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!

Little Dragon @ 1 year 10 months

Here are some activities that I managed to do with Dragon girl and an update on her development.

There is no schooling this one.

Too much attitude.
Too self assured
Too sassy
Too stubborn.
I am bending backwards just to accommodate her.

Right now, it's all about scribbling, painting, and crayons.

She holds everything with a 'falcon-like grip'.

I won't even try to correct her; she may poke my eyes out.

Glow-in-the-dark pen & board by Crayola

She is such a strong kid. Fine motor skills are tip-top.

So are her gross motor skills

She can karate kick Tiger like nobody's business.

Sometimes, I really pity the brother who always end up in tears.

Maybe she will ace archery?

I would really like to see someone try to discipline her.

When she was making a ruckus, MIL said, 

"How can you all stand her naughtiness?
If it's up to me, hmmphh, I will beat her already."

She turned around, crossed her arms and said with a frown,

"NO! I beat."

See? I am the "Western' mom and MIL's the Tiger Mom.

I am always smiling when she's around.

She is just so funny.

Like this face she pulled when Tiger was teaching her

She can sort colours just fine but....

....she would very much prefer to play with the pom-poms.

Or arranging the musical bells

Breaking these Unifix into individual cubes is still a favourite activity of hers

But her most beloved activity in the whole wide world?

Redecorating this patch of wall

=.="

I already gave up telling her to use paper.

She knows it's there...sigh...I cannot win laaaaa.

Right now her routine is, crayon the wall, dot stamping papers and then water colours.

Tiger was offering her some brushes here.

I soooo love shots of them together like this.

Occasionally, they can be nice to each other

She loves this watch  I bought from a kiosk in the mall.

Wears it to sleep :)

 Asking her to paint is asking for trouble.

With a kid like this, messy art is exhausting.

Like seriously draining.

I am getting old

At 1 year 10 months old, she is:

Walking up and down stairs one foot per step

Hopping down the stairs like a bunny with one hand held.

Using Tiger's skateboard scooter better than Tiger.

Balance on one foot

Strong grip

Able to uncap the smallest tubes

Build towers of > 10 blocks

Draw circles

Her vocab is vast but still unclear to strangers.

She calls herself by her name.

She calls Tiger by HIS name instead of kor-kor.

Longest phrase is, "No, I beat you"

=.="

Otherwise, she uses her own language to substitute words she is unable to say.

 Asks what, where questions.

She must wear something pink.

She hates black/grey clothing

She loves lotions.

If she didn't get something she wants, she will turn away,

cross her arms and refuse to meet your eyes.

You can beg but she wouldn't budge.

She can shoot imaginary laser beams for corners of her eyes (like me)

 She is very independent but whiny and oh-so-manja when she is sick

but her recovery rate is way faster than Tiger's

Probably because she loves water. I think she takes at least a litre a day.

She is a little OCD about dirt and loves to dispose garbage.

My mom commented that she is like me
fiery
naugthy
bossy

Haha...I am much nicer now!

Homeschool Setup: October 2013

Lil Dragon: 15 months

Lil Tiger:  3 year 4 months

Lil Dragon is still exploring with her mouth when it's something new

and exciting to her.

The itty bitty things in 'class' are pretty meh to her by now

 but I still watch her very, very carefully.

Verrrry sneaky, this one. Almost like Smeagol.

Tiger is currently,

• an emergent reader
• doing simple additions and subtractions
• very much into painting and coloring

His latest creation: The Solar System.

So abstract, kan?

I really love this painting of his but you can have it for RM 50.

Any takers?

Come on, may be worth millions one day. 

<<< >>>

I have no idea what to call this instead of circle time.

This is where we start our class and decides what Tiger would like to do.

We have his schedule, calender and some theme books.

This week, we are still reading Halloween books.

On the wall is his new Solar System poster.

(He can do Solar System for the whole year)

Math

Tiger is into counting now, so we will be focusing on that.

