Read & Play: The Billy Goats Gruff

Can't see properly?

Here, let me help you with that.

*blows dust off the blog*

Hehe. It's been a while.

This is our second Read & Play,  the first being the Three Little Pigs

Any books with animals are the best for my kids at this age.

We listened to the The Billy Goats Gruff CD a month ago.

It's part of this Audio book series if your are interested.

Then, Tiger got into the whole McD's Happy Meal toy and 

I commented that his Boovs looked like trolls.

He asked, "You mean like in the Billy Goat story?"

Yup, that was my inspiration and hence the invitation to play.

He wanted to build a bridge from his Lego instead of using the wooden bridge from his train set.

So, we designed a simple one together.

We have plenty of goat miniatures, so that was easy. (Yay!)

As we read from the books, he acted out the scenes.

There was a signage that read, 'Warning Goats Beware'.

I asked him if he would like to copy and he agreed.

This is how writing and spelling is done in our house.

Never mind that it's all wonky.

 

 He had a blast knocking Oh off the bridge.

Then he created his own storyline where Oh fought with all the other animals in the Kingdom.

My Little Dragon?

She was just a few steps away, with more important things to learn than Trolls and Goats.

Like physics :)  

For worksheets:

3 dinosaurs have a pack (free)

We are using some from Twinkl

After I wrote this, it got me thinking about 2 things:
1.) What is the meaning of Gruff in the title?
2.) Why is '3' used so repetitively in fairy tales?

I turned to Google and it seems,
The goats' surname or family name is Gruff!
Haha, never thought of it that way before.

And "three"in fairytales are discussed at this forum.

Basically, three represents a pattern and complete form of beginning, middle and end.

Baby School: 2 years 2 months old

Dragon girl is finally settling into our homeschool style. Hooray!

Every night, around eight pm, she will ask to go upstairs, just like her brother :)

Mind you, Tiger and I are STILL bending backwards to accommodate her but 

it's been worth our while and many efforts.

When she is around, most of Tiger's requests will be met with a standard answer, 

"Wait. After Mei-mei sleep, then we can do (insert request)"

First on her to do list is always artistic expressions.

Sounds so pro, right?

But honestly it can be very stressful when she decides to redecorate.

After we've gotten this IKEA easel, she has been pretty kind to the walls in general.

Here, she was demonstrating finger printing to Tiger.

He just watched. Too dirty.

 

She literally brings art to new heights :)

 

Just to encourage her creativity, one side of the study room is reserved 

for her art materials, playdough and loose parts.

Everything is freely accessible to her except glitter.

I hate playdough but they love it, so I just do deep breathing in a corner 

and chant to myself,

"You can clean later"

 

I've also moved the trays outside to make more space for movement and dancing.

Sometimes, they'll bring materials into the room and play peacefully together.

 

At times, she plays alone.

They still fight a lot.

With kicking, punching and scratching actions but what to do?

Like how Winnie and I used to 'play'...haha...but we are best of friends now.

Just fight la.

See her ugly Kim K crying face?

Froebel's

The Froebel gifts are accessible to her at all times at the reading area.

Her favorite is Gift 1.

We left her to play with Tiger's planetarium model for awhile and when

we came back, she'd already taken out the balls from the box.

Coincidence? 

Or she related the planets to the yarn balls?

I prefer to think that she connected the two :)

A tossing game they created.

  

They did this to my pretty fairy lights

 

 A shopping game.

When Tiger was holding 4 yarn balls and Dragon only had 2, I asked him:

"How to make it equal?"

"I need to give Dragon one ball."

And he proceeded to assist her.

Impromptu math :)

 

Tiger and I revisited the water cycle and Dragon was very interested in this model.

She probably thought it was food or we were making ice cream...hihi...

I love her focused look when Tiger was explaining the process to her.

Feeling the heat (light) vs cold (ice)

I saved the most fantabulous update for last. 

She is in a letter sensitive phase.

READING!!!!

In the young ones, pre-reading is just:

1. Holding the book upright.

2. Looking at the pictures intently

3. Telling the story in their own words.

4. Pointing to words from left to right.

5. Pretends to read.

 

Caught her 'reading' so many times in the past 2 weeks.

Here, she was demanding for her Brillkids session.

The system gels really well with her and she is learning so quickly.

Seeing how much she enjoys herself is pure happiness to me.

I made Tiger her 'teacher' and he was in charged of the computer and repeating the words to her.

Since Dragon loves copying her brother, it was a win-win-win situation for all 3 of us.

Sometimes, I really hit the jackpot and I see this:

 A quiet morning with the kids reading by themselves. 

The Reading Area is my all-time fav spot.

 

Or like this morning, reading on the swing :)

Have a wonderful weekend, folks!

Read & Play: Three Little Pigs

This was initially a toy centered learning topic but I thought it would be fun to

built different types of houses to go along with the story of

"Three Little Pigs"

Here's the setup:

The toy is actually a picture from my kindergarten graduation concert :)

I've had the picture frame for as long as I can remember.

It's one of the few things that had survived my regular spring cleaning.

The books are a variety of pig-related stories found in our own little library.

But our main book was this one from Usborne

We really enjoyed the simple words and cute illustration.

Tiger especially enjoyed the verse, 

"Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin"

which he still uses to this day :)

Ours came in a set bought during MPH sales

 

I must admit that when I think of pig, the first thing that comes to mind is

bah kut teh and bacon. Terrible, I know.

But I didn't tell Tiger that part about pigs, yet.

Did you know that pigs are very intelligent creatures?

I found out about that in Singapore Zoo when I was 11 or 12 years old.

Go here to learn more about pig awesomeness

So, the houses were obviously the focus of my creative, engineering mind *ahem*

I wanted to use the straw from our broom at first...haha, not very hygienic is it?

