Old School Games - Animal Chess

SG50 theme this year had us reminiscing many old school games. I think one forgotten game is the Dou Shou Qi. We only thought about this game when we wanted to introduce the Chinese chess to the boys. We went around many shops but we didn't have any luck. Y suggested going to the school bookshop to ask. It was a great idea. He got this at $1.

The kids had fun playing with it. This makes a great family game and it is simple enough for the kids to play on their own. The kids learnt how to strategize their moves and the consequences of each move.  

Literature Study - Pippi Longstocking

We started reading Pippi Longstocking with the boys and I enjoy the book very much. The boys had different views about the book. Y can't stop laughing at the funny things Pippi does and K doesn't like her unusual behaviour. We did 2 activities this week.

Activity 1 - Illustrate Pippi

I love how the author described Pippi's physical appearance.

"Her hair, the color of a carrot, was braided in two tight braids that stuck straight out. Her nose was the shape of a very small potato and was dotted all over with freckles. It must be admitted that the mouth under this nose was a very wide one, with strong white teeth. Her dress was rather unusual. Pippi herself had made it. She had meant it to be blue, but there wasn't quite enough blue cloth, so Pippi had sewed little red pieces on it here and there. On her long thin legs she wore a pair of long stockings, one brown and the other black, and she had on a pair of black shoes that were exactly twice as long as her feet. These shoes her father had bought for her in South America so that Pippi would have something to grow into, and she never wanted to wear any others." 

They didn't see any other illiustrations of Pippi and I asked the boys to draw their own version of Pippi with the description. I drew my version too and this is what we had.

I liked how this activity shows how differently one can illustrate with a same description. 

Activity 2 - Create your own character. Illustrate and describe.

Further to this, I wanted them to create their own character. They can choose to draw or describe first. I wanted it to be a person but the boys are very into fantasy books now and K did this. For a start, he is just using colors to describe the features of his character. I will be introducing some new adjectives to him that he can use for his character features.

He was inspired by Beast Quest to do his character fact card. (check out my pretty Japanese paper doll magnet at the side... hehe)

We will be continuing with more literature study activities as we continue reading the book together.

Learning Multiplication

It's the start of Term 4 and I know the school will be covering the topic of Multiplication soon. The boys had grasped the concept of Multiplication during preschool but I never made them memorise the times table. I don't see the point of making them memorise so early when there's no need for them to use it at preschool level. They could do simple 2 -3 times tables though. And I had been going through the times tables every now and then but it was never a priority.

Y came home one day very grouchy and cranky. I later found out it could be because he brought home the syllabus and test schedules for Term 4 and he was feeling stressed out. He told me he is going to fail the test for sure as his teacher told the class that she won't be going teaching the times table and they should all know it by now.

I comforted him and told him that he knows the table from 1-5 though not very well. He just need to work on memorising some of them. And I will be helping them with times table 6-9. He felt so stressed up as he felt inadequate that he doesn't know something that all should know. And some of his friends who attended Math enrichment classes all knew by heart.

**edited on 6 Oct to add.

I went through his worksheets on multiplication done in school and they were just very simple multiplication concepts! All the drama for nothing. This is my kiasu kiasi boy... lol... He got his diagnostic test result home yesterday and was bragging over how easy multiplication topic is. haha. From this incident, I realized he needs more confidence in tackling new topics in school. Something to think about as I don't prep the boys for school syllabus. I expect them to learn in school and I will help them along. But they told me they want me to teach them first so they can raise up their hands to answer questions in class. Hmm.. **

Anyway, to help him gain some confidence, we continued our multiplication learning activities.

I used a few resources for our learning activities:

- Multiplication Chart 
They skip count and list out the times table, making their own chart.

- Times Table Worksheet
I printed the 6 times table worksheet from worksheetfun.com. It helped to do the times table worksheet in sequence first.

- 6 Times Table Chart
I cut pieces of paper for them to do their own flip board for the 6 times table. I had a very happy boy here doing his own lift the flaps.

- 6 Times Table Snake
Fold a paper strip to let them write the 6 times table on it.

- Bingo Game

This was the highlight of the whole session. I randomly wrote some numbers from the 6 times table on a paper. They started with 1 dice. A player roll a dice and multiply the number on the dice by 6. They will circle the answer and try to form a row. A horizontal line earns them 1 point and a vertical (longer) line earns them 2 points. After a few rounds, we added another dice. The add the number of the 2 dices together to multiply by 6. I would say they picked up the 6 times table quite well with this game. It was effortless remembering at work. They even did division unknowingly, trying to see figure out what number they need to get to form a row.

It was a fruitful session and we are continuing our multiplication learning with 7, 8 and 9.

Japanese Paper Doll with Kids

I found a pack of pretty Japanese paper from Daiso while I was spring cleaning the boys' study room. Through this spring cleaning, I realised they have lots of construction paper, origami paper, coloured paper of all sorts that is more than enough to last them a lifetime. I'm the guilty one, of course. I often can't resist purchasing craft supplies and thought we should always keep a good supply for our crafts. However, I didn't know the daily crafts and activities we used to do is not possible once they enter formal school. The mornings before school were spent on school related work and revision. Any time that's left is their precious free time. I'm usually beat after I go through their work with them too.

