Simple theory made him laugh

This was unexpected. Mother was reading a story book " Chug the Tractor" for him and he was asking how the tractor gets down to the floor from the lorry. While at first, mother just drawn and explained to him on a plain paper but afraid that he might not really fully understand. So mother told him to be patience until mother finished the whole book.

After finishing the book, mother tried to find the stuff that can demonstrate to him. Well, we use the dictionary as the base, his toy car and the chopping board of his toy. Mother told him that the car will fall down from the top without putting anything. He laughed when mother pushed the car and the car fell down.

In order for the car to safely get down from the higher place, we need to put the ramp and help it. Mother just put the board to form a ramp for him and demonstrated to him. Mummy also told him that normally the ramp will be forming a triangle shape when he views it from the side...

He was having fun and laughed just because of this simple theory. After that he took over from mother and played for himself by on and off took away the ramp and pushed the car.....

Meeting his old friend

Today mother got some new books for Ethan. One of them is Curious George story book. Ethan's eye brightened when he saw the book, he was like meeting back his dear old friend. Yup, mother did read the story of Curious George to him when he was in Shanghai. Mother borrowed the book from the school library. In Malaysia library, seems like cannot find it. Not only that even though Borders sells it but it is too expensive. Nearly RM16 per book for a single story. Terrible....

This book, mummy gotten it from US Amazon and it was 8 stories in one book. The beauty is that it only cost nearly US8 per book. It is way cheaper compared to Malaysian bookstore...

He doesn't want mother to read to him and he wants to enjoy himself...

Just for a laugh

We laughed when we looked at it. We didn't know where he gotten the idea of hanging the paintbrush instead of clothes....

The toy set

Mother gotten this toy for free. Ethan loves to cut out the fruit and vegetable. Mother only got 4 sets out of 6 and we only open the two sets for him to play....

Error in the books

Ethan finished another maths book again. This time he used less than one week. One common thing that mummy have been noticing is that in those books there are always printing error. In one book you can find at least 5 and above printing errors. Seemed like it is very common in the Malaysian printed books especially the kid's books because mother also can find it on Ethan's kindergarten books.

But mother had no regret to buy the books for Ethan because he has the capability to find out the mistake and informs mother. Then mother will amend them for him. This is good for Ethan that he knows where the mistake and not just follow the book. Guessed his capability may only apply in maths and sometimes in English. For Science, Mandarin and BM, mother doesn't think so. It would need double careful and accompany him when doing those three subjects but shame to say, so far mother did not let him do other subjects. Hi hi..... So far only maths because he loves it so much....

Is he ready for it...?

Mother did consider to teach Ethan the multiplier since he loves maths so much. Some people will think that mother is the "kiasu mother" but I don't think that I'm the first mother to do so. Mother has this idea mainly due to Ethan's poor memory. Taken longer time to teach him and it might stressed him up.

Mother did plan to teach him to memorize one table in one month. So 12 timetables should be taking 1 year to complete it. It is very painful to remember the 12 timetable in a short period which mother had experienced before. Now the problem is will the school teaches memorizing like the old way or followed the recent print out. Last time we memorized like 2x1=2, 2x2=4, 2x3=6 .... but recently the print out seems like the arrangement is like 1x2=2, 2x2=4, 3x2= 6 and .....So not really sure which arrangement to choose but probably will choose the old method because it is easy for mother.... Ha

Will he be ready or not, let's try first. If cannot then postpone until he is ready for it.

Memory

Tell you. Ethan is very poor at memorizing things.
Seen some articles described the kid's memory is good especially when you read the same book over and over again for few times. The kid can remember the book's content and even corrected adults when wrongly read to them. The situation is the same with songs.

BUT

We did not see any such sign on Ethan. So far he only remember the "Twinkle Twinkle little Star" which this one he had memory of it when he was about age 2+. Other than that, he did not remember any whole song even though we tried to teach him the song " Row Row a Boat" which the lyric is so short but he still cannot remember all. He will miss a few words or sentences. Emm... Recently, he did show us that he knew a few songs which he learned from school but he still only can remember the few first lyric of the song.

