Going to School

 

 

Yeah, it's a new year for everybody.  With Mummy going to the workforce, my darlings have to go for full-day childcare.  Look how excited they were to go to their school early in the morning.

 

This photo was taken at the open field near their school.



A 'Sorry' Note from 5 year old Cutie

Mummy was angry with my Cutie and scolded her for making me angry since the last 3 years.  Quietly, she went back to her room.  Then she came out with this 'sorry' note.

So sweet, Mummy was no longer angry, instead I was feeling guilty for saying such nasty things to her.

Darling, Mummy is sorry too.

Home Genius

Time flies, mummy will be going back to the workforce soon and we will not be able to stay at home as we used to be.  Going to miss the bonding time we had together.  Mummy is thankful for being able to be with them 24/7 ever since they are born.

Here's some of the fun they had for the last 6 months.

Both of them wanted to wear their nursery school uniform and said our house was their school.  They named it "Home-Genius" (guess they must have enjoyed their lessons at Igenius).  Quite creative though.

A session of fun with colours.

 When mummy cleared their clothes which they had outgrown, they decided to use them to dress up their bear.  What a Beary makeover.

  Last but not least, food is always part of the fun we shared.  See the beautiful faces we made.  See my Cutie's new broccoli hairclip and Sweetie's flower.  Yum, yum.

Holiday Workshop @HESS

Mummy had signed my darlings up for the Winter holiday workshop at HESS.  However, the teaching was a little too way-below Mummy's expectation in this workshop and thus did not continue after a week.  They were basically taught a few words that are associated with Winter eg. Hanukkah.  However, no explanation were given as to what the words meant or how the words were spelt (Mummy has tried to seek clarification from the teacher on a word they were unclear of and worst still, the teacher just told me the word but she was not able to spell nor explain to me its meaning to me, so till date I'm still wondering what was that word.).  Although the teachers were warm and friendly (haha... totally opposite of what they experienced in their ex pre-school), Mummy found that it was not worth my effort to travel to so far away to Katong.  Besides, it was not easy to get a cab in the morning and also having to experience traffic jam along the Eunos area.

My darlings actually joined in their Trick or Treat session in October. It was a good moment for the kids as Mummy did not know that they were scared of Hawolleen. The night before Hawolleen, they were so scared that they could not sleep. It was finally after some assurance from Mummy that the Trick or Treat session was not scary at all, then they managed to sleep. In the end, they had great fun collecting goodies at the Trick or Treat session that their impression of Hawolleen had changed completely, thus prompted Mummy to sign them up for the Winter holiday workshop.  However, Mummy feels that this school is more suitable for those foreign children who have no English language foundation, so guess that will be the last time we stepped into this school.

Cutie's Language Abilities

Today, we collected the test assessment result from the Singapore Brain Development for my Cutie.

The result indicates that my Cutie was quite advanced in the various areas and her average age is 8.06 years, which is much higher than her current age of 5.5 years old. 

Mummy was glad that this analysis shows a mark improvement for her as compared to her 1st analysis done 6 months ago.  For my darlings have not been attending school for the past 6 months and yet this Cutie has progressed much better during this period.

Mummy was also very surprised that her English teacher in another enrichment centre had actually sought special permission from the centre HQ to emplace this Cutie in the class that caters only for Primary 1 pupils.  She has been very impressed with my Cutie's language ability.  Throughout their past 10 years of service, the centre has only given special approval for 3 pupils (including my Cutie).  My Cutie is the 1st to be emplaced at a level higher than her current age for this branch in Tampines. 

Mummy is so proud of my Cutie, but I'm not surprised with her abilities.  She has been scoring 10 /10 for her weekly spelling and her comprehension abilities of the language is very good too.  Her English teacher has conducted an impromptu test in class in October.  In total, my Cutie has scored 28.5 out of 30 marks, which is quite impressive for a girl at her age.  Three 1/2 marks were actually deducted as my Cutie did not place a full-stop at the end of 3 sentences.  So if we were to pardon her for that (especially being 5 years old only), she has actually scored a perfect score for a test that is inclusive of open-ended comprehension questions.

The picture on the left shows details about the flags of Jordan, Israel and Hungary.  My Cutie had actually drew and wrote them on the white board at home, on her own accord.

Well, Mummy just wants to tell my Cutie "I'm so proud of you, darling."  :) 

Sweetie's reading

Our cosplay activities came to a halt when my Sweetie was down with a high fever few days ago.  The fever was down and was up again.  But amazingly, the fever subsided after seeing the doctor, luckily before she took the anti-biotics medicines.  So, in all, we paid over $80, just to really "see" the doctor.  Mummy is glad that my Sweetie is well again.

