Happy Birthday Singapore

As expected, we were not successful in balloting for NDP tickets. We watched the show live at the comfort of our living room while the children draw. Earlier in the day, we baked some cupcakes & sprinkled colourful chips like fireworks. While gorgor drew his merlions (both real & cute versions), mei continued with her toilet roll painting.

Happy Birthday Singapore!

The Default Activity

As soon as they can sit still, my kids have been doodling and crafting. We maintain a constant supply of pencils and papers at easily accessible locations at home.

Painting requires more help, eg. Cleaning the brushes, changing water and mixing colours. As they grow up, they are able to paint on their own without much help. I just need to lay some newspaper on the floor and bring out the art supplies.

Mei likes to mix colours and paint on toilet rolls. I think it's the texture of the toilet roll which is slightly thicker than normal paper and the shape of the toilet rolls that makes it interesting for her. She will hold on to the roll, paint as she turns. She will use her favorite pink and explore new colours by mixing pink and beige, red and silver etc. It's sheer joy observing her paint toilet rolls. It must be therapeutic for her.

Missing Bottle Missing Books

Mei was singing this new song from school- missing metal, missing strings...it reminds me if her brother. He lost his water bottle & a new book he bought from the book fair 2 days in a row.

Besides reminding (to the extent of nagging) him to take care if his things, there are nothing much we parents can do as we are not in school to help him organize his things. He had to learn the hard way because he was "spoon-fed" all the way in preschool. We wished we could start earlier.

Kids nowadays don't feel the pinch of losing things anymore. They assume the item will be replaced unlike our days when we treasure every gifts we receive instead of using hand-me-downs. Even the "used" items are usually lightly used.

While I'm contemplating whether to buy him a new water bottle, it was returned to him the next day. He must have left it somewhere and his friend has put it in his locker as he has left for the day.

Creating a maths game

As part of the independent research study, our boy has to design a game. Over a full day learning journey, they learnt more about game mechanisms, techniques and steps in designing their games. Their homework is to prototype the game and play test with family and friends.

Last Friday evening, we brainstormed on the game title and general rules of the games. We decided on the game components to make- a game board & cards. We started the project on Saturday evening, cutting cardboards, deciding where to place plus and minus signs. Along the way, we made adjustments to the placement of the signs so that meaningful addition and subtraction sentences can be made.

Generally, his game, Number City, goes like this- Each player draws 8 cards and start to create maths sentences with each turn until he finishes his cards. To add challenges, we designed special cards eg. Swap, draw 2, exchange, to spice up the game. He has not decided whether to use a "magic" card to clear the board totally and start from an empty board.

In play testing, we subjected the game to different scenarios that will never been known if it remains in concept. He learnt how to explain his game creation with rules he set and answer questions on decisions he made. Tough for a P1 but it is indeed a learning journey, for both mother & son.

Raising Independent Kids

Completing a task for a child is usually faster than waiting for the child to explore through trial and error. It takes time for a toddler to self-feed and toilet train. Along the journey, there will be messes to clear and frustrations. Many parents will give in and wait for the child to be "ready" before retrying.

My children are taken care by their grandparents when I'm at work. There are different ground rules set at the 2 households. MIL tends to give in and feed the child even if the child is ready is self-feed. Her reason being she will rather feed the child than clearing the mess that will be left on the table and floor as she has housework piling up.

When we pick our children home after work and over weekends, we adopt the DIY approach at home. If the child doesn't keep their toys, the mess will be left at it is or thrown away after a few warnings. I'll rather live with the mess than having irresponsible children.

Children adapt to different situations quickly. They are ready to be independent when given the chance. Given the time and space, the child can learn at their own pace. Failure is part & parcel of growing up. Observing how my children behave under different caregivers, I can see how the environment can mould the future of a child.

