The school sports wear

Finally it arrived last week. Mother had kept on waiting for this sports wear. The main reason is mother no need to rush to wash his school uniform everyday. The kindergarten requested the kids to wear sports wear every Wednesday as the kindergarten will have some exercise activities for them.

This morning mother had to take Ethan to the school since daddy had an early meeting. The teacher felt relieved when she saw Ethan wearing the clothes as the teacher was worried that the clothes is too small to fit him.

Sticker as reward...

Mother told him that he only entitled to get the sticker after he can read the whole Chinese word on that particular page. So far he only entitled to two stickers.

In order to prevent him from just memorizing the sentences instead of words. So after this exercise he can claim that he can read the whole page. Mother will break down the sentence word by word and write them in another blank paper to ask him to read aloud. He only can get the sticker after he passed this test. The purpose is to let him know that he needs to work hard for it.

Ethan's house

Ethan requested his mother to take his photo with his wooden block. He claimed that these are the houses that he built...

Can travel soon?

Today, daddy was bugging mother about his expiring mileage in the Singapore airline. Daddy said that it will expire about 20k miles in coming July and more in September month. Mother told Daddy that there would be a two weeks school holiday in beginning of June. Now where should we bring Ethan to travel? In mother's mind got three places i.e. Hong Kong, Perth and Japan. Which place is suitable still under consideration. We will consider the weather and the transport since we are bringing Ethan along.

Cheap sticker book

Guessed most of the kids like sticker including Ethan. Recently mummy get to know that 姨姨 can buy the cheapo sticker in the market. Mummy quickly asked 姨姨's help to buy those stickers. The stickers are those famous cartoon character like Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Ben 10 and etc. Cheap thing normally come with some imperfection. This book's sticker was a bit hard to pull out of the book because it has some uncut areas, it will be torn off so need to be careful . Besides that some of the pages are repeated. BUT what do you expect? The end objective is for Ethan to have fun and it fits the purpose nicely.

Talk a lot of this sticker book and can you guess how much mummy pay for one sticker book?
Only MYR1 per book. Is it cheap?

Do you know what is this plant?

Do you know what is this plant? We don't know and we just called it "Hot Dog"plant. Since the shape looks like a hot dog....

Curious about the plant?

Let talk about 三字经 Three-word chant

Mother never thought of teaching him the "Three word Chant" at his age even knowing some of the parents already start teaching their kids at very young age. But recently mother did and this is not because of "kiasu". The learning of the "Three -word Chant" was requested by Ethan himself. How can it happened?

Is story time again. It happened when we went to "Popular Bookstore" last Friday. Daddy said he was quite interested at one of the counter selling education CD like those 三字经, 唐诗,乘法表 and etc. The TV was on to promote the product and Ethan was hooked on it. We really have hard time to persuade Ethan to walk away but he did after the ending of the CD. Back at home, mother tried to find 三字经 in the internet and we let Ethan listens to it. Later, he requested us to teach him. (Most funny part was he even create his own 三字经 before he goes to sleep and we cannot stop laughing at his action). Mother was thinking that just listen to the CD may not know the words and meaning. Searching in the internet and copied out the words and explanation of 三字经 is mother's job again.

Finally mother finished custom made part of the 三字经 for Ethan. The word is big and no other fancy fancy thing beside it. Will introduce the later part to him when he finished the first part. We only plan to teach him on the way we bring him to and back from the kindergarten.

Am or Are?

Tonight, mother simply wanted to know how far Ethan knows English grammar.
So mother played a game with him. Mother asked him to choose between the two questions and tell mother which one is the correct answer.
i) I am a boy or I are a boy?
ii) You are a girl or you am a girl?

He had given it a thought for a while and then he answered correctly. Why mother wants to know this is because we seldom talk to him in English. Now his Chinese is more fluent than his English. However at least now mother knows that he knows some of the pattern of the sentences in English.

Now only daddy knows

Ethan loves to listen to the story book. He can be up to the case that he will leave his toy even though he is in the middle of playing it. Mother did a few tests before. When mother picked up a book and read aloud, Ethan will stop his mother and say that he is playing with his toys. Then mother will reply him that mother is reading to herself and he can continue to play and mother can continue to read. Then what he does, he will just leave his toy and climb up to the bed and sit beside mother. If mother already read a few pages, he will request to start again from the cover.

Daddy did not know it until today when he witnessed by his own eyes. Daddy picked up one of the story book beside the bed and started to read. Then Ethan immediately stood up and ran over beside his daddy and listen to the story. Then daddy purposely stop in the half way so Ethan went back to play with his toy. When daddy picks the book again to continue the story book he just ran over and continue to listen to the story.

Daddy said wow he really likes to listen to the story book. Mother took this opportunity to ask daddy not to limit the budget of buying books for him since daddy always complain why mother keep on buying books for Ethan.

Yes, successfully bargained for unlimited book budget!!!

How he learn the spellling

Today, mother let him write on some exercise book since mother got it from Popular Bookstore promotion. After he finished writing the number in words suddenly the question mark flipped through mother's mind whether Ethan knows how to spell the words after he had written it?