Rewind... back to the Japanese paper. I don't know what to do with these beautiful paper and googled for "Japanese Paper Craft". Images of pretty Japanese paper dolls were all over the screen. I wasn't sure if my boys will be interested to do that with me as they are at this "Eeee... it's so girl girl..." stage. So, I decided to give it a try myself. To my surprise, the boys were excited to see the paper and wanted to have a part.

I found a few website that gives a good tutorial and I followed the one on Omiyage. Being bad at following instructions, I didn't cut out the measurements as indicated in the tutorial. I just estimated the size and thickness and went with what I thought is ok. And it was easy!

The boys chose the paper they want to use for the collar, the dress, the band, etc. They were the designer while I'm the "seamstress", doing the cutting and folding. We have one thing in common, we love pretty clothes.

We came to the head part and though most of the pictures we saw had no facial features, they wanted to draw. Y even wanted to draw the hair. So these are the 2 versions. I was laughing at K's potato nose (we started reading Pippi Longstocking.. lol) on his doll. Y wanted it to be a puppet and we attached a straw behind it and they had fun playing with it. I agree with them that it's nicer to have facial features and made another 2 myself.

Here's some basic steps to making your own Japanese paper doll. There are lots of detailed tutorial online like the one at Omiyage.

I really liked how these dolls turn out. And I liked that my boys love them too. They can be bookmarks, stick a magnet piece to the back and turn it into a magnet or attach a stick or straw like my boys to have a puppet. I think they make great gifts too.

We Should Stop Teaching Our Children to Say "Sorry"

I made a decision to stop telling my children to apologize anymore. This decision arose from 2 incidents that happened the past 6 months.

The most recent incident happened a month ago.

Incident (1)

My son was a victim of a bicycle accident. He was walking on the pedestrian pavement when a boy came dashing right into his back. We wanted to let the boy's parents know about the dangerous act. The boy was riding very fast. The grandmother (not the old auntie that you are imagining. She was young for a grandmother and conversed well in English) came over and asked the boy, "did you say sorry?" The boy answered yes and the grandmother spoke indifferently to us, "he said sorry already...". Well, it turned into an ugly episode when she started blaming my son for not moving away when his grandson rang the bell. And she even told her grandson, "Don't worry, it's ok. You did nothing wrong." Well, does a driver has a right to knock a pedestrian down because he had sounded his horn? And in this case, the pedestrian didn't hear the horn? A young child doesn't understand this maybe but what about an adult?  

I digress. I'm not going to discuss about the safety issue here. The right and wrong in this incident is not even debatable at all. The point that I'm driving is, is the word "sorry" so important after you hurt someone? Shouldn't the well being of the person that was hurt the first to come to mind? That kid never knows what he did wrong and what he should have done. All he knows is, whatever I've done, it's ok so long I've said "sorry".  

Incident (2)

I was in the queue with my son waiting for his turn to wash his brushes after a calligraphy class when the boy in front of him sprayed black ink all over his face and clothes. My son lost his cool and shouted "How dare you?!" Though I can understand the frustration of being sprayed ink all over, shouting back at the boy was inappropriate and I reprimanded him. I apologised to the kid on my son's behalf and explained that my boy was too upset. What I didn't expect was, the boy went crying to his mother and accused my son of threatening to beat him up! His mother confronted us. I explained the situation to her and the first thing she asked was "did my son say sorry?". Her son didn't and I wasn't even interested in an apology. Is the apology so important? How about the child who had ink all over his face and clothes? The child that I had a hard time cleaning up? The child that was so upset that the ink may never be washed off his favourite t-shirt? Anyway, the mother was only concerned of her own son. After she knew he didn't apologise, she brushed it off and said that he is only a child. I totally understand that it may be an accident (which I'm not too sure now as it happened again the next day) and that was why I didn't even pursue the matter. She just continued to complain how my son had scared her son.  

From the above 2 incidents, I noticed that today's parenting and discipline stops at "SORRY". Whatever you do wrong, you MUST say SORRY. Any misdeeds stops at SORRY. You are ok so long you have said your SORRY. But sorry, "sorry... no cure". That's what we used to say to our friends when we were a child ourselves.  

When a child's action cause hurt to others, saying sorry isn't helpful. An apology doesn't wash off all the responsibility from them. In my opinion, the hurt child's well being should come first. 

"Are you alright?"

"Is there anything I can do to help to make you feel better?" 

Forget about the "sorry",  teach the child to ask themselves what they have done to another kid. How would they feel if they were hurt. Look at his/her face, is he/she alright? How can they help? Young children does not know how to react, so we, as parents, should teach them empathy. If we can show our concern to the hurt child, our children will learn. At the same time, we should stop being overly defensive and protective of our own children and disregard other people's children. Bear in mind that it can happen to your own children as well.   

