KRISSA'S PRECIOUS MOMENTS: August 2009

Haircut - 30/08/2009

I can finally put on my rainboots!!!

K busy having fun entertaining herself!

See the colour on K's hair? Cool.....

K with Papa after haircut

We had wanted to go to the Kite Festival presented by Act 3 International at West Coast Park but got to give it a miss due to the wet weather. I was looking forward to it as K has never seen a kite and thought she'll be thrilled to see many beautiful kites soaring in the sky! Even if she doesn't enjoy the kites, hey, there is a sand pit there where she could have loads of fun! Oh well, maybe next year....

Anyhow, we decided to bring K for a haircut instead. Her fringe was pretty long and seemed to get in her way, so we really need to trim it. We always bring K to Ms Ye Ting of Junior League located at Vivocity. We had tried Junior League at Parkway Parade(much nearer to us!) but kept going back to Ms Ye Ting ever since K got her hair cut by her. I like the way she "shapes" K's hair. I am proud to say that K has never cry during haircut, not even when she was a baby and had to shave her head. ALL of the children, before K, cried. Luckily, she was not in the least influenced and enjoyed herself even, with her hands busy with the balloon, stickers, toys and TV!! After the hair was cut, K was given a splash of washable pink colour hairspray! So cute!!!

Homeschooling (Allie Alligator) - 26/08/2009

Some of my teaching materials

Printable book from the internet

Krissa hard at work (with a little nudging from Mummy!)

Krissa's completed works:
- Used pink crayon to colour the ribbon.
- Traced number 1.
- Ant craft using egg carton and pipe cleaners.
- Correctly identified picture of ant and pasted it on the worksheet.

- Exercises from Kumon's Let's Sticker & Paste.

Continuing with the phonetic sound of "A", we learnt about the ant!

Homeschooling (Allie Alligator) - 24/08/2009

My teaching materials:

- Introduction to the alligator, its life cycle and pictures of baby alligators.

- Worksheet with the pictures of the 4 topics which K will be learning.

- An egg showcasing a baby alligator when opened.

- A DIY book with cliparts from the internet.

K working hard on her given tasks. She is truly a Daddy's girl; with each
piece of completed work, she would bring it to show Daddy.

K's completed works:
- Correctly identified alligator and pasted it on the worksheet.
- Alligator craft using toilet roll.
- Traced vertical lines to prepare her for numeral "1".
- Grouped stickers according to their colours and pasted them according
to their silhouette printed on the book.
- Picked out the right colour crayon and coloured the apple.
- Exercises using Kumon's Let's Sticker & Paste

For the longest time, flashcards, reading and art & craft was all I did with Krissa at home. Hence, I thought it is now necessary for me to do more for K and to feed her with as much information as I possibly could for I have witnessed and is ecstatic over her rate of learning. I truly believe that the brain of kids at this young age is like a sponge; they really can absorb all inputs so fast! Never mind if your child does not look/stare at the flashcard, just a glance will do! Take for example in K's weekly playschool, there is a short Zoophonics segment and for don't know what reason, K would always throw tantrums, lie on the floor and hide her face with her hands. No amount of coaxing would have her join in the singing and actions. I have never sing or do those actions in her presence too. However, one fine day while we were reading a book on elephant, she suddenly pronounce the "e" sound and did the action! I took a step further by starting with the first animal i.e. "Allie Alligator" and true enough, she was able to pronounce "a" sound and did the correct action too!

The tricky part about this whole homeschooling thing is I can't decide on the theme to present to Krissa. I am an advocate of Glenn Doman's teachings and after consulting another like-minded mummy, I have decided not to adopt the commonly used alphabet theme to introduce the alphabets to K at this stage for she maybe confused because all these while, K has been taught to recognise whole words instead of alphabets. Finally, I decided to use the animals of Zoophonics which she is familiar with to kickstart and from there, teach her another couple of things which starts with the same sound e.g. we started with alligator(Allie Alligator) today, then we will move on to apple, anteater and ant for the next 1 to 2 weeks.

In addition to the "topic-of-the-day", I have also integrated some exercises to build up her gross/fine motor skills and math (colour/shapes/sizes etc). I am really grateful to the presence of the internet and those kind souls out there who have generously uploaded their teaching materials for all to use. It sure makes my life alot easier:)

23/08/2009, Sunday (Part 2) - My First Cooking Lesson: Pizza! Pizza!

