A house for a hermit crab - Part 4

We looked at some shells in pictures but nothing beats seeing them in real.

Today Mommy had school event in the morning and Daddy decided that we will still have our family day out to the zoo in the afternoon. However, the weather was not in our favour and it poured as we headed down. Plans aborted and we went Ikea. Afterwhich, Mommy suggested going to the beach since we were so near Changi, a place we hardly venture since it's quite out of the way for us. It was also cause Mommy wanted to see if we could chance upon crabs burrowing in the sand. Yes, there was a recent oil spill but Mommy thought we will still head down to see the situation. Daddy obliged. Surprisingly, the beach was cleaned and for the first time, Mommy noticed the large amount of seaweed washed up to the shore and plenty of sea shells littering the beach.

Keziah was happily playing with sand and picking up the different shells, so many that she had to use her shoe to hold them since we weren't prepared for it. There were the usual plain clam shells that you would find on the beach but also snail shells and also those with pattern.

On the other hand, Abel took some time to warm up to the grainy feeling of sand in his shoes before he went about exploring the shoreline and picking up shells after his sister.

After all the fun, it was food time at nowhere else nearer than Changi Village. Guess most on the east would know of Charlie's at Changi Village market. They serve really fresh fish and chips with great tartar sauce.

No one can resist fries. What more when you have gorgeous tartar sauce as ac compliment!

Simply cheese pasta and roast chicken

It's Mommy's old time favourite - roast chicken and vegetables for the dinner. Well, it was meant to be simple but Keziah asked for pasta. So Mommy made an impromptu cheese sauce by warming up some fresh milk and adding in cheese singles that we had in the fridge.

One conclusion about roasting vegetables - never roast broccoli. They tend to get burnt. Our two dearies don't like zucchini so Mommy ended up replacing them with raw lettuce which Abel happily munched away but Keziah simply put them aside, preferring the former.

A house for a hermit crab - Part 3

Making our house and flat! Mommy thought about paper marche that she did when she was young and attempted for the little ones to make starch glue out of plain flour since some had just expired. They were happily adding water and mixing observing and feeling the consistency after the flour has been mixed. Of course, Mommy did the heating and finally when the mixture was cooled, it was our good sticky glue.

So the kids went about painting the glue on the empty tissue boxes in our efforts to recycle things we had, tearing waste paper and finally gluing them on bit by bit.

Nothing excites them more than painting the colours after the glue was dried. We had red and yellow to begin with. Keziah was challenged to pain her flat in alternate colours for different levels and she soon realised when yellow mixed with red, it became orange. Remember a story we read about "Colours of us" in which tells how a girl's mommy taught her how there are different shades of brown by relating to the different skintones of people they met and one could make brown out of red, yellow, black and white, we tried it out. It worked!

Abel was having great fun just painting. One thing unique about this little boy, he's always very neat with his work. Even without an apron, he didn't mess his shirt. Rather when he got paint on his hands, he will ask to be cleaned.

Keziah now has better control of her brush. Mommy was actually quite glad to see her work with colours being distinct from one another.

We are still working on the final bits to put in the windows for Keziah's flat and the other parts for Abel's house. We will probably finish off with comparing the two and looking at some home's of animals, writing our address and learning about ordinal numbers through the different levels in a block of flat.

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon

Kids loved stews and definitely so when it comes to beef stew. Mommy wanted to try something new and remembered a recipe once shared by another. Yes, French style and here's the recipe. It was certainly a lot of work considering the preparation and stewing time of 3 hrs! Thankfully all turned out well.

A house for a hermit crab - Part 2

We did really simple things today. Just simple motor skills of scooping beans which the kids have well mastered it over time into some old socks we got from airlines to make our beanie sea anemone.

Then, it was just outdoor time to familiarise Abel with number sequence 1-10 in ascending and descending order with none else but good old hopscotch which Mommy drew using chalk. For Keziah, she had to hop to the number on which her beanie had landed and tell the number before and after above it all. Of course, most of the time, our dear Abel was just too happy throwing his 'sea anemone' around.

Some Math activities we did over the past days….

The fish were really meant for Abel to sort by size and count but Keziah had good fun doing likewise on top of searching out the middle fish, from the left 2nd fish, 4th fish, from the right first fish and 'gobbling' them up.

Parent Teacher Meeting

It's not common once you're in primary school but looks like it's now a norm in pre-school that parents have feedback sessions with the teachers. This was also a time for Daddy and Mommy to have a look at what she has done so far.

