort put into preparing the materials for the Chinese segment! She had A3-sized posters, and even prepared red packets with biscuits inside, for the mums to give to our kids, after they wished us, “Happy New Year!” in Mandarin.
Chinese
Receiving the red packet from me
Mummy L baked some gorgeous cupcakes for little B’s birthday, and we all sang Happy Birthday to her during our snack time. The children were given grapes and biscuits instead, as we didn’t want them to fill up on snacks so close to dinner time.
Blessed birthday, B!
For Practical Life, Mummy L and I came up with five different stations for the children to work on.
Noah loved rolling the playdoh into balls, and refused to move on to the next station
Matching pairs
Working with shapes
Using tongs
Making a lantern by cutting paper
Trying to run away with Faith
Honestly, Noah was a real handful throughout the entire session, and really tested my patience. I picked him up earlier from school, so that he could have a snack and longer nap in the car, but it didn’t seem to have made much of a difference. I expected him to be thrilled to see his friends again, but he was super clingy after waking up from his nap in the car, and took a really long time to warm-up. In fact, he only started interacting with Faith when we were about to leave, even though he had been talking about meeting her again for the longest time. Hopefully, the next few sessions will go better, otherwise, I might have to withdraw from this playgroup, as he was rather disruptive at times.
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