Beautiful Manners

I work with kids everyday, as part of my job and as part of my life as a mom.  And manners play a very important part in making our everyday life pleasant and much happier to live with.  Sometimes, we forget that the basic gestures of saying “thank you” or “sorry” can make a big difference in how we feel about a situation.

Likewise, for children, they need to be taught about good manners and in our home and my work I address it as beautiful manners and behaviour.  I make it a point to discuss with JD what we considered as beautiful manners and what aren’t.  And when an unpleasant situation arise such as one not being appreciative, unwillingness to apologise, being impatient, toys snatching, not sharing, screaming, running inside the house, interrupting someone’s conversation, sneezing and coughing without covering up, burping out loud at dinner table and etc ….. all these need to be corrected on the spot.

It is important to address it on the spot when the child can still remember it.  And by addressing it on the spot, it gives them the opportunity to replay the whole situation, and then re-enact it again with the appropriate action.  For instance, if a child has burped out loud at the dinner table, I will remind the child to say “Excuse me”.  Then I will get the child to pretend burping followed by saying “Excuse me”.  By doing that, it helps the child to remember the situation and the appropriate manners to follow.

So this week’s theme was on “Beautful Manners”.

As part of the theme, we did a craft on “Cover your nose when you sneeze”.  It was a simple craft by using a paper plate, some market pens for drawing a face, some black yarn for the hair, tissues, glue and scissors.

JD chose to draw a face and I noticed that the eyes he draw lately have pupils and eye lashes!  Hee hee.  I reminded him and the others again about the importance of using a tissue or hankerchief when we sneeze.  And since it is Spring/Hayfever season, all the more important we should cover our nose when we sneeze.  The children had fun in pretending to sneeze with their “sneeze puppets”. 

We also did some role play during the week which included:

• If a group of friends were sitting at the table.  One child needed a blue crayon but the other child was using it.  What should the other child do?  The right response can be “May I have the blue crayon please?” or the other child can also respond by saying “Okay, sure, when I am finished with the blue crayon, you can have it.”
• If someone has snatched a toy off your hand or smack you on the head, what should you do and say? 
• If daddy and mommy are talking, and the child wants to ask a question, what should the child do?
• When we wake up in the morning, and before we go to bed at night, what should we say to our daddy and mommy?
• When we see our teachers in school, how should we greet them?

Children usually enjoy role play because they can pretend to be someone else.  But I felt it was important to spend some time on reinforcing beautiful manners in our daily life.

As part of our Chinese lesson, we learn a few greeting terms such as 早安, 晚安, 再见, 谢谢, 你好. 

JD is also remembering some of the words we use daily.  This was the conversation I overheard when he was playing “masak-masak” with Chloe.

JD: “恺仪, 来来, 快吃!” (Kai Yee, come here, quickly eat now)

JD: “好吃吗?” Yummm (Is it yummy?)

And another day when he saw Chloe playing with the house phone, he walked over and said to her “恺仪, 不可以!” (Chloe, no no no!)

At home JD usually adress Chloe by her chinese name (Kai Yee) and it is actually very cute.  Likewise, I get Chloe to address JD as 哥哥 (brother).   

Since Chloe started walking 2 weeks ago, she has just been busy practicing her new found skills.  And she was not willing to sit down at the activities table with us, but was much happier and contended bulding blocks.  She can now build 5 or 6 blocks together and it looks like the siblings share a common interest, apart from eating, what a joy!

 

 

Outer Space - Part 2

Last week, we continued on with our Outer Space Theme.

We made a rocket using some paper rolls, aluminium foil, black card paper and some red wrapping paper.  The craft was easy to make and JD did it in no time with minimal instructions.  But we made it a bit more exciting but sticking some blue tac inside the paper roll, put some sparkles on it, I lighted it for JD and he was ready to launch his rocket.  He really enjoyed that and at his age, I could trust him to handle and discard the sparkles carefully.

Chloe was really fascinated with the sparkles too but I couldn’t let her have it and she wasn’t too impressed.  Nontheless, she had a rocket to herself and was making the sound of “Chooooooo” as she flew it around in the air.

JD and I did made a helicopter using some straws, card and sticky tape.  It was a fun craft, more suitable for JD, and to fly the helicopter, we hold the straw between our palms, throw it up the air, and the helicopter will twirl into the air, spinning like the propeller of a helicopter. 

As we had a number of unforseen incidents, like the kids being unwell, me taking on more work, adjusting to a new routine, we had to put our Chinese, alphabets and numbers lessons on hold. 

