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!

Lunar New Year Chess Fiesta 2012

After a long break from the last competition, I was surprised by his played today. He was very focus on his games and thus, did super well, winning even some tough players who were 2 years older than him. Maybe the bait to watch Transformer really work on him. I have promised to bring him to USS to get up close with the Transformers if he win this competition. He is had his eyes on these tall trophies...

 

Its the FIRST time his name is in the 1st box - playing board 1!

 His this opponent is very strong and he lost. Nicholas did not managed to recover from it and so lost the rest of the 3 matches.

Luckily, we have a pair of cupids to cheer him up. They gave him a chocolate and that is enough to make him smile again.

 

He scored 4 out of 7 games played. He was the Champion in the Under 6 category but because his point, he was also 6th place in the U8 Open section. Since only one prize per player, he was awarded under the U8 -OPEN category.

Good Job Nicholas!

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!"

Faint ... Captured In Slow Motion

Didn't capture the first part. This was what happen...

We were playing ball (small light plastic ones) throwing in the room when one of them hit him on his head. His immediate reaction was to pretend to faint. We laughed ourselves silly when he kept on doing it... taking a ball and knocking on his own head and pretend to faint!

CNY break - Sentosa

I redeemed the Sentosa Play Pass with HSBC credit card's reward points and brought the 3 babies and my SIL down to Sentosa for a day of fun. Charmaine couldn't join us in the morning as school is a school day. Rachel's school as usual, gave them an extra day off and thus, she was able to join us in the morning. 

Hubby fetch us down to Mount Faber in the morning and we took a cable car to Sentosa. The cable car ride is included in the Play Pass and taking a cable car in means we do not need to pay for the Sentosa admission fee. The first thing we did when we got there was to redeem the return cable car tickets. Although the cable car is available till 10pm, but the Play Pass redemption is only till 7pm.

We did the less thrill stuff in the morning, leaving the thrill attractions in the afternoon when Charmaine & hubby joined us.

We took the Tiger Sky Tower, a thing that we will not bother trying if its not included in the Play Pass as its super boring.

Next, we proceeded to the Butterfly Park & Insect Kingdom. The kids, except my SIL who ran away every time a butterfly got near her, enjoyed looking at the beautiful butterflies.

Next, we took the free Sentosa shutter bus down to Resort World where the Maritime Museum is located. Its quite an experience in there and had fun in the multi-sensory Typhoon Theatre!

By the time we are done with the Museum, its lunch time and we went to the Malaysian Food Street near the entrance of USS.

There was a long queue and we were half-hearted to join. But Rachel said the queue was moving fast and when she peeked in, there were lots of empty seats. Food we ordered there:

Penang Lim Brothers’ Char Koay Teow 

 

 Penang Ah Mei Hokkien Prawn Mee 

KL Jalan Alor Hokkien Mee 

 KL Wanton Mee  

and how can we miss the Famous Penang Cendol!

We took the monorail down to Palawan Beach where Charmaine and hubby met up with us. With all united, they 4 big ones tried the Segway Eco ride in the enclosed area.

The 3 girls went for the Flying Trapeze too. Here a video of Charmaine doing it.

Next, we visited the Images of Singapore. We spend a good time there looking at the exhibits.

Then the kids went for all the shows (DESPERADOS in 3D; Pirate @ 4D Magix; Extreme Log rides @ Cineblast)

We end the day doing the Skyline Luge before heading back home via cable car.

Dance steps

Ryan been doing this funny dance steps that look a little like how the chicken walks. Couldn't resist taking video of him doing it and only after we watched in again, then we realised that he was dancing! Its his concert dance steps!

So cute to watch him dance!! Towards the end, he even uses the wall as support so he can balanced on one leg!

Nicholas' Annoyed Look

His dad brought him for hair cut and though he had out grow the crying and whining stage, he now learns his sister's protest style...giving the annoyed look!

Looking at him, the daddy suddenly had a flashback of his younger days when his dad brought him for hair cut and he gave his dad the same look and was thinking back then, "Why are you doing this to me!"

Like father, Like son...

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.

My Sweet Boy...

It was drizzling when I pick him up from school. He surprised me with his sweet gesture... sheltering me from the drizzling rain with his tiny hand!
Its so sweet!

My Little Helper

He loves to go grocery shopping with me and its hard to get him to sit in the push cart. So decided to let him have a basket and help with choosing the light stuffs.