Learning to Read at 3!

The little one here had not been well and thus was given "medical leave" from school. We had a few wonderful mornings of 1-to-1 time...something being the youngest in the family will hardly get. We spend mornings reading; tracing; playing and spelling! 

Before he was allowed to do any tracing, I made it a point to read to him the instruction. After repeating the same old sentence for a few times, he was able to read by himself...with the help of sight words and memory.  

Spelling Simple Words

Ryan @ 36months... Happy Birthday!

His birthday cake is still those off-the-shelf one. The only change is it is no longer from Awfully Chocolate but from Swiss Bake (Cold Storage King's Albert Park). It is made of cream puff with a sugar bunny on it (being Easter Day). Well, either the kids were too full or the cake just not to their liking, each only had a small piece and rejected the second helping.

The birthday boy was all ready for photo taking and even joined in to sing his birthday song! So the song was "Ritardando" to match his tempo.

Emotional boy

He cried and cling on to me if I was not the one to fetch him to school.

He cried again when I drop him off in school.

He cried when I read the baby panda story to him... When the baby panda got lost.

He cried when I leave him at home and go out.

His crying can be so pitiful that it pained us hearing it but at the same time amused by his "manja". I was jokingly commenting to hubby that the way he cries is as if I was six feet under already. So I get the chance to hear/see it now instead of waiting till then.

He will says "I love mummy, I want mummy" or "I want you every day." out of the blue. *so sweet*

He will insist on waiting for me to come home to put him in bed. Even when my helper carried him up to his room, he will pace around in the room and grumbled to helper "I don't want you! I want my mummy every day!"

Spelling

His list of spelling words had extended to a long one -
- long, short, tall, big, small,
- one, two, three, four, five,
- apple, banana, car, cat, ball, bell, dog, egg, fish, good, hat, he ... and the list goes on to water and zoo!

A cheeky moment when we taught him to spell "four". He found a way to remember this word by saying "F O you are 4!"  (F.o.u.r. 4)

Reading

When we read him books, he is able to spot these words and say it out. eg. He has a big ball. I will point at the word that he knows and he will say out the alphabet and end with the word, like 'H.E. he' and 'B.I.G. ball.'

He is able to read the common sight words like the, he ... without having to "spell" the word too.

His phonic is also developing very well. Like when I asked him to spell 'sand' he can spell it out with me sounding every alphabets to him even though its a new word to him.

Other areas

When he has difficulty doing, he is not shy to say "I don't know. You teach me." A very good attitude in learning!

When I asked the brother to do his homework (yes, homework in K2! *faint*) this little boy will rush out behind his brother and said "I want to do work too!" Now I wish this positive attitude will lasted all the way to his school years!

He enjoys doing puzzles, hidden pictures, tracing with fingers and spot the difference. Now need to work on his fine motor skill he dislike colouring and writing.

Conversation

When I ask him to do colouring, he sometimes will give me his cheeky reply "I want to be lazy, mummy."

When he did something wrong like hitting his siblings (accidently), he is quick to apologise and if they still "angry", he will tell them and me this "I said 'sorry' already." Its his way of telling them cannot be angry and to avoid scolding from me as he had already apologised.

Ryan @ 35 months

Spelling
We saw the biggest leap in his development this month as he started spelling his own name and simple words like "bus; ball; bell; no..." and 2 long words - his brother's name and the word "Banana".  I was surprised when he spelled his brother's name as we had never spelled to him. Only after a few days later did it appeared to me that he must have learn it from this....

  

Their names were pasted on their room doors and so, I guessed he read it so many times till he remembered it.

For the word "banana", he told me that elephant taught him...! Nicholas said in WordWorld, the elephant taught the monkey and duck how to spell banana. In fact, he picked up all this words from WordWorld as we did not expect him to spell at this age.

Music

We were playing pretend games when he suddenly took a play-doh cake and sang "Happy Birthday"! Although his tune are out but yippee! All the words are there!

Prayer

He joined in our nightly prayer now too. He is able to prayer the entire prayer by himself without much prompting from me. After the fall, he added this sentence to his prayer..."pray that I don't fall down again"

Bits and Pieces

When he was holding my ipad, I asked him a difficult question "You want mummy or ipad?"  He held on to the iPad, eyes switch between the ipad and me, unable to decide. Then naughty me pretend to cry and mumbled that he wants iPad and not mummy. Poor boy then started to cry too! Naughty mummy! 