Daily Reports

I work long hours but make it a point to talk to my children everyday, 1 to 1, eye to eye, for at least 5 min, unless they are asleep by the time I reach home. My children know that mummy is interested to know what they learnt in school and the daily tidbits of their classroom activities.

It is usually easier to dish out juicy stuffs from mei. You see, she's the class monitress calibre- helpful otherwise busybody. She will tell me who has been naughty and talkative, how many times can her friend bounce the ball and who fell down/ vomitted/ made teacher angry etc. After the daily reporting, I'll prompt her to tell me a new word she learnt (Chinese or English) or new song she sang. If she forgot the lyrics or melody, she will pay more attention in class the next day and complete the song the same evening.

For gorgor, he will reply that nothing unusual happened. Instead he will tell me how much he spend at each stall during tea break and lunch, how much chilli he added in his laksa and about catching and monkey bar he played in school. Recently, he has been selected to join the school art CCA. But he's still reluctant to share more even though he was excited to go for the CCA after class. I have to nudge him and persuade him by telling him mummy didn't have a chance to join school art CCA (then called ECA) during my school days (which is true). Slowly, he opened up and told me about the Popsicle group project they have done for the 1st session.

The idea behind this activity is simple. Mummy no longer have time (& energy) to prepare materials for crafts everyday. By replacing with a simple conversation, I kill 2 birds with 1 stone by getting 1st hand information of what they did in school and they get a chance to practice their reporting skills by verbalizing their thoughts.

That's our daily bonding activity, what's yours?

Preparation for P1

This is the time of the year that everyone will be discussing about Primary School registration. A series of "how to prepare your child for primary school" talks, forum chats and articles will surface. This year, MOE even produced a video for parent's reference to consider on selecting primary schools (ie. not based on PSLE results).

Last year, I went through the frenzy accessing MOE website to monitor the take up rate of the choice school at each phase because I didn't volunteer my service at any schools like some of my friends. I haven't been lucky in balloting (including winning lucky draws) so I won't take the chance of balloting for the most popular school in the neighborhood although I'm within 1km.

This year I'm an observer as my son has already enrolled in a primary school. I read the release of info and reviewed if my son was ready for the "big school" (compared with his kindergarten at the void deck). He's fine academically (phew!) but lacked behind in his social and confidence level.

6 months into primary school, I wish i had better prepare him in the following areas:

1. Being organized
He needs to pack his bag based on daily time table. Most parents would help the child pack every night instead of going through the agony. But we thought it is important for the child to pick up some organisation skills. We expect him to remember which are the textbooks and workbooks required for each day. At times, he needs help with filing and sorting. When he forced in loads of books randomly, we would suggested he organized the books according to sizes with workbooks behind and exercise books in front. We could have trained him better in packing and sorting earlier.

2. Run but don't fall
Recess time is something new to a primary school kid. We trained him to buy food on his own including calculating how much change he should be getting back. He's fine with managing his pocket money and even bought stationery and gifts from the bookshop for meimei. He spends his free time after eating and "shopping" playing catching with friends and challenges himself on the monkey bar. But after 5 falls within a month, I thought he may have problem with balancing or motor skills. I could have prepared him better if he was exposed to more sports at a younger age.

3. Speak up at appropriate time
He has been rather quiet in class. In the Reggio-learning environment, we hope he can participate actively in discussions instead of answering only when being asked. He has marked improvements since nursery, but still room for improvement. Once he lost his pencil case and did not have the courage to approach the teacher to ask if there is lost & found items. I had to email his form teacher for help and asked him to retrieve from teacher the next day. We could have "practiced" situational role player at home before school started.

4. Be responsible for your belongings
Primary school children move around the school compound for different lessons. My child has the tendency to misplace his belongings when moving from room to room. We must constantly remind him to ensure he brings along all his belongings before he leaves the room. We could have incorporated this habit earlier at home.

Overall, I'm quite happy with his progress so far, especially having made some friends who have common interests. I think it's the kind of motivating environment that can nurture the child.