Inspired by the last round of cookie making at Wanz’, I decided to try my hand at making homemade dough for play.

I had some expired flour which I bought thinking I’ll make some pancakes but as usual, it just sat there. Flour and me just don’t mix well. Anyways, I really didn’t want to waste it so I looked into a craft book for the recipe and just whacked! So simple! Aiyoh. She loved it! I had fun too.

Recipe For Uncooked Salt Dough

2 parts of flour to 1 part of salt (e.g 2 cups of flour n 1 cup of salt)

1 tablespoon cooking oil

1 part of water (e.g 1 cup of water)

Powder paint/food colouring (I omitted)

Method: Mix the flour and salt. Add in the oil and water. Mix them all up and knead. If it becomes sticky, add more flour. Our mixture based on the above measures seems too sticky so I just kept adding flour until it felt right.

I decided to try something different with Sophie today. (You see, Sophie’s been coughing quite badly so we’ve been stuck indoors the whole week!)

We did WALL PAINTING. Er… almost.

I stuck a long piece of paper (the rolls from Ikea, ze best!) on our "French" window, put some newspapers, put out the paints and started painting with Sophie. She was a bit hesitant at first, kept walking around the newspapers and wanted to paint on the floor instead but when I started to show her, she got it and started. We ended up doing hand prints. She loved it! Kept asking for more and hitting the paper with her hands to make the prints. Shiok!

P/s excuse the terrible photo. The window is along a corridor in our tiny apt, not much natural light. Time to get an easel and go outdoors!

I’m serious. That’s the name of the book – Let’s Sticker & Paste! I think they need some help with their English. These Kumon people.

Anyways but we’re really enjoying this book coz it’s so idiot proof and so systematic coz I’m so not systematic. Like I said in my previous post, it’s extremely helpful during that 3-5pm timeslot where nothing seems to go thru my mind except "I need sleep, I need sleep!"

Ok, how does the book work?

To understand, see the above pictures from left to right. The first few pages comes with stickers that the kids can stick according to themes. It gets harder in the next few pages where you have to stick for example, a orange triangle on the middle of the carrot in the right place. And then, it gets harder when you need to cut up the missing piece, let your kid put glue on it and stick it onto the right space. It’s great to develop their pasting skills and concentration.

Cons?

- The thing about this is that I need to sit right next to Sophie to do it with her. It’s not one of those things that I can just leave her and she can do it by herself.

- The other thing is these books don’t come cheap. It costs almost $10 per book, only makes sense if you’ve got a discount of some sort which we did.

- Oh and one more thing, my itchy hands keep wanting to make sure she’s got it right, which is not really the main point. But one thing I realised is that Sophie’s got quite a good spatial sense (not sure if I got the word right) as in she can pretty much spread out her stickers and not paste them too close or over each other and she knows where most of the stickers go.

All in all, it’s quite fun and you can go thru it pretty easily. There’s even a Book 2. Have fun!

Our collection of Chinese stuff for Sophie

Top Left: Pre school readers from Popular, published in Malaysia

Top Right: James’ books from ancient of days

Bottom Left: Cds with Chinese sunday school songs from my MIL

Bottom Right: James’ books which my MIL transformed into flash cards

I had almost 10 years of Chinese language lessons in school plus I had tuition (outside help) for almost just as long….. BUT BUT BUT……………….. I’m having real difficulty reading Sophie’s pre school Chinese readers and I really can’t catch the Chinese songs I play for her!

Anyways… I thought I’ll blog about this coz I heard her say this today

"Mummy, I want to drink he shui!"

What on earth is "he shui" i was thinking? I kept asking her to repeat until I finally realised she said "he shui" as in drink water in Chinese. She’s totally mixing up her languages! So funny! That prob explains why I’ve been having difficulty understanding what she’s saying recently.

See… Wednesdays are Speak Chinese days for Sophie and I. Not that we speak Chinese a lot. It’s precisely because we don’t that’s why I needed to fix a day to remind myself to speak whatever broken Chinese I can to her.

What’s Speak Chinese Day?