This is the math center as per his request

1. Balancing scale with counting bears {more or less}

2. Blue and red rods; 0-10 cards, number clips {zero to ten}

 3. Colored beads and blocks for free play/sums/patterning

Sorting 

Bought this box from Fun & Cheer for RM 6.80

Fine motor and Lil Dragon's corner

   Some stickers for Dragon's old can

 

Threading buttons for Tiger & an extra for Dragon (to minimize fighting)

 Reading station

Mother Goose and finger puppets for finger play

 Chinese (Shi Wu Kuai Du)

Reading pen

P&J

Kohwai and Young Word Family 

Brillkids

I wish I can say we do all the above but we don't.

Only when the kids feel like it.

Or we just read stories before bed.

Studies show that early reading don't make a difference in later academic achievement.

 

  

Music

Both the kids love playing with musical bells .

 I taped three A4 sheets together and drew a musical staff for him 

to place some felt notes on.

We use them for solfege.

 

Sensory bins

Dragon plays with the water beads EVERY night.

Sometimes, I am very lucky and I get this.

When I invite Tiger to join Lil Dragon, he replied.

No need. So smelly and wet. I crayon la..
=.="
Action betul

My Lil OCD requested for balloons and came up with this human burger.

He was carrying four but by the time I snap, he was left with these.
He is so nerdy, it hurts...hihi

My very cool lab creation?

Collecting dust...

Sigh..not easy to please these kids, you know.

Baby School: Lesson 4

Here's a snapshot of the trays for the week.
As a mother of two, I really have no time to position each tray with proper lighting and such.
I just shoot with or without the kids hanging off my neck


From top to bottom, left to right:

• Please ignore the mini cylinder and play dough (preschooler stuff that shouts DANGER!)
• Pom-poms and ice cube tray for one to one correspondence; Crayola stamper and paper for palmar grip
• Number chips and can; pegged puzzle for pincer grip
• M&D Geometric stacker for palmar grip; Cutting fruit for practical life 

Where is the stacker?

With the little munchkin.

It was 8 in the morning and she was all excited already.

So much so, she pooped.

Our last segment consist of:

• Look At Me! Mirror cards from Baby Einstein which Tiger and I thought were really cool. Dragon gave it a MEH...WHATEVER.. review
•  Magnetic Zoo 2 piece puzzle

Her fav was still the raisin can that I jazzed up with Hello Kitty stickers.

The number chips are from the Montessori set.

She was looking at it intently while I thought to myself,

"Aaaah, see...learning numbers"

The next moment she burst into laughter for no apparent reason.

Tiger wasn't amused since he was 'teaching' seriously.

Looking at this pic, I just realized her head is BIG

She also loved the pom-pom tray.

At the time I am writing this post, a green pom-pom has disappeared.

When I asked Tiger about it, he replied casually,

"Oooh, inside mei-mei stomach"

I muttered to myself, "Oh shit"

=.=""

Baby School: Shapes Week @ 13 months

Lil Dragon's getting used to our school routine.

Her top 2 activities are:

 Brillkids lessons & the learning trays.

Sometimes, she will opt for drawing.

That means making a mess :)

She loves this little chest of drawers.

I hid a silicone shape in each drawer for her to discover.

A labelled sheet for matching.

I did the matching & naming for her, just to introduce her to shapes

and creating print awareness while playing.

Sometimes, Tiger does the tutoring for me.

 

 
Spooning...

...which ended up with pom-poms everywhere.

Transferring ping-pong balls into cups

I love this face <3

Combining trays and learning that balls cannot go into a small hole.

M&D Shapes puzzle

With Tiger, we stressed on more complicated ones such as

octagon, parallelogram, trapezoid, etc

She has gotten the concept of
Here's the mat and this is what we are doing now.
Instead of going Rar rar rar....all over the place.

The mat is essential to any learning.
The genius that is Montessori :)

On Brillkids,
We are doing a lesson a day.
When she spots a bird outdoor, she points and says /b/.
Unlike Tiger, she is being exposed to 3 languages since we have a Indonesian
kakak now.
So, I expect her speech to develop a little slower.

This week, we will focus on colours.