Nicholas's School Update #15

Its a short week for the centre with only 3 days of lessons due to Hari Raya celebration. But that didn't stop the children to have fun. They played a lot of fun games and took home plenty of goodies.

This week topic was - "Hari Raya" , also known as Eid Mubarak. Eid is a celebration that marks the end of Ramadan/fasting month.

Vocabulary for this week are:

Mosque - a Muslim place of worship

Tudung - the conservative head scarf that Muslim women wear to cover their hair, neck and chest

Songkok - a traditional head gear that Muslim men/boys wear during prayers or as an accessory to complete an ethnic outfit

Baju kurung - a two piece outfit that includes a sarong and loose fitting long sleeved tunic for women and long pants and a loose fitting long sleeved top for men

Salam - a handshake that symbolizes a form of respect for elders (the hand is held then raised up to the younger persons' nose/forehead) Back home, I got Nicholas to show me and he did it so well and so cute!

Their cookery lesson this week was to bake yellow and green sugar cookies which taste fantastic! He brought some home and was snapped out by the girls in no time!

Nicholas's School Update #14

With the air transport theme, the school wrapped up the topic on transportation.

New vocabulary introduced to the children this week were:

A jet aircraft is an aircraft propelled by jet engines. Jet aircraft generally fly much faster than propeller-powered aircraft and at higher altitudes

A hot air balloon consists of a bag called the envelope that is capable of containing heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket

A rocket or rocket vehicle is a spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine

A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship without an internal supporting framework. It is usually lifted by a gas called helium.

An airport is a location where air crafts takeoff and land. An airport consists of at least one surface such as a runway for a plane to take off and land, and often includes buildings such as control towers, hangars and terminal buildings.

They had a math activity involving a grid of four types of air transport vehicles and the children had to count and write the corresponding quantity in the boxes provided. The counting bit is simple but the writing is tricky! There are still plenty of inverted numbers and strange symbols that are written in place of numerals but will keep practicing.

In addition to that we did a collage using blue cellophane, cotton wool, blue and white paint and pictures of air transport vehicles as well. The children had fun putting together their masterpiece and they each had different interpretations of their collage.

They did a muffin cup flower each too to be given to the teachers as Teacher's Day gift.

Parents were encourage to do a little "teacher's day" project with the kids at home. Its encourage bonding and also, a token of appreciation for the work that teachers did with the children. I got Nicholas to do a card and a stalk of flower for each of his teacher (which I totally forgotten to take pictures of). He did the writing all by himself, both in Chinese and English character. For Chinese, I wrote on a paper and he copied. For English, I only need to spell it out for him. His finger griping is still not very good despite training both in school and at home. Really have to work on his fine motor skill.

Oh..yes, I forgot to say that his English teacher was one of the nominees for the Most Outstanding Teacher Award by MCYS and their school won the Outstanding Employer's award!

Nicholas's School Update #13

This week, the kids continued with the discussion on the second part of the topic "Water transport". New words like ship, aircraft carrier, submarine, anchor and porthole were introduced and explained.

An anchor is a heavy object, often made out of metal that is used to attach a ship to the bottom of a body of water at a specific point to act as a weight to keep the ship from moving.

A porthole is a small, generally circular, window used on the hull of ships to admit light and air. Porthole is actually an abbreviated term for "port hole window".

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability.

A ship is a large vessel that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity.

An aircraft carrier is a military ship designed to act as a seagoing airbase.

They also did a tricky visual discrimination activity involving several rows of geometric shapes in various positions and with different designs and a worksheet on this topic.

They did two interesting activities that the children thoroughly enjoyed too. First, a "dancing raisins" experiment using carbonated soda water and raisins. The children loved watching the raisins float and sink vigorously in the container, making it look like they are dancing!

Second, a "swimming fish" snack. For snack, the children mixed the cream cheese with some blue food coloring, spread it on a vegetable cracker then placed colorful cheddar cheese fish biscuits onto it. Yummy!

Nicholas's School Update #12

The children had an exciting week after the National Day weekend.

They start off the week with the first half of the two-part topic on water transport vehicles. They were introduced to new vocabulary such as boat, canoe, paddle, sailboat, rowboat and cruise ship as well.

The information shared was:

• A boat is a watercraft of modest size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water.
• A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails.
• A canoe is designed to be powered by hand-held paddles, usually with two people paddling, one on each side.
• A rowboat can be any boat designed to be powered by oars.
• A paddle is a tool used as a form of propulsion in a boat.
• A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages; it's like a mobile hotel.

For the hands-on part, they had some science activities involving water as well. They conducted a float and sink experiment using a variety of items that the children chose; observed reflections in water; and observed melting ice and tested a few ways to expedite the melting process.

To wrap up the week, they went on the Singapore Duck Tours! The amphibious vehicle brought them on 2 types of tours, during the "land" tour, they drove past the Padang (where the recent National Day celebration was held), the High Court, a war memorial and the business district as well. On the river tour, the kids had the opportunity to see the Kallang river, the National Stadium and various types of residential buildings. It was a treat to have seen the Singapore flyer, Esplanade theatre and also the athletes practicing their canoeing skills within a designated area of the river. Overall, they had a splashing good time!

Nicholas colouring his name printed in different font.

Playing with jigsaw puzzles...

The duckie ride.

A Funny Sight

Bought Nicholas a new goggles and swimming cap.

