Review: Jane Means' Gift Wrapping Workshop

On the first day of August, I had the privilege to attend Jane Means' Gift Wrapping Workshop. I got to relearn some of the skills I left behind for many years.

I no bluff. I was an excellent gift wrapper. I loved dong it and I could wrap a present beautifully with minimum 3 pieces of scotch tapes, just to seal the edges of the wrapping paper over the gift. Before I learnt about the use of double sided tapes, I could hide those scotch tapes if I wanted to(you probably know how). At one time, I was obsessed with fancy gift wrapping papers and I collected lots of them. Who doesn't like pretty things? I made good use of them for embellishing a bookmark or a card, or gift wrapping. I was good with pleating wrapping technique after seen it in a mall's gift-wrapping service corner. For many years, I have books' and dictionary's covers protected by beautiful wrapping papers. These days, I do more of impressing my daughter by recycling a page of Kikki K's catalogue into an envelop, neatly.

But I am not good with ribbon tying. Terrible, terrible, terrible. If you see one bow perfectly tied by me, it must be my lucky day!

So usually my gifts were without ribbon and bow.

Pearl Beans (aka Cranberry Beans) and Corn Soup

Peeling off the pod of pearl beans are great for training toddlers' fine motors skill, as well as mathematic lesson for primary schooler- counting, grouping; addition and multiplication.

My daughters love the work involving these beans, I always get help volunteering in peeling off and extracting the beans. Little Bomber first laid her hands on the beans when she was about 3. She was probably attracted to the beautiful appearance of the bean pods.

They love to consume the soup that is boiled with these beans too.

As I surfing in the internet, it is also called cranberry bean,

Ingredients:

• 200g of cranberry beans
• 1 ear of fresh corn (or two, if you wish for more sweetness from the corn)
• 250-300g of pork ribs
• some red dates (optional) - Or carrot
• 1500ml of water
• salt to taste

Transforming Grape Stem Into a Tree

One day, after disconnected a bunch of grapes from the stem and passed the fruits to the girls to eat...

I saw a naked tree in my palm.
So, a wild attempt to let the girls have some fun began-

Paint a Tree
First | bend some parts of the stem a little outwards, just to make it like a tree branches.
Second | washi tape to stick the stem on the drawing paper, randomly.
Third | get ready with brushes, colouring palette, water, some water colours,
           mainly green, blue and yellow, just to get different shapes of green
Fourth | Fun dipping begins!
            Various of green- light green, dark green, lime, teal, mint, etc dip onto paper.
       

Lastly | Complete the background as you like.

Visually, it gives an impact to the little minds on the transformation possibility of an object. Technically, it allows the little hands to experience the dipping technique and how blue and yellow can form variety of green. Again, the infinite possibility of forming own's green.

Of course, you can try other shapes of colour.

Making Props for Voyage of Dreams: Only Believe.

When I thought I lost the ability to play with colours,
Sarah of The Playful Parents assigned me to make some props.

Making props, by using recycled cardboards. Specifically mentioned by Sarah

I interpreted as, "Do painting with cardboard, aunty!"

Life, should call back those colours to befriend with me once again!

I took it up without much thought of my packed schedule. 

It was only two months later (like somewhere three weeks ago?), I started to paint.

Of course, how can I miss the opportunity to let the girls have some fun too?

Play. Love. Bond., below is one of their joint-effort of work.
I did the final touch-up. Little here, and little there.

Surprisingly, Little Bomber has a good sense of brushing and mixing colour.
Jiejie, on the other hand, learnt dipping her coloured brush for the first time from her mum.

All the fun was done in between time. (I don't really have time)

Layer by layer. Sign after sign.

Play. Love. Bond. One of my favourite here.

The more I do, the more I get hang of it.

Something extraordinary happened last night.

The welcome mat in MamaJ's Natural History Museum popped into my mind.

All the sudden, I had a strong urge to try out her's way of painting.

I shaped the letters with washi tape, double checked the spelling.
Then held the brush and ran wild with rainbow colours over the words.

In the end, the rainbow sign put a smile on my face.

'Cause it is very much telling myself that, the skill of playing with colour is back. 

So is the ability of stirring brain juice for new attempt!

We're the Playful Parents, inspired by MamaJ.

Coming Sunday, 13 October 2013,

come join the fun of Voyage of Dreams: Only Believe at Central Library (Bugis)
(click for more detail)

It is FREE Event.

And PLEASE, take one or two signs from the Photo Booth to snap away!
(Even if you don't like it, give some face, ok?) 

Her First Doodle

Unlike her big sister, Little Bomber had her reservation towards arts, paints in particular when I attempt to introduce her arts exploratory. She was not exciting about it at all. She showed her hesitation when she saw a range of colours displayed in front of her, as if she is going to be attacked by them!

