Sometimes, it is not all ABC and 123 and reading sight words or learning those phonics. Sometimes, it is just play. I am learning more in this, because I grew up learning alot of ABC and 123, reading all sorts of books, getting those 100% marks and all 'A' s grades, but not because my parents forced me, but I loved to do it by myself. A sense of achievement, so called.
Raising up boys differently
In these 9 years of raising up the boys, I gradually found out they learn more through playing. Boys and girls are wired differently, their brain development are different and so academically, it seems that boys are slower than girls, but that is not true. It is because the way they perceive things and the train of their thoughts are arranged differently.
After few days of heavily on online learning with teachers and doing homework in activities books provided, we declared a day of play, play only. I let them decide what to play. As usual, they took out all figurines and played combat and war. Shooting with weapons. Flying high with space rocket. The floor is lava. Etc. Then suddenly...
Jelly Crystal!
They suddenly remembered their jelly crystal balls which they played once last year (or two years ago, I couldn't remember) and I did blog about it too. So without further ado...
Orbeez Play!
After soaking the small colourful 'grains' for 15 minutes, they started to swell. The photo below looked blur due to the side of the balls absorbing water, making them translucent-like.
They looked so lovely when they started to swell.
Lovely when they bloomed
The orbeez looked so beautiful and lovely when they were of full size. This one was smaller size. Out there in the market, they sold even bigger size almost the size of a kid's fist. I needed to hunt for that!
The boys could play on them for 2 hours, I could not understand. To me, I could read books for 2 hours, but they could play something like this for hours. From sensory play, to cooking, to finding the transparent ones in the water, to guessing what colour would the fingers scoop, tornado-ning them, etc. Full of creativity. Play is learning for them. Arranging the balls into shapes, alphabets (I didn't take pictures as was busy cooking by then).
Haha I'll also pet them. They might grew bigger hahah