I want to cut my hair like yiXiang

Nope. You can’t

Why? I want. I really want!

You don’t have enough hair.

Why?

Because you have ED.

Why do I have ED?

I also want to know.

Why don’t you ask GOD?

We have been asking Him (far too many times!)

*silent*

But you know what – He told us that you are His special child. And He favours you. You may not be able to cut your hair like yiXiang but you can do much much more. And you are meant to do big things in life.

*smile*

 

Features: A safety locking mechanism only parents can activate. A 2-1 toy where the walker can be converted to a ride on. Click here for more product info.

 Condition: Excellent

 Selling : $18 

(Original Price : $39.90 Toys-R-Us)

Interested : Email me or Leave a Comment

*****

This was a gift from YiYi for yiXiang’s first birthday last year. The toddler was just learning to walk. This sturdy walker helped him take his first steps. When he could run like wind, the toy was converted to a ride-on. To the boys, it was a train carriage one moment and a tow car the next. They had fun.

 

I believed very much in reading to children. I started reading to yiHang when he was just a couple of weeks old, and likewise to yiXiang.

The boys look forward to bedtime stories. yiHang is showing sign of reading (silently) independently. yiXiang sits through a short book, attempting to imitate sounds and listens intently.

 

- The boys at Borders -

*****

During my short stint of a year as a Library Co-ordinator in my previous school, I learned to select books for children.

Many parents have asked me to share the collection in our library. I finally found time to create a list of the books I’ve picked for my boys.

 

 

Stings the tongue slightly but leaves a sweet aftertaste.

Slightly moist but crispy.

Simple irresistible.

Fought with the spouse for the last piece!

Craving desperately for another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

 And another.

Grab them here.

With compliments from Yvonne and Clarence, and not forgetting to thank my beloved son for his generous treat, we all went up the DHL balloon last Sunday.

The boys, young and old, waited in anticipation and burst with excitement as the balloon rised higher and higher, suspended by just a cable.

Yes! One cable.

Any contingency plans if the cable snaps?  

My palms and feet turned clammy as I counted down to the second when my feet could touch land again. The boys felt that the ride was way too short. I almost kissed the ground.       

And only saw the breathtaking views the ride boasted when I downloaded the photographs, with my heart still pulsating wildly.

 

Mommy : yiHang don’t be ridiculous! This is your home OK! And you’re telling me you are afraid of monsters and ghosts!! Show me! Show me! Where got ghosts?? Where got monsters??

yiHang : Monster. Have One! Here lor! 

 

 

How apt!

 

“When you want to buy something, just sign credit card”

“When you want money, go to the ATM and take”

Yes! Our five year old thinks that money grows on trees!

So a couple of weeks back, we decided to give him pocket money. A dollor each from Papa and Mummy every Sunday night. When he wants to get a packet of Cheezels, or have a kiddy ride, he uses his own money.

We advised him to spend wisely. But we also taught him to be generous to others.

***** 

Ever since his grandma gave him her used hand phone, the boy has been saving hard for a SIM card! Yeah! A SIM card! We reasoned with him. We try to convince him. But he was insistent. “You say I can buy anything with MY money, wat!”

Just when we thought we need to re-look into giving him pocket money, he did two things that made us very proud of him.

 ***** 

Saturday Evening

We were pleasantly surprised when he told us that he donated $5 to charity.

Mummy : WOW! yiHang, I am so proud of you. And for that, I will give you another $2 this week. So that you’ve got $14.

yiHang : WOW! I’ve got $40! Now I can buy my SIM card!

Mummy : Not $40! It’s $14 OKIE! Smarty!

yiHang : Arrgh! I still need $1

Gong Gong : OK! I give you another $1. Now you have $15. You can get your SIM card.

Mummy : See! yiHang when you do good, you are blessed with good things in return.

yiHang : Yeah.  .. … Can I donate more money? See if I can be blessed with even more money!

Sunday Evening.

yiHang : Can we all go up the DHL balloon?

Mummy : Don’t want o waste money. It’s expensive you know!?

yiHang : But its nice. I want the whole family to go up.

Mummy : (Teasing) Err .. how about giving me a treat?

yiHang :  (Deep thoughts) …. …. …. 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 -10 …. The most I can pay $10 for you.

Mummy : Huh! You want to pay $10 for me!!?? You sure? Then you left with $5. You can’t get your SIM card.

yiHang : Never mind. Can save again!

Papa : Wah! If I am the one who don’t have the ticket will you also pay for me?

yiHang : Yes! I will pay for whoever don’t have the ticket.

  ***** 

Just to add, yiHang never fails to share his pocket money with his little brother. If he gets himself a packet of Cheezels, he would get one for his di di. Likewise, if di di gets a sweet, the little one never forgets to demand another one for his big brother. 

