Updating My Blog

Lately, I'm getting lots of spam comments on my blog and I wonder if it is because of the lack of updated posts in my blog. This is a blog to update about all the fun things I do with my children but as you can see, since my Eczema flare ups, I was not in the mood to do anything with them. My mom says that I should not let my Eczema stop me from accompanying my children and that if I use that as an excuse, I am indeed selfish. She has a point there and to think that I have been so selfish all these while, thinking only of my own hands and feeling stressful and miserable about it, I need to stop all these feelings and tell myself that life should go on and that my children need me.

I'm not trying to avoid anything but I really need some time to get over this and to pick up my long lost momentum on fun learning again.

Shoes For The Page Boy

Just the other day when I was told that my son would be a page boy and I have a few days left to prepare, I called Jacss to ask her about the shoes her twins wore when they became page boy and ring bearer.


If I had more time, I would have done some online shopping for shoes but as I told Jacss, it’s a little rush and I need to get the shoes in a day or two before I attend the wedding. I quite like startriteshoes.com as it offers a great variety of shoes for boys and girls from casual to formal and the shoes look stylish and comfortable. What I like most about startriteshoes.com besides its shoes, is the community where we can get precious parents’ advice on just about anything on children and parenting.


So, for the past two days, I had been shopping for shoes. Thanks to Jacss’s suggestion, I manage to find a pair of shoes for my eldest son. It was a light brown Kickers leather shoes and I thought the shoes look right on my eldest son’s feet. Although I prefer a black pair as black could match any color, the size was just not right. My middle child was lucky enough to get a passed down pair of black leather shoes, just nice to match his black pants and vest and I hope he would make a great page boy tomorrow.

Foam Fridge Magnet

I was thinking of a craft for the children and since I have some foam in the cupboard, I thought I would use them.


So, here's a craft with foam, magnet, color pen and glittering glue stick. It's rather simple.


1) Trace your child's hand onto the foam and cut it out.

2) Stick the cut out hand shaped foam onto foam of another color and cut according to the shape leaving a space so that we can see the double layer effect.

3) Punch or cut some smaller shapes (any shapes) and glue them onto the hand shaped foam. You can use stickers if you like.

4) Write words using color pen or glittering glue stick. If your child can't write, cut out alphabets from magazines or foam and stick on it.

5) Glue magnet behind and your fridge magnet is done.

"Love brings us together" and "I'll lend you my hand" are two quotes I rather like and this would be a great gift for parents. Imagine your child telling you "I'll lend you my hand" and when you put this up on the fridge, it reminds your child of his or her promise that he or she would help you whenever possible.

All For Our Children

I guess many parents of today place importance in education and they would do anything for their children when it comes to things related to education.


When it comes to starting a new year in school, parents would bring their children for back to school shopping and children would get everything new. New uniform, new shoes, new socks, new bag, new pencil case, new pencils, new erasers and new sharpeners to start the year right. Sometimes I think children of today are really different from our generation. We don’t get everything new, do we?


When it comes to children school shoes, I always prefer to get a comfortable pair and one that is easy to wear for my children. Startriteshoes.com offers many suitable children school shoes. Usually, I would buy two pairs for each child, a pair for a week.


Startriteshoes.com has also launched a new social community, very suitable for parents like us to get some parenting advice. There are many discussion topics which I find very useful ranging from education and school to hobbies and activities, from nutrition and health to walking and crawling as well as from baby names to first shoes.


If you are a parent, be sure to join in the community and get some tips.

Subtraction

Subtraction can be easy but when a child doesn't understand the concept, it can be a problem.


One day, Wayne came to me asking me to teach him how to solve a subtraction question which his dad has given him. It was a little difficult for his age as it involves "borrow".


This is how I taught him:

The top right number represents YOU. In this case, you have 6 sweets in your pocket.


The bottom right number represents your brother (kor kor). One day, kor kor come to you and say, "Wayne, please give me 8 sweets."


Do you have enough to sweets to give him? NO!


The top left number represents mummy. So, you ran to mummy and ask mummy to lend you some sweets but mom only has sweets in packets. Each packet has 10.


So, she took one packet and give it to you.


Now, you open the packet and give kor kor 8 sweets. How many sweets are left in that packet? 2.


How many do you have in your pocket originally? 6


How many sweets in total do you have left? 8


So, that's the answer on the right (unit column).


Back to mummy, mummy has 3 packets originally but after giving you one packet, how many packets does mummy have now? 2


That's the answer on the left (tens column)


SO, your answer for 36-8 is 28.


He understood and was so eager to try the next question. Way to go, Wayne!

WiggleTime

I’m sure all of you have heard of The Wiggles, The World’s Premiere Children’s Entertainment Group but do you know that they have launched a fun and interactive online world, http://www.wiggletime.com/, just for preschooler? Parents can be sure that each game played on WiggleTime is carefully designed to help children learn cognitive, physical and social elements through play. Children learn best when they are happy and we as parents can be sure that our children are safe from any sort of bad influence as the site is ad free.



When I introduced WiggleTime to my children, they were very excited about it. What attracted them most was the red car that you as the player can ride in to go to your favorite destination. Along the way, you could see beautiful scenery. You can hop in and out of the car anytime when you see your favorite character’s house. At every destination, you would have fun playing different games and watching video clips. The games are all played in stages and it gets more difficult and challenging. A virtual toy would be presented as a reward and you get to keep it and play with it.


My eldest son finds designing the flag for the pirate ship interesting and he is obviously a person who likes art and craft. My middle child loves the herding game and the game is not as easy as you think. In this game, you have to herd the animals to their own home and you can’t get too close to the animals or they would move away from you. My youngest daughter loves to play the matching game where she gets to match the animals to the corresponding starting alphabets and she would laugh when all the animals which are successfully matched dance around.

My eldest son's favorite game

My middle child's favorite game

My little daughter's favorite game

WiggleTime caters for the parents as well. I get to see the progress report of each of my children and get lots of tips from the parent resource center. There is also a message board for us to socialize with other parents to exchange ideas and share experience in parenting. Isn't it great?


Interested? Register for free at WiggleTime.com today and get yourself started! If you want more, you could subscribe at USD6 per month and take advantage of the full potential of WiggleTime.com.


What are you waiting for? Let’s wiggle!

The Recycling Song

I'm sure most of us would talk to our children about recycling. The most commonly taught would be the 3Rs and the recycle bin.


When I talked to my children about recycling, I found that they had problems remembering which item goes into which bin and so, I made them remember by singing the recycling song.


The song goes like this:

Let us do recycling
Let us stop global warming
Thinking green in our neighborhood
Reduce reuse recycle
Brown bin glass
Blue bin paper
Orange bin plastic and aluminium

(Tune: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
(Lyrics changed and amended by yours truly)


Through songs, my children tend to learn faster. What about yours?