Chinese New Year Trays 2015

Happy Chinese New Year 2015!

It has been a crazy busy February for us thus far.

It's all spring cleaning, purging, painting, shopping and decorating for the past few weeks.

For some reason, hubs is totally into CNY this year.

He bought cookies, helped in cleaning and wasn't whining when shopping.

I can only think of one word to describe his change.

Domesticated.

Hehe.

We repainted our living room and changed the furniture based on this colour scheme. 

Bye bye, my purple room.

Image from google

I took some time to prepare some CNY-inspired trays for the kids.

They were not used as frequently as I would have liked because we were just busy!

He was immediately drawn to the angpow tray.

He insisted they were called ham pao (crybaby) instead of angpow. Hehe.

His work was to insert RM10 per angpow for mama.

 

We prepared my parents angpows as well with this gorgeous packets from H&M.

I added some deco and he was like, "Can i add this ball?"

"Err, baby, that's Christmas."

 

When I was preparing this tray,  I was thinking about .

And can be sheep or goat.

He wasn't very pleased when I gave him my explanation.

"Mama, everyone says 'Have a very goat year'. Why you put sheep?"

Forming letters using Froebel set 8.

 A little butterfly painting to welcome spring.

We spruced up the Froebel/Gabe gift area for free play.

February is a month of celebrations for us.

Birthdays, CNY, Valentines....

This Valentine has been really special because my dear hubs finally decided to send me flowers!

When we were dating, he used to send flowers and bears to the hospital while I was at work

for no reason at all. This is my first roses after almost five years hiatus. Haha.

I immediately texted him to say he really made my day.

For hub's birthday, I bought him a Baskin Robbins cake.

I must admit that I totally forgot his birthday.

A first.

I felt soooo bad. 

So, I paid for all my personal CNY expenses this year as punishment :p

 Oh, see the cake, Tiger picked it.

A pig, it seems...haha!

And he was helping to snap pictures with his very high-tech camera.

I hope this will be kind to everyone.

May you and your family be blessed with health, wealth and love.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year 2014

Hope you guys enjoyed Chinese New Year as much as we did. For us, it always meant family time, meeting up with relatives we only see once a year.

We also gave angpows to kids and unmarried people who should be ashamed they are still asking for money. Btw, why aunties who carry Chanel/LV bags so kiam siap? Only give RM5. 

Yes, Mr Image from Google.

Don't gimme that look, really one. I no bluff

I told hubs and he was like, If you give more, then you will receive more one day.

Ooookay, okay

The best part about CNY?

Very selfish reasons BUT I only get to eat this once a year.

If I buy this everyday, fat die me.

See the fatty bacon strips on the left?

 OMG, they are $#%$#%^^&&*** out of this world.

Especially the slightly spicy ones from Loong Kee

Truth be told, I never buy. I always 'steal' from my mom.

"Ma, Tiger really love the bak kua, you know?"

"Is it, nah take another bag laaaa"

Me hugs the bag, thinking, MINE, ALL MINE,

MUAHAHAHAHAH"

Tiger can have one piece, for health reasons.

 CNY also meant fireworks.

I love fireworks.

Tiger is still a wuss but slightly better that last year.

He made it all the way to the porch this time

Princess with papa

 Unlike Tiger, she receives ang pows with no shame :)

Yesterday, I told hubby that we should go on a strict diet over lunch.

At 11 pm, he said, Let's go Boston

I am on a diet (which is a lie, stupid bacon)

You just teman me. No need eat.

Pffft, as if.

We had steamed lala with ginger and rice wine, 

Hokkien mee

AND

Three Smell (literal translation. It was sotong, fish and large prawns served

 in a sweet and sour sauce on a hot pan)

I nearly burst out of this Zara dress

And this was Day 1 of CNY

Happy Chinese New Year again.