Then I thought of straws!

I have lots and lots of them from IKEA.

We tried several methods and this was the easiest, a triangular prism 

 

This is our messing planning process, trying out different materials.

Tiger will imitate my thinking face as he thinks:

 one hand on hip, eyes upwards,  one finger on lips...

"Hmmm, what else can we use?"

My little Mini-Me

Setting up the props.

I didn't purchase mini a mini wolf/pigs.
We already had them in our farm and wild animal set. Lucky me :)

The straw house is the trickiest to setup and easiest to blow down,

He always played the wolf and I, the pigs.

  

 The wooden house made from unifix cubes base, some sticks and spatulas.

It had to be purple.

The pig in the house No. 2

 He huffed and he puffed very, very hard...haha!

Our lego 'brick house'

Genius ain't it? I thought of it and I hinted the idea to Tiger.

When he thinks it's his idea, he takes pride in his work :)

Win-win

We read all the books repeatedly, except Peppa Pig which Dragon girl had refused to share.

My bad for stating it was her present :p

To complement this activiy, we used printables from 3dinosaurs, here.

One of our most successful project to date.

And no, bacon was not discussed at any point.

Mama, please buy more books!

That was what Tiger said last night, after he scared me with his newly acquired ghost vision.
 Sheesh, with Ghost Festival coming up, this kid....Let's talk about books instead of ghost today.

I don't know about you but my kids tend to read the same books over and over again.
Tiger is all about the galaxy, space and planets and Dragon girl loves the Odonata series and her baby board books. The rest of our wonderful books are sitting on the shelves, waiting patiently for their turn. It saddens me.

So, I try to trick coax them into reading with me with toy-centered learning. It's very easy to set up. You just need one toy and several related books.  The idea is so simple, time-saving and you get to promote the less popular books. Very Asian and yet playful. I am going to trademark this idea.

 This is our moon display for Tiger

This is the CAT display for Dragon girl

Why read?

I asked Dr Seuss and he said:

I am soooooo funny, I know.

Having a reading area helps too.

Read about ours here

Every time I see them reading by themselves, I will have a stupid grin on my face.

Hubby will complain that I am nerding up his kids but better nerds that gangsters, right?

Sometimes, I will switch off the main lights so that we can just relax under the fairy lights

and pretend we are outdoors, looking at the stars.

Now, the shopping part.

 I love going to the bookstores. I can spend hours just browsing and walking around.

But now, with kids in tow, petrol hike and kidnappers/robbers/psychos in Malaysia,

I just order from Book Depository in the comfort of my own home.

Pro: Save time + free delivery 

Con: The wait....argghhhh. Sometimes it takes 3 -4 weeks.

Luckily for me, the pain of waiting is over.

Now, I can order from NoQ store, a Singapore-based online bookstore.

Free shipping to west Malaysia, delivery within 2 weeks

 and the pricing is also very competitive.

For these books, I did a price comparison with Book Depository 

(prices in Singapore Dollars)

NoQ Store: $25.23

Book Depository: $40.49

(The only difference was Richard Scarry's book was hardcover in Book Depository)

If you want to stock up on some quality books, you better do it now because

you can get a discount of 15% by using this code LITTLETIGER at checkout. 

They carry more than 14 million title, so you will definitely find something for your little darlings!

The discount code is valid until 30th November 2014!

I shall leave you with this quote from one of my favorite authors:

If you have never heard of Murakami, you've learnt something new today.

No need to thank me.

Sponsored post by NoQ store.

I was provided a S$30 book voucher for a short review.

Opinions expressed are solely my own.

Kids' New Reading Area

The Reveal!

The reading area is just outside of our school room which makes it ideal

for me to extend our lessons into this space.

The area is small since we live in a tiny box house. 

Very New York, without the guns and police sirens (yet).

I love our humble abode, really....and I don't need a bigger mortgage.

It was a real headache trying to fit everything together, but we worked it out :)

Initially I wanted these but haha...in reality who is going to do the crown moulding?

No one.

Then, I wanted this BILLY combination.

But IKEA was on sale and the large BILLYs were not in stock.

I swore a gazillion swear words and bought the 3 smaller ones.

Many thanks to my sister and BIL for helping me.

We got these with an extra 15% off with my BIL's sister's IKEA staff card.

Sadly, she no longer works there anymore.

I wanted to wait for big BILLY but patience is not one of my virtues.

I am more of the psycho, desperate, must do and complete it type.

So, I dragged hubby to Tesco and got two large ones at rm 119 each.

The difference in height and colour could kill me but I assured the psycho in me

that after all the books are in place, it will be barely noticeable. 

To make it more child friendly and inviting, 

I left a shelf to display the covers of books we are reading right now.

It was supposed to be about feelings but Tiger put his fav Mouse book there.

This is the toy-centered learning shelf.

This toy Tiger is so cute.

Will be doing a review on it soon!

 

 

Wanted to show you guys another one of our upcycling idea.

"The potted plant."

The plant is a square of faux grass rolled into an IKEA SOCKER pot. 

I wanted some real plants but there's no space, so this will do.

My designer sister gave it a nod. Pass larrrrr!

The picture is a printout from Growing A Jeweled Rose here

The frame is from NYTTJA from IKEA

 

 This ANEBODA wardrobe is a hand-me-down from SIL.

I store some tot school and art material in it as well.

Bean bag from living room

Grass carpet is HAMPEN from IKEA.

  

Even hubs gave a thumbs up!

The children's art work is hung from this display unit from IKEA.

They all have weird names, so I cannot recall what it's called.

It was a lot of work but definitely worth all the bruises and scratches.

Almost every night we will lay on the carpet and read.
PS: Board books, pop-ups and other noisy books are in the play room.