We
- play the Chinese Cds (very ching chiong but very good for Sophie)
- read Chinese books and flash cards
- attempt to give commands and communicate in Chinese

It’s hilarious sometimes. I’ll say

"Ling Jing (her Chinese name), ni yao bu yao he shui?" (Sophie, would you like to drink water?)

And she says

"Yes!"

She totally understands me but she always replies in English! And it’ll go to and fro. She’ll speak to me in English and I’ll speak to her in Chinese.

I bought a couple of Chinese readers from Popular that has Hanyu Pinyin and only one sentence per page. Plus we have some flash cards from James’ old books. Yes! My mil kept them. She cut them up and laminated them! I’m so glad she’s a chinese kindy teacher.

I really hope Sophie’ll grow to enjoy the language as I am now, finally.

I’m not big on animals BUT since going to the Animal Resort & Zoo with Sophie and friends plus James getting his hands dirty with Crystal Red Shrimps, I find myself becoming more curious. Ok I must admit it’s still on an intellectual level (so interesting!), not emotional at all, I still jump when a dog brushes past my legs. Hiak

My fears aside, I’m keen to get Sophie excited about animals! How?

1. BOOKS

Recently, armed with Borders discount coupons (30%! plus 10% on the preferred card = 40% off! Yipee!), I bought Sophie two books related to animals – First Encyclopedia of Animals by The Usborne and Madeline Loves Animals.

The first book is more for me. Haha. But Sophie has taken to it! She loves pointing to the animals and asking what’s this? And I love it coz it gives the correct names for the animals e.g it’s not just an eel, it’s a Gulper eel or it’s not just a shark, it’s a basking shark. Cool beans! And I read the details just for fun to her e.g. Snails have a hard shell they can curl up in. This protects their bodies from enemies etc.

The second book is so funny! I loved Madeline as a kid. Madeline is a cheeky but smart little girl who lives in a boarding house. In this book, she goes around saying hi to the butterfly, throws bread for the birds etc. And one sentence across two pages! Great!

2. REAL FISH

We got Sophie a fish tank on impulse! James woke up on Sat and decided let’s go fish shopping. Sophie got to choose some guppies and some other small fish which I’ve forgotten the names of.

3. CRAFT

We made ourselves a little play aquarium. I had stocked up some craft materials at the recent Popular sale – scissors, glue, ice cream sticks, construction paper, cardboard paper, foam etc.

We cut out fish from coloured foam and mounted and glued them on coloured ice cream sticks. Next we cut out the shape of water from foam and mounted and glued them on a construction paper. Simple! Sophie got to play with the glue and learnt to stick stuff together. She could pretend to move the fish and play.

But tt was a mess coz the parts of the fish were so small, it kept falling apart. And Sophie kept wanting to play with them before the glue dried. In the end, we were left with 2 fish. We started off with 4! Haha.

Sophie: Mummy, what’s this (Translated: Hey Mummy, what’s up with this yellow packet?)
Evan: Make jelly make jelly

Making Jellies

1. Prepare materials

- 1 Packet of Agar Agar powder (Swallow brand, yellow packet, white colour which meant no colouring)

- 1 Plastic Jug

- 1 Saucepan

- Jelly moulds

- 1 litre of water

- Fruits (Optional)

- Sugar (Optional – We used a little, about 1 1/2 tablespoonful for 1 litre of water. The packet recommends 250g!)

2. Use a small kids’ table so that everything can be done at their level. Wrap the table with a tablecloth. In our case, I used 1/4 of a plastic table cloth I got from Cold Storage. After we’re done, we just wrapped and threw it away. Ok, not very environmentally friendly I know. Note to self: Will figure better way of doing this.

3. First we got the girls take turns to pour the litre of water into the saucepan. We did it little by little so that they could manage the weight. They did pretty well although Sophie wasn’t impressed. Evan loved doing this.

4. Next, we made the agar agar according to the instructions on the packet. We boiled the water on low heat and stirred in the packet of agar agar, added sugar and left it to cool. Meanwhile, the girls "fought" over the jelly moulds which we got from Ikea. They are heart shaped silicon moulds. Our lesson was on LOVE which explained the heart shaped.