Still can collect angpow until this Friday

Gong Xi

Gong Xi

We wish everyone of you who read till the end of this post (haha!)

a very huat-ar horse year!

Happy Chinese New Year 2013

This is my definition of joy, luck, happiness, wealth and 

crazy-in-love.....

We have been very blessed.....

We wish our kind readers all the good health and 

abundance of wealth for this new year.

Hugs and Cheers!!!

Tot School: The Crazy Tot

Tot School Report: CNY Week

This is a summary of Tiger activities during the crazy Chinese New Year Week.

I should have posted these last week..but..

we have been busy.

He was 19 months then

Here is a list of crafty stuff we did in the past two weeks:

Chinese Zodiac Story

Handprint dragon

Greeting Cards

CNY Worksheets

Glitter Dragon

Tack-it Blossom Tree

We also did some bubble wrap printing

Although, he was more interested in hand printing  =)

We did a lot of tot trays as well:

Here is the link for the setup:

CNY Week Tot Trays (Week 17)

He enjoyed the ornament mug tree

He loves shapes and this pop-up book.

Here he was saying "star"

He knows square and circle, sometimes triangle  =)

I added a Math tray but he didn't like it.

This boy just want the numerals and not the dots  =.="

I'll have to replace the dots with Thomas the train soon

So, we replaced the math tray with these sticky alphabet.

Then, one of the days, he went into crazy tot-school mode and

did all of these in the span of an hour, in unschooling style, totally unplanned...

Crayoning:

 He doodled over the entire 'mahjong' paper

Puzzles:

Took the clock puzzle from the shelf and completed it (with some help)

Magnetic 3-piece farm animal puzzle:

Again, he chose this activity himself

He is able to match the colours but require some help to put the pieces together

Reading

Practised his Chinese with the ang-pows.

Here he was pointing to a character as he reads in gibberish.

Sensory bin

More sensory fun, one-to-one correspondence, scooping,

making a mess  =)

Singing

He was very into Chicka chicka for some time but right now, not so

???

So fickle

More puzzles:

He is a little cuckoo about puzzles, as you can see ..

He enjoyed this Giant Alphabet Floor puzzle.

Required a lot of help.

He generally ask for help when he becomes frustrated.

So, I pointed out where to place them but he pieced them together himself.

Reading

We ended the day with some reading in his little corner.

He is already used to reading here =)

He can also find his fav books from looking at the book spines.

After the adrenaline-driven frenzy, he was still bouncing everywhere whereas I was totally exhausted.

Favourite Tot School Moment:

Reading to Starbucks bear, who seems to understand gibberish.

On rare occasions, Tiger goes into crazy tot mode. Most of the time, however, we play school for about an hour with far lesser activities.



Art & Craft: Our Chinese Zodiac Story

I promised Tiger a Chinese Zodiac story and we did it in the simplest manner.

This activity was done before Chinese New Year but I forgot to post it :p

First, I printed the animals of the zodiac from here.

Then I cut a sheet of pink A4 into half to prepare the background for the race.

If you don't know the story, you can print it here

He wanted to add some round stickers.

We used Tack-its to line up the animals.

They are a lot easier than using glue at this age

As I read the story to him, first in English and then repeated in Chinese, he searched for the animals.

We asked Grandma to label the animals in Chinese for us

*Cause Mommy's Chinese sucks*

 

Tiger pretty much ignored the zodiac until last night.

He suddenly decided to read the Chinese names of the animals, albeit in gibberish.

So, the zodiac line has a special place under the map for now :)

Next to the map is the new setup for his phonics station.

We are moving out of the CNY theme into a no theme week

&

I finally changed the tot trays after 2 weeks :p

Making A Greeting Card for Grandpa

I'm back! Happy Chinese New Year (4th day) to all of our Chinese readers

This activity was done last Saturday but since we were busy visiting people's house to collect ang-pow (Tiger) and giving away ang-pow (Mommy), this is a late post.

