Cycling and Skate-scooting

Here's what the kids get up to on weekends. Cycling and skate scooting with Grandma and Grandpa! :) (P.S. Please ignore the fact that I was holding the phone up the wrong way when taking the video!!!)

DS Biking

With a little practice, DS is now able to ride on his bike, sans training wheels. Yay!

Recipe Alert: Chicken Parmesan Crockpot Recipe

I've yet to try out this recipe, but it seems yummy based on the reviews I've seen. :)

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:
- 2 to 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (ie. 1 to 2 chicken breasts)
- 1/2 cup bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian Seasoning (you'll find this in a small bottle, e.g. Masterfoods, on the shelf together with other bottled herbs and spices)
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper (I usually skip pepper if the kids are eating)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 beaten egg
- sliced mozzarella cheese
- your favorite jar of pasta sauce

Spread olive oil at the bottom of your crockpot. Have your beaten egg in 1 bowl. Mix breadcrumbs, seasonings and parmesan cheese in another bowl. Dip chicken breasts into egg first, then dip into mixture of breadcrumbs, seasonings and parmesan cheese. Make sure entire chicken breast halves are coated. Place chicken breast pieces at the bottom of the crockpot. Layer 2-3 slices of mozarella cheese on top. Then pour in pasta sauce, covering everything already in crockpot. Cook on low for 6-7 hours or high for 3-4 hours. :)

Serve with your favorite pasta or rice! :)

Finally, DD's Homeschool Curriculum is Ready

After 8 months of procrastination, I finally sat down one night and planned out DD's homeschool curriculum for the next 12 months. I had intended to start on some formal (read: planned rather than adhoc) homeschooling for DD since the start of this year, but somehow didn't get around to doing it. However, in recent weeks, DD has been showing great interest in reading some simple Chinese readers and writing/drawing. So I think now's the time to start. Here's what I have planned. By the way, if you come across any broken links, please drop me a note to let me know! Thanks!

Reading (English):

• Books to introduce the letters of the alphabet and their sounds: For example, Bruno Munari's ABC, 26 letters and 99 cents, and some books from Letterland.
• Letter lapbooks to reinforce each letter of the alphabet. Here's an example of a letter B lapbook.
• After DD is familiar with the letters of the alphabet, probably sometime next year, I'll start the Reading Made Easy program with her.

Writing (English):

• Tracing of letters will be incorporated into the letter lapbooks.
• Copywork, which is included at the end of every Reading Made Easy lesson.
  

Chinese:

• 我 会 读 Chinese readers
• I Read and I Learn series of Chinese readers
• DD also loves to read from DS's Berries class textbook, so we will continue to help her along when she wants to do that
• I intend to enrol DD in Berries from January next year, where she will join the Nursery 2 class.

Maths/Thinking Skills:

• First Step to Building Thinking Skills, followed by Building Thinking Skills @ Beginning.
• Mathematical Reasoning Through Verbal Analysis: Level A and/or Mathematical Reasoning Beginning either book 1 or jump to book 2
• Depending on what kind of learner DD is, I might use the Montessori method instead or in addition to the above. If so, I will use the Math activities in David Gettman's book "Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives".
• Maybe some local Maths assessment books. There are some very fun and colorful ones which DS occasionally pulls out to do, so I guess I should buy some for DD too.
  

Science:

• We'll start with easier books like Judy Allen's "Are you a ... (e.g. ant, bee, dragonfly, etc)" series of books
  
• We already have a lot of "science" type books at home, especially how-your-body-works books, for example, You Are Weird and See Inside Your Body.
• "Why? The best ever question and answer book about nature, science and the world around you" is also a great book
• And other Usborne books like Planet Earth, Weather and Living in Space.

Art:

• The kids have access to art supplies everyday (e.g. color pencils, crayons, marker pens, craft scissors, white and color paper, etc) and they do pull them out on a daily basis to do some drawing, coloring or cutting. But I would love to do a more "unique" and "creative" art activity with DD once a week, since DS attends Creative Art lessons in his preschool weekly and thoroughly enjoys the experience. I recently bought the highly recommended "Art with Anything: 52 Weeks of Fun Using Everyday Stuff" so we might try some activities from there.
• The Klutz books are also really good. They come ready packaged with the materials needed to do the activities so it's easy to pick up one of these books on a week that I haven't been organised enough to prepare materials for a more fanciful art project. Some of the Klutz books include, Chicken Socks Totally Tape, Hand Art, Super Scissors Book (yes, it even comes with 2 pairs of scissors!) and Paper Flowers.

Well, so that's my grand plan for the year ahead. We are planning to start DD in preschool only after she drops her mid-day nap, which I imagine wouldn't be before her 4th birthday. She currently naps from about 11am to 1pm daily.

My First Mass Breastfeeding Event...

...and the kids' first face painting. OK, not really face painting since I requested that they get their arms painted instead. I mean, why would I even want put myself in a situation where I have to wash off paint from their faces, especially if the paint was around their eyes?!? And a sign at the face painting station wrote, "Simply wash off with soap and water!". Hello? Have they ever tried washing around a 3-year old's eyes with soap and water?!? :P

Anyhow, here's what they got painted on their arms. Racing cars!


And now, back to the mass breastfeeding event. In conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week, the Breastfeeding Mothers' Support Group (BMSG) organised a mass breastfeeding event on 28th August where 120 mummies tried to breastfeed at the same time. Given that DD may self-wean anytime, I thought I should participate in my first mass breastfeeding event this year. As expected, DD, who now dictates WHEN she wants to nurse, stubbornly said, "No!" and refused to latch on. Haha! Well, at least I tried!

DD is Drawing!

I was beginning to think that maybe DD wasn't interested in drawing, because she had almost never attempted to draw anything. So it came as a big surprise when DD suddenly picked up a pen two weeks after her third birthday and started drawing. So far, she has mainly been drawing "Mummy and Caelynn standing beside Mummy" (in her words!). Here are her first few drawings:

Note that the black spots that she drew on my face aren't pimples. According to DD, those are mosquito bites on my face. I found it really funny that her first few drawings all had people with mosquito bites. I guess it reflects the "mozzie season" that we are having here in Singapore due to intense heat coupled with heavy rains every other day!


In the picture of me below, she talks about how it was very windy, hence my hair was being blown around. OK, I guess this is her impression of me - that I have messy hair most of the time!


Here's another drawing of me with DD. Thankfully, I only have one mosquito bite on my face this time. Hang on! Maybe that black dot wasn't meant to be a mosquite bite. Maybe she was drawing that nasty pimple I've had on my chin for a while. I'll have to ask her tomorrow!


And the drawing below is the most surprising drawing of the lot. Here, she draws 3 of her friends and they are "all falling down". OK, I wonder where she got that idea from! And I wonder who her 3 friends are!

Lucky Cats!

In the past few weeks since DD turned 3 years old, she has been hitting one milestone after another. :) My baby is growing up! OK, this is not exactly a milestone in itself, but after 3 years (ok, only 2 years if you consider the fact that we were away for a year with no cats!), DD has finally plucked up enough courage to touch the cats. Previously, she would not touch the cats with her bare hands and would not even want to sit beside a cat. But since last week, she has been stroking and playing with the cats everyday! Lucky cats! I don't think they have had so much love and attention ever since DS was born 5 years ago.