Got home, I tried it on little Ryan and then, the room was filled with laughters~ he was so CUTE!!! I laughed and laughed till my tummy ache! My helper couldn't stop laughing too and Ryan knowing he was the star and laugh too! Look at his mouth and eyes! and those chubby cheek!!

Universal Studio, Singapore

The kids were treated to Universal Studio on this special day...Singapore's birthday! My in-laws send us there, saving us the $$. Can't imagine if we had to park there the whole day! Its gonna cost a BOMB!

Took a photo with my new Panasonic Lumix Micro Four Thirds camera! hee..a birthday present from hubby :)

The first to greet us is these beautiful animals from Madagascar! Too bad, the ride was not ready yet.

For the sake of our dear boy, all of us went for the kiddy carousel, King Julien's Beach Party-Go-Round.

Then we proceed to Far Far Away Land and took all the 3 rides there (excluding the ferris wheel in the Fairy Godmother's shop). But even the junior roller coaster frighten my deary boy! *faint* Hubby was chosen by the host in the Donkey Live show and he gamely showed the kids what sportmanship is

Then its off to The Lost World where the fun begins! We took the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure and watched the WaterWorld "live" show. The crews are very entertaining, sending laughters all round while we waited for the show to begin. The only disappointment is that the Canopy Flyer was not operating.

The kids went for their first round of Rapid adventure while I accompany Nicholas at the holding bay.

Its a SURE-WET ride..no matter where you sit...even with a rain coat on!

The kids went on this Dino-Soarin'

After a quick lunch, we walked on to the Ancient Egypt. Hubby took the girls to ride on the Revenge of the Mummy while I queued with little boy for the Treasure Hunters' ride. They came back screaming "Its fun! Scary! Mummy, you must go!" And there, hubby took over the queue with Nicholas while I went with the girls to the scary roller coaster ride. The girls couldn't contained their excitement and kept talking about it while we were queueing.

The sun was scotching hot and we ran into for an ice-cream to cool our body systems.

Nothing going on at the Sci-Fi City with the ONLY attraction closed till who-knows-when.

We completed every available rides and was still early. So went on to do the not-so-exciting stuff like watching the Steven Spielberg stuff. Then the girls wanted to go for repeated rides. So they went on while Nicholas followed us to shop at the shops with our voucher.

Here's a picture of us with the Kung Fu Panda.

Nicholas was getting restless as he didn't had his afternoon nap. He couldn't even smile for the camera anymore.

So these are what we got with our voucher. A cap for Nicholas and a magnetic photo frame, now on our fridge door.

Rating of our visit today: 7/10.

The Must-Do attractions are:

• Jurassic Park Rapid Adventure
• WaterWorld show
• Shrek 4D Adventure
• Revenge of the Mummy (highly recommended)

(The list is based on what we had rode on the day.)

Ryan @ 16 months

Things he can do:

1. Can walk very well now, sometimes even "running" a few steps which never fail to make my heart skip a beat.

2. Understands simple and common instruction such as "keep the toys", "sit down".

3. Know how to on and off the TV.

4. Able to walk down 2 steps without holding his hands. He had learn to use the wall as support.

5. Know where all his food/ treats are kept (fridge) and every now and then, will go to the fridge and tries to open it. Of course, he is not strong enough to open the fridge door, but it never stop him from trying.

6. Knows which room belongs to who. He knows where to find his favorite grandpa and where to go for his milk and food.

7. He dances to the music and claps his hands when he sees us cheering him on.

8. Waves good-bye - clenching and opening of his fist, sometimes, turning them left and right.

Things he still trying to achieve:

1. He still can't talk but makes more sounds now like "b" when he sees bird and buses.


General Observation:

He gets easily jealous over Nicholas. Whenever Nicholas sits on my lap, he will squeeze his way in and Nicholas had no choice but to give in for every one's comfort.

Once, I was trimming Nicholas's toe nail and he too lie down and placed his leg on my hand and called me ("ah ah") to do the same for him.

He is also a tyrant and will not give in to Nicholas when they play together. If he wants something that Nicholas is playing with, he will insist that Nicholas gave it to him or he will scream! It got Nicholas angry and refuses to play with Ryan at times. But, being the loving brother, he still loves and "sayang" him like old times when Ryan didn't get into his nerves.

Ryan is a "out-going" boy and I really meant it literally. He loves going out, even for a short ride. So, he follows me when I drop Nicholas off at school and to the market. Actually, he follows anyone that one to bring him out of the house! He cries if he sees us leaving the house without him.

He had suddenly developed a phobia of the sound of aeroplane flying past. He will dash to us for refuge when he hears it. Though scared of the sound, he still fascinated with planes and helicopter.

He loves Percy from Thomas and friends story. If he sees Percy got hurt, he will be frighten and cry. On a side note, we find him and Percy looks very alike.

Nicholas's school update #11

This week is National Day themed week. The children learned information about our National flower- Vanda Miss Joaquim, our flag, coat of arms, pledge and National anthem as well.

They repeated a tracing and drawing activity that the children had done during the earlier part of the year and the children has shown marked improvements.

They explored flowers such as the orchid, gerbera and chrysanthemum. The children sniffed it, touched it and "dissected" it too. Basically the children ripped it apart!

We then used the petals to create a collage that was displayed during our National Day celebration.

Watching the fighter jet flew past during one of the outdoor play and the children were thrilled!

On Friday, the centre celebrated National Day with the children and the kids did some cookery.