Math: More or Less?

I was stalking Homeschool Creations and I saw this Science Kit in her curriculum for her son's kindergarten syllabus.

When you look through the content of the kit, most of stuff is available in your very own home.

Except maybe this:

 

The chances of you owning a balance scale when your child was 1 is an indication of:

1. You have a buying problem, like me, OR;

2. You are a KIASU, kinda like me, OR;

3. It was on SALES. Which is the correct answer in this case :)

Ours is the Junior Balance Scale from USL education and it was about RM 50 when I bought it. Original price (RM79.90) with some counting bears. Quality is 2 out of 5 because the material is the breakable type of plastic.

We used it in our Ice Cream Shop to measure MORE for him and LESS for me. 

Toddlers *roll eyes*.....their selflessness is astounding.

Three weeks of Ice Cream Pretend Play has driven me bonkers. Every single day. And night. When I am showering. On the toilet. Eating. Blow drying my hair,....You get it? Really, this boy is seriously OCD.

In order to entice him into doing something else other than making ice cream , I suggested water play. Nothing, I mean NOTHING trumps water. If you can't think of anything to do, just add water :)

I quickly gathered some containers and filled them up with water.

I love how spontaneous I can be at times

Hubs would beg to differ ;p

Some coloring would be fun but since we were indoors

AND maid less, plain old H2O will do.

Love the fact that he supports the watering can with the other hand (below)

Compared which container had more water

Watering can from store next to Ekids in Ikano Rm 4.90

Milk bottles from baby hampers that I saved

I love the using these because the volume is marked.

A sauce/oil bottle from the sundry shop.

See the lazy left hand?

Practising pouring.

"Can I have 30 mls please?"

"How about 4 ounces?"

He always reply "Okay lar"

 

 Do you some math-tastic idea to share?

Currently...(25/04/13)

eating, drinking, wishing, loving, dreaming 

Tiger is currently.....


Eating more rice and vegetables. The boy loves his greens.  Each mouthful must be either plain rice or plain vegetable or just meat. No mixing allowed. Highly sensitive, remember? *roll eyes*

Drinking bubble tea. Bad influence by Mama. We try to minimise these calorie laden sugary treats to once a week by reminding myself about the German cancer report associated with the tapioca balls. But mannn, it's tough.

Wishing he has a real Ice Cream Shop :)

Loving his Ice Cream Shop with make believe pom poms ice cream

Dreaming about his Birthday since I have been asking for his opinion on the matter. God knows how much I dread planning parties. But hey, who cares about what I feel? Anything for you, baby boy.



Lil Dragon is currently...


Eating boring healthy food but we did allow her a small piece of grandma's birthday pecan butterscotch cake. She had a tiny teeny piece and went nuts. She kept staring at whoever was eating and gulped.....non-stop.

Drinking lots of water. The girl cannot have enough!

Wishing she could beat her brother...haha....just kidding. She has mastered the art of survival for small creatures.....escape and hide.

Loving OSO the bear. She always has a pretty smile on whenever the show comes on and her big dance moves are reserved for him. Very, very delightful to watch. And just like that, OSO is my favorite bear too. 

Dreaming about milk? I have no idea but she seemed pretty pissed off during night feeds. She probably dreams about 'swimming' in breast milk or mama have 10 boobs only to be cruelly disappointed that I only have a pair of 'em.



I am currently.....

Eating A LOT. A friend mentioned HCG diet the other day and I replied,"I am doing THE SECRET DIET. You know, The Secret, right? I just mentally envision that I am losing weight" 
Simplest diet in the world. So far nothing but I SHALL NOT give up.

Drinking some wine. Alcohol is the key to happiness. Seriously, if you are not a MUSLIM and you don't drink......dude, I feel so sorry for you. 
Note: I am not advocating impair-your- liver, all-out alcohol binge. Just a glass, alright?

Wishing my maid is back

Loving my mom so, so much. She just celebrated her 53rd birthday and I wish her good health, happiness and lots of grandchildren *wink wink*. Not from me....hehe.....but.....it's a secret but I sooooo wanna tell everyone. Arrghh, secrets suck!!!

Dreaming about getting a maid for free. Sigh. Ain't kidding about eating bread and broth for the next 6 months.

Linking up to Currently....linky

Harvesting Kale.

You will love the blog, I promise!   