She would frowned when she sees her hands hits patches of little beautiful red or yellow, as if they are trying to be funny and mar her soft silky skin. She whined further and fiercely if I had ignored her and tried to persuade her to stay a little longer with colours and doodles. It's killing her, both stubborn mum and messiness (on her). She doesn't see them as nice and fun as any other toys she plays with.

I think I grumbled about this more than once. I admired how little Girlee enjoyed her self in Art Bug. Little Bomber was unable to complete the session (forgotten was it 30 mins) that costed me $45 painfully. You know, going to such setting for such attempt is like getting a diagnose on your child that, "she failed in communicating with arts".

After that, I paused, from further explore the fun to dip brushes and colours. Well, more of no time for me to think about it.

Until one of the evening two weeks ago. The big sister had an impromptu discovery, she dug out the set of mini-portrait of snow white and requested permission to paint. Very quickly, she saw and quietly followed what her big sister did. For the first time, she has no problem with paints, no frown or whine to her blueish hand that doodled by her big sister. Pure concentration.

I observed, smiling, quietly grabbing my phone and snapping the moment.

I would like to announce that, she is able to communicate with arts, in her own way.

What do you see? It is pinned on the notice board.

When the child is unwell, we learn Q for Quilt

Jiejie has not been unwell for the longest time.

It was probably the rain on Saturday triggered her sensitive lungs and caught a cold. Hence started coughing again yesterday morning, feverish in the middle of last night. She burst into tears since then, telling us she was in great pain. I had no choice but to absent at work again, for different reason though.

Anyway, after visited doctor early in the morning and slept through till lunch time. She seems so much better and started to request if she could go back to her class again in the afternoon. How can? Childcare leave counted as 1 full day, no half day, my dear. I then realised that she has no interest to sleep again. Her eyes were wide opened starring at the ceiling. I tried to avoid the television show for her. So I dug out Jann's Phonics' material and flipped. Decided to do the activity for 'Q for Quilt'. 

First, craft work: Paste cloth (alternate pattern) on soft cloth as quilt. 3 X 4 pieces of fabric, contributed by Jann and my limited fabric stash. But I improvised and let Jiejie had a little fun to sew it like a patchwork with the sewing machine. She was very enthusiasm at the beginning but died off half way of sewing. Can't really blame her, she ain't her usual self. I completed the work in the end.  

Second, story time on The Magic Quilt. She was happy and into this: Get ready duck headband, queen's crown and the craft quilt. I read the storyline that was prepared by Jann. Jiejie insisted to be the Queen and so, Little Bomber is the ducky... the one without the noisy quacking. 

• Once upon a time, there was a farmer with a group of duckies (put duck headband on child). 
• But there is one little duck that quack very loud and will lead the other duckies to quack all day long. (Child to quack... and quack...). They were never quiet. 
• One day, the farmer was tired and he needed a Quiet peaceful rest. He yelled, "QUIET! QUIET! STOP QUACKING!" But the duckies continue to quack. (Child to quack... and quack...). 
• While the duckies were noisily quacking away, a Queen (Mummy put on the crown) passed by. She heard the quacking and wanted to help the farmer. 
• The queen took out a Magic Quilt (the craft quilt) and told the farmer that if he raise up the quilt, the duckies would keep quiet. So the queen raised the quilt up and the duckies stopped quacking and were QUIET! (Prompt child by putting fingers on lips) But when she took the quilt down, they started to quack noisily again (Child to quack... and quack...). The queen again raised the quilt up and the duckies kept quiet.
• Finally, the farmer hung the quilt in the farm and the duckies stopped quacking. At last, the farm was quiet again and the farmer can have a good quiet rest so everyone is very happy.

Thirdly, pretend-play: used the craft quilt to cover Jiejie, pat her and sing "Are you sleeping". At the same time, I pat Little Bomber too. I usually don't pat them to sleep, but I reckon this time 1 was just taken the medicine & the other kid was tired, both dozed off at 4 plus in the afternoon.

Her condition was rather like riding on a roller coaster. She became teary after dinner and cranky. "No" was the only word I don't wish to hear more but she kept repeating it. Somehow, when she is ill, it also means both of us on EQ test. It was a busy day on remote desktop connection and 2 kids, thank God that MIL is here to help around. As she's got sensitive lungs, I began her Ventolin and Flixotide puffers to ease her breathing.

Let's hope that she will be better tomorrow.

Side note... I am now game into making a proper quilt like expert Yvette:o)...