Since he cannot remember the lyric of the song so that we did not expect him to remember or memorize the content of the book. So far he did not memorize any books mother had been reading to him. He only remember that the books had been read before to him. This had been proven when mother took the whole stack of books from library shelve. He told mother which books had been read to him before.

Too much

Today, mother only realized that Ethan got a lot of stationary. Not that we bought a lot for him. He actually inherited most of it from us. Where do these things came from:-

i) We get some of them from the hotel stay
ii) Provided by the school
iii) Inherited from mother's side of the family. Grandma had to dig out all those pencils she saved when mother was in the school that time
iv) Of course we bought some for him especially the color pencil. Some of the color pencil provided by Singapore airline, some from mother side...

He really got a lot of stuffs so we need not buy for him for ages...

Mother think that ae still some hiding around the house besides the above

Not a good start....

Ethan had been sick during the CNY . Don't know is it because of the hot weather or not? He still cannot completely recover from the cough and some more the flu attacked him again when the holiday nearly ended. Mother did not plan to send him to school on Monday and let him rest for another day since that day is a sharing CNY cookie day and play. So skip one day will not affect his study.

Shown some willingness

Lately, Ethan on and off will pick up an English story book and read by himself. He insists that he reads it by himself after mother told him that the book may be too difficult for him. Mummy doesn't want him to loss his confidence just because he cannot read it smoothly. Mother offered him to read the books like "Peter and Jane" which are easy and the words are repeating but he rejected it.

Why mother does not really willing to let him read the book from library because the stage and level that mother chooses is for the primary kids. Just used his ears and eyes to look at photo while mother read them to him should be Ok for him. But he wanted to read all by himself. Mother would say it is too early. As the book got a lot of short cut words like "We've, can't , we'll, didn't " which is seldom found in the "Peter and Jane" book.

As last, he listened to mother persuading him to try to read the Peter and Jane. Yes, he can read it but he is only interested in reading a few pages then said will leave it for tomorrow. Mother knows that there is no tomorrow for this book. He still does not find any interest in that book.

First day of CNY

This year CNY we were just in time to let Ethan witness the lion dance by himself. All the past years we always miss it. Mainly because they come to grandparent's house in the morning while we only go back in the afternoon. In Penang, so far we never meet it before, maybe is the timing problem as you can hear the drum sound from far away but you never know whether it is coming to your house or not .

Daddy managed to bring Ethan to capture the photo with the lion

After so many days of CNY then only realized that we did not capture many photos. We did not change Ethan to wear Cheongsam and take his photo and also the family photo. Maybe it was too hot weather so after the morning celebration then everyone quickly changed back to to usual clothes.....

We just treat it as normal day to us.....

Cat and dog

Both of them are just like cat and dog. They like to compete for the same object especially Ethan. Don't know how to solve the problem....Luckily both of them did not stay under the same roof if not everyday surely can hear yelling or crying sound...

Motor Skill on Hand

All the while, he gets to cut the paper. So his cutting was based on his liking. This round mummy gave him a task. He needs to cut out the object from the paper. Last time he thought that cutting is easy now he gets to taste it.

First, mother wanted him to color all the objects on the paper. After finishing, he needs to cut all the objects according to the dotted line.

It was a bit difficult for him to cut accordingly to the dotted line but he had to practice it.

After finished cutting, is time to glue all the objects on the rucksack.

Gluing is an easy job for him.

Tadaa finished it.

Asked him whether he still want to do this kind of practice. "Yes", was his answer.

Teaching time

Reading the digital clock is no problem for him but analog clock posts a bit of a problem. Today his maths worksheet needs him to read the time under the analog clock. So mother needs to teach him how to read the clock.

Actually on and off he will read the analog clock hanging on the wall, only that we do not really take it seriously to teach him. Sometimes, he reads it correctly but sometimes need our help.