 

It is not about gardening or green fingers.

Lil Tiger: 2 years 10 months

Lil tiger. Almost three.

My life around him is like a roller coaster ride. 

One minute we are both laughing like hyenas and the next he is giving his best impersonation of an epileptic clown. Crazy tot behaviour examples:

We were at A famosa safari park last weekend and la la la....feeding chicks...so nice so cute....and he kicked a poor chick. It rolled off like a little fluffy ball and Tiger's reaction? He laughed. Sheesh. I did the whole caring mother crap and told him to play nice. The moment i unleashed him, he went on a killing rampage. Some visitor actually took pictures of him doing that. @.@ 

You do know that psychos, anti social murderers torture animals when they were young.

Then he wanted to feed the rabbits. Followed by the goats. Then the sheep. And the elephants. After i paid for the overpriced long beans, he was all: Go away. Don't bite Tiger aaaaah.

I know, i know.... everyone goes through a phase where they morph into a human-monkey. But arrrghhhh sometimes i just want to grab things and throw them at the wall. Just things lar, NOT the kids *rolls eyes*. Unbreakable stuff so that i don't have to clean up later. Sigh.....I need alcohol. It makes me so much more mellow and nice. 

Sometimes, when he returns to planet Earth from whatever Chimps La La Land, he can actually speak in  sentences in a typical Malaysian chinese style. 

His words typically starts with Eh or Oi. He ends them with Hor, Is it, Mah, Lah.

For example,

Eh, mama. This is (insert random thing), is it?
My one hor? Can ah? Can la.
I can do it myself mah, hor (use two for more effect)

I told him not to use the word  huh? whenever he didn't get anything. 

Mama, use what word then?

Ermmm, can you say I beg your pardon? 

 

Blink blink?????

 "Say, is it?"

Now it's

Ohhh. Like that is it.

My one is it

Whose is it?

Is it? Is it? Is it?

Someone who knows Tiger once asked. I heard your son is a genius.

Errrr.....no. Far from one. Unless you count eating ice cream at lighting speed without brain freeze. Then no.

Guess what he wants for his birthday? A Letter Factory themed party...hehe...not bad, my boy, not bad :)

Tot School: Two Monkeys, One Mama

If  someone ask me to describe schooling the two together in one word: 

My answer would be:

Chaotic

 or

Stressful

or

Crazy

Lil Dragon is an experimenter. 

She is highly curious, fearless,messy with a cat's attention span;

your typical 9 month old. 

Every object in her path will be examined with care, smelled 

and tasted.

Compared to Tiger who is

careful, neat, clean freak, serious.

So......

Lesson 1: Fight!

Tiger will be shouting, "No ah. Go away"

Lil Dragon will try her best to get a piece of whatever her brother is doing.

See his face?

Fed up!

 

We are still stuck in Ice Cream Shop phase.

It has been almost 3 weeks now.

I am pretty sick of it but he...tsk tsk....same enthusiasm every night.

I have no choice but to build upon it.

I added:

A Toppings Bar which was inspired by his love for Tutti Frutti.

Upgraded his menu (Please tilt head to right to view :p)

 We used some fruit stickers for the ice cream menu.

(I had to since the first one looked like crap when i free handed)

We played so much that he already memorized the pricing.

Grape, please.

5 Ringgit

Strawberry?

2 Ringgit

Picture taken with my S3 phone. No idea why it wouldn't upload correctly.

We had to keep Dragon away from this choking hazard minefield

since Tiger was adamant to continue selling me ice creams.

He takes his job very seriously.

 

Toppings are upon request only.

I ordered 2 cylinders, 3 cubes and 2 pyramids.

(Sneakily teaching him 3D shapes...Pat own shoulder)

Lil Dragon?

Her role was to lure customers with her charming grin

and make a ruckus with the handbell.

She loved her job for about 5 minutes.

Tried an ice tray and colored cubes 

Failed.

 

I quickly grabbed a box set.

Success!

Stress-nyeeeeee.

At the end of the day, guess who is EXHAUSTED?

Ice cream boy on another day.

He loves sorting the pom-poms this way.

And strictly no mixing flavours!