We should slowly get back into our routine again this coming week, till then, I need some baking therapy to chill out and refocus a bit

And while JD continued to occupy himself with his daddy’s 30yo Lego sets and his latest own built space crawler!

 

Outer Space - Part 1

The Outer Space is our theme this week!  We are moving away from the colours theme and since JD wanted to do everything rockets and aliens, we decided to bring on the outer space!  And one week of outer space is not quite enough just yet.  I have more programs and activities for this theme but would slowly reveal them week by week!

As I was feeling a bit disoriented with a cold and some issues earlier this week, I was a bit disorganised to start with.  But I am now back on my feet and we did a few activities about the outer space.

For a start, we went to get some groceries at the local Asian supermarket.  The store started to display its mooncake selections and JD was very fascinated by it all.  He kept asking me and all I could tell him was they were mooncakes!  He looked really puzzled and thought they were literally “mooncakes” that would have fire, sparkles coming with it, and that it would have a loud “bang” if he bites on it.   He stood at the display, staring at the mooncakes with real fascination and I could see questions marks going off in his little mind.  It was too funny and too cute.  But, that’s a homework for me to research and tell him the story behind the Mooncake Festival!

He couldn’t get over the whole mooncake thing and wanted me to make “mooncakes”!  He went through my kitchen cupboard, got out my jelly moulds, pressed some Play Dough into it, and tada, here are his mooncakes!  Well, it is “moon” cake, and to him moon has everything to do with the outer space, heehee!

Mooncakes aside, we went to the library the other night and got a whole heap of books such as “Happy Birthday Moon!” , “Faust in Space”, “My 1st book of questions and answers about Spacecraft”, “Projects on kites and flying objects”  and some other books for Chloe.  I also took the opportunity to get a library card for JD so we could get more books out!

For craft, JD made me a special piece of jewellery - an inter galactic piece of necklace that comes with a “super duper powerful energy”!  Isn’t that sweet, hee!  He got hold of some aluminium foil, folded them, glued on some foam stars and shapes I got from the $2 shop, joined 2 pieces of pipe cleaners together and I have got myself a special piece of jewellery from my little man.  Apparently this neckplace will give his mommy lots of power and energy! Watch out, I could possibly launch myself into the moon soon! 

But we also made this star mobile together and we have lots of them hanging from the ceiling, some in Chloe’s room and some taken home by other kids.  Chloe really likes the stars mobiles and she keeps stretching her arms towards the ceiling trying to reach them!  

Chloe also had lots of fun with Play Dough and she has since learnt not to eat it and followed her brother by rolling the dough :)  And I especially like her rolling the dough with her chubby little hands  PS - Aunty Wendy, check out her hair, no more botak head 

As a little science project, we had fun doing the “balloon rocket” by tying a string between 2 poles, blow up a balloon and fastened it with a paper clip or pegs, stick the balloon onto the string, then released the clips and watch the balloon go at a lightning speed!  It is great fun and you can be sure to have lots of laughters from kids with this little project!  Next week I might get JD to launch the rocket himself.

For Chinese, JD is now able to identify the four flash cards of  爸爸, 妈妈, 妹妹, 哥哥!  The other great achivement was when doing our weeky groceries at the supermarket today, JD spotted some apples, and excitedly asked “Mommy, how about we get some 苹果 (apples)?”  Wow, I was thrilled.  Later while lying down on the sofa, he took out the Chinese words book from the shelf and mumbled to himself  红色 (red), 苹果 (apple), 拧檬 (lemon)!  I was watching him from the corner all that while and felt really encouraged by him. 

I am looking forward to another week of The Outer Space.

 

White

Last week, we moved on to a White theme.  Initially I had some trouble putting together activities for the week’s theme, but after searching on the internet, I got some ideas together for the kids.  In the same week, I also helped to look after 2 other kids (a 20 months old and a 2.5 yo kid).

So, it requires a little twist in my planing in order to accomodate for the different age groups.  For a start we made a wooly white sheep .  I cut out the templates for them before hand, but put the cotton wool and glue in a bowl for the kids. The older ones like JD and the 2.5 yo could do this craft pretty much independently.  But the 20 months old needed a bit of help, but really enjoyed applying the glue and slowly sticking the cotton wool onto the sheep.  The process of the little ones sticking on the cotton wool actually help them in their fine motor skills.  Sometimes it really doesn’t matter if their sheep has got more wool on the head than its legs, it is really about the process they took.  The handling of the material, applying the glue, the sticking of the cotton wool and etc.  That’s more important than the final product itself.