He started to address me as "mum" now when he decided to be cheeky. Ask where he learn this from, his reply "tor tor"(nicholas)... That's remind me that Nicholas do call me mum sometimes when he try to be funny.

One night while I was busy with the 2 girls and Nicholas is doing his work with grandma, Ryan suddenly came up to me and said this "Nobody wants me...nobody likes me..." in his super sad face and tone! hahaha...think he felt neglected that the adults are doing things with his siblings and no one was with him.

Handling him

Found a way to deal with him..although not sure if its the right approach...

He had been naughty these 2 days and I was a little angry with the little fellow. He is not scared of anything/ anyone. So I told him this "you naughty, I don't want to care about u anymore!" I put him down and walk out of the house (to fetch the girls). When I got home with the girls, helper told me Ryan was sad and told her in his sad voice that mummy don't want him.

Although it seems quite mean of me, but for the rest of the day, he had been behaving himself and whenever I praise him, he would ask me  "you want me?"

Nicholas - Recognition of Chinese Words

Nicholas's preschool Chinese teacher is doing a very good job in teaching them the Chinese character writing and reading. As compared to his sisters when they were in kindergarten, he is speaking very good complete sentence and thus, it didn't cross my mind in sending him for any enrichment classes. 

However, after hearing from friends their testimony about this enrichment center, decided to just send him there to enrich him further. And it is indeed very good. Even the girls commented that Nicholas is so lucky to have a good preschool teacher and now a good interesting enrichment center! 

In the center, they learned Chinese idioms every week in a fun way and he was so excited with what he had learned after the first lesson. 

He was so eager to show me what he had learned and we had this conversation... 

Nicholas : mummy, you know how what is the meaning of "人山人海"?! 

Me : hmm...let me think... is it "people mountain people sea" ? 

Nicholas: hahaha...I know you will say that! No, it means there is a lot of people, very crowded! 

The page that he read in the video was taught by the center and he was able to read it without any help after going through with him once at home.

Hope he will develop an interest in Chinese and will not struggle with it when he enters Primary school.

Jiayou!

Ryan @ 34months

 

A collection of his speech for this month

• Not knowing that the McWings are spicy, I gave one to him. He took a bite and said, "Hot! Burn my tongue! This one not nice, French Fries nice!" 

• After dinner, the 3 big ones each grab a handful of M&M as treats for eating their food fast. He saw me throwing the empty packet of M&M into the garbage bag, he then took it out and complain to helper "jiejie Rachel eats, jiejie Charmaine eats, koror eats, I don't have" in his pathetic voice! Aiyo!

• We were in the cinema and he started climbing down and wants to walk to the front. When I asked him why, he told me "one people block me! I cannot see!"

• Got him to do some colouring with pencil, after a while, he told me this "you colour for me. I'm busy."

•  When he sees or read something funny or unrealistic, he will comment , "How can it be?!" and laugh in his cheeky way.

• He saw that I had a little cut on my foot and said this to me "mommy, I call ambulance!"

• Once I asked him "Are you mommy's baby?" He replied: "No. I'm mommy's big boy!"

Ryan @ 33 months old

Development

• His speech is progressing well and no more worries that he can't speak properly.

• Knows most of the alphabets in both capital and small letters.

• He likes to pretend to be the animal/ character in the book I am reading to him. Like the one above, he pretend to be the Heterodontosaurus, licking his hand and walking like one. Its quite hilarious to see him doing it.
  

• He now cheekily called me "mom" instead of "mummy" sometimes. When I asked him where he learns this from, he said korkor taught him...hmmm...come to think of it, Nicholas actually called me "mom" instead of mummy. So we had this little game between the 2 of us. When I call him "baby", he will reply "mummy". When I called him "babe", he will reply "mom". He super good at this...good reflex there.

Christmas Chess Challenge 2011

Its his 4th competition after learning for almost a year and I am very happy with his progress so far. He had been winning more games with each competition and this time, he scored a very good score of 4.5 over 6 games played. This put him in the 4th position for Boys under 6 category.

He was delighted to get a beautiful trophy and proudly show it off to his daddy and every one at home.

Trip To Penang

The last time I went to Penang was like 2 decades ago with my mum. I have totally no idea what we can do over there for 2 weeks but thanks to Astee who gave me lots of suggestion as to what to do and we enjoyed ourselves so much that the kids complained we did not spend enough time there....