Another one of his creation for mama ^.^

Lil Dragon: 9 months

Miss Dragon is 9 months old. If I can describe her in one word, it would be "manja"

She is still as precious as ever. Definitely worth every freckle I have gotten in exchange for her. And the cactus like hairstyle I am currently displaying. And the extra truncal fat. And the bigger feet. And sagging boobs...Okay, I think that's enough before I decide to change my mind.

Definitely not one to lose a battle, she has started swatting her poor brother. Hehe, just as I have predicted, miss feisty here will be winning most battles from henceforth.

She is practicing her standing position by getting up from a squatting position and holding the stance for 2 seconds before landing on her butt. Now, smarty pants will do this on the bed to minimize butt injury. Especially when Papa's big belly is around for you know, cushioning.

Her favourite toys this month includes Vtech Train, Tiger's Ybike (which pisses him off majorly), any cloth/blanket she can use as a peekaboo prop.

She smiles readily but is rather miserly with her laugh which resembles a coughing old lady.

Her diet is mostly porridge but she is such adventurous eater, she demands for rice, vegetable, etc. And we have no choice but to give it to her or risk a foot or hand in our plates.

She is still very much a night feeder. If I am two seconds late in popping a boob into her mouth, she will launch into a cute eye-closed, hand-flapping, sitting up baby tantrum.

Makes me go "Ooooaahhhh" and all gooey, misty eyed.  This "my kid is the cutest baby in the world" syndrome happens to every mother. We are total dopes, I tell you.

She hasn't stop teething since months and that makes her a little fussy with her milk choices. And by fussy I mean she is wasting A LOT of formula milk. That makes me want to lecture her about food and wasting and starving kids. Just wait. The moment she no longer has the goofy two-teeth grin, she is going to get it.

She has labelled us.

Tiger: "EH"
Mama: "AH"
Papa: Papapa......Ermmm....whatever la. She still likes me more


Signs:

more
milk
bye
hi (it's the same as bye but we all know its different, so..........)
claps hands

God, thank you for bringing this sweet being. I know she is perfect and all and I will do my best as a mother but if I can ask for one thing. Just one tiny thing. Please can you give her nicer hair? Pretty please.

Montessori: Musical Bells

Montessori bells are off the charts expensive and

honestly, I cannot afford them.

I bought a set of these sometime ago from a kindy teacher and they sounded great.

You can get similar ones here

Instead of matching to another set of bells, I use the keyboard and tuning fork for matching.

What DID we do all day spray painted hers

I have no intention of doing that.

Nah ah. I love the colours.

They also correspond to this:

I was also so tempted to get a set similar to this from ELC

but my conscience said NO!

Btw, my conscience has my husband's voice.

Instead I bought some song cards with colored notations.

They came with corresponding stickers that I put on the keyboard.

In order to play a song, we lay the bells down and used the clapper.

Oh, he also uses it for his 'Ice cream shop'

Lil Dragon loves the bells too and when the two of them 'share',

I end up with migraine.

What else do you do with musical bells?

I bought a ton of this shoe boxes from Daiso.

Perfect for storing toys and such.

Science 3: Magnetic Or Not?

I bought a large horse shoe magnet the day before Lil Dragon's delivery.

Cost me eleven ringgit during Toy R us warehouse sale.

Shopping to relief pre-delivery stress. Worked like a charm 

^.^

You can quote me on that.

I keep it with the rest of Tiger's magnetic toys stash and somehow,

that is THE drawer that he likes to rummage for fun.

At first, it was a gun.

"Shoot Mama!"

Then it was a giant letter U

 I demonstrated its magnetism using the fridge and Tiger was impressed.

A magnetic giant U....wow!

We kept it simple by going for a walk.

<<< >>>

The sun was setting and he told me, 

"Mama, so beautiful."

I replied, 

"Thanks, darling, I think I am beautiful too"

Trying magnet on grass. Nope.

Tree trunk.

No, Mama. Cannot.

He was walking towards this.

Took the opportunity to teach him the word

DANGER

There were a lot of dead spruce tree 'leaves' on the side walk

(if 'leaf' is what you call it)

I shouted, "Worms!"

Tiger jumped a foot.

"Touch it..." I goaded him

"No, you touch first"

"Ohhh....like that lar. If it bites? Bite mama first?"

He replied in a matter of fact way, "Yes, bite you first."

@.@

Terrible....

He did not even touch it. Ran off like a chicken.