So mummy uses the help of the plastic clock we bought in "Popular Bookstore" to help him understand it. Need to teach him the 1 is equivalent to 5 minutes which states on the clock. But the one mummy thinks is no good is that the clock does not state 0 and it only states 60 minutes. Knowing it was right but it should show 0 or 60 when it points to 12. Mother told Ethan that there is no such thing as 3.60 when we read the time but he said the clock stated that it is 60 printed on the plastic clock. Haa, in the end, mother had to use another digital clock to show him that when the minute counts to 59, the next one is 00. Then he only let it go.

Maths worksheet

We did not expect that Ethan can finish the worksheet so fast. He can finish one book in one week. Now he already finished the three books and one of them is for K2. Recently he started on another two maths books which mother still hesitated whether wanting to let him do. Mainly because in the book there are a lot of questions like ? + 4 = 9 or ? - 6 = 2 . Mother is afraid that he gets confused especially when subtraction need to convert to addition in order to get the answer. But after he had no problem in doing it for the K2 book so mother just gave him a try. Surprisingly he can accept.

We cannot say that Ethan had done all the worksheet by himself. On and off he will come and ask us if he is not sure of certain answers. Other than that he will do them by himself. All he wants is mother to mark his worksheet and he get the "Stars" on it. Sometimes we even have to stop him from continuing to do it until too late at night. In this situation, he will bargain with us. He really loves to do maths.

The book above was requested by him to buy when we were at "Popular Bookstore". We don't know why but we respected his choice.

Public library in Balik Pulau

Wah, this is the comment that mother wanted to give to this library. It is big and the books are so new. Mother can find the same book in the Bayan Baru area but a bit worn out. Here, it seems like a brand new one. Mother told daddy that he should bring us back again as mother ran out of book to be borrowed in the Bayan Baru library. It is really true as mother already borrowed more than 100 books for Ethan and the remaining one are either too easy or too difficult for him.

So it is time to switch to this new library but the distance is quite far.......

New colorful toy

We actually bought this toy long time ago but we only stored it in the room. Since, we have not much toy for Ethan to play so mother went to bring out this toy to occupy his time while we were busy with our work. He loves it or not? Of course he loves it but he does not really know how to form an object and he simply connects them together.

When mother formed a square for him, he immediately requested for more. Mother asked him to try by himself and he did but not really successful. So in the end, he needed mother's help.

Another new beach

We had a surprise when we found this beach while we were wandering around in Balik Pulau. The beach was nice and clean. Found that a lot of people came to the beach for fishing. Since this was unexpected so we did not bring water or cloth to clean up our legs. However, we still can't resist going down to the sandy beach. So just let it be sandy feet.

This time, Ethan was a bit brave to walk towards the sea and let the wave soak his legs but still holding on to adult's hand. By himself, no way as he is still very safety conscious.

Asking his daddy to follow his post

Holding daddy hand to soak his legs with the sea water

Before we wanted to go back, mother asked daddy to bring Ethan to wash his legs in the sea water. For adult, we just let use our hand to get rid of the sand. When we were heading back towards the car, daddy said "hi" to one of the hawker uncle there who was setting up his store. He told daddy to wash the legs in the drain. According to him, the water in the drain is from the mountain. We washed it before we went back to our car. Ah, we should take the photo of the drain. The water was so clear....

We will come back again to this place and the next round will be more prepared or maybe it is a picnic again.

The swollen eye

We don't know what happened to him as he woke up from his nap with a horrible swollen eye. He cried non stop and made the situation even worse. We asked him whether is it his eye painful or what, the response was continual wailing. In order to stop him, mother asked whether he wanted to watch the CNY MTV in the youtube. He loves the music video and he nodded his head and stopped crying.

After a while, we bathed him and asked him not to rub his eye. The photo taken was after his condition had became better but still can see a bit swollen surrounding his right eye.

We actually wanted to attend the CNY celebration nearby our place. However, seeing Ethan's condition, we just brought him to the playground and let him enjoy before we go back home.