Mother's Day ...

After a sumptuous dinner at a Thai restaurant, we continued our Mother's Day celebration at one of our favourite spots ~ H*agen D*zs. Both mommy and daughter love ice-cream very much, and when daddy said:"Let's go for ice-cream," we were sure that we were going to "HD" brand ice-cream kiosk :-)

Last year Mother's Day, Kyra was about ten-month old, could only call Mama and eat ice-cream but this year, she said "Happy Mother's Day, mommy!" and "H*agen D*zs". I wonder what she can do for next Mother's Day, probably a hand made card with some help from her daddy?? (Daddy, get my hint or not??)

Children Fun Club

I started a club called "Children Fun Club" at my company early of the year. The main objective of the club is to provide a place and environment for the parents and their kids to mingle around and have fun. Six pair of mommies and children (including myself) turned up during the first session. Before that, mommies voluntarily took their parts in preparation, some arranged the room layout, some prepared for the refreshment and etc...

Since i was the "founder" of the club, i led the first session. I planned for the activities and played the teacher role. During the session, we sang, we rhymed, we had fingers play, we did origami, we read stories, we ate and we made friends...The kids seemed shy and nervous in the beginning, but after warming up with them with some songs and movement, they started to show interest.

Each mommy is supposed to take turn to play the teacher role, then we will have a variety of activities, ideas and styles of leadership. From here, parents can share their parenting skills. Besides, I think the kids will enjoy even more when they see their mommies (the adults) singing, reading and playing with them and also their friends.

Sad to say, we have not been continuing the activity since then (always so muck work to do, so many places to go, bla bla...). Well, I shall just start sending out the 2nd session invitation email real soon!

A Star Student Quiz Contests

During Feb'08 & Mar'08, i got myself tighted up with quite a few of activities. Besides work and family, i helped organizing a quiz contest for kids aged 11-13. I was the Quiz Master in this event, so i was the one who came out with all those "funny" yet meaningful questions. I spent a lot of time googling as i wanted the quiz to be different from any other typical quizzes. I set questions from various aspects:general knowledge, mathematics and science, languages, IQ, technology, games, sports & etc...

Well, trust me, it was not a simple task. You got to think questions accordingly to their standard (if too low a standard, they feel no challenge, if too high a standard, they feel hurt). You got to think questions which are of their interests, otherwise their concentration will swing away (so some pop singers, hit movies, PS games questions is a must). You got to be well prepared and confidence with your suggested answers, just in case some whiz kids challenge you??

By the end of the preparation, i myself who gained a lot, in terms of knowledge, creativeness and interpersonal skill. And the feedback we got was surprisingly favourable and above our expectation.

Thanks to the team members' (we called ourselves the Humanity Team) hardwork and effort. We managed to attract approximately 80 kids in the first contest and collected around RM1000 for Tzu Chi Buddhist Centre. Due to the great responses received and the requests to have the quiz again, of course, when there is demand, there is supply, we had the quiz for the second time in Mar'08.

It was so fun and satisfied when you heard some of the kids saying:" huh, this type of question also got ah, but what is the answer huh? school never teach leh..."...And i had a good time laughing when the kids had to pass the movement challenges (balancing a book, throwing ball into box & ...) for them to qualify to answer questions set in the final round...

I am thinking of organizing some other fun learning activities, maybe... Fun English Day Camp ??

Creative way of attracting kids to like vegetables

In one of the early childhood education classes that i attended last month, the lecturer asked us to bring some vegetables such as carrot, cucumber, eggplant, beans, potato and etc...
At first, my coursemates and I were so curious what was the lecturer planning to do with these vegetables-" We are not going to have cooking class, are we?"

Well, it ended up we have to use our imagination and creativeness to do some "craftwork/artwork" on the vegetables, and the objective of this lesson is to attract kids to like eating vegetables.

So, we decided to work on the theme "Fun Park". In about one hour time, we managed to "set up" our Fun Park with vegetables-made swing, seesaw, slide,fountain, benches, flowers and birds.

This is a good idea, isn't it? If your kids at home don't like vegetables, use this method to test it out!

Buddies...

(From left: Ping,Heidi,Cindy & Kyra)

A sunny morning at Penang Youth Park, Ping and her husband brought their sweetie to join us to have a short "mothers-fathers-daughters" gathering. Ping has been a buddy since we were in kindergarten, then studied at the same primary school for six years, same secondary school for another consecutive six years, to be exact, we were in the same class for twelve years!

Ping got married 4 months before me, and of course i was her bridesmaid. And coincidentally, we were both pregnant and became mothers in the same year. Kyra (22 mth) & Heidi (20 mth), looking equally charming and loving, we wish you two can be best buddies, just like your mothers...