Our tod, who simply loves coffee!

Theme (Unit 3) : Colours, Shapes and Sizes

Language : Vocabulary

Learning Outcomes : Name and list some shapes, sizes and colours.

Colours : red, brown, purple, orange, pink, green, yellow, white, blue, balck

Shapes : rectangle, circle, square, oval, triangle, star

Process Skills : Classification

***** 

Day 1

After dinner, the kids and I did origami. We use colour papers to fold them into boxes. Instructions here.

Origami helps develop motor skills. The activity provides plenty of opportunities to talk about shapes and colours.

“yiXiang pass me the red paper. You prefer a blue one?”

“yiHang, Fold the paper into half. See! Rectangle. Then fold it this way so that you get a triangle. What other shapes can you see?”

Incorporating Chinese, “What is rectangle in Chinese? How about Square?” I was pleasantly surprise when yiHang told me that diamond is known as 菱形’. Geeze! I didn’t even know!  

Since yiHang was already familiar with all the shapes, I wanted to incorporate Mathematics into this activity.

“How many sides does this shape have?”

“Oh! What is a polygon with 4 sides called? How about 8 sides?”

And we used this book for reference.

After we made the boxes, we label them. yiHang wrote the labels. Practice for his writing!

And for bed time story, we read the book. We have read it numerous times but it was a good reinforcement. Excellent introduction to polygons, too. Available in our local library (Call Number :English BUR) .

They were soon fast asleep but I was still up burning the mid-night oil preparing for next day’s lesson. Used MS Powerpoint to draw polygons of various shapes and sizes. And printed them on colour papers. I’ve uploaded the file just in case anyone needs it.

 Shapes.ppt

*****

 

Day 2

Today, I came home early from work. After our afternoon nap and tea, we were ready to continue with our activity.

We cut the shapes and classify them into the boxes.

Again, talk and talk and talk during the activity so that children pick up the langauge and vocabulary.

“1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. OK! So where should we place this polygon, yiHang?”

“Mmmm … a Square has four sides. A diamond has four sides also. So they all should be placed in …?

“YiXiang, mommy cut this red triangle for you OK!”

And before we knew it, it was dinner time. After dinner, we had fun creating mastererpieces with shapes and colours.

Got the idea from here. yiHang did both pieces entirely on his own. Usually, I would give him some ideas. Today I was busy helping the little one. I am glad I left it to yiHang.

Look!

 

The first piece is a train in the Night Safari. Why no animals? “Well, it’s night time and the animals are all asleep.” (More like, he has no patience creating the animals)

The second piece is a Double Decker Bus that is screeching to a stop when the driver suddenly sees the “Stop” sign!

And the tod has asked me not to post all the pictures in the blog, “Just in case people copy my idea!”.

yiHang turned 5 in April.

At that time we were busy with renovation and shifting thus the celebration was a simple cake-cutting event involving only family members. But I promised to throw him a party.

So last Saturday was his big day.

Comparatively, it was a stress-free party.

For the invitation, he drew and I helped with the photo editing.

Tip : Save the image as .jpg and print as photographs. The colours are vibrant! And for as cheap as 30 cents a piece. With no minimal order.

He planned his own guest list.

Of course we limit the number of guests.

We told him 10. And as many as 18 of his friends came.

As for decorations, food, games and party packs, we left them to Globetrotters, whom in our opinion did a wonderful job.

The train cake was ordered online and collected on the way to the party.

 

 

Balloons.

Party Hats

Finger Food

Games

Ice Cream

Rowdy boys.

(and girls!)

 

What a bash!

 

*****

Photo Album : YiHang’s 5th Birthday

 

 

 

Met some parents at the party.

One has a pair of twins in primary one. While her boy is barely coping, her girl was placed in the Learning Support Programme (LSP).

Another, said that her boy was also placed in the LSP. During the screening test, her child was able to read most of the sight words but was not able to spell simple words.

Yet another, relented that though her child was not in the LSP, he has a lot of problems coping with Mathematics, Reading and Comprehension. And has to engage tutors to help him catch up with his peers.

You Bet! They were all yiHang’s (ex) classmates.

While one parent has decided to pull her child out, we will most likely allow yiHang to complete his pre-school education with the school.
We don’t want yiHang to cope with the issues of ‘being different’ and acceptance since he will most likely be facing them when he enters primary school.

He has made lots of friends and he is happy in school. Besides, I will be giving him intensive coaching at home to prepare him for formal education.

Between his self esteem and education, the former has to take priority.

But No, Thank-you.

We will not be enrolling the younger boy.

