Simple Readers

Reading from a new set of books. I love these "Wo Hui Du" Readers as they have large words and it helps that the books only have around 10 to 12 pages each. Easy to go thru'.

These books build on the vocabulary he already is familiar with after having gone through the Wink-to-Learn DVD Flashcard programme, just that the same words are presented in phrases & sentences.

He was so super-tickled by the waterfall though! Really funny.

Puzzles

Saw a number of very suitable simple puzzles at a Popular Fair. They came with words which JR is familiar with. So the puzzles are great reinforcement for matching shapes & words.

Of the 3 sets I got (yea S$4.90 each), JR seems to like the shapes set the best:

Ah, JR likes eating the star too! Haha!

JR's also familiar with the words on this "Colours" set, and he did play with it some, but not as much as with the "Shapes" set.


The 3rd set is one on Animals. This set does not have any words on them. There was a set with words but the graphics were tacky to me (*urgh*!), so after much deliberation, I selected this instead. So I "DIY'd".

I came home and did abit of "homework" on it. I used my Dynamo handheld labeller and printed out the words for it, so now it looks like this.

As for storage...I had this brainwave. *haha* I thought the puzzles would be great in those A4-box files, so I rummaged thru' my "store" of used box files. Yah, they are just perfect for the job!

So everything's neat & dandy. Won't lose those bits now.

Trip to Bank II

Baby is forever making trips to the bank with me. LOL.

Outside the bank, there was a new coin-operated ride. A little merry-go-round of 3 little vehicles, and all of them were JUST perfectly JR's size!

And I hadn't even realised until a long while later that JR was actually in a "bus"! He LOVES buses!

On Twos

He's done bouts of 4 or 5 steps unaided this weekend. Ah, but only when he's in the mood to do so!

And it's too difficult to "catch the moments".

Colours

Chanced upon this Barney Kiddy Ride on my trip to Daiso this morning. Since JR loves the Baby Bop and Barney book (interestingly he hates the Barney videos), I let him sit and play for a while.

Ever exploiting any "educational" opportunities, I took the chance to point out to him in Chinese that there's a Purple Barney, a Green Baby Bop, and a Yellow BJ. *hehe*.

Life Cycle

JR loves Eric Carle's Very Hungry Caterpillar book

He just loves to make this butterly "fly" by "flapping" the 2 ends of the pages at the end of the book. Thankfully it's a board book so fairly tough.

And...haha - did he figure out the life cycle of a caterpillar? This was a new book that I got him. A caterpillar book. He took a look at it and picked it up:

...And went STRAIGHT for the last page?!!!! And started "flapping" it.

So for his birthday, I got this cake made for him.

Thanks to Mong's Cakes, who did JR's FULL-Month Cakes too!

Rat Race

JR was so super-excited at these rats, trying to catch them.

The aim of this zoo trip was just to bring him to see the horses being groomed.

...but we also saw the giraffes having a feed

...and learnt that flamingos have "pink milk"

Swing

Why is "Swing" called 秋千('qiu qian' in Mandarin) and 千秋('cin1 cau1' in Cantonese). I was so confused as to which whether I should refer to the swing as Qian Qiu or Qiu Qian as I usually speak in Mandarin to baby.

I was confused as I was thinking of the "cin cau" term that I used in my childhood days. It really is the opposite. Grrr... my older kids were laughing at me. ;p

Baby especially enjoys swinging. He has watched this on both the Wink-to-Learn DVDs as well as the Sing-to-Learn DVDs (in the songs & videos), so talking to him using the sentences & phrases from the videos help reinforce his vocabulary as he plays!

Bossy!

You know who you're dealing with or not?!

Time to recharge. I will wake in 10minutes ... and you will be tasked to put me BACK to recharge mode.

Flu Circus

Kids were getting sick one after the other. *sigh* Baby wasn't spared. The virus is sure ferocious. All who fell sick were really out & down for a few days. Baby started having high fever yesterday. The fever was quite unrelenting, continuing until today, but it eased off by this afternoon. The powers of breastfeeding. Whew! In the meantime, it sure wasn't comfortable carrying this little fireball! Hot, hot, hot! He hated that fever patch, he hated sleeping on the cold cushion.

Could this be h1n1? In all probability. H1n1 is already a community illness. Docs don't ask patients to be tested, and we didn't insist.

Reading Chinese

Yes, he can recognise Chinese characters too!

I was sceptical about flashcards, but with the convenience of DVD flashcard programmes these days, it just seemed like it was no harm to try.