Recently, my Sweetie is gaining interest in reading and is thus able to read a simple book on her own. Click on the video to hear her reading a story to you.  Mummy is glad to see her efforts in making out the words without much help.

Here is a picture drew by this Sweetie near the beginning of the year.  Mummy loves the way that she constantly expresses her love for me.  Whenever she has the chance to write, she will be writing "I love Mummy to be happy".

So sweet.

Cutie's first attempt at composition writing

Today finally got back the book for the previous term from her English Enrichment teacher.

Mummy was very impressed with my Cutie's first composition attempt on their last lesson in July. From what I knew, the teacher only a little guidance at the beginning with the plot, characters and the helping words, then the students are then to complete the composition on their own without any further help (on spelling, sentence formation etc) from the teacher.  Oh my, my Cutie has never learnt about composition writing before!

Though it was her first attempt, Mummy can see that it was quite a well-written piece. Although there maybe some grammatical or spelling errors, it was really a great writeout for a 5-year old child, especially it, being her 1st in composition.writing.  Her classmate's mother was also very impressed with my Cutie, as her daughter who is 7 years old has only written about half of what my Cutie has written (truly no offence here to the classmate and mother).

This Cutie just can't seem to give Mummy's surprises here and then, with her language ability.  Once during a sit-in session, the teacher went through the sight words which the students are supposed to practise at home.  But oh dear, Mummy has forgotten about it and when it was my darling's turn, this little Cutie did not have any problem with all the sight words.  Mummy felt so relief that this Cutie is smart and thus able to cover up the truth of what a lazy Mummy I have been.  Shh... don't leak out this secret of me..

Cutie, keep up your good work!  (Gee... in fact, this little darling has been an ardent reader of my blog ever since she is able to read at the age of 3.)

Post NDP

Wow, how time flies.  National Day is finally over.  However, it doesn't seem to end there.  There was the replay of the NDP on television today.  While watching the show midway, my Sweetie tells mummy "No more fireworks please".  Haha... guess she is getting bored of watching the fireworks so many times.

Got my darlings to do some artwork about the National Day with some NDP-related materials.  Mummy expects them to just cut out the whole chunk of the words in blue, instead they paintstakingly cut out each letter one by one.  Guess they really enjoy cutting with their scissors.

Mummy love the way they expresses their love for each other.  The smiles on their faces just simply warm mummy's heart.  Really thank God for them.

Bingo

One of the games that we were playing is the Bingo game that Mummy has created for my darlings.  See how much fun they had in identifying the words at the shopping mall.

My Cutie was very excited and couldn't wait to find all the words on her Bingo card.  My Sweetie was more calm and taking things easy.  Haha... nevertheless both of them had a great time playing and searching for the words.

Everyday, time passes very fast with my 2 little darlings.  Can't believe that they were so big now, Mummy remembers wishing that they would be this age when they were still babies then.  How mummy wishes that time would pause at this moment with them remaining at this age.  Hee... guess Mummy is enjoying this moment so much.  Can't imagine having a day without them.

Morning Calls

It's great that now they don't have to go to school in the morning, they can wake up early to give their Daddy a hug and goodbye before he left for work.  Hee... look at my Sweetie's cheeky look.

Since the sky is still dark, Mummy gave them their illuminated board to write.  Guess what my darlings write.  My Sweetie has written the number of 1 - 10, which she has learned on her own.  For my Cutie, it's not a surprise when she uses the opportunity again to profess her love for Mummy.  So lovely of her to include her Daddy and Meimei too.

On another day, they had an enjoyable time drawing and colouring with their mini drawing projector.  Hee... look at their sleepy eyes.  But it doesn't bother them because of the fun that they were having.

After that, nothing beats better than a cup of tea for breakfast.  Cheers.

Happy 5th Birthday, Cutie

How time flies, my Cutie is now 5 years old.  Now she's quite independent and can do a lot of things on her own without Mummy's help.

Yesterday, we had a busy day baking some heart-shaped cookies to give to her classmates and teachers.  Today, Mummy brought them to the Kidz Explorer where both of them had so much fun playing the whole day.

Daddy can only join us for dinner.  At Downtown East, we were attracted by the decor of this restaurant and so decided to have our dinner there.  After that, we went home for another round of celebrations with the cake that we had bought for my Cutie.