As for Chloe, I put her on the high chair and let her squeeze the cotton wool in her hands to have a feel of it, tickle her face and head with it, and it was more of a “feel n touch experience” for her.  But I needed to watch that she doesn’t put the cotton wool in her mouth.

After the craft, I talked to them about sheep shearing.  The kids were really fascinated with the fact that the wool from the sheep could be made into nice thick wooly jumper to keep us warm in winter.  I also had a sheep soft toy that I took out to show the kids, but that’s particularly helpful for the younger ones like Chloe or the 20 mths old.  At this age, not only do they need to see a picture of the word, but having the object in a physical form actually helps them to relate better. 

“Look mom, my sheep” or “Is that Judge JD?”

Well,  it would be great if I have a real sheep, hahaha, but I don’t think my neighbours would appreciate me keeping a sheep in my own backyard

Apart from the wooly white sheep, we also did a polar bear craft.  JD wasn’t too interested in the craft, but was quite fascinated with the story behind polar bear. Once again, I showed the kids a polar bear soft toy.  And you know what, I never realised I had so many different soft toys at home, but it has been a great tool! 

“Full focus and concentration”

While JD refused to do a polar bear, he chose to make a snow man instead.  It was a cute one.  Because his snowman has a pouch in his belly that can hold a baby, hahahaha!  As I said, the final product may not look anything close to the real thing, it’s the process and his imagination that really counts. 

“My snowman has a pouch to carry a baby!”

We didn’t get a lot of outside play this week because it has just been rain rain rain everyday.

But we spent lots of time singing, and I must have sang “The Wheels on the Bus” for a million times in one week, all with the kids imagination.  We have versions from “the sheep on the bus goes baa baa baa” to “the dogs on the bus go woof woof woof” to some that I just laughed so hard such as ”the power rangers help the people on the bus” and one for Chloe “the baby on the bus goes waa waa waa” ….

JD continued on with his numbers and alphabest recognition.  This week he learns to recognise the big B and kept on practicing with his writing.  He learns the phonic sound of A & B.  We have this little alphabet fridge magnets at home and I have noticed JD paying more attention to it and sometimes singing along to the tune from the magnet toy. 

He is doing well with the numbers.  On one afternoon, I took him out for an ice-cream but also brought along the numbers puzzle for him to practice and to make the learning more fun (plus the ice-cream for bribery, hahaha).

With Chinese this week, we covered 白色 and 棉羊.  JD struggled a bit with pronouncing 棉羊 but he got pretty close to it which I was proud of.  Apart from that, I also took out a stack of flash cards and tried it on the other kids I was looking after.    It was a fun experience because the 20 mo just absorb it like a sponge and I am soooo looking forward to the day when Chloe will also repeat the flash cards back to me.  On other hand, I think she said something very smilar to 哥哥during our daily cards session.

But that is if she pays some attention and stop climbing up and down the stool

“Here I go again, my favourite activity!”

“What, I didn’t do anything!”

 

Yellow

Finally, I am getting around to update on the yellow theme week.  Our weekly theme is progressing a bit slower than usual and we have stretched it over 2 weeks.  But it has been a very eventful yellow week with the school holidays, me working little bit for these 2 weeks, Chloe’s birthday and a few playdates at home.

With the yellow week, we did puppets, a fluffy duckie, which turned out to have a storyline of its own, we baked some delicious lemon buttercake and we continued on with our weekly Chinese lesson.

Since JD likes puppets, we made this lion puppet together.  He had fun with it, but I think he had more fun trying to scare his sister with the lion.  And it really tickled her everytime he roared ar her!  Chloe  was really fascinated by the picture of the lion in the book, and kept pressing the button to hear the sound of lion roaring.

There was also this fluffy duck we made when I was looking after a few kids this week.  It was a fun craft as the kids had more fun tickling their noses with the feather before settling down to do the craft.  Somehow they have all liked it and were proudly showing it off to their mums at pick up time.

As JD had this real facination with red, it is sometimes very hard for him to paint with other colours.  Most of the craft he brings home from daycare and kindy are usually fully coloured in red.  His carer has tried encouraging him to use blue, green, and any other colours, but he would always go back to red.  So, to widen his interest, I brought out some yellow and green paint and let him decide what he wanted to do.  Ended up we stuck some paper on the floor and did some hand and foot printing. 

