Raymund's Birthday Today

It's little Raymund 3 Year Old Birthday today but Daddy has to work the whole day. We had a nice dinner for him last week with my Melaka..n in laws. He got some toys too. But his actual Birthday is today. We wanted to get him a little cake last night after Giant but we were a bit too late. The cake shop was closed. Little Raymund wanted to eat chocolate birthday cake. So, we promised him a cake come morning. His 'poh poh' gave him a remote control car. And us parents have already gotten him the indoor push car that he so loved about 2 weeks ago. So... what's left is the birthday cake.. we'll wait for Daddy when he gets back from home to sing him the birthday song :)

Happy Birthday, my dearest little Raymund

May you grow up to be a happy, smart and wonderful person;

May all good and lucky things come your way

With love from Daddy and Mummy

New Kindergarten for Ryan and Raymund

Ryan has been attending Tadika Eduland, now called Beaconhouse, for 2 years already. I'm not going to continue with Beaconhouse for him for his 6-year old classes. Not because I have a huge dissatisfaction with the kindie but it's more because of logistic issues. I have been fetching him to school every morning. On a good day, it takes about 20 min to reach the kindie. On a bad day, anything goes. When I'm not working like now, I have to a make a trip all the way there and back. It wouldn't do.

Ryan likes his current class teacher. But since the change in management, I just feel that the kindie is not efficient as it used to be. But then again, I don't have any major complaint. I just want Ryan to go to a more academic based kindie (to activity based) in his last preschool year.

Next year, Raymund will be starting his 1st year in kindie. With 2 boys, I have to find a more affordable kindie... and closer to home. I was choosing between Q-dees and Superfun Learners which adopts the Fungates System. Both have their own merits. Q-dees goes on an established computerised system (for whatever the reason, I'm not dazzled by it :) ) and has long line of testimonial. Again it depends on which franchisee. Fungates is no different since it is also a system adopted by kindergartens. But SuperFun Learners has been established for >10 years and was originally located in Sri Petaling. From what I heard, some students followed them with the relocation to Bdr Kinrara. Well, I finally registered both my sons to SuperFun Learners. The deciding points are:

1. My sons' playmates - my neighbours' kids - go to the SuperFun Learners and they are the same ages ****
2. They have just shifted to the new premise - all new and clean
3. Location is quiet, with easy parking - looks safe too - away from traffic. Actually the same with Qdees
4. My neighbours gave good feedback about the school ****
5. Close to home - save travelling time so that my kids can do more things, like attending Cosmotots iqd (still contemplating)
6. $$$ cheaper

Ryan's classmate's mom :) was also thinking of transferring her daughter but worried about 'rocking' her daughter's confidence since she has to make new friends and get use to new environment. She asked me the same. I told her that I share her worry but it will be no difference when our kids go to the primary school. I feel that it should be ok since kindergartens give more personal attention than primary schools. It shouldn't be too tough. Just let them rough it out A BIT now in preparation for the bigger one.

Levi's Warehouse Sale

Just what I need when I'm looking for a new pair of jeans! Levi's Warehouse Sale! I saw the buntings along the roads when I was fetching Ryan to kindergarten yesterday. Said it's a 4 day Levi and Dockers Warehouse Sale starting today.

The timing was good for me. I had to send Rachel for her 1 year old MMR jab today. Surprisingly, she was a good girl at the doc's. Didn't throw any tantrum and not even crying when she was given the jab :) She used to cry like mad when she was 6 months and younger. Guess, she is big girl now. The doc was quite surprise and said that she looked like she didn't feel the needle. Must be the fats :)

Here's a pix of Rachel with her cute little bandage :)

Right after, I dropped off my maids and my 2 younger kids at my mom's house so that I can shop peacefully at the Warehouse Sale. Seriously can't imagine going to the sale with my 2 kids... esp a warehouse sale.. it would be a nightmare!

Quite a lot of people. I arrived Hotel Sri Petaling (that's where the sale is) at about 11am. Looked like a lot of working peopl had an early lunch break :)

There are jeans selling as cheap as RM60. The better ones are in the region of RM100 but still a good buy. Dockers pants for men are going for RM90 and above. Lots of smaller sizes for waist 25-29. T-shirts for as cheap as RM30. Even men's long sleeves shirts sorry I forgot the price.