Thankfully comments have been relatively favourable aside for instances when she was 'too helpful', giving instructions to her classmates unnecessarily. It's just interesting to know that Keziah is very vocal in class, quick to learn and will respond readily when at home, she sometimes refuses to discuss the stories we read together. That's so much from one who says that she learns nothing everyday in school. Everywhere she goes, she's teacher's little helper (haha…or a better way to put bossing others around). However, what took Mommy for a surprise was that the syllabus coverage seemed rather basic for N2. Based on the discussion with her teacher,  it was, for English, simply knowing their abc's and their phonetic sounds and starting on readers in the later half of the year and for Math, counting 1-10. Hmmm…is this the norm too?

Fun and Fit Day

Keziah's nursery had a fun and fit day to showcase their physical development programme for the kids. Daddy and Mommy made it down to witness our active little girl in action. We were glad we were there to see her and her friends. Some of the little ones whom parents didn't turn up looked a little lost.

After all the workout, we made some healthy snacks of flattened bread rolled with cheese, cucumber and seaweed.

A house for a hermit crab - Part 1

Mommy was inspired by some works of lapbooking and we decided to start something this holiday with our favourite author Eric Carle's "A house for a hermit crab". Progress was slow but each day we did a little. We started off with knowing the months through retelling the story and knowing a little more about hermit crabs through this craft. These definitely interest Keziah but when we went on to doing things related to English and Math, her interest kind of weaned a little. Guess it's about motivating her to go on.

Plain versus decorated

Some vocabulary cards to bring out some words we read in the books

Keziah coloured these and we laminated them to be used as puppets to retell the story

Facts…well a little boring for the little ones for now…Mommy has to think how to make facts more interesting…

We sang some rhymes and did some crawling side to side like crabs! Kids loved them!

We're Little Orange Crabs


Sung to: "The Farmer in the Dell"
 
 

We're little orange crabs
 

Who live down by the sea,
 

And where we do go
 

We're quick as quick can be.
 
 

We're little orange crabs
 

Who like to run and hide,
 

And when you see us walking by
 

It's always side to side.

Five Little Sea Creatures

Five little sea creatures


On the ocean floor;

The lobster walked away


Now there are four.

Four little sea creatures


Living in the sea;


The octopus crept away


Now there are three.

Three little sea creatures


Wondering what to do;


"Good-bye," said the starfish


Now there are two.

Two little sea creatures


Not having much fun;


Off swam the sea horse


Now there is one.

One little hermit crab


Sad and all alone,


Back came the starfish,


Back came the sea horse,


Back came the octopus,


Back came the lobster,


Then all five went home.

CRAB FINGERPLAY  (Math/Language)


One little crab by the sea so blue, (Hold up one finger.)


Along came another crab, and that made two. (Hold up two fingers.)


Two little crabs swimming in the sea,


Along came another crab, and that made three. (Hold up three fingers.)


Three little crabs playing on the shore,


Along came another crab, and that made four. (Hold up four fingers.)


Four little crabs so glad to be alive,
Along came another crab, and that made five. (Hold up five fingers.)


Five little crabs just having some fun,


Crawling on the sand in the hot summer sun. (Wiggle fingers.)

Few things Mommy planned to cover including simple activities with Abel:

1) Learning about months of the year

2) Math - number sequence, patterning, maze, dot-to-dot, ordinal number and sizing

2) Sea creatures (memory games and recognition)

3) Types of houses

4) Types of shells (field trip to the beach to pick some shells and see if we could spot little crabs burrowing in the sand)

It's definitely a lot of work to prepare all these. Let's see how we progress...

Our little ride round

The kids just love being on wheels! What a way to burn out the excess energy...

Our first museum trip

This weekend, we went to the National Museum as it was the Children's Season and during this period there were various interesting programs lined up for the kids. Furthermore, today there was free entry to all museums. So we took the chance to explore the museum and expose the kids. It was actually quite impromptu as we decided to stretch the kids a little after church to go ahead with this visit rather than going home to nap first. We queued for the puppet show and mingled with other kids at the various activity stations. Muz say there was really alot of activities to engage the kids, to get them tell stories and be told stories. Sadly, we forgot the camera.

More art pieces

More of Keziah's art pieces…Ain't the cows cute?

Hmm…not sure why this picture just don't seem to be able to rotate right..anyway it's her piece from last week.

Today Mommy had PTM in school so she was back only in the afternoon. Well, guess what, Keziah was up from her nap while Daddy and Abel were still in the room - Daddy napping but Abel still playing around not having gone for his nap. So there Abel remained till he napped and that was a good lot of the afternoon. So Mommy came home and we did this together, cutting circles and triangles to make the sun and drawing a garden with marker pens followed by filling in the colours with colour pencils. Not quite complete as Keziah ran out of patience. Think we spent almost 45min or so on this piece.

Delfin...

Our new addition to the family…a vacuum cleaner cum air purifier.