I Went for Phonics Class

I understand that, there is more than one way to help young children to read, probably Phonics is one of them. Before I was a mum, I personally see how well phonics helped my young cousins to decode the sounds for each letter, learn and assimilate word. They were able to read out loud on Peter and Jane series at preschool stage. I know nuts about phonics. I struggled in learning English by memorizing hard on each and every new vocabulary. [That explains the standard of language here;)]

On the other hand, the childcare center of Jiejie doesn't offer a structured phonics lesson to kids. I realised that their curriculum is science based and provide a literacy programme to build children's vocabulary in English Language. In a way, Jiejie is kind of taking her own sweet time to learn listening, speaking, reading, spelling and writing, prior to her Primary 1 next year.

So she joined into "I Can Read" programme in the beginning of the year. I have to guide her in doing those weekly homework. It is usually just 2 or 3 pages of identifying and colouring exercise and I just need to do a little help to prompt her on the sound of letter. Often, I fail to differentiate the sound of "A" and "E". I started to pay very serious attention to hear Jolly phonic in youtube, repeatedly, till I wonder, am I too old for phonics?... It was somewhat embarrassing. 

Coincidentally, SL, Jiejie's classmate's mum, shared with me about Phonics by Jann, a course for parents. At the same time, I thought it would be good to learn about fun learning session at home effectively. Not only will it benefit Jiejie, but also to Little Bomber in future.

When I first called Jann, she listened to my background and my daughter's learning pace pretty carefully. She sounded like a doctor and diagnosed "my case" immediately over the phone. I then followed-up with an email on the detail of the course. She managed to slot me in the earlier class she could find for me, knowing that my girl is pretty much behind in term of able to read and write. Anyway, to cut the story short, I signed up and became Jann's student.[reasonable price and distance]

Jann is a SAHM and was a pre-school teacher previously. I reckoned that's why she is able to outline her course in a structured manner, creatively and comprehensively cover the phonics from A to Z. She provides craft material for every letter, and each letter consist of 2 sets of lesson plans. Frankly, I can't imagine how she produced all the material by duplicating, cutting, sorting and packing. On top of that, she emailed us the videos on songs as part of the lesson plan every week, prior to our class with her. There are at least 6 of us for every class I attended. She must be a very well organised person!

In the lesson plan, by combining flashcard, craftwork, story-telling, singing song and a magic bag with objects that starts with the letter, it makes the home-learning truly fun and meaningful. In addition to that, she also shared tips on effective strategies in prompting using phonics, spelling, stages of reading, writing ideas and how to encourage creativity and meaningful ways that lead to children self-learning. To her, age 3 is the appropriate time to start phonics and slowly guide the child at home. Once the child is familiar with the sounds for all letters, mummy should apply phonics sound to prompt child for spelling. If the child is unable to spell out the word after prompting, we are to write down what the child spell so that they can see what they are combining the letters and form the word. What she believes is that, if the child is being taught effectively and knows how to spell many words by 4 or 5 (depending on the child's progress), together with regular reading, it can lead to early writing. Once a child can spell, read and write by 6 years old, the likelihood is that tuition is not needed during P1 and P2. The child will be able to self-learn, perhaps with some help from parents.

Sounds pretty attractive to me! Jann's lesson plan is a great resource to re-start our home-learning. Jiejie likes it! She often ask if there is any craftwork for her to do. However, I can't afford to spend longer than 15 mins with her on one full lesson plan as I tend to run into kitchen, or Little Bomber, or some other chores at home. Fortunately, she is mature enough to do the craftwork independently while I'm 5 or 10 mins away from her.

You can see more on the fun home-learning through Winny's sharing:).

Letter N - Craftwork on colouring macoroni and make necklace.

Seeing that she is enjoying her learning journey, so I have to be consistent with her on the lesson plan provided by Jann. As I always have pockets of time, I alter Jann's lesson plan by doing more on craftwork (skipping the part on letter tracing, flashcard and magic bag) and cultivate the prompting habit on her to assimilate words.  Sometimes she would frown and request me to stop prompting her; other times she guided me through instead. I admit that I need to brush up my skill on phonics prompting. 

At night, we continue our routine on reading too (10-15 mins). Jann advised us to read books with interesting storyline. Interesting storybooks with repeated words or sentences are very helpful for memory reading. The stages of reading from 'Read-To' to 'Read-With' progress will be able to guide the child to learn the pronunciation and visually absorb the words and capture the word as we read to or with them. Eventually, the child will be interested to read on his/her own. 

Scholastic book: This is the Way We Take a Bath.

These days, we try to distract her from iPad to do other activities at home. I reckon several exposures in learning (through childcare, enrichment and home-learning) has build her word bank as well as confidence. She's now attempting to self-read as well as write her own story. Recently, she re-read book 4A and into 5A of Peter and Jane Series. It is heartening to see her progress well.

