Sibling Rivalry

Yes, Phoebe and Reuben do fight and have their squabbles. It's normal because they will learn in the the process of quarrelling. They will learn to share or live with each other's differences. Sometimes Reuben gives in, sometimes Phoebe. Sometimes no one wants to give in, so we take away whatever that is causing the unhappiness. If not, we'll use the distraction method. Sometimes, we'll use the scolding method too, but after that, we'll try to explain to them. Reuben may not understand fully, but Phoebe does. Sometimes, Reuben shows that he cares for his sister. When Phoebe was really very upset, he will call her nicely, "Jie-jie. jie-jie?" and then offer the item (be it a ball or a toy) as an apology. If Phoebe gives in to Reuben (and let him have the item cordially), I will reward her with something, maybe a praise, a kiss, a hug, a sweet or some time to play the Ipod Touch. Sometimes after giving in to her brother, Phoebe will tell me automatically, "Mommy, just now I let di-di have the ... I didn't snatch from him." I will praise her to show my approval.

These days, when Phoebe gets upset, she'll say, "It's not fair!" and I'll tell her, "You're right. It's really not fair. Some people in other parts of the world have nothing to eat and they're fighting for food and here you're, so well-fed and adorned and you're fighting over something to play. This is really not fair to the poor people." Then that will trigger her to think and her attention is being diverted a little and she'll ask me questions about the people living in other parts of the world.

I remember just last week, this Not-Fairness issue came up again and Phoebe said, "Mommy, if other countries are poor, Singapore can help them." And then I responded, "Yes, Singapore does give help to countries that need help. But in Singapore herself, there are poor people too."
"Then other countries can help Singapore." "Yes, but we ourselves can help the poor too. We don't have to wait for other countries to help us. We should help our own people first."
I hope that the discussion will help her to not to be so narrow-minded.

Sometimes sibling squabbles are not that bad. Though we strongly discourage it, we do not stop them from happening. What is more important is that, the children must learn something out of the squabbles and their matters must always be resolved harmoniously. Sometimes, Phoebe will complain that Reuben did not say sorry when he was in the wrong. I would explain that Reuben did not really know how to say sorry yet and I would tell him to apologise when he knows how to do it the next time. When Phoebe knew that I understood her dismay, she felt better and accepted the fact that her brother was still young. I will also use simple language to educate Reuben, in the presence of Phoebe, of his wrong doing. By doing this, it will help to educate Reuben and also appease Phoebe. Parents must play a part in explaining and mediating. That's a very important process to help them to learn and grow.

I'm still learning, and my children are helping me to learn day by day :)

Do not be alarmed when you see this clip. They played peacefully after this was recorded :)


Phoebe played with the princess boat and Reuben played with his favourite elephant.

Reuben is Reading

I've mentioned before that Reuben love this book from Joy Readers (EdVenture is having their annual discount from now till 1 May 2010. If you're interested in getting, you can let me know!). We read that book to him often and he has memorised the book. Memorising is also part of the skill to literacy development. Now, Reuben is able to "read" on his own. One evening before bedtime, his Jie-jie guide him in reading his own bedtime story. Watch Reuben reading. :)

:
Run, run, run.
Ow!
A wash,
a plaster,
a hug from mum.
I feel better.
Run, run, run.

Water Boy

Reuben is a natural water baby. You can put him in the water with a ring float and he'll move around at ease. He can enjoy himself for a long time. He kicks and paddles in the water without being taught. He mentions going to-ming (swimming) every day. When he is in the water, he sings:

All the fishes

Swimming in the water

Swimming in the water

Bubble bubble bubble bubble
Splash!

Phoebe is the opposite. She's a little rabbit. She's afraid of water even when she has the ring float. After floating in the water for a while, she will complain that her arms are very tired because the ring float is on her armpits, pushing her arms up, causing them to be very strained. She gets very agitated when she realised that her feet cannot touch the bottom of the pool. Haha.

They're just so different :) But that makes them very interesting :)

Meet the Water Boy!

Ixora For Mommy

Phoebe came home from grandparents' place with a small bouquet of Ixora in her hand. "Mommy, this is for you!" So sweet. I used that opportunity to add 2 words into her vocabulary - Ixora and bouquet :)

A Serious Worker

A serious worker she is, at her desk, doing her Chinese homework, with her 3 H-es and good posture.

Phoebe at her desk, doing her Chinese homework.