Today when it was pouring down with rain outside, we cut out the hand and food prints with the intention to make a sunflower!  Half way through the cutting and gluing, JD decided that it looks more like a tree.  So it became a big gum tree!   Then the lion came to live under the tree, and that a little duckie flew past one day and landed on the tree, hahaha.  It was JD’s storyline, so I can’t agrue with that

Apart from the craft, JD and I also got together to make this lemon butter cupcakes for Chloe.  It was for her birthday when we also had a playdate at home.  JD helped to mix the lemon icing, and was very tempted to do the quality control check.  It was also my first time piping the icing, but I had lots of fun doing it.  Now I keep wanting to make cupcakes and play with the icing.  Ah, but too little time, too many other things to do :) 

JD continued on with his counting and numbers recognition.  This week I took out the numbers puzzle for him to work on.  And as usual, JD would improvise on the lessons.  He started taking out the basket of pretend fruits and matched the number of fruits to the numbers.  He is funny and he makes me laugh.  But if it works for him, all the better it is. 

In the last 2 weeks, I also tried reintroducing the alphabets to JD.  I tried letters recognition with its phonics sounds a few months ago and it just bored him to bits.  So I stopped after a few attempts.  We tried again last week, and he was more receptive towards it.  He didn’t reject it but was quite happy with the writing and beaming with pride when he got the writing right.  JD is a left-handed and he has the tendency to start writing from the right rather than the left.  I had to keep highlighting to him that we read from the left, write from the left, count from the left and etc etc etc.  It took a number of attempts, I persevered and he got it all the end.  It was really great when he did it. 

With Mandarin lesson this week, we covered 黄色 and recognised fruits/vegies yellow in colour: 香焦,黄梨,玉米.

We also revised the numbers again in Chinese and I shall post a video of him talking a little bit in Chinese later on :) 

 

Green

We have had red, blue, and the most recent was green. It was good being green. We ate lots of greens to start with, snow peas particularly which are in season, honeydew drizzle with some honey. We were also “green” to our digestive system by eating lots of wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta and brown rice! We talked about being green, by conserving energy in the house, turning off the lights when we are not using, turning off the TV on time by 9am to conserve energy, and and and NOT standing at the fridge with the door wide open! Ha, that was hard to achieve!

It wasn’t hard to think of “green” activities. We made this frog puppet, which turned out to be of great fun. JD enjoyed this craft, and we were able to cut out circles and refreshed what we did 3 weeks ago on size comparisons. JD also learned about full and half circle from this craft.

Later on, JD hid under the table to perform a puppet show for his sister whom was sitting on the highchair. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to capture it, but it was a very nice moment.

We also took out this frog lifecycle craft we did a few months ago and went through it with JD. He could still remember most of it, though he tends to skip the part about the eggs turning into tadpoles. JD refused to pose for me but instead wanted me to pose with his craft work There was also a “Grass Snake” that we made. JD liked this craft a fair bit because he had the chance to help me cut out strips of sticky tape for the snake, talk about simple fun! He didn’t want to pose with the snake because he said “It looks too slimy!” and he was trying to shoot the snake with his Lego built gun! Yikes!

I also added in a bit of maths for him using some home made numbers flash cards and his marbles. It was fun for him but the excitement probably lasted no more than 5 minues before he started to get distracted by the sound of a delivery truck driving past, the barking of the dog next door, the postman on his scooter. It was time to take a break for some wholemeal toast with cheese!

Then there was more playdough fun where he made himself a “motorbike with strawberries” birthday cake, a gourmet fruit pizza and a “green apple monster with sticks”! I think the reason why JD has named his cake that way is because he likes motorbike and strawberries!

Since it was Green week, I took out one of JD’s favourite Chinese story books ” 扑通” and read it again. I usually read it in Mandarin then again by English to him. He knows the story now and here’s a funny clip of him telling me the story. But, pardon me for his sneezing

As for Chloe, well, I think she went through a growth spurt last week. She just kept eating and I was always giving her something to eat througout the whole week. We also found out that she likes a good feed of Penne Bolognaise!

For Mandarin this week, we learnt about 小青蛙, 青色, 青菜, 青萍果, 青豆, 圆形.

Chloe is still doing the same stack of flash cards of 手, 口, 脚, 眼, 头, 妹妹, 哥哥, 爸爸, 妈妈 but I also added in a few new ones like 猫, 马, 大象, 绵 羊, 狗 with my own animated voices which she found amusing.

Once again, I realised kids learn the most through play. Last week I realised she could recognise the word “头” when I asked her to put a block on my head, then followed by her head in Mandarin. I was quite amazed at how quick kids learn and it was marvellous. No doubt, she was very pleased with herself when I clapped loudly followed by one of her cheesy grins!

