Parents Teachers Meeting: 11th Nov'14

Chinese language development:

Positive improvement but the boy gets mischievous over time.

He was one of the first who could write their Chinese names well, but he slacked in the end. Teacher suggested to print out his name to copy.

Typical of IZ. Once he gets hold of the way, he slacks.


General development:

The very first thing Ms Fizah brought up was his pronunciation. She said she is worried, as he didn't seem to change even after she corrected him in the class.

Probably because we slacked too. We just let him be at home, without correcting him. Right now, I've started to practice a few words a few times every night. I read that we shouldn't over-correct him for fear of bursting his confidence.

Other than that Ms Fizah said he did very well in class. He is the only one who said thank you for everything, even when given a piece of paper. We really hope this would continue, although daddy says it's a phase, up and down.

She also said he did well in the show and tell. Something I meant to ask the last PTM but I've forgotten. He could speak from the beginning, what he drew and what he planted. Such a big difference when I asked him what he would tell at the show and tell, and he said "I don't know". I guess it's just his functional personality at work in the class. As long as he knows what he is doing.

All is well, it's time to say goodbye to Nursery class and hello Kindergarten!

"How was school today?"

Everyday when I reach home from work, I would ask "how was school today, IZ?"

He would reply "good!"

Gone were the days he didn't want to go to school. Now he says "Kinderland is fun!"

But if you were to ask what he learnt in school, he would say "I don't know.."

So yesterday, when I stepped in, he said "school was good, Mommy" (without me asking), I was very happy.

Small little thing that made my mad day a good one.

Random Updates

Thanks to YouTube, out of desperation to key-in search keywords himself, he learnt to spell.

Other than his own name, and our (daddy & mommy) names.. below what he could spell by himself.

Some random drawing these days:

A girl

Rapunzel

Random updates

He says "jelly fish"

3D grandfather's clock

He drew this and asked me to fill in the blanks for those diamond shapes

He drew these and asked me
1) which one has shorter pendulum?
2) which one has the correct "9"?
3) which one has a bigger "12"?
4) which one is purple in colour?

Inspired by the teeth book we are reading, he sketched 2 sets of teeth

His 1st Roman number clock/watch?

He says the mouse waiting to go up the clock

He started to write and write assuming he was writing something that make sense

3D grandfather's clock

He says it's a big head with his mouth wide open.. below is the hands and legs..

The most detailed wall

Teapot.. pouring into teacup

Welcome Home

To welcome Aunty Selina home

All about plants..

This term theme in Kinderland is about plants, gardens etc.

I kinda know of the theme before the school sent me email, when IZ sketched this:

Sketched this (transpiration) and told me
"the water go into the root"

 He was talking about plants that eat insects, so I showed him pitcher plants pictures on the iPad but he said that was not what he was talking about.

Two days later, he woke up excitedly and banged on the bathroom door. Couldn't contain his excitement, he told me the plant was Venus Fly Trap. I think the boy even dreamt of what he learnt in school.

Not able to confirm what he was talking about, he made some actions about fly touches fingers on one of his hands, and then touches fingers on the other hands, and the plant will close up. And it'll open again after 10 days.

So this time, I searched for Venus Fly Trap photos and videos.

Asked to watch Venus Fly Trap video every now and then

As he started sketching about plants, he asked to plant seeds. He said he wants to plant seeds and water them. I thought about it for a while, but procrastinated. I asked his aunt who likes to do gardening, if she could recommend any seeds that are easy to plant. She suggested beans.

I thought beans are boring, but decided to go ahead anyway before I can make up my mind on what seeds we should try.

So here we go:

Green bean experiment

4 days later

It's amazing how the boy is so responsible to water his plant everyday and love it so much.

While I forgot about my intention to plant a seed(s).. a notification from Kinderland came..  a seed growing project and we are supposed to chart the growth!

No more procrastination, Mummy!

PS: he could name some parts of plants - root, stem, leaves, flower

IZ writes Chinese..

One fine day.. he wanted to write his Chinese name. Being Chinese illiterate (or in a better non-intimidating way, I don't read/write Chinese), I was at lost. Daddy is not good in Chinese too.

As he asked his daddy one day, if he ever learnt Chinese. Daddy said yes. IZ said "if you learnt Chinese how come your Chinese is not good?" (Gotcha daddy!)

Back to his Chinese name, so I couldn't just tell him I don't write Chinese, although he knew that much. He has never came to me with a Chinese book, not that he likes Chinese that much anyway.

How did I solve the problem?

I took his Chinese reader book and copied. I was not very confident coz I do not know the strokes and the sequence. I couldn't describe the strokes either. I let be, let him write however he wants. I can't tell anyway, you get what I mean?