Grocery shopping

Master chef in action

The end product - Yummy!!!

See? I told you its yummy!!!

After grocery shopping, we got down to business. Krissa was able to follow my cue and instructions, the pizza turned out well and most importantly, the chef enjoyed her creation:) The next time, we'll bake yummy muffins!! Now, who says staying home is boring?!

23/08/2009, Sunday (Part 1) - Visit to the Library

Krissa on a kiddy ride before we enter the mall,

Krissa returning some books which I had borrowed &

Krissa in the library

We can't go anywhere far because Daddy's exams are around the corner, thus he cannot afford to be out for too long. We went for Dim Sum breakfast at one of our favourite restaurants, Yan Palace, before paying a short visit to Ah Ma(paternal grandma). Afterwhich, we went home and basically both Krissa & I spent almost half the lazy afternoon in bed!! Yes, we were that tired!! I had plans to make pizza with Krissa sometime back but often could not find the time to do so as we were out almost every weekend, thus I decided that today is the day. Daddy had wanted to stay home to continue with his studies while I take Krissa out to the library and do some grocery shopping for our pizza but Daddy, being the ever Mr Super Nice, decided to accompany us as it was drizzling:)

It was Krissa's 2nd trip to the library and apparently she did not understand or didn't want to understand "silence, please" because she would call out loudly when she saw something familiar e.g. dog, cat etc. Hahahha....thankfully the librarian did not chase us out. We managed to get some good books for K, in fact, books which I had wanted to buy. Now, I can test drive if K likes the books before investing.

Boom Bah! - 16/08/2009

Boom Bah! What is it? Make a guess! Hehehe...it is the title of a play by an Aussie theatre presented by Act 3 International.

We went to the play with Auntie Joycelyn and Trishelle jie-jie. We also met up with Junyi gor-gor and family outside the theatre as Auntie Mabel (mummy to Junyi) hoped that with a familiar presence i.e. K who is classmate to Junyi in Kids' Loft, it'll give him the extra courage to step into and stay throughout the entire play in the theatre. Apparently, Junyi went for a play once but was out of the theatre in 5 minutes. Luckily, Auntie Mabel's worries were unfounded because for one the lights in the theatre were not dimmed even when the play started and the actors soon capture the attention of all the children when they make music out of ordinary household stuff e.g. milk carton, spoon, cup etc. Apart from the actors, there was also an elaborate prop which housed a magic cupboard!

The climax of the play definitely has got to be the part where the actors allowed the children to try their hands on the various musical instruments e.g. violin, drum etc. K looked so cute when the violin was propped on her shoulder while one of the actors took her hand to play the violin with a bow! Am glad to say that K was well behaved throughout the show and all the children exited the theatre with a bright smile on their face (^-^)

Movie Time "Up" - 10/08/2009

Today's a public holiday as National Day i.e. 09/08/2009 falls on a Sunday. We brought Krissa to the cinema at AMK Hub to watch the animation show "Up". It was only K's 2nd visit to the cinema yet she seemed so seasoned! She only managed to stay still and silent for about 10 minutes before saying dog! dog! etc. She, at times, even laughed out loud although I really don't know if she understood. Luckily, there were also other children in the cinema who spoke as loudly and excitedly as K ;) I pity the couple next to us though because we had purchased "lovers' seat" for Daddy said K can sit in between us if she wants but K totally ruin the mood for romance for the couple...hahahha!!!

East Coast Beach - 09/08/2009

After Polliwogs and lunch, we headed for sand play at the beach.

K loves to get herself dirty, thus she guai guai sit on the mat and played with the sand for quite sometime without the need for company. Trishelle, on the other hand, prefers water to sand and she had fun with Daddy watching the waves and playing with the waters.

After the beach, we rushed home to let Krissa nap before we went visiting my grandparents and dinner with my sisters. It was a fun but tiring day for all of us.

Polliwogs - 09/08/2009

Krissa taking a break, cute expression!