Kids are generally happy when we spend some time playing, laughing, reading with them, and at the same time meeting their most basic needs of food, drink, clean nappy, clean clothes, warm jumper on a cold day, a treat of hot chocolates with marshmallow on a cold and wintry night….

 

RED

Recently, I tried to put in a bit more thoughts on the activities I do at home with JD. Since having Chloe, I have had the opportunity to take extra time off from work , thus allowing me to focus more energy at home, the children and primarily for the family.

It has been a good change of pace though. It took me a while to adjust but now I really enjoy this special time I have.

Last week it occured to me that once in a while I should blog down on the activities we do. Our theme for the next few weeks are based around colours. Last week’s colour was RED. It was JD’s favourite colour! As you guess, he couldn’t get enough of it.

We used crepe paper, cards, cut them out into shapes of tomatoes. We cut out strips of crepe paper, rolled them into balls, and glued them on. Then JD got creative and smarter, and just glued a piece of crepe paper on, then with my help trimmed the edges off nicely. But he still prefered crayons, and coloured the biggest tomato in red.

Doing craft was just part of an exercise. What I wanted to achieve was getting JD to learn Mandarin along the way. In that activity alone, I taught him to say and recognise:

红色, 西红柿, 大, 小

We learned about size comparisons, superlatives, with the use of his Lego blocks and building up various buildings of different heights before getting into some demolitions fun! It was much more fun that way as it involves him learning while doing the activity.

The next day, I cut up some apples and encouraged him to do some stamping with the cut apples. Once again, we went back to learning 红色, 红萍果, 萍果, 萍果汁. I became cheeky and taught him to say Cili Padi, and that his mommy used to have a “cili padi” temper His favourite part was painting his hands red and stamping them on sheets of paper. Chloe found it very amusing! And she also contributed to a set of hand prints too!

On another afternoon, we made Mr. Red Pepper taken from this site. It was a simple task of colouring, cutting, gluing. Once again he learned about 红色, 红辣椒. We also talked about the taste of chilli, I showed him a chilli plant, how we can use it in cooking and etc. It was a lot of fun talking about cooking the chilli as JD and I both love cooking and eating! Here’s JD trying to give me a thumbs up for this craft!

So there you go, it was our week of RED. This week’s theme is BLUE which I will blog about if I get a chance.

 

Learning Chinese

A few days ago, I started to see a wonderful progress in JD. You see, I was brought up in 3 languages, Mandarin, English and Malay. I know all these 3 languages well, both reading and writing. I enjoy knowing the different languages and my knowledge of these 3 languages have come in very handy. Quite often at work, I would be call upon to translate documents or be a translator to overseas guests.

A few years ago, I even got a chance to appear on a foreign TV simply because I knew how to speak Mandarin, hee!

But I seldom speak any other languages to JD apart from English. The reason is because my hubby speaks only English and over the years I got used to it and English became my first language.

9 months ago, I made a big change. I started speaking to Chloe in Mandarin from the day she was born. JD didn’t like the sound of the language at first. Infact, he hated it. He would quite often turned around and said “Talk properly mommy” when I speak to him in Mandarin.

But I persisted. My husband even encouraged me to speak more Mandarin to JD and Chloe.

3 days ago, as I was putting Chloe to bed, JD turned around and said “恺仪，再见！” (See you again, Chloe)

I thought I was hearing stuff. But when I asked him to repeat again he said “恺仪，再见！” (See you again, Chloe)

That was a WOW moment for me. I felt so happy knowing that he has been listening and he said it without me telling him to. I was so glad. So happy. Yes! My efforts are just starting to bear fruit. I should keep going and not give up.

And tonight, he said “妹妹，晚安！” (goodnight sister) as I put Chloe into her cot.

Oh, I feel so happy knowing that he has been paying attention and learning at the same time.

And my dad, JD’s waigong would be happy to know that he can count “一，二，三，四， 五” all by himself. No doubt we have a long way till he counts to 100 in Mandarin, but it is a working progress.

So, I am feeling a bit more positive of JD picking up another language. Because for a while I really thought that I have left it a bit late.

And I need to keep going and not give up.

On other hand, JD’s sister, Miss C has been enjoying her music session with some of the chinese music CD my dad brought over.

At the same time, I am trying to learn the full lyrics of 小星星 (Twinkle twinkle little stars)

Haha, my life as a mom has just gotten even more exciting!

Here’s just a short video of Chloe enjoying her music session!