The Best Children's Day Present

When Pei Pei and Hao Hao asked me for some carriers on Wednesday night, I asked them why. They told me that their teachers would be giving them presents on Thursday, during Children's Day celebration. I was thinking, isn't it a bit too exaggerated?

My jaws dropped when I fetched them from school yesterday. The carriers that they requested were not big enough to hold all their presents from their teachers!

I really appreciate their teachers for bringing joy to the children! Pei Pei and Hao Hao were overjoyed with so many presents and we spent the whole evening playing with the new toys!

Oh, you ask me what Children's Day presents we are giving them?

Our answer is: being with them!

We take leave from work today, and they have a say on what they want to do to celebrate Children's Day!

They woke up 645am (very early indeed), and said they wanted to play with the bubble guns that their teachers bought for them, so we went to the playground downstairs to have bubble fun!

After breakfast, they said they wanted to swim (their definition of 'swim' is to play with water). So we had water fun at Jacob Ballas Children's Garden!

I am glad that they truly enjoyed themselves today!

How did you celebrate this day with your children?

Happy Children's Day to all! Because we are children of our parents!

Like this post? Follow PeiPei.HaoHao on Facebook

Teachers' Day Gifts Tutorial

I am really thankful to Pei Pei and Hao Hao's teachers for taking good care of them, and hope that Pei Pei and Hao Hao would learn to be appreciative of their teachers. 

Since Teachers' Day (in Singapore, this is the last working day of Term 3) is approaching, we prepared some tokens of appreciation for their teachers.

My initial idea was to make lollipop flowers, and made one prototype.

However, 5-year-old Pei Pei offered an insightful comment about this gift.

"How to eat this?" She asked.

She was right. The flower will be destroyed once the lollipop is eaten. So we dropped this idea, and thought of another one.

Here is the step-by-step tutorial on how to make the paper flower!

Step 1: Prepare 4 pieces of rectangular coloured paper. For each piece, place the coloured side downwards, fold half to make a centre line, and fold four corners.

Step 2: Fold backwards, so that the coloured sides are facing inward.

Step 3: Repeat Step 1 & 2 for the other 3 pieces of paper. Stack 4 pieces together, tie the centre with a chenille stem (pipe cleaner).

Step 4: Open up the coloured side one by one.

Pei Pei was able to fold the paper without difficulty, but step 4 is too challenging for her, so I helped her in this step.

To make the flower look cute, I twisted the stem to make the leaf. Pei Pei wrote the cards, and we pasted the flowers on to the cards using Washi tape with flower patterns.

Hao Hao also contributed by making a simpler gift - "washi-fied" Teachers' Day cards!

In addition, we used a flower shape puncher (bought from Daiso) to punch flower shapes from coloured paper, and pasted them on the cards.

Hope their teachers will like the Teachers' Day gifts!

Follow PeiPei.HaoHao on Facebook

Learning Chinese Calligraphy

Pei Pei has been asking us to sign her up for Chinese Calligraphy enrichment class offered by her school since last year. This year, we decided to sign her up for the class, to expose her to the rich Chinese culture, and to train her discipline. 

She is very proud of her work!

  

Thoughts on Childcare Centre/Preschool-Hunting

Some key factors that influenced our decision on choosing childcare centre/preschool for our kids:

1. Proximity to home
2. Teachers
3. Environment
4. Curriculum
5. School fee

The first childcare centre that we enrolled Pei Pei was quite a distance from our home, and it is not very accessible by public transport. Even we have our car, the carpark attendants in that area are very "on", and we received a summon even when we just parked there for a short while without putting up carpark coupon! Then we found another childcare centre, just 5 minutes walk from home, which is very convenient, it is especially important when we have to rush to work early in the morning.

I was quite impressed by curriculum of some centres, but this is just a system on paper. How effective the curriculum is delivered to the children depends on the teachers. More importantly, the teachers must be caring and patient. So far, I feel that Pei Pei's current teachers are very nice, and Pei Pei likes them. Pei Pei is particularly attached to one of the teacher assistant, Mdm Tan, as Pei Pei goes up to hug her when seeing her in the morning.

The first childcare centre that Pei Pei attended was air-conditioned, but later we feel that it may not be a good environment for Pei Pei who has sensitive nose. We feel that it would be better for her to stay in classrooms with good ventilation, since she spends more than half a day there.

Some parents believe in Montessori teaching method and join in a super long waiting list to enrol their children into famous Montessori schools. Not that I do not believe in this method, just that the school fee is a bit beyond our budget. $1k per month is not really affordable. In fact, parents are the first teachers of their children, it is important for parents to follow up with what the children have learnt in school, by allowing the children to apply their knowledge in daily activities.

Pei Pei enjoys school life most of the time, just that she would fuss a bit when she returns school after a few days of medical leave. And there was one incident when she was bitten by her classmate, but I think her school has taken necessary actions. After spending 9 months there, Pei Pei has learnt a lot good (and some bad) habits, and her linguistic development has also improved. We have also registered Hao Hao, who will start his school life in December.

As long as Pei Pei and Hao Hao are happy, I would feel that the school is the right choice for them.