Phoebe's Scrap Book

Since Term 2 of this year, I've introduced the concept of a scrap book to Phoebe. Initially, I wanted to do a recipe book with her but I thought that a recipe book might be a little restrictive while she can record much more activities in a scrap book. She likes to call it her scratch book and she would do the action of scratching whenever we're going to do some writing on it. I just want to use this means to encourage her to develop a love for writing and expressing herself. I also thought it is a good way for her to put her words into print. So whenever we have done an activity, we would record it down into her scrap book. It's like a mini MLEA book. Let me introduce her work to you :)


Front Cover and Back Cover

I bought an A4 size Biology book for her. To beautify it, we used a previous printing art work done by Phoebe to wrap the book up. We cut the letterings from magazines and Phoebe paste the letterings onto her scrap book. The photograph was a gift from Auntie Nia. She took the picture of Phoebe when we went to Genting last June. To enhance it further, Phoebe stuck some of her stickers on the cover page.


Phoebe wrote the sentence "I Love Mom" all by herself without any guidance. She could spell it all. Then she started drawing some shapes which I thought she must have learnt it from school. She was revising what she had learnt from school and demonstrated it in her scrap book. I have insisted that she had to write date on every piece of writing. It's good to cultivate date-writing habit.


We brought Phoebe to watch a Chinese performance, The Ugly Duckling. She documented it down. She was very excited about doing her scrap book. I did quite a lot of scaffolding, asking her many questions and sounding out the spelling for her. Initially, I had wanted her to write neatly on the narrow lines. Then I realised that she started to get tired and a little frustrated of rewriting, just to keep to the convention of writing on the lines. I suddenly realised that I was killing her interest in writing and the flow of her ideas became constipated when we get too meticulous in writing on the line. So I stopped immediately and allow her to just write down her thoughts without bothering writing on the line. She became enthusiastic about writing again and she even wanted to draw a picture of her sleeping position on the bed : Papa, Phoebe, Mommy and Reuben (and all her little toys). I'm glad that she's enjoying herself :)


We went to SKMC's Easter Party and Phoebe had a good time. We also invited our neighbour's little girl for the party. All the children received presents/ goodie bags. She didn't like spelling out her date "April" so I let her write her dates in numbers in the subsequent entries.


We went to a Pyjamas Party last year. This picture was taken FOC during the party. It has been on our piano, so I thought it will be better to stick it in Phoebe's scrap book rather than letting it lying on the piano collecting dust. Again, a lot of scaffolding was done, e.g. tenses - wear/wore and sounding out the spelling. She also refered to her previous entries for the spelling of familiar words such as "I, went, to, a and party". I did not spell for her but encouraged her to find these reoccuring words in her previous entries.

Phoebe's school took the children to a performance. Their school will usually organise one outing to watch a performance once a year. I wish they could organise more, but then maybe the school was sensitive enough to consider the financial constrain of some of the other children. Phoebe came back very excited about the performance. She told a little of it, in bits and pieces of information. She also had a big poster and her entrance ticket. She stuck it in her scrap book and I encourage her to write about it. Lots of scaffolding and questioning but a worthwhile piece of writing.

We made bread pizza in the March school holidays this year. So I thought it will be good to help her refresh her memory on the steps of making bread pizza. Hence we did a recipe. Some of the words are too big and long for her to spell e.g. pineapple, mozzerella cheese. Hence, to make it easier for her, I printed the words out and she could do some pasting. I was afraid that she'll be frustrated spelling the long words and lose her interest. Key : Not to kill her interest! She arranged the sequence of the pictures according to the steps. Then we wrote the steps down. She kept rereading the previous steps before she pen down the next. I thought it was very good because it shows that she is trying to get the flow of ideas.


Just recently, we explored the Gallop Stable. It was the first time Phoebe did horse riding so she wanted to document it down. There were some factual information in her writing this time. She was able to tell me that a horse lives in a stable and eats hay. In city Singapore, we hardly get to see a stable, so it was good lesson learnt.


Phoebe told me that she wanted to draw a picture in her scrap book. I told her, "Why not? Okay, what do you want to draw?" and she did this. I asked her, "why is there only one cloud in the sky?" She said, "Everything is only one in this picture. One flower, one sun, one cloud, one cookie, one apple, one carrot, one Phoebe, one Reuben...etc". Suddenly, I had an idea. I told her, "Wow, you have one in everything. It's like a poem. One sun, one cloud, one cookie... Why don't you write it down because when you put all the words together, they sound so good." So Phoebe wrote her first poem and we named it "One Story". I asked her if she wants to call it "The One Poem" but she said she prefers calling it a story. Hence I respected her decision since afterall, it was her work, she was the poet and the auther. :) So ta-dah! Phoebe's first poem "One Story".

So here's Phoebe's scrap book. She loves doing her scrap book and she loves to read what she has written. She is able to read all the words she had written in her scrap book. She's very proud of her own work and her scrap book is very precious to her. I'm very proud of my little girl too! :)

Head Heart and Hands

Since Phoebe is already in K1, she has been getting some homework from her school.