I flew there with the 2 girls on the 5th Dec while hubby holds the fort here. Its the first time the 2 girls took part in a standard chess competition (approx 5 hours for each game). Shall not elaborate here. We stayed in the same hotel as where the competition was held, which is Tanjung Bungai Beach Hotel Penang. Its just next to the beach and if not for the weather, its almost like Gold Coast....

View from our room...

Since their competition starts only on the 6th, we went down to George Town for lunch with a couple of parents and did some groceries shopping. The "cha kway teow" and chendol is nice but I cannot accept the taste of their Penang laksa.

The girls were eager to jump into the pool and thus once we got back to our room, they hurriedly unpacked their stuffs and asked for permission to go to the pool. We were supposed to meet the other parents to go out for dinner but decided to just eat at the hotel restaurant as we were all too tired and lazy to walk out.

The next few days, we either walked or took a cab to the nearest shopping mall - TESCO which is about 10 minutes walk from our hotel for lunch and dinner was spend with other parents at the nearby food centre eating their local dishes.

The girls enjoying their treats at TESCO...

Late afternoons were spend either at the beach with their friends or at the pool...

DAY 1...
Family holiday starts on 10th Dec when hubby brought the 2 boys to meet us. The timing was perfect! They arrived just in time to see Charmaine winning her game. We did not stayed for the award presentation as the girls will not be getting any. Instead, we took a cab (which is super expensive to take cab in Penang) to Batu Ferringhi where the Adventure Zone is. We had a quick light lunch before the kids went wild in there playing with all the long slides. Nicholas, as usual, was not very comfortable with the slides but the other 3 were happily going up and down. The entrance fees for kids is RM30+taxes while adult enters free. The kids need to wear long sleeve shirt to play on the red slide which I called it the "free-fall" slide. Rachel was the bravest as she tried numerous time on the "free-fall" slide! Charmaine only went twice.

On the way out, we saw some sea sports there and hubby asked me to psycho Nicholas to try the para-sailing over the next few days.

DAY 2

We decided to rent a car instead of getting around via taxi. The girls played table tennis with their friends while we waited for the car to arrive.

Our first stop was to the Snake Temple which was super far! The entrance fees is only RM5 per person and the kids learned a fair bits about snakes. They were most interested with the King Cobra though.

Next, we visited the War Museum. Hubby decided to rest while I took the 4 to explore the place. Its an educational trip for all. We saw the torture cell; tree where they hanged the POWs; "chopping" board which was used to chop off the heads of POWs hanged on the wall with a headless dummy POW kneeling in front of it and many more. Nicholas was not comfortable with the sight and I told him to stay out while the girls and Ryan explore the cells. There were many things to see and we even crawled through a narrow tunnel and the 3 bigger ones climbed up the ladder to exit via the air well. I couldn't trust myself climbing up there with Ryan so we crawled back and exit via the way we entered.

We were supposed to go to Batu Maung Fishing Village but couldn't find our way there and so deiced to gave up and settled for the seafood restaurant opposite our hotel. On the way down, we discovered this beautiful scenic place ... Bukit Genting Hill. Our car almost overheated driving up the steep hill!

Nicholas vomited right after dinner...suspect it either due to the long car ride or he was frightened by what he saw at the war museum.

DAY 3

Today is a day for Nature...We took the tram ride up Penang Hill and hubby paid RM60 for a 25 minutes buggy ride tour. We spend about 2 hours there but most of the time was spend queuing for the tram ride up and down.

Next was to Tropical Fruit Farm. It took us near an hour to get there and poor Nicholas was suffering from the motion sickness and threw up twice! Poor boy. Anyway, maybe the season was over as there was nothing much to see. We paid RM28 per adult and RM20 per child for a guided tour which comes with fruit buffet (nothing fantastic) and a glass of fruit juice. The guided tour was brief though we did learn how pineapple reproduced (by cutting the crown into 4 and replant it) and that bananas tree withered once it he fruit were bore and a new one will grow again from the root.

DAY 4

Hubby decided to let the kids check out the Penang bridge before heading back to Butterfly Farm. And we spend nearly 4 hours there. We won't have left if not for hubby reminding us that its way past lunch time! There's so many butterflies and its a different experience from our Singapore Zoo's fragile forest. The price for adult is RM27 and child RM15.