Mother just simply asked him, can he spell the number one in word. He surprised mother. The mother continued to test him for the subsequent numbers in words. He amazed mother again. Mother asked is it that he learned to spell in the school ? Yes and he sang part of the number song to mother. Yup, he learned to spell the numbers in word through singing. Mother was pleased to know that the kindergarten teaches the kids to learn through playing game and singing a song.

Way up up up the kite!!

Seeing the wind was so strong, we thought like this was the good chance to fly a kite. Unfortunately the the wind was so inconsistent. Sometimes got wind but sometimes no wind at all. It was more difficult to fly the kite compared to at QBM. Besides that grandparent's house is surrounded by trees.

In the end, we decided to drive to the Stadium inside the Taman. Daddy tried to fly it but it was so difficult because of the inconsistency of the wind. Ended up daddy's kite got stuck in one of the trees. Daddy tried to pull it down and finally the kite came down but the stick to hold the kite was gone.

This time mother got chance to bring Ethan to the platform stage. Previously we always miss it because it was too hot and sun shone directly towards this area in the morning. Ethan also gets to see the Malay kids practiced playing the football game in the field.

Youth park fun

Since it was still early, we dropped by the youth park for a while. We let Ethan have some fun before we headed to Gurney Plaza to have our lunch. It was hot even though there were trees surrounding the park.

We asked him to take photo with the mini tram car. He and daddy post an action according to the statute.

Penang Orchid Exhibition

Since we did not visit any places during Ethan's one week holiday so daddy took the opportunity to clear his leave. We brought Ethan to the Penang Orchid Exhibition. At first we thought that the exhibition is inside the botanical garden like previous year. No, we were wrong. Luckily daddy asked the parking attendant before we entered the parking space.

This round the exhibition was small and we walked through every stalls to view the flower. Mother loved the orchid plant but did not take action to buy it after considering the fact that we don't know how to take care, no place and no time.

Ethan was the happiest kid as he gets to walk around the place after being stuck inside the house for nearly one week. He post a few cheeky postures in front of the camera. The security guard there laughed at Ethan when he post a funny act.

Fake butterfly on one of the plant

The plant like "Insect eating plant" also can become a house plant nowadays. So weird as last time this plant was widely growing in the mountain. We told Ethan that when you put your hand inside the plant, the cover of the plant will close it and eat your hand. He was so afraid and held on to his daddy tightly when we asked him to take photo with the plant. At last, we told him that we were kidding, the plant actually eats the bugs or insect instead of people.

After viewing all the flower, on our way back we headed to Youth park since the park was so near....

He did it on timetable

Mother has set an objective to teach Ethan the 12 timetable in a period of one year. But this fellow had surprised us with his ability. He memorized all of them within half a month.

He really shocked us when he read aloud the timetable until 12 to us in one day because we only taught him until 7. Guessed he was secretly self learning by using the timetable card mother done for him. Even though he cannot perfectly 100% memorized all as sometimes he will forget 3 or 4 out of 12 timetable.

We did not simply asked him to memorize the timetable instead mother did explained to him that the multiply is the shortcut of adding. For example, 2X3=6 is the shortcut of 2+2+2=6. So if he forgets about the answer of the 2x4=8 so mother will ask him to add 2 to 6 to know the answer since he knows the 2x3=6. Now when he forgot about the answer, he will use his fingers to add up the next multiply answer. This is the way we let him learn the multiply and of course he loves the math or else he would find it boring.

We were really proud of him when he found out his mother's mistake on the timetable card on "9" as the print out is 9 x 1 = 8. At first, mother thought of printing again the correct one for him but later seems that he had corrected it by himself by gluing the correct figure on it. So just let it be so he can remember it by heart.

Since he knows all the multiply, now is time to let him practice so he can remember it instead of going back to zero.

"MONEY" is our topic tonight

From previously played shopping supermarket, mother noticed that Ethan does not really understand the concept of money even though we let him pay the money every time for us. Tonight Ethan picked up one of the books which consists of money and asking mother how to do the exercise. The idea flip through the mother's mind and thought of why not play a money game to teach Ethan.

The game is very simple.
i) First mother asked him to arrange the money according to the book which is from smallest to the biggest value. Told him to recognize the value of money.

ii) Teach him to use different combination of coins to form MYR1. Like combination of 5 "20 cent coin" add up to become MYR1. Mother was pleased that he picked up very fast. Guessed because of his basic adding skills is strong.

iii) Mother drew simple things like apple, orange and wrote down the value and asked Ethan to put how many coin needed in order to buy the fruits. He had done it correctly in the first time. He continued asking mother to draw the objects for him to arrange the money.

At last mother had to stop the game and he requested to play it again tomorrow.....

Arrange the money and using the coin to form MYR1 value of money

Photo of the day...

Mama, what is this?

Mother replied him that this thing is used for washing the window when he asked. He immediately used it to wash our house's window which he washed the mosquito net inside the window part. Seems he likes and in order to make him understand the function of this stuff, mother went and gotten one red bucket of water and asked him to wash the outside window. He did it and he thought it was fun.