Read …

pre-school saga (1)

pre-school saga (2) 

*****

Disclaimer : This entry is writen based on our experiences with no intention on our part to tarnish the school’s reputation. Maybe we are just  plain unlucky. Maybe we are bias. Maybe. Maybe. We are NOT saying that the school is no good. We are saying that our experince with them thus far, is not within our expectations. So we would not disclose the name of the school.  

 

Being the younger one, it’s rare for yiXiang to enjoy undivided attention. Hence, we really precious Sunday mornings where we get to spend time with just our little one, as the older boy goes for his Chinese enrichment classes.

 

Hot piping coffee, freshly toasted cinnamon bagels spread with a sinful layer of butter and cheese, jazz and The Sunday Times.

An active toddler running around, enjoying a lolli, tugging us, seeking for attention.

A quiet, simple morning to soak in the bliss of parenthood.

 

The younger child is often tougher as they subject themselves to the perils of an older sibling!

 

Received an email after dinner from the school informing us that our dear son has expressed himself though ‘physical action’, i.e ‘BITING’ and as a result caused ‘physical injury’ to his classmate.

We spoke to him at length. About friendship. About anger management. About consequences.

And wondered how much he registered.

(And if he will ever understand why I will be tossing and turning in bed tonight, and the night after, and the night after the night after…. )

I’ve been naïve, probably also irresponsible to place the education of my son entirely in the hands of his teachers. I’ve been teaching him on an ad hoc basis but I believe its time I take yiHang’s learning and preparation for primary school seriously.

I shan’t procrastinate any longer. I intend to look through the MOE’s syllabuses and design lessons. My fundamental believe in education is learning should be fun yet engaging. The child need not even know that he’s learning! Thus I am for activity based learning.

Today, we started on English.

 *****

Subject : English

Topic : Grammar – Nouns

Objective : Classify Nouns into Places, People and Things.

Activity : Collage

The text book (I am using In-Step) gave some examples of Nouns. And the activity that follows requires the child to circle Nouns in given sentences.

It was boring! Besides, yiHang had problems classifying Nouns into Things and Places. He’s unsure if ‘beach’ is a thing or a place!

So we packed the books and brought out scissors, glues and some old magazines. We cut out pictures and pasted them into the different categories. The pictures helped yiHang to grasp the concept of place.

There were also opportunities for him to practice his handwriting as he named the Nouns. This activity also helps in Vocabulary development. As he cut out the picture of a ‘man’ holding a ‘ball’, he learned that, that was a Rugby Player.

Classifying is a vital process skill emphasize in the learning of Science. The activity was a good intoduction to the use of tables in classification.

After dinner, in the car on the way home from my mom’s place, the boy was classifying everything that caught his attention.

“The moon should be a place because we can take a rocket ship and go to the moon!”

 [Mmm ... I always thought the moon as a thing]

 

The new term has started. I was put in a high profile committee when I first joined the school. After, I communicated my intention to the management that I would like to go the family way for these couple of years, I received an email early Monday morning to inform me that I have been replaced and no longer in the team. And on Wednesday, my CCA was also changed.

I was at EXCEL fest last Friday – as a participant instead of presenter. Met some teachers from other clusters who came up and asked, “Hey! You are the IT HOD from YCKPS, right”. With a little awkwardness I managed, “Nope! I stepped down. And changed school.”

Yesterday, an ex colleague whom is also a good friend called to asked my opinions if she should take up the middle management position offered to her in school. While I encouraged her, I could not help but to feel a sense of .. of .. inadequacy probably, that a junior who used to line her desk with soft toys during her training days, who used to look for me for advises and ideas, has surpassed me in terms of career achievements.

So, that night, over a bottle of red wine and candle lights, the Man asked, “Are you happy?”

Am I Happy?

When I first joined service, I wondered what it takes to head a department and openly made known my desire to climb the corporate ladder. But when I was heading a department, I envy those teachers who were able to leave when I just found time to grab a really late lunch.

The moment I was posted to the school, I vowed to get a transfer as soon as possible. And after I joined my new school, I missed almost everything I used to hate in my previous school!

The pasture is always greener on the other side. 

I came to realise that happiness is a state of mind. You just have to decide to be happy with where you are and what you have. NOW.

Sometimes, I believed I’ve made the correct choices. Sometimes, I felt the pinch.

But I’ve decided to be happy.

I want to be happy.

With where I am. With what I have. And I will [try] not look back. 

Besides, it feels good to be able to knock off when the sun is still blazing, come home and have a nap before enjoying an afternoon tea with the hunnybunz and spending such precious moments …

Gor Gor shielding Didi from the sun * Gor Gor towing Didi * Learning Together * Life Cycle of Butterfly