Today, based on friend's introduction, a lady came to do a demo. Frankly speaking, Mommy just wanted a free service to clean up the kids' bed as there was some big ra ra over this relatively big machine to get rid of dust mites. Ok, it's a bit cheapskate. Neither was Daddy a fan of such marketing technique and so there was no intent to buy. Mommy must say that the capability of this machine to pick up dust and all was definitely impressive but very costly. You will definitely be amazed how dirty the water was in this water-powered vacuum cleaner after a mattress cleaning. Nonetheless, there wasn't a push factor to buy especially when blessed healthy kids with no respiratory issues. In fact, Mommy got a little impatient when the sales talk and demo ran on too long into the kids' bedtime. Yet, surprisingly our dear Daddy said yes coz he's not the kind who buys on impulse like Mommy! Ok, so you know who's going to be doing the vacuum job. 

Reasons for purchase: 

1) Kids breathe cleaner air since it can be used as daily as air purifier.

2) It can also double up as a cleaner for the curtains and aircon aside from mattress cleaning to remove dust mites and regular vacuuming.

3) Stronger suction to make vacuum a greater ease at lower power consumption.
4) Ease of cleaning and santising soft toys.

Well, if anyone is interested, do let Mommy know and she'll refer you to the sales as there is a further discount through friend referral.

Poo Poo...Boo hoo...

Our dearie Abel has a serious poo problem. These days he will run all over the place, jump or do the yoga pose downward dog when his tummy panks hit him. Of course that goes without him shouting and screaming in pain. It started with his initial refusal of the potty and Mommy thought it was just a lack of discipline since he had always been an angel with poo, asking for potty when he wanted to poo, a seriously clean baby. Though that might play apart, now we are suspecting diet since there's no lumps when Mommy pressed his tummy after he's done finally with getting it out. As usual he's not a fan of water and picky with his fruits. If you don't insist and spend time making sure he takes his water or eat his fruits with deligence, he's gonna have this problem. So now it's a battle who wins. Will he be getting away with not drinking and eating?

Any good advice from anyone who has encountered this issue? It's really driving Mommy up the wall. How frustrating when you come back from work wanting to play and read to the kids but end up 2hours coaxing a toddler to poo to the extent it always end up in war with Mommy screaming her head off and wilding the cane to get the little one sit on his potty. Help!!!!

Belated Mother's Day Celebrations

Last weekend was Mother's Day but we were plagued with the bug so finally we got out for a nice dinner tonight. We've gone back to the LINE @ Shangri La for a buffet dinner for both grandmas. The spread was still as usual with loads to eat. We had a good deal as usual with the hotel celebrating '39'. Seriously without 39% off the bill, we won't have gone there as seriously, the quality is ok but not fantastic.

The company

This was also Keziah's and Abel's first buffet. We were surprised at the amount our little girl could stomache. As usual, Abel was taking his gourmet tasting of bits and pieces here and there.

Some silly post dinner entertainment.

We actually brought colouring for them and Keziah's fad princess storybook. Somehow, Keziah only looked for some people to read to her and not others eventhough they were free and finishing off dinner while Daddy and Mommy were trying to eat theirs after feeding the kids. Even when Mommy deliberately suggested who to go to, she still kept coming back and afterawhile, kept her book. So kids really know who bothers based on what they do or don't do with them daily?

That brought to mind a sharing from one homestay mom who commented that his son rather go out with his maternal grandma (or was it godma?) who he sees only once a long while since she's in Australia and yet dislike visiting or going out with his paternal grandma who's living in Singapore. Based on observations, his mom suggested it's because one bothers to talk to him and play together and the other just leaves him to play on his own. Isn't this quite awakening how we mothers should be spending time with our kids even if we are exhausted working moms? It's not about showering them with gifts or keeping them quiet with food or tv (of course, that keeps them happy for that instant or quiet so that we could get on with our own work), rather it's the relationship that is build up from conversations and activities together.

Happy Mothers' Day to All

The little gifts from my two darlings done at their school.

Keziah's art class piece...

Science Centre

Our first visit to this place far west. Somewhere Mommy usually won't venture on her own due to the distance. 

The first thing that caught her eyes was the waterplay.

After the cleanup, we went to explore all the interesting gadgets around Science Centre. Though she might not appreciate the Science behind it, she was rather fascinated with what she saw. Guess it was a good start.

On our way back, she seemed to take note of the weeds around, plucking flowers and weeds by the wayside. She kept asking Mommy what they were but Mommy just couldn't put a name to them.

Looks like Mommy was the one who was exhausted by this outing, breaking apart with severe headache and flu-like symptoms.

Lobster Porridge….

Nei Nei invited Yi Po for dinner and we tagged along to try out the lobster porridge @ Orchid Live Seafood along Jalan Kelulut. The food was really yummy that even our gourmet taster Abel gave his thumbs up! We were too busy eating that we haven't had time to catch pics of the food. The food was served a little too quickly for us to savour the taste to the fullest. We were all so full after the meal.

Happy Birthday Shu Shu