You can imagine how proud I was, when he could produce below, without referring to anything. He got it within 2 days and I thought he wrote really well. Phew!

At 3y9m:

His Chinese name - I think he did really well!

Mid-Autumn Festival 2014

On the eve, we went to Punggol Park:

Blowing bubbles with a few pipes

This RWS lantern is heavy duty.. strong and steady after 2 years..
(or was it 3?)

Sparkle time!
Timid IZ still dare not hold throughout.. he would throw it away when it's halfway..
Way to go son!

On the actual day:

Celebrated with fellow friends at the playground

A jie-jie shared her cutie lantern

It's full moon, of coz!

Humpty Dumpty: 9th Sep'14

He's so addicted to drawing Humpty, he drew these within 15 minutes.

I like how the Humpty Dumpty have more detailed features like hair, fingers, buttons, nose..

With hair and nose, and fingers!

Think this Humpty dropped his shoe/sock

Notice the sad face on the cracked egg?

This looks like a baby Humpty to me - so cute!

I tot this is not a Humpty, but he said it is

Parents Teachers Meeting: 2nd Sep'14

Chinese language development:

Xu Laoshi is very happy with his effort to speak Chinese most of the times, although when he's too excited and anxious, he would bla in English. I heard from helper he likes the teacher even more now. At one period he was really scared of her. Maybe because Xu Laoshi is very strict, she doesn't believe in pampering.

He's doing well in everything except that he couldn't pronounce properly and that he is mischievous in the class. The boy has grown up.

Teacher also told me about him giving flower to a girl in the class. Hmm.. they sure start young.

General development:

Ms Fizah says he is the only boy who mingle and play with all his friends, boys and girls. Well, to start of, there aren't many boys in the class, just 3 of them. And so, IZ is the "star of the class" as Ms Fizah calls him.

He was appointed stationery leader. His job was to make sure every classmates get a pencil and there are 2 erasers on the table. Ms Fizah said he did well. Wow, his first leadership role I guess. I like the way they are given responsibilities in the class.

Pencil grip is still the same. But this time round, we mutually agreed that as long as he could write and he's happy, we'd probably not correct him too much. When daddy corrected him, he couldn't write well. Ms Fizah actually remembered I mentioned about a girl who wrote with palm grip yet she produced beautiful handwriting.

Ms Fizah says he's naturally curious about how things work. At the AMAZE playground field trip, he figured how things work and excitedly told his teacher about it.

For neighbourhood police station visit, he got to sit on the police car, at the driver seat. I swear he has never shared with us about that.

Both hubby and I are happy that he's enjoying himself in Kinderland. 

Random update

Guess who am I?

I am the... Leonardo!

"Daddy and IZ" he says

DIY spidey mask

His latest creation - vacuum cleaner!

"This is Princess Elsa walking in the snow"

IZ's 1st Experience

Date: 23rd Aug'14

It was my 3rd time volunteering with the same group of people from Teckchen Choling temple.

But it was IZ's first.. a lot of explanation, but I thought it was a good start.

The Project Maude is now extended with collaboration from Community Clubs, thus the meet-up place was at Jalan Besar CC not at the temple

Early bird gets the worm.
I told him it was time to wake up, he jumped out of bed immediately
although he slept past midnight.
He was really excited to take early the 8am bus.
He said "mommy, you didn't buckle me"
Note to self: bring him on public transportation more often

Both beloved joined me for the good cause

Group photo before we split to our respective blocks

IZ made a new friend "IS"

IZ's job was to distribute face masks

Bonding session too

After walking for more than 3 hours.. he still had the energy
as the ninja turtle!
Creative!

His favorite turtle.. haha!

It was a good experience to do it with IZ..

One thing that bugged him, what happened to an uncle who switched on his tv so loud that he couldn't hear us knocking on his door. So, it was Science lesson to teach him about impaired hearing.

I was really proud of him not complaining about the strong urine smell at the corridors of the 1/2 room flats we went. And he greeted the elderly by their names, exactly how we greeted them.

Way to go.. May we be enlightened further to continue helping people who are in need.

"I'm sorry"

This morning, IZ asked if he could play before he was willing to wake up open his eyes. I told him yes..

But he wanted to poo..

At the end, we didn't have time to play, and it was time to leave the house.

He was grumbling and nagging "Mommy said I can play!" with his super sour face.

I tried explaining "Yes, I did. But that was before you poo, now we do not have time already"

He was not satisfied, he repeated a few times "But Mommy said I can play!!"

Don't know what else to say, I said "I'm sorry 'k, I'll wake you up tomorrow to let you play".

He nodded, and that's it.

Forgiven and forgotten.. for today.

Random drawing

"Rapunzel"

"Ninja Turtle"