***************************

The course will be featured in Straits Times soon and I got the chance to be interviewed about the course. But when the journalist asked me (over the phone) why did I take up the course at the very first place. I didn't answer her fully.

If you ask me... I would say, I'm greedy and try to learn as much as I can to inspire my child in learning, similar to my new attempts in sewing and cooking/baking. Life seems more interesting with all sort of learning. I try not to sub-contract the responsibility to all kind of so-called professional tuition and other services in future, which leads to her possibility to rely on others to learn and to explore her curiosity. Also, through the phonics materials given by Jann, I dirty my hands in the mud to deal with her attitude and temper on doing the writing, cutting, pasting and drawing. Sometime, a session of the home-learning does harsh her mellow. Or mine. 

I'll deal with that part slowly. 

If possible, I want to send the message to her that, if I can do it, so can she, in anything that we want to. Of course, you may say that, go do something harder and inspire her!

An Attempt at Starry Night

A little space of our home.

Showcasing family portraits and lego sets built by Jiejie and a big help from daddy.

A console in the living hall, to be precise.

Somehow, I forgotten how was it before.

The canvas painting is newly hung on the wall.
Jiejie's attempt at Van Gogh's Starry Night.

She did it through a 2-hours free trial in 1 of the art centre in United Square.

(we just need to pay $12 for the canvas)

Somehow, it brights up the space.

I want to cherish the artwork as much as I can!

It is now featured in A Dollop of My Home Series by Corsage.

She is doing an awesome job in collating and showcasing homes of others.

I always look forward to every Friday to the series. 

While enjoying the simple yet incredible ideas of others for their home,
It gives me inspiration not to stop creating a unique corner of my home. 
And I totally agree with her that,

"It is so much inspiration and encouragement to ordinary home-owners like my self who don't have access to top-notch designers and furnishings."

Do hop over to see and enjoy the lovely effort from every home-owner.

And Corsage is always welcome you to send in a picture or two of your home to join the series:).

Wish you a great weekend, by the way! 

our tree is up!

I get tired easily these days.

Nevertheless, I managed to have something to fill my twosome time with little bud. SC returned to Kulim/Penang for a wedding invitation last weekend.

Thanks to Evelyn for sharing this link: Christmas Tree Wall Decoration. It was fun making it.

source

I managed to grab her interest from paper selection in the morning to cutting and folding the papers during night time while we were watching the movie UP. With her little helps and noise, I almost gave up of folding 20 pieces of reds and greens.

I was drained thereafter and had a great sleep.

But after putting everything up to the wall and looking at her smile, it worth the effort!
she did not forget to tell daddy that, the tree is a 'surprise' to celebrate his return.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

her camera

been wanting to post her best ever creation: camera.

Sc bought him self a new dslr in Jan '09. Somehow, it inspired my daughter to build her own camera with her lego set. She even think of 'opening' a hole in the middle of her structure to see through and 'ci-ca'!! both of them... oh, no... THREE of us were holding cameras and snapped on each other *grin*. We all had a great time!

She makes my life so sweet! 

credits: all from akizo designs except, paper from SusanBohanonSpring and wordart from "With Passion" by Sev

handmade soap

I did what mama Ade taught step by step... except the glitter part. Looking around my limited resources and time, i replaced with pandan leave inside the soap, at the very last minutes of thought.

Outcome is, the small little piece of pandan leave smell is stronger than the lavender essential oil.

credits: paper from Amy Sumrall & Michelle Coleman, present doodles fr Angelica, stamp fr Heidi Williams (W&W).

Ingredients: glycerine soap, food colouring, surgical spirits, lavender essential oil, pandan leave

Thank you mama Ade for her kind sharing:).

simply Christmas

My daughter and I simply enjoyed this Christmas. She learnt and had fun...

credits: paper fr Bohemian Art, frame fr Joanne Bain Designs, alpha fr Heidi Williams & brush fr Heidi Williams(W&W), christmas tree fr Michelle Coleman (LDD).

Thanks to Mama Ade and 4malmal's inspiration, we made soap as gifts to my colleagues and she painted her own Christmas tree for our new house this year.

I am nailed the image as stingy mum, i know. but in both do-it-yourself way of welcoming a festive, I see a pure childhood of my old days in her, simply fun, interestingly, creatively. I believe so, jolly. And I think I manage to reduce shopping (again) and hopefully earth friendly as well.

I wish I can repeat this simplicity to her again in next festive, next Christmas.
anyhooo... I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

credits: paper fr Angelica E., embellishment fr Lori Barnhurst & brush from Heidi Williams

(to be continued...btw, im sorry for late posting of this entry, i thank & love the comments in my previous entry and just realise that i have been posting food for this whole month, unbelievable...)