Over the weekend, we bought another cake  to Yeye's house to celebrate her birthday with him.  As it was quite a last minute decision, we just headed to a bakery shop nearby for the cake. 

My Cutie is now learning about the value of money and Mummy has taught her before on spending our money wisely.  The design that she had chosen has 3 different sizes and to Mummy's surprise, this darling chose the smallest size after looking at the price tag.  She told me that she doesn't want Mummy to waste money, hahah...  Without hesitation, Mummy just told the staff to pack the biggest size one for us. 

Now at 5, she is already a fluent reader and we had earlier gotten her a book "What You Need to Know Now" which she has chosen herself.  It is a hard cover book that costs over $40 and contains interesting facts and figures about issues on the world.  When the earthquake struck Japan in March, she showed me her book and shared with me that earthquakes are caused by the tectonic plates as mentioned in the book.  Gee... shouldn't it the other way round with Mummy teaching her instead?   Here's a video of her reading a page of the book for you. 

In fact, she had impressed Mummy many a times sharing with me what she had read from her books. For example, the other day she told me that there's a summit in the middle of the Antartica in her encyclopedia book.  Another time, she told me that we should actually not drink water before eating (which she read from her ”十万个为什么“ book.  Oh no, Mummy has previously thought that drinking some water before meals is good.

She has  no problem understanding whatever that she read.  Even her English enrichment teacher was also very impressed with her comprehension abilities even though she was only 4 years old among the rest of 5-7 years old kids.  Mummy was initially worried and had even suggested to her teacher to go slow on her.  Rather, this darling has often surprised Mummy with her independent learning.  Every week, she was able to score full marks for her spellings although Mummy has only gone through it once in less than 5 minutes.

Her thirst for knowledge far surpasses the energy that Mummy has to spare.  Mummy is glad that she can depend on the books to satisfy her desire to learn.

Cutie's Comics

My Cutie wrote something on a cardboard packaging of the stickers and then gave it to me.

She had actually drawn a net over a character and added some speech bubbles to the picture on the cardboard.  Then shared the story with me.  So cute.

English Proficiency Assessment

Today, my Cutie went for her English Enrichment class and we were surprised that her classmates were either 6 or 7 years old (cos' my Cutie is only 4 years old!).  The pupils in the school are allocated based on their English proficiency level and not by age group.  Luckily, my Cutie is tall (looking like a 5-6 years old). Thankfully, the teacher is understanding and is able to make her feel at ease in class with the other older kids.

Altho' Mummy knows that my Cutie,has no problem reading most words (she has been able to read since at the age of 3 and many of her teachers have provided feedback that she's quite advanced for her age), Mummy is still impressed with her speed reading skills and great understanding of what she read, as shown during her assessment.  Her assessor was also impressed by her proficiency level at her age and decided to allocate her to this level 3 class (without the need to go through level 1 and 2).

For my Sweetie, she may not be as proficient as her sister (but still pretty good for her age group), she was also able to impress mummy with her Sweetie answers during her assessment.

At 1 point,  she was being asked about what she saw on the picture of a nest.  She answered 2 CHICKS, altho' it's quite obvious to be 2 eggs.  The assessor then probed her further by asking where are the chicks and guess what she told him.  She said they were INSIDE the eggs.  Hahaha... this little Sweetie really never fails to brighten up my day.

Forever my darlings.

Outing with a splash

While Daddy was out for a gathering with friends in town, Mummy got him to give us a lift to Suntec City Mall.  My Cutie, as usual, was fascinated with books and we were stuck at this corner of a pushcart stall outside Toys "R" Us for a long time. 

Luckily, Mummy had bought a number of books from the stall, else don't think the owner would have allowed them to read/browse for such long time. 

After that, we went to koi pond at Basement 1.  Initially, my darlings were just squatting quietly watching others feed the kois.  Then while Mummy was on the phone with Daddy, one of them started to play with the water in the pond and of course, the other followed.  My Cutie lost her balance and fell into the pond.  Luckily, the pond was quite shallow and Mummy was there in time to catch onto her.  So only partial of her clothes and shoes were wet.

With no extra clothes (well.. who could expect this?), Mummy got her to wear her sweater and also folded up her pants as only the lower part was wet.  Mummy was quite satisfied with the transformation, from dainty to a sporty look, hee... 

While shopping, Mummy has also bought the Math Balance and some craft beads with peg boards from Growing Fun,  So when home, Mummy got my darlings to decorate the heart shaped peg board with the beads.  Then after ironing the beads and pasting the heart onto a card, my Cutie wrote the words "Papa, Happy Birthday" while my Sweetie drew a smiling face on the card.  Hee... within half an hour, we managed to make a birthday card for daddy' whose birthday is just a day away.