5. Then we got the girls to place the chopped up strawberries into the moulds one by one. This would help to brighten up and sweeten the jelly since we avoided using sugar and coloured agar agar. Sophie loved this one while Evan was nonchalant. Haha… it was great coz Evan helped Sophie to finish up pouring earlier on and Sophie helped Evan complete her moulds. They had great teamwork!

6. When the agar agar cooled down, we got the girls to pour the agar agar into the moulds and left it to set in the fridge. After an hour of playing and some story telling, we served them the strawberry filled agar agar.

I think the girls really enjoyed the whole process!

I promised Joanne that I’ll take a photo of the painting accessories Sophie uses. It looks like an ad for Crayola. But I REALLY like Crayola. Everything we have is from Crayola, even the brush. While I’m at it, I shall also mention that her godparents were the ones who lovingly gave some of these as her Baptism cum Christmas presents last year. I got the brush from Kids Mall at IMM and the big tubs of paints from Nurture Craft at Forum the Shopping Mall.

First of all, the apron. Ok i admit, I am the one who wears it. Not Sophie. She refuses to wear them. I have so many, enough to hold a painting class! All were given to us but Sophie just refuses to put them on. I wear it so that when she’s full of paint and decides to give me a spontaneous hug, I am armed! Ok, not really. But it helps.

Next, the paints. I like them in big tubs. The bigger the better because I can just pour them out and not worry about them running out. Also, they have to be washable. Crayola’s great. Most of their products are tried and tested – WASHABLE. Proof? That white rag on the left was in red, blue, green and yellow. I washed it. It’s white again.

Don’t forget the brush and the paint holder (I use egg cartons, use and throw away). You can add on stuff like cut out sponges, etc to let them have a different feel of splashing paint. But I’m not a playschool, it’s just I, me and myself. So I keep to a nice handy big brush.

Oh yes, the paper. I have a whole roll from Ikea. I love it! It doesn’t end! Once she’s done, I just rip it out and throw it away. I’d love to keep them but seriously, that’s not a good idea. I figured that on the days that we do specific things, I’ll give her real drawing block paper. Most days, we’ll just fool around with paints.

Finally but very importantly (a tip from Pris from The Little Feet), I keep a wet cloth close. Pris actually said have a tub of water and sponge but having water nearby just causes more temptation for Sophie coz she’ll want to play with that instead. When Sophie is filled with paint or when she splashes some on the wall, I quickly use the wet cloth to wipe it off. Keeps me breathing. Sometimes you just don’t know what our little ones can get up to.

I keep all these things in a big container so it’s all there whenever I need it. So there, it’s not so scary is it?

P/s For younger babies. When Sophie was younger, I would put her in her high chair. I’ll cut paper the size of her high chair table and stick it using sticky tape to the high chair table and pour paint on it. She’d just use her fingers to swirl the paint around. That kept the mess under control.

After weeks of being busy with work and meeting up with people, I was starting to feel guilty about not doing anything with Sophie. You know – the playschool stuff like learning and crafting etc. I think I over did it today.

We went marketing, painting, "swimming", walking, cooking.

Painting

This all started because yesterday at Mums grp, Ming Li mentioned that she used egg cartons to put paints. Best thing, you can throw them away after. No need to wash. Yey! See! I knew it! Those egg cartons that I’ve been keeping will come in handy!

I can’t help it! When I have an idea, I need to act on it! Itchy hands.

Sophie loved it! She smeared paint all over and kept asking for more. She kept giving me the tub of paints and said "More red, mummy", "More orange" etc… but the truth is she doesn’t know her colours. She’ll hand me the blue tub and say "More red!". Er… ok.

It’s so good that these are washable paints. Just wipe and it’s gone! I LOVE IT!

Anyways… we painted and made a pair of binoculars (not telescope! What was i thinking!?!) with materials that I’ve collected over time. Nice. I felt accomplished.