I got myself a light Levi's cardigan for RM30, a pair of jeans at RM115 (unfortunately for me, the bigger size ones has 'bigger' price :( ), a pair of 3/4 jeans for only RM50 (yea!), T shirts for my hubby at RM30, Dockers pants for hubby at RM90 and a Levi's cap at only RM20 (couldn't resist).

Another day with good 'sau wok' (achievement). Yea!

Introducing Simple Multiplication to Ryan

Guess what! I got a little ambitious and decided to introduce the concept of Multiplication to my 5 year old son, Ryan. Just to see if he could grasp it. Not initially when I tried to explain groupings but I thought of a way which is easier for him to comprehend.

With the example below, I just told him to take either one number, in this case 3, as the number of baskets/boxes. Then the remaining number is the number of balls to put in each basket/box. After that, he is to add up all the balls and that is the answer to 3 x 2. See below.

And since he can also choose 2 to be the number of boxes and 3 to be the number of balls in each box, then it will be that 3 x 2 = 2 x 3 = 6.

He got it! When I tested him another day, all he did was to draw the boxes and balls for 3 x 2. Then for the 2 x 3 in the next line, he just wrote the answer 6.

Try it out and let me know if it works for you. At this stage, the kindies children and E.nopi kids are familiar with counting balls. So, I just use back what is familiar to them and introduce the concept. I'm definitely NOT asking him to memorize timetables now ;p

Teaching Ryan Number Sequence

His E.nopi classes helped him a lot. His Maths is quite steady and fast. It really pays to spend a bit more for enrichment classes. As such, when I coach him, I went a bit more advance. I taught him number sequence up to 5 digits. Sounds big but the E.nopi training on recognizing patterns help a lot. For instance:

1100 1200 ....

All he has to do is to see which pattern is changing - ie last 2 digit constant. 1st 2 digit is increasing by 1.

100 110 120 130 ...

68 69 70 71 ...

2 4 6 .... even numbers

1 3 5 .... odd numbers

Easy for him as he recognizes it as +2. Just the sequence 1st.

Not yet the part on understanding odd and even numbers. He is after all only 5 years old :)

So on...

Here is an example of the E.nopi training on concepts for pattern recognition. I just use this concept to teach this sequencing. It just took him a few minutes to understand.

Bows & Ribbons Hair Clips for My Little Girl

I mentioned that I was checking up Youtube for 'How to-s' on crafts. I came across some videos that teach people how to make cute, beautiful bows for hair accessories. Perfect! I have been buying little cute hair clips for my little princess. Now, I can make for her instead. It's quite easy to learn but takes practice to perfect the bows. I went to shop at Minlon for some ribbons, hot glue gun and some beads. I got some nice cute buttons from a haberdashery. I also used some nail art rhinestone stickers as well. Anything that I think I can make use of. Then, my clumsy attempts to make some ribbons and bows hair clips for her.

Here are some of my materials - 'ka chang' in cantonese :)

Some hair clips that I attempted. Hope I can get better with it soon :)

The motivation is that the bows are made for my little girl. She wore one of mine for her birthday and she looks cute with it :)

I Went Shopping Today

I went shopping today. Some friends told me to take a visit to the new wing IOI Mall. There is this Branded Outlet that I can check out but I didn't get anything there. I wasn't in the mood to shop for myself. I shopped at the new Daiso Store selling Made in Japan stuff all at RM5. Sounds interesting as I need to get some craft materials to make hair clips for my little girl. Found some but not all the materials. Good enough to start off with some of my ideas. Also some materials for my wire jewelery craft and others too. All at RM5!

Then I saw this cute little shoes for my little girl in FOS. Made in Sweden. Good material and lovely design. Only at RM17. Also bought some nice short 'hugging' pants for her too. Baby Gap. RM10 for 3 pieces!! Good buy!