After our late lunch, we drove down to the Batu Ferringhi for the sea sport. Hubby paid RM315 for the whole package 3 Para sailing + Banana boat + 30mins Jet ski. I managed to convinced Nicholas to try the Para sailing. He was a little nervous at first but he had to act brave for he said he is a big boy now.

After Para sailing, hubby accompanied the 3 on the Banana boat ride. Its a bad decision as Nicholas was frightened the moment the boat started going super fast. The 2 girls needless to say enjoyed themselves. To make things worst, the operator jerked the boat just as they were reaching the shore and Nicholas fell off into the water! Luckily, hubby jumped off and grab hold of him. He was crying from shocked and I had to pacify him. He calmed down soon but refused to go for the Jet ski. So the 2 girls took turns to go on the Jet Ski with hubby while Nicholas and Ryan stayed behind to play with sands.

Asked Nicholas his thought of the sport, his reply was "When I went up there, water (tears) was in my eyes but after a while, I'm not scared already. Its nice to fly up there. I'm 5 years old now, I am brave enough to try Para sailing. Next year, I will try to be brave to go for the Jet ski." So proud of you, Nicholas!

We went to Gurney hawker for early dinner. Its like our Newton Circle. And its a last minute shopping at Gurney Plaza. Charmaine kept asking for extended stay as she wants to visit the Toy Museum. Assured her we will come again soon.

Ryan @ 32 months

Didn't have a chance to take a good photo for him on the day he turns 32 months, so got to "borrow" the one we took on BIL's wedding day.

Speech development

Something to rejoice about is that he finally able to pronounce "mummy" clearly. no more "puppy; uppy" but MUMMY!!! Yeah!

And he started speaking in longer and more complete sentence like "take one book, not many"; "I don't want you! I want mummy!"; "I don't want this! I want angry bird!" and many more! His voice is so sweet and I love the way he sounded when he called me...he will goes "mummy, mummy, mummy!" follow by whatever he wants to say.

When posted with a question that he can't answer, he will tap his little finger on his head/chin as if like he is thinking very hard and should he really can't remember, he turned to me and said "I don't know" with a very cute innocent face. And if he remembers, he goes "I know, I know!" in his excited tone.

He loves flushing the toilet and if he is in one with me, he will wait eagerly for the chance to flush it. He will reminds me "mummy, mummy, mummy. You urine, I flush"

He loves his daddy's version of the 3 billy goat and he was so familiar with the story that he joined in the story telling part too taking the role of the ugly troll! Really cute...

He loves looking at our digital photo frame although it had been there for almost a year. He never grew tired of it. He enjoys looking at every photos and pointing out the who and who.. He goes shouting and pointing jiejie Rachel! Jiejie "harmaine"! "tor tor!" "Mummy!" "Daddy!" " That's me!" " That's you!"

Ryan @ 31 months

With him speaking more and ability to express more of his thoughts, he got more and more cheeky.

He loves acting out the character from the stories we told him. He can be the billy goat; the ugly troll; Bubbles (the monkey); Baby Panda; Owl babies; Winnie the Pooh.... He loves best to be the youngest baby owl and Baby Panda.

He likes to mimic how animals behave too. When he sees snakes on NGO wild, he goes sliding on the ground with his tongue sticking in and out.

A video of him as a snake..watch his tongue...

He goes sliding in a "S" shape too when he wants to be a crocodile. The difference between a crocodile and snake is that when he is a crocodile, he will place his hands in front, opening and closing it, as if it is the jaws.

He is also super super clingy now!!! Especially at night, he goes crying if he doesn't sees me. He tells everybody "I don't want you!! I want pommy!" Pommy!" and goes screaming and running round the place looking for me. Even if I was in the toilet, he will insist on waiting outside and refuses everyone. Its a sweet feeling to be so WANTED but I do hope he get out of this soon.

Animals

He likes fixing puzzles, so we repeated the names of the animal as we fixed and he was able to say it after 1 week of "intense" training! Indeed, its easier to teach when they kids are interested in the "subject"

Ryan @ 30months

His Speech

More recognisible words are coming out from his little mouth and forming short sentences like..."mummy, wait for me"; "Not yet, wait a while"; "how about that?"

But the most commonly heard sentence now is "Don't care about you!" . Whenever he is angry, he goes "don't care about you!"..even in his dream. This is the first time he said the sentence and everyone was surprise and amused.