Sitting very comfortably on the kiddy couch

In the tunnel of main obstacle station

Play area for younger kids

Crawling in and out chasing after Daddy

K stumbled but finds it amusing to walk in the ball pit

Another ball pit

Loading her ammunition in one of the shorter guns

One of the bigger guns on the higher level

Daddy & K on the spiral slide

2 Dads + 2 Princesses on the slide

Its National Day!! Happy 44th Birthday, Singapore!! Tried balloting for tickets to NDP but we didn't get it, thus we playdate with Trishelle jie-jie and family again:) This time, after much deliberation, we decided to head for Polliwogs and the beach for some great sand play at East Coast Park!! Yeah, sunny weather!!

Polliwogs seems to be a much rave about place when I did a search on it on the internet and it did not fail us. We have been to other indoor playgrounds but this place is much better. Of course, being a newly setup is a big plus. There is ample space in each play area and in the main station, apart from the usual obstacles, there are guns for the kids to play with. Small foam balls are fired from these guns and kids have to collect the balls back from the floor to continue with their play. K, due to her young age, prefers to collect the balls. The ball pits also provided plenty of fun for the young kids. However, do practise caution on the slides because they are very well lubricated. My heart almost stopped when I saw Trishelle coming down one of the slides at lightning speed. Other brownie points include a nice lounge area with kid sized sofa and couch and the provision of free beverages (tea, coffee, japanese tea), magazines and 2 desktops with internet access. Yes, we'll be back!!

1st Lesson @ Mandeville - 01/08/2009

Notice the white patch on K's face? Its a sticker!

Other kids like to paste stickers on their hands/legs,

mine likes to paste them on her face! Hahahah!!!

Little pianist in the making?!

Why Mandeville when there are other schools out there? I guess some things just can't be explained...its just a gut feeling.....or you can take me for being plain shallow as I cannot deny that I have taken a liking to Mandeville the minute I saw the school on one of my shopping trips at United Square. I mean the school looks impressive from the outside and they even boast of a year end concert performed by their little musicians. I did several checks online but was not able to gather much reviews from the other parents who already have kids in the school.

Warning for those who wants to sign up for Mandeville: the admin. staff sucks BIG time!!! I'm not joking! All of my friends who have signed up for Mandeville have the same negative feedbacks! They do not have a proper administration system in place. With the same question, you get different replies from different staff e.g. my friend, who had made a trip personally, to enrol her girl had also very kindly helped register K. However, when I called the school on payment, schedule etc, the staff who took my call said K's name was not on the list! After a day or two, another staff called me and confirmed that my friend had indeed registered K but her colleague did not know because she was on leave on the day I called and the registration list was in her drawer! I would take it that every staff had a list of their own and if the staff whom you had registered with was not at work, do not expect correct answers from her colleagues! They seem to still live in ice age! In this era, I thought computerisation was the way to go? Hence, instead of paying for a full term, I only paid for 1 trial lesson. The way the admin staff/system work projects a very negative image and one wonders how good the teachers can be when they have this kind of admin system in place!

Ok, enough of the admin staff/system....now on the positive comments: Both Teacher Ping, who happens to be the Vice-Principal of Mandeville, and Teacher Susan are good! The kids get to enjoy "live" music played by Teacher Ping on the piano while Teacher Susan sang or acted out the actions for the little ones to follow. In fact, now K likes the piano so much that she has been requesting almost every other night to "play" on my piano. Erm, though we have a piano at home, I did not touch it for ages and did not introduce to K too:( Alright, back to Mandeville; I like for the fact that musical notes are presented to the kids in a lively manner e.g. Teacher Ping will tell a story about the note-of-the-day, show the said note to the children and get them to pick out the correct note , afterwhich the children will paste the note in their workbook. Apart from having the piano, children are also encouraged to join in using percussion instruments e.g. bells, maracas etc. Krissa definitely enjoys Mandeville because if she is not sitting down with her percussion instruments, she will be swaying/dancing to the music. I'm so glad she enjoys her lesson:)

Note: K doesn't like to walk when required during Kindermusik and music time at Kids' Loft, she would want Daddy to carry her while all her other classmates walked round the room with their parents. However, she surprised me by willing to cooperate at Mandeville. I don't know if it was because I told her I will not carry her during lesson and she has to do what she is told. Perhaps she understood and knew that only fierce fierce Mummy will be in the classroom with her, so she has no choice but to obey. Whatever the reason, I take it as an improvement and am very glad:)