Thinking Thursdays: Learning in 2012

"This is Singapore, Daffy duck!"

Junior J  has become rather picky about what he wants to learn.  No, he doesn't want to do math puzzles.  Some days he doesn't want to do craftwork, or he gives up quickly if the steps are a little tough (like trying to hold and use a scissors, where he proclaims "I'm uncomfortable, I'm tired! You cut, Mama!").  Certain activities bore him, and he gets restless and starts to fidget and ends up running away.  Most of the time, he'd rather potter around on his own and play with his toys.  Or go and talk to his little brother (or harass him).  

On any given day, he still does get a whole load of time to play (since Mama has to cook and clean and change baby diapers), and I'm all for unstructured playtime.  However, since this little boy won't be attending school anytime soon (and I'm not sure if we'll be able to find a suitable school for him when we move... if the move finally pulls through that is!), I thought it'll be good to try to be a little more focused on his learning this year.  For the past year, I've been rather haphazard, just devising learning activities as we went along, and I'm hoping to be a little more structured this year.

So some things I'm hoping to work on in 2012 are:

::  Learning about the world:  We've pasted up a world map and have started reading stories that introduce various countries, so he's been having fun locating them on the map!  It'll be particularly relevant if we move, since he'll get to experience different cultures in different countries.  Will share more about this topic soon...

:: Chinese: Using and learning the language has been rather neglected, since we always lapse into conversing with him in English... and I think its going to be worse if we move overseas!  So this year, more conversations in Chinese hopefully, and of course, more reading of Chinese books!

:: Math: He's not too keen on learning math and can't seem to sit through those Montessori type Math activities, so I'm planning to do math differently... more on that next time!

:: The Arts: We've been reading lots of books on artists, and I'm hoping to explore this theme more.  Our listening repertoire for music has been rather limited (since the boy tends to insist on listening to certain CDs over and over and over again), and I'm hoping to widen it further.

So much to learn, yet so little time... but of course, the nice thing is that every day provides its own learning opportunities.  The visit to the playground that teaches Physics.  The walk in the park that teaches  Biology. Its going to be quite an interesting year, I hope!  What will your kids be learning in 2012?