Swimming

Check out our indoor swimming pool! Sophie’s been asking to go swimming every day! So I decided to bring out this rubber tub that Beks n Daph got her. IT FITS INTO OUR BATHROOM! Yey!!

Our friend Michele who is a early childhood educator-to-be came by for lunch and shared tips on how to do water play. She even made some "toys" to show how water flows using styrofoam cups (oops n released some cfc). She played with Sophie while I washed the dishes. Thanks Mich!

We had a great day but I am exhausted.

Ok it’s one thing that others are amazed by Sophie ability to converse at 1 and a half but it’s another thing, when I, her stay at home mum am constantly amazed daily.

It amazes me that she can associate descriptive words. I love to hear her say it – SO CUTE! For example, she knows exactly when to use – "So cute!", "So funny!", "So pretty!" etc. She’ll look at a field of flowers and say "Flowers! So pretty!"

I mean how does one teach a young child what each descriptive word (adjective) means? It can only be thru constant repetition of association to different things (nouns) right? After a while, they should figure the use of the adjective. Times like this, I wished I had studied early childhoon or teaching.

I’m trying to pick it up. I borrowed a whole truck load full of books from the library recently. One of them included Glen Doman’s How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence. I’ve been avoiding that book. And any other book that talks about raising a gifted child or making your kid smarter etc. I think I am subconciously relectant to push Sophie towards this. Which also explains why she’s not in any enrichment class. One is because I admit – I am lazy. I mean, flashing cards at a kid takes up a lot of energy and discipline. I’m not sure if I want to go down that road. The other, I prefer reading to Sophie and let her pick up reading eventually from there than flashing cards. Although that explains why I flash chinese cards to her – because…….. I can’t read Chinese books unless there’s hanyu pinyin. And finally, I really do not like how people compare their kids so I avoid these classes coz people are SO competitive here.

But yet on the other hand, I seem to have this smart kid in my hands and she seems to love to learn – what am I supposed to do? If I do more, maybe she’ll become more. Right? Hopefully it’s not to feed my ego but it’ll be better for her at some point.

Oh wells… we’ll see. If you have some thoughts, I’d love to hear it.

For a while now I’ve been trying to figure out how to teach Sophie phonics and alphabets. A dear friend recommended this – Starfall.

It’s an interactive website that introduces the alphabets and their sounds with games and music. It’s quite an old fashion site, not very pretty BUT so far, it has been very effective with Sophie. She likes it. So far we’re up to the letter E.

Best thing? It’s FREE! Hiak. We tried Letterland but we only have the audio CD and it’s too costly to get the whole set. But I’m eyeing this next – Abadaba Alphabet.

That took me a while to figure.

I was surfing around and came across a homeschooler’s blog. She was trying to help her Primary 2 kid (P2!!!!!) solve this:

I’m a three-digit number. The sum of my digits is 14. My tens digit is twice the value of my ones digit.
My ones digit is twice the value of my hundreds digit. What number am I? (Huh?)

I was stumped. Ok… I finally got the answer after reading it a few times and a bit of algebra. It must be somewhere at the recess of my rusty brain. You know the A + B + C and B = 2a etc…. go figure. I am so not going to make it. Maybe I should go do some Primary 1 maths. Oh maybe I better check out the Kindy English books first. Without understanding, how to do Maths?!? Let me know how it goes for you. How do the P2s do this anyway?

On Sat morning, Sophie and I had some fun with paints – we made a variety of "art" (hee..) pieces for our real artist hub and daddy.

I bought 2 tubs of washable Crayola paints in red and yellow – huge ones so that we can waste them. They are the BEST! It washes off so easily! Erm but… so far, I’ve only done 2 painting sessions with Sophie. Sigh… it’s just too messy to clean up after. But it’s SO FUN!

It’s also a great way to learn shapes too coz I cut up the shapes for her to paint on.

We also attempted to paste stickers but Sophie ended trying to put the star stickers in her mouth. okie… note to self: need to kiv.

P/s She’s still having a runny nose. Check out the booger (thanks spelling bee scrabble king dan!) coming out of her nose! Not a pleasant sight but she looks so pleased in this picture.