When it's his tv time, he knows how to request for his channel. He will asked whoever was there "tv, 311" (playhouse Disney channel). Once I on 322 instead and he knew its not his channel and ask me to change to his.

His First Chess Competition

Patrick Tay Chess Challenge 2011 is his first competition after 9 months of lessons. He was a little disappointed that he did not win any medal but he shown great determination to do better the next time. He told me he wants to win a medal like his sisters who has a whole shelf filled with trophies and medals. All I can say to him was "work harder and be careful the next time."

Through this competition, Nicholas had again proven to me that he is no longer a little scaredy boy but a big brave boy...

First
Being one of the youngest player there, it means that all his opponents will be older than him. He played with a few kids twice his age and he shown no fear.

Second

He shown that he is not easily intimated by his opponent. There was one 7 yrs old girl who he played with. Throughout the game, I can see her waving her hands around him and telling him off.

Third

He shown courage to speak up for his rights. When his opponent makes illegal moves, he is able to explain to the arbiter the situation.

Fourth

He had shown determination to win and put in his best though he run out of steam after lunch. There was one game which he was losing but he put on his thinking cap and his effort paid off.

The best and funniest moment was when he won his first round. He raised his hands and shouted "Mummy, I win! I win!" and every one turned to look at him. But who can blamed him?! Its his first win!

Although he only scored 2 out of 7 rounds but both the coaches and I were very proud of him. Not forgetting that he is the youngest player in this tournament where many great seasoned players are playing.

Good job Nicholas!

Here are some shot of him in action...

First chess competition together with his sisters

Showing a little tense while waiting for Round 1 to start

Building castle in the sky while waiting for all to be seated...

See him? He in the center of the picture.

This is a tough game for him. He lost his queen but managed to fight back and win.

See how excited he was! He couldn't contained his excitement and knelt on his chair to play.

Ryan @ 29 mths

HIS SPEECH....

I'm very happy with his speech development though he is definitely much slower than his peers.

His speech had now progressed to more than words per sentence and able to use words that made up of 2 syllabus like:

Ma Mee (mummy)
Play ground (playground)
Dad dee (daddy)
Read book
Right leg
Ep leg (left leg)

He is also able to recognise some alphabets like A; B; C; O and T but he can only pronounce A & O. He equates everything circle to the letter "O" even the bottom circle of the letter "g". See what I mean? The bottom of the "g" is a full circle, so he think that is "o" too.

We like the way he speaks when he "complain". He sounds so poor thing that there's no way anyone not feel for him. Sometimes when we spotted a scratch mark or abrasion on his hands or legs and asked him what happened, he will narrate the incident to us in his most pathetic voice with action included - "run...fall down....play ground...pain". Its the same old reason for a few weeks but just this week, he had made some modification and gave us a new version.... "bees...here...bees....there...bees bite me...pain"

HIS TEMPER...
There is still room for improvement for his temper. He has super quick temper. Whenever things are not to his liking or someone took his things without asking, he will be angry and cry. Sometimes, he even stomp his feet and fold his arm and turned his face away from the person he is angry with. Let's pray and hope he will mellow down once he is able to communicate well.

Ryan @ 28 mths old

He now mimic whatever Nicholas did. Whenever Nicholas tells me about story about his eventful day, with his hands joining in the narrating, Ryan will stand next to him and tries to do the same and repeat the last word of Nicholas' sentence. Think its a good start to his speech. At least now he tries to "speak".

This month, we went to watch a play (his second play) - "Rocky, The Baby Panda" . This time he is more at ease and knows the rules. He sat still when the play begun and stood up to dance when they were told to do so. He even did the counting with the squirrels. He enjoys the play much better than the first and we even bought the book which is now his favorite book.

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Whenever I read books to him and when we comes to the words "baby", he will tilt his body and lean on my hand in a cradle position. I think he is trying to telling me he is just like the "baby" in the story.

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After showering him one day, I decided asked the little one which coloured towel belongs to him. Nicholas and him each have their own coloured towel. I didn't expect him to give the correct answer and so when he answered "white!" I was surprised! So to test and see if it's by luck, I insisted that the blue towel is his. Without thinking, he shook his head and said "blue...tor tor (nicholas)"

Both the school and us had started to train him to put on his own shoes. It took a long long time before he could put it on but still a good try. But whenever I'm around, he will insist that I put it on for him.