We should stop teaching our children to say "sorry" and as a result, teaching them to use it to escape from the situation instead of being responsible for their actions. 

We should also stop using the excuse "children are too young to understand". They may not understand but we, as adults, should know better. We should model the right behaviour to our children so they can follow. Treat other people's children like how you want your children to be treated by others. 

So, my dear fellow parents, let's forget about saying "sorry" and rethink how we can teach our kids to be responsible for their actions, to empathise with others and to treat others with respect.   

1 Year Absence

Wow... I didn't realize I haven't blog for a year long! 2014 marks a big change for the family as I embarked on a full time job early this year. It was hard to juggle between work and family. It's actually mission impossible to balance both. You either fail at both or you can only concentrate on one and let the other just float on.

The children can never recieve the same amount of care and attention with a working mum. I lost many precious moments and time with them while I'm out working and many times, I wonder if it's even worth it. Here are some very precious moments that we lost that I felt was very important.

The Morning Greetings
With my new work, I have to be up before dawn and I don't get to wake the children or see them when they get up in the morning. I felt quite unsettled for the first month. It was only much later that I got to know that the kids were very affected that they don't get to see me in the morning. When asked how he felt when he wakes up in the morning, Y answered his teacher, "My mummy is not there." My heart broke when his teacher shared this with me. I then made arrangements so that I can still go home to see the children before they go off for school. I'm lucky that the work place is just 5 mins away and I can make arrangements for someone to take over while I steal some time to go home. My husband also made arrangements to go to work later so he can have breakfast with the children before leaving for work. These arrangements take a lot of effort to make. But I think it's really important that we are with them. The morning sets the mood for the whole day. With the parents around to greet them and prepare them for the day ahead, the children will feel more secure to handle the day.

The Journey to and fro School 
I missed the walk to school with them in the morning. There were mad mornings but the morning walks with them were very enjoyable as they get older. They could handle the walk with no complaints and they would talk so much about things they are going to school and what they have planned to do for the day. Sometimes they totally excluded me from their conversation but I get to know so much from them. I used to cycle together with them to school and their happy faces on their bike melt my heart.

After not sending them to school for a few months, I find myself so out of touch with the happenings in school. I think it's also quite important for us to send them to school. We get to see the teachers, meet the other parents so we will know what's going on in school.

Our Weekend Outings
I used to look forward to the weekends for our weekly outings. But since I've started work full time, I'm exhausted by the end of the week and I find it so hard to go to parks with them. For many months, we have joined the malls like many Singaporeans parents do. I finally understand how many city kids could hate the parks and would opt for a air conditioned mall anytime. It's too convenient and comfortable. Bye to sunscreens, wet shirts, sticky bodies, hi to air conditioning, toy stores, restaurant.

These are the things that matters to me and I'm glad that after settling into my new work, I managed to get them back on track. I try to send them to school these days and we try to have at least 1 outdoor outing each month. I was concentrating too much on my new work the first half of the year and now the work is more stable, my attention goes back to them. One thing I know is that I will still choose to be a stay home mum if I have to choose between one, our family's priority will still be them.

Cardboard Car

Both my boys were down with HFMD last week. But I'm happy that other than the few dreadful days of very bad ulcers that's affecting meal times for K, we had been busy creating and learning. It's been a while since we did so many activities. Our no school mornings are spent creating and playing. The activities were all child directed and I became their slaves.

On this day...

K: Mummy, let's build a cardboard car.
Me: (thought bubble: "Let's"?? You mean "me" Nooooo....) Let's do some other things, how about watching the Cars movie? (wrong move)
K: I want to build Lightning Mcqueen! Ka Chow!
Y: I want to build The King!
Me: (thought bubble: Ok, we have cardboards... maybe it's not that difficult to do afterall) Alright, let's see what we need.

Their persistence paid off and once I got my butt off from the sofa, we were on the roll.

What You Need:
Carton Box
Paint
Brushes
Pen Knife
Markers
White Paper
Construction Paper

I got 2 carton boxes and cut off 3 sides of the flap for the top, leaving one side for the car front. All 4 flaps at the bottom are removed.

   Cut a small rectangle at the sides as a handle for the kid to hold.

Then it's time to get the rascals to work.

I printed out the car number 43 for The King and got the graphic online for Lightning Mcqueen. Cut them out and paste it at the side.

My "designers" had a hard time deciding on the design of their car wheels. They had an even harder time trying to express what they want to me. But we sorted it out in the end and I thought they looked good. I kept the cardboard pieces that I cut out earlier for the wheels. Cut the circles and parts out of construction paper and the boys were responsible for putting them together.

For the front of the car, I cut a piece of White paper to paste over to draw the eyes. Y wanted a "serious" look. He drew a dinosaur (looked nothing like one) for the Dinoco sign and we found a Rusteze stickers for Lightning Mcqueen. I drew the eyes and mouth for Y while K drew everything on his own.

The boys were so happy with their cars and they wanted to bring to school as their Chinese learning theme is Cars. K asked his teacher for permission to bring to school. She agreed and so I let them drive to school today.