Monday - Mathematics
Wednesday - Chinese
Friday - English

It is usually one or two pages. I thought the amount of homework is appropriate and the challenge level is manageable. The children has been taught what to do. It keeps her a little busy in grandma's place and at home.

Whenever Phoebe is doing her school work at home, I always make sure that she sits properly at her desk, with both legs under the table. I always tell her that she needs to do her homework with the 3 H-es. She must do her homework with her Head because she needs to think about what she's doing. She needs to do her homework with her Hands, one hand to be placed on the book and the other hand will hold the pencil. Lastly, she must do her work with all her Heart. It is then, she will be able to do it well.

I've seen many children doing their work with their heads and hands, but not with their heart. They do it any way they like and they do not put in effort. I hope Phoebe will not become like one of them. Hence, when comes to written work, I am very strict with her. If she writes in an untidy manner, I will erase and make sure she redo again. And I always remind her to do her work with her Head, her Hands and her Heart.

Last night when she did her Mathematics homework, she told me about the 3 H-es. I was pleased to hear her reiterating it. I hope this reminder will be stuck in her head and etched in her heart forever :) She's my baobei precious girl and I love her sooo MUCH! :)

What's Reuben Saying

Reuben is at the two-word stage. Some of the two-word phrases he can say are : open door, open box, papa shoe, papa car, thank you, see you, bye bye, choo-choo train, cut hair, mommy please, no more etc. Occasionally, you can hear him articulating short 3-word sentences. We've heard him saying to his grandma, "Mama, papa coming." Whenever his papa goes to the carpark to get the car, Reuben will say, "Papa, take car."

Reuben is also able to articulate 2 to 3 syllabic words. Among which are : umbrella, animal, elephant, banana, aeroplane, gorilla, crocodile etc. He loves animals and is able to name many animals and make their sound. For example, pig oink, horse neigh, cow moo, sheep baa, lion roar, monkey *woo-woo*, duck quack, crocodile snap, snake *sss*, dog woof, cat meow etc. The other animals that he can name are hippo, rhino, turtle, camel, donkey, fish, bird, rabbit, crocodile, deer etc.

Reuben is able to count from 1 to 20, with one or two numbers missing in between. When he counts to 13, he will say, "Thirteen! Mama house" because that's how we count when we're in the lift and his grandma lives in 13th floor.

He can name some colours such as yellow, purple, green, red, blue, pink, black, orange etc but he only names them. He is not really able to identify them specifically except pink, green and red. The rest, we have yet to teach or discover from him.

For body parts, he can identify and articulate eyes, nose, mouth, ears, head, hair, feet, hands, tummy and face.

For the alphabet, we've not assessed him, so we really do not know what he knows. When Phoebe was two, she already knows her alphabet, colours and counting to twenty. With Reuben, we're just too lax in teaching him. Maybe with two kids, our attention are divided or maybe we're just too distracted with other things. So mommy, papa, we must buck up! No share king! (our private joke) Haha :)

Nevermind, he's a happy boy and we're happy parents :) No stress! :)

Gallop Stable

We chanced upon this place for horse riding and we decided to explore it. It's called the Gallop Stable @ Pasir Ris. It was not difficult to find as it was very near to Pasir Ris Park. The place was small but clean and well-kept. The horses look healthy and clean. With animals around, it was inevitable to see some flies around but they were harmless. Phoebe had a chance to ride on the horse for her first time. She really enjoyed it very much, though her facial expression did not say so. For ten dollars, the child gets to go around the stable once. It took them about 7-10 minutes to complete one round, so it was pretty fast. Reuben was too young for the ride though he wanted very much to try. Then we bought 2 packs of hay bits ($1 each) for the children to feed the pony. I was very pleased that they were not afraid at all. Two of them just dished out their handful of hay bits for the pony to feed on. Phoebe learnt that the place for a horse to live in was called a stable. We stayed there for about half an hour or so before proceeding to our usual Pasir Ris Park for their favourite swing ride :) We like the horse stable and will definitely pop by there again before going to Pasir Ris Park in future :)

:
:
Phoebe really enjoyed the horse riding though her expression did not say much about it. They also like to feed the pony. Phoebe said she love horses :) Mommy too :)

Bye Bye, See You

This is Reuben's reaction after the Sesame Street show has ended. He does it whenever the words get roll out. :) Every time I watch this video clip in school, I always misses him and want to go home to hug him! :) Such a cuttie boy :)

Bus Ride

Phoebe and Reuben love to take bus rides. Whenever I mention about taking buses, they will get very excited. They also love to take the LRT because they are able to see the scenery. I would let them take the LRT to go round Seng Kang so that they can have a bird's eye view.

Oops! Undesirable behaviour... :p