My last stop was to the Popular bookstore. I wanted to get some more practicing workbooks for Ryan for English, BM and Math. I didn't get him the Chinese ones as I don't know how to teach unfortunately. I will use these when I coach him the next time. Popular bookstore is a good place to get these workbooks. Cheap and good. The only downside is that it's focus is on Chinese. I was looking for a Std 1 Math workbook in English but couldn't find it. Ha,ha.. what am I doing with Std 1 Math when Ryan is only 5 years old??? ;p

Good 'sau wok' (achievement) today!!

Sending 2 Year Olds to Kindy??

I just visited the Mead Johnson forum. I love to check out the forum to see if there is anything new I can learn from other moms or if I can even help out some. A really good forum especially for new and young moms. Lots of information and sharing.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was checking out the Child's Learning & Education category. I found quite a few moms who are really concerned about their children's learning and education. I can understand the feeling. I too am worried about my children's studies, whether they can cope in primary.. whether they can are at least on average with their classmates...and my son, if he can survive primary school, chinese primary school, that is. I'm not exactly diligent in coaching my children. In fact, I'm definitely nowhere near some mothers who are totally devoted to coaching their children. I really admire their patience and stamina. I only start home lessons with my son when he started kindergarten at 4-years-old. At least with the help of his teachers, I'd just reinforce the learnings. I'm surprised when I read that some moms want to send their children to kindies at 2 years .. want them to learn ABC and 123 and upset that their kid couldn't. I'm just thinking that are moms of today putting too much demands on our children? When I was blogging or commenting in forums about teaching and coaching and signing up classes for my son some time ago, some moms actually advised me not to put too much pressure on my kids, but to let them enjoy their childhood. I don't quite know how to balance. I still send my 5-year-old son to E.nopi, Art classes, which I'm not regreting. And I'm already thinking about Cosmotots for him. I tried art class for my 3 year old son, but he's too young to sit still. I suppose it is no harm to teach and attend some light classes for young children if they are fun and entertaining. But for 2 Year Olds? Maybe some fun stuff like Gymboree? Music and singing? And of course there are some institutions like Shichida who boast that they can help children and even infants - that's for you to decide, really. I seriously don't think we need to pressure 2 year olds for actual serious studies. The last thing we want is to frighten them off studies. Most kindergarten offers 3 year old classes - just singing, fun basic ABC and such - more of a play group or day care. The serious learning in kindies starts at 4 year old. Even so, the 1st few months are only concentrating on prewriting skills.

So, is it really good to force studies on children as young as 2 Years Old? Unless it is for day care or playgroup, I feel that 2 years is too young. However, us moms can always introduce the concepts to them earlier without exerting pressure. I'm just only starting on my 3-Year-Old Raymund.

That's just my views :)

I Attended Wire Jewellery Making Workshop

I was looking for some workshop - anything along craft, even cooking. I want to learn something that is sorta useful. While between jobs, I've some time that I can concentrate on my hobbies which I put on hold for a long long long time... all except gardening :)

I've always wanted to learn some crafts. The schedules for Cooking classes were not suitable for me. So, I googled up for workshop and classes ... and voila, I found beading classes and wire jewelery classes. I sent in an enquiry and good a reply for wire jewelery that fits my schedule. Thought it could be fun coz I love costume jewelery and ear rings. I have in mind to design some for myself after I attend some classes.

My instructor is Emi Kaz. Ypu can check out some of Emi's work at http://emikaz.blogspot.com/. I had fun at the workshop. I attended the beginner's class with another lady at Emi's studio and I get to do hands on practice for a bracelet, a pair of ear rings and a ring. I was very excited after the lessons. I began ordering my tools and supply online so that I can practice. My 'toys' arrived a few days ago. I have yet to get the beads/gem stones (cheaper ones lah coz still practising :)) that I like. Seems I have to go on overseas web. Even certain wires are not available in Malaysia. It's quite easy actually.

My First Attempt at Wire Jewelery

BTW I have also done some bows and ribbons hair clips for my little girl. I'll show you later.

Rachel's photos at 1 Year Old

Oops... been awhile and I said I'll upload my little girl's photos. My maid has just gone back and a new one is here. I've been busy guiding. Anyway, here are some photos of my little princess at 1 year old :)