And what you see in the photo is him seriously washing the window. The funny part was he even went to pull the stool and stood on it so he can wash the upper part of the window.

His first song

Finally he knows how to sing and remembers the lyric of the song. The kindergarten had taught the kids how to sing a song according to the the words that they learned. We were surprised when we heard Ethan singing the song. We think that we had made the right choice of putting him into this kindergarten since he is very happy. Once in a while he will surprise us constantly with what he had learned.

Registration for Standard 1

Time flies so fast. This month of March, it was time for Ethan to register his primary school. We have chosen the school nearby our house.

Mother told him that we will register a new school for him today, he was afraid that he will need to change his current kindergarten. He said "no" to it and we have to explain to him that this school that we are registering is for his standard 1. He still can enjoy his current kindergarten for another one year plus. We told him that after the age 6, he will not be in kindergarten anymore and he is a big boy.

We came to the school at 1pm plus but the security told us that the office only open at 2.00pm. So we went to the supermarket to buy some stuffs before we came back again. Daddy needed to fill the form and passed over to the admin office and it took about 30 min to finish the whole process.

More sticker for him

Mother made more stickers for him since he likes it so much. Then he very kpc to help mother to cut it into small pieces. His cutting was terrible but it was like another training for his hand so just let it..since the sticker for him to use and not mother....haha...

Mutiplying project

Well, Mother did not anticipated that it was so smooth sailing on teaching Ethan on the multiplying.

From the conception of the idea until today, mother had been cracking the head on what method to teach him. Using the ready product in market like buying the CD or flash card and etc.. Or download from the internet the timetable but found out that only have up until 9 instead of 12 timetable. Mother even thought of recording mother's voice reading the timetable and playing it back. In the end, mother homemade the timetable and no recording. Why no recording because the recording cannot stop and wait for the kid to follow and repeat the words. Mother read aloud with him is more flexible depending on his speed.

Where and when mother teaches him? Well, mother only teach him on the way while mother drives him to and back from kindergarten. Normally there was a bit of traffic jam on the road so mother asked him to follow what mother said and he did. Then before his nap time, mother asked him to follow mother reading the timetable again. Surprising, it only take one day for him to memorize the timetable of 2. Of course mother only teach him one timetable since the target is one month per one timetable.

In order to let him understand what is the purpose of him having to memorize the timetable, mother had printed out the worksheet for him to do. Mother's opinion is if he did not constantly practice on timetable surely one day he will return back to zero. People may think mother is cruel but this is the fact.

He was a bit slow when doing the worksheet but he had tried his best to calculate by himself and get assurance from mother. Today he just finished 6 pages of worksheet from 0 - 2.

Say No to diaper project

Diaper less for Ethan was one of the mission impossible for mother. First of all, he must drink about 11 oz milk plus water before he goes to sleep. He did not like people to disturb him when he is sleeping. It was impossible to have a dry diaper for the whole night.

Why we suddenly have this project? All because mother found out that one day during his nap time, he had woken up to pee and continue to sleep back after that. That gives mother a thought that maybe it can work at night also. So mother just asked him whether he wants to try at night after mother praised him. Surprisingly, he was willing to try it at night.

On the first night, he unwilling to wake up in the middle of the night, so he pee on the bed and mother wanted to discontinue the project and think maybe he was not ready yet. What he did, he insisted doesn't want to wear diaper in the second night. Shame on mum as he did not give up but mother did. And he was right, the second night, he was willing to wake up at the middle of the night and pee in the toilet. So he was dry in the morning. He actually was successful for few days at the end of Feb month.

In order to encourage him, mother did up a chart to let him track his own record at the beginning of March month. He gets to stick sun sticker if he is dry through the whole night and he will get the raining cloud when he pee on the bed. The whole project was just for him to to have fun since he likes to stick the sticker..

This is one month project and let's see how many sun he can get at the end of the project.

Dramatic :- Shopping

Today, we played shopping. Even he gets to experience it when we brought him along during our shopping. But this time, mother let him choose the product and put under the shopping cart.

First, he said that he was driving a car and finding a parking space. After he parked the scooter, he went to push the shopping cart. He began to shop.

Mummy gave him a list of paper of item that need to buy. The purpose is to let him find the product in the table by himself without mother's help. He need to read how much and what were the product mother wanted him to buy.

After finished shop, he need to pull the trolley and waiting for paying the money.

Mother let him be the cashier, he needs to press the button to calculate how much he had to pay. He even use the scanning machine to scan the product before he put them into the paper bag. Mother gave him real money to pay for the product.

After having paid the money, he needs to go to car park to drive his scooter and happily bring home his product.

He actually wanted to further continue after shopping and back home. He wants to cook all the product he bought. Mother told him to play in the next day.

From this game, mother have noticed that he was poor in calculating the money. Like total he needs to pay is RM44. He needs to pay 4 pieces of RM10 and 4 pieces of RM1. He was blur about it. Mother plans to teach him the concept of money another day.