What a Coincidence!

My Cutie came to me and told me that the picture on the big jigsaw puzzle is the same as that on her book.

So she hurried to bring her book over and showed me. Mummy got a big shock cos' the pictures are not just identical, but exactly the same (tho' with slight modification and colours).

This is indeed amazing cos' we had actually bought the big jigsaw puzzle when we were in Korea whereas we had recently bought the book (there are many pictures in it) . This was indeed a great coincidence and it is really smart of this Cutie to even have noticed it, hee...

Sweetie's Performances

After returning from Korea, Mummy was worried about my darlings' Chinese language (which is important in Singapore's education system). As they hardly had any exposure to the Chinese language (not even at home and least to mention no Chinese words/shows in Korea), thus their knowledge of the Chinese language is practically zero.

So both of them have started to attend some Chinese enrichment class. Mummy was glad that at least now they can speak some simple Chinese sentence and at least have some idea what others are talking about in mandarin.

During the last lesson of the term, Mummy was allowed to sit in and so managed to capture my Sweetie's performance (didn't have any for my Cutie as didn't thot of bringing camera for her class the previous day).


Mummy was proud of this brave little girl, see her individual performance below. This is what she read:
小小花狗 尾巴当手 摇来摇去 欢迎朋友


After class, while waiting for our pizza, she had some fun playing with her BIG microphone (ie. the balloon, hee...).

Sweetie with the Computer

My Sweetie likes to follow whatever her Jiejie does. So altho' we have the pink Leapfrog ClickStart (as well as a Mickey Mouse television) for her to play with, this Sweetie just want to have fun with the monotone computer that the adult use. And even tho' she got 2 kids' laptop to play with (even got Dora her favourite character), she is often more interested to touch our "real" laptops.

So when Mummy got her to have some fun on the computer, you can see her beaming with joy and constantly telling me she can do it. Indeed, she did handle the mouse well and got the correct answers too.
\

Well done, Sweetie

Book-a-holic Cutie

My Cutie simply loves books that whenever we went to a book store, she would quickly grab a book and start reading. But her love for books really amazes Mummy, for even her activity books are also not spared. Often, she would read the instructions given and then complete the books on her own, without Mummy around to guide her. In the following video, see what happened when Mummy caught her busy with her book again (video was taken in April actually).

Got the newsletter from Ikea Smaland and there was a page with an encryption puzzle . Mummy has only shown my Cutie how to decode the 1st letter and then off she went to solve the whole puzzle herself. Hear her read out her answer to the Easter Alphabet Code. Gee... what a Cutie.

More than ABC for a 3-year old

Tho' Mummy knows that my Cutie can read very well by now, it still came as a surprise that she was able to match correctly (left) the activity found at the back of a biscuit packaging, on her own. Mummy also has never taught her about Eucalyptus leaves and really wonder how she knows of the answer.

Recently, this little darling has also started to learn to write the alphabet on her own (Mummy has been too busy to find time to teach her). See what she wrote for Mummy.

Mummy is very touched by her way of expressing her love and also apologising to me in writing. This gesture of hers is really very meaningful because Mummy has not taught her how to write the alphabet yet. It is indeed so sweet of her to do this for Mummy.

Mummy loves you too, Cutie.

Mummy's birthday

Yeah, it's Mummy's birthday yesterday. It's great to be able to celebrate the occasion together as a family, here in Singapore.

My darlings love the Tom & Jerry cake (for my birthday, hee...) and are very happy to eat the cake (as usual).


Then we went to Swensen's to celebrate and for the first time, we bought a kid's meal for them. It has 2 mini-burgers which kept them delighted. Time really flies, they have grown up now.

In the evening, we went to the airport to fly back to Korea. Tho' it was sort of a last minute decision and Mummy thinks it's a right decision to return to Korea with Daddy.

Daddy should avoid carrying heavy stuff at the moment especially luggage. It would also be good for us to get away from the hot weather in Singapore. Thank God we can still catch the last glimpse of Autumn (Mummy's favourite season). Tho' it maybe expensive to travel back to Korea again as a family, it's definitely worth it to being together and have Daddy's involvement in their toddlers' years. Money spent can be earned back, but it's impossible to buy back time to be spent with the little ones. Sometimes, life is just as simple as ABC. In fact, it's these simple things in life that truly matters.

No wonder there's a saying that the older one gets, the wiser one will be. *Sigh* Mummy is really getting old.