I just tested him. Am amazed! Started him with the DVD flashcards at 5mths. He's 11mths now. He's never seen these words before other than on the WinktoLearn DVDs.

After having gone through the "Wink-to-Learn"(WTL) DVDs, I must say that this WTL and the "Your Baby Can Read"(YBCR) series are currently the best in quality of the DVD programmes available in stores now. YBCR has a much longer programme but once the baby is happy with the show, often he gets used to it and love bouncing along with the songs and short phrases. For babies with short attention span, the WTL would be most suitable. Being a "flash" programme, it flashes 10 words in a short 2-minute lesson. Just show that 1 lesson or if your baby has a longer attention span, then 2 lessons each day, and show those same 1 or 2 lessons for 7 days in a row. Very quick and simple process. Then change to another 1 or 2 new lessons for the next 7 days.

For WTL, both the English & Chinese programmes are similar. I took a video of 1 lesson of English while Baby JR was watching it this morning, just so as to time how long 1 lesson is - 2:04min exactly. Most lessons are similar in duration, so if you think it's a drugery to show a DVD flashcard programme, think again!

Healthy Eating

Moderation is the key. Too much healthy foods, too much fibre and too little fat is not good for children.

Very interesting article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3856699.ece
Too much healthy eating is as bad for children as too much junk

Rollerblading Babes

Hai, now I wish I could go rollerblading!

Dot Dots

Started JR on Math Dot Cards this week. Not sure if he is too old for this. Difficult to have him stay still and focus for long at this age. Thankfully, they only require flashing of the dot cards for a very short while, but even that seems challenging to do with a 11-month-old.

Incidentally, the cards fit very well into our MIM sling plastic bags. Quite useful for holding only what I need for the timebeing - only need like 20 cards at a time.

I bought these Math Dot Cards from a local website:
www.kidsbook.sg

This website seems quite useful:
http://www.childandme.com/how-teach-your-child-math-glenn-domans-dot-method/

Ba-Ba

That's the limit of his vocal ability. Almost everything is "Baa". *haha* Butterfly, bird, banana, bus... although thankfully, the variation comes in "Ma-ma-my" and "merk". and he can say "Hi".

The "kan-cheong" baby couldn't wait. Banana still in it's skin and he still chomps on it!


I'm so often hungry these days, so sharing a banana with him is such a perfect snack. Clean, doesn't need to be cooked, nutritious, and somewhat filling. ;-)

Bus

Buses sure do grab his attention!


See how excited he is when he sees a bus approach?


And yeah, he recognises the word!

That means I always try to walk past the bus-stop and show him the big "Bus" words on the boards. haha.

Kids in Play

Kids playing in a violin competition in China

Trip to Bank

As part of this morning's "entertainment", JR followed me to the Bank. Along the way, he saw the Tasmanian Devil & Bob the Builder. I'm not sure why he's so fascinated with their faces.





We changed his car seat yesterday (yeah, he's 11mths old...time to upgrade). So far, he's been fairly happy. The new car seat offers him a much better view of his surroundings, and the view outside the car. He just LOVES seeing buses! And yes, he LOVES to study books.

I love this Maxi-Cosi carseat. It has very thoughtfully-placed clips at the side of the seat for us to hang the baby's toys. Ah, and I succumbed to buying that small hungry caterpillar (Eric Carle) book sometime back bc JR simply LOVES it!

After dropping by the bank, we went to the supermarket and visited loads of apples. Gee, there were South African APPLES (yeah, the word "APPLES" are so clearly printed on the packages), Fiji Apples, Japanese Apples, and I don't know whatever other country. Hey, it's sure cosmopolitan in that supermart! PINK apples...ever seen them? Actually their colouration is more like Rainbow Mangoes. I'm so unexciting. I simply grabbed a tray of organic Gala Apples.

Organic Apples are really tasty, and these were so soft that all I needed to do was cut them into smaller sizes and JR could chew them up himself. He's got 8 teeth and another 2 more on the way. Hai, I didn't even realise he was teething until he went around biting every one of us this afternoon, then I pried his mouth apart to check. *haha*.

Card Game II

Ah, now apart from "Hi", he can definitely pick out several other words.

Where's Baby?


Where's Dog?

I did not use flashcards to manually work on this word recognition - all this while, have been relying only on FlashCard Video Programmes. We started off with ">Your Baby Can Read Videos and English & Chinese Wink-to-Learn Videos.

He is now 11-months-old. We started showing him these videos from around 5 months.

Flower Stalk

JR actually watched the whole rendition of "One Stalk Flower". Hahah!

一枝花 is a classic Chinese Erhu piece.