After the last glitter mess incident, we did the work outdoors ^.^

First, I let him play with the ELC easy painters to decorate a poster with his name.

Then we took out the printout that he had already chop-chop earlier

and added glitter to the wording.

As with the first time, he liked to play with the glitter more than the intended use.

=.="

The product/card which I laminated.

Grandpa loved it but he ermmm, had some difficulty reading the character with all the glitter

@@@ Happy Chinese New Year @@@

Activities: Red Packets/Ang Pow Time

As part of the Chinese New Year traditions, aunties like myself have to hand out red packets (紅包, hóngbāo) containing money to younger, unmarried relatives. So, will those who are old enough please just get hitched already? This is the first year hubby and I will be handing out the red packets. We didn't celebrate CNY the last two years after hubby's grandfather passed away.

I have fond memories of helping my own mom with the red packets. She used to have different categories like RM 10 for relatives and close friends, RM 5 for friends, RM 2 for workers, etc.

The packets are usually red for good luck. I have completed 200 packets for friends and relatives. That was no easy task..phew!

I wanted Tiger to help me and start a little tradition of our own one day. This morning, the opportunity presented itself.

This is his morning face.

No calender time because he saw my purse.

He loves to remove all the knick-knacks and hand out my money.  =.= "

So, I thought, why not try to do my siblings' red packets?

Yeah, the four bloodsuckers are in a different category.

Yawning away....

Hrmmm, you wouldn't think money's boring in a few years time..

Another yawn   =.= "

I showed him how to fold the money and he just kept going.

His uncles would be thrilled with the bulging cash.

Of course, I took the extras out  ^.^

 Tiger's work...Pretty neat!

There is one packet with an extra RM 50..thanks to Tiger!

Wonder who's getting it?

He also made two more for prettichubbi and himself  ^.^

@@@ 3 days to Chinese New Year @@@



Writing: Chinese New Year Worksheets

Disclaimer: Worksheets means painting/scribbling/drawing to Tiger. No, we don't practise tripod grips or insist on good handwriting here. It's all about fun.

I was planning to so some plumbing and cleaning, so we were slacking a little. The little monkey seemed to notice and the moment I got home, he was bugging to go "up' and "book". Thank God we have passed the You tube phase for now. Lately, it was all about books  ^.^

He picked out his stickers at first and so I printed out some magnet pages under the Chinese New Year Theme from Making Learning Fun. Gosh, I love this site, seriously. At the last minute, he decided that he wanted to do dot painting instead. He just grabbed them from his art center.

I adore his concentration. I just sit back and stare at his little face.

Then he wanted to paint with his Crayola paint brushes.

I printed a CNY card from activity village.

Excellent site for activities and printouts for older kids.

These are his worksheets for the day.

Check out the O is for Oranges. Not bad, huh?

I didn't realise it was so neat until I saw this picture 

The card, despite its appearance, will be given to Daddy.

Can I just show off a little more?

You can stop reading if you want to...

I just need a reminder why I am doing all this crazy work....

He was playing with his fractions puzzles (that he still couldn't master but love)

when he was distracted by the sticky alphabets on the whiteboard.

He removed Letter 'p' and said peh, peh, peh.

With his back facing me, I could see he was placing it onto the top row of his giant floor puzzle.

I thought he was placing it randomly but this was what he did.

An upside down 'p' is a lowercase 'd'!!

 

No praises or cheers, he picked up letter 'z' and placed it on the puzzle.

Then, letter 'o'.

After 'o', he abandoned the game and asked for singing.

We did his Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Song, his current hit song.

Downloaded for free from You tube.

This is how he sings it.

He would point to the alphabets in the book while listening to the song.

I usually read the sounds and let the song do the names of the alphabets.

After that. we did some trays and I tried to engage him in Doman Math spots game.

He didn't seem too interested but I'll let you know how the new method goes.

@@@  5 days to Chinese New Year @@@