Please excuse the right foot

OCD

 

Handing over the Magnet

 Slides beat Science, at any given time 

^.^

He tried it on brother in law's car as well.

It was already too dark to see if he scratched it...ooops

Married life: Hairband

This is a new series. About Hubs and I.

Mostly, for Tiger and Dragon to see us as young people.

Because 20 years down the line,
 they probably cannot imagine Mama was young once.

Heck, I doubt I can remember.

Also, I think Hubs is damn funny (sometimes)

I shall omit all the bad stuff because no one needs to remember those.

His current hairstyle makes me laugh on a daily basis.

 See.....funny!

It is basically long on top and shaved really short at the sides.

 So, when it is not styled after shower,
it's pretty much like Aaron Kwok's hair from the 90's. 

Guys, this is the love of my life, making a fashion statement.

His hair was bugging him so much, he asked for a hairband.  

I grinned and gave him the girliest one.

 The next day, he gave me the look and warned, "Don't post on Facebook"

But he didn't mention the blog. 

^.^

Lil Dragon: My Lil Samseng

Sweet girl is such a 'samseng'

A cute one larrr.
Her toothy smile turns me into mush.

People take her picture with/without my permission, okay?

I should start charging.
It cost money to make her all ribbony and pretty.
On top of that, college fund and diapers.







Did I mention that I am her fav person in the whole wide world?
 
What? Only about a million times?

Okay, just saying.

I want to wrap my arms around her until she is like 40

but she is physically so advanced and fearless, she scares the crap out of me.

Look! No hands!

I can climb

Distracted by the camera.

She has Tiger's ugly sparse and uprighty hair.

This mama no like!

My partner in crime used stacking cups to tempt her

So gullible...hehe

  

 Aaaahhh....success.

 

She tries to climb to the top of the jungle gym as well.

But crazy 'helicopter mom' had to put down the camera to protect her.

Despite being 8 months old, she is so much easier and calmer than Tiger, 

the whiny one....for now at least.

She makes me want to have lots of babies

 minus the pregnancy (yuck) AND

the delivery (double yuck) AND confinement.

So, fine. You were right, dear hubs. The slide is really useful.

The other day, he actually told me, "I think you should stop buying stuff"

Me: Whatcha talking about? (used my gangster voice)

I use everything I buy okay?

I think he sweared.

Just to prove my point, I went and bought some Playdoh sets.

Science: Lesson 1 & 2

Tiger has NERD written all over his genome.

Lucky for him, his mom is cool.

That's a big fat lie but 

he doesn't have to know for at least another 10 years, right?

<<< >>>

The Basic 101 of all toddlers/preschool science is probably the 

vinegar & baking soda experiment.

So we started with that.

Lesson 1: Acid/Base Reaction

Mistake number one: Not using a bottle.

The mixture fizzled out within seconds in a small bowl

I was like:

Do you know why there is a reac....?

Fizzled out

When you mix acid and ba.....

Fizzled out

He was too ecstatic to be bothered with explanations.

Mad scientist gone wild!

"More, more, more" said the baby/Tiger.

Errr, we ran out of vinegar.

We added gold dust and yellow food coloring, just for fun.

Just so he was actually experimenting, we tried using water with sand, grass.

My Conclusion: Acetic acid and sodium hydrogen bicarbonate combine to form water, 
carbon dioxide (which causes bubbling) and sodium acetate.

His conclusion: Mama, you need to go to the shop, NOW. 

I need me some magic smelly water.

In order to distract him,  I promised some smelly water soon 

and we proceeded to some plant study.

PS: I already got some and we are going to do this soon

Lesson 2: Parts of A Plant

We bought Science Encyclopedia by DK to complement our lessons

He loves flipping through the book

and matching the felt planets to the Galaxy page.

He also deduced that bacteria = 'ta pian'

He was genuinely interested.

Luckily, my horrendous garden provided all sort of plants.

Ferns, moss, weeds....

Then, we studied parts of a plant: Roots, stem, leaf, flower.

Had to remind him to be gentle to the plants repeatedly.

You really learn a lot when you have kids..

Science used to be boring lessons conducted by boring people in dusty labs.

According to DK Science Encyclopedia, science is a 

way of understanding the world around us.

(Cue: Ooohhhh, and nod heads)

You also learn about 75 uses for baking soda

Oh, and you really don't need a kindy to do all this, you know?