Bao-Bei Hotel

Ben had a sleep over at the Bao Bei school one day....it was Rm90 and we quickly paid to book a place...2 days without Ben...hehe...terrible parents hoh! But husband said it was also good exposure for Ben. We were nearby and we trust the teachers to take good care of Ben for us.

The "invitation" letter...

...all ready to go......VIP Bag! Thank you Aunty Shell Hua for the tag!

...sleeping bag from Tesco...

...His "pi" (short-form for pillow) or "squeeze-squeeze"....toothbrush and toothpaste....diapers...yes, when he does his big motion, he still needs to use diapers as he has this fear of dropping into the toilet bowl...

..close-up the bag...all ready to GO!

..taking the bag for a spin...

..and rolling it away down the corridor...goodbye Mummy and Daddy...without even looking back!!

...showing his favourite teacher his bag....this teacher very good...even though she is no longer working with the school...she purposely came back to help out as she misses the children a lot........Hope she comes back permanently one day...

Did Ben stay the whole 2 days...Actually he did not give any problems at all...but he was having a stomach virus made him have watery stools...and sometimes he could not make it to the toilet. This came about only at night...and then the teachers (pity them! have to clean up....Ben told me that they had 2 vacuum cleaner..one blue and one red) call me up to bring Ben back at 11:30pm. Teachers only had praises for him as he was relatively un-demanding and was quite easy to pleased. :)....We also had a good break as we went to watch a show at the MPO......we really should visit the MPO more often!

...So Monday it is off to the paedetrician for a round of medicine....here he is playing in the clinic...

I am happy to report after another day of cleansing (which meant a lot of work for me! Phew).....he is fine already. Actually during this time, Ben did now show any sign of weakness at all...he was still playing actively.......though he could not make it to the toilet in time.

Sharing some of the stuff we are doing

Been some time since I blog again. As I was downloading the photos, one of the folder in the camera just got moved! Where?? I dont know! Haiyah! So I got a whole stack of photos missing. And that included Ben's Bao Bei concert photos.


But to tell you the truth, we did not take many photos for the concert. Ben was having one of his tantrums. The story started right after the one week school holidays. Daily Ben has been refusing to go to school. I had to drag him to the toilet, take bath, drag him into the car and throw him in the class, with him whining the whole time.


He: I dont want to go to school.

Me: Why?

He: I dont like. I want to go home

Me : Why?

He: It is not nice?

Me: Why it is not nice?

He: It is not beautiful.


I dont kow why this habit came about. I have checked around with other mothers. They asked whether it is because there are any changes in our life (nope, no siblings coming along!)....and another mother said that sometimes children will regress. She told me to be patience and to continue to send because one day, he will need to go to school. I also have to keep a positive environment as well. At first, this was hard to do as he kept whining but the teachers help as well. Once I push him through the gates, the teachers will quickly divert his attention and voila, once I was gone, he did not cry.


The funny thing was that this has never happen for such a long period of time before. It may happen occasionally but never for as long as 2-3 weeks. Today Ben was still whining.


So for the concert, again, he did not want to go. It was early Sunday morning and I had to hold him down to change into his costumes. Guess what? He was in rage and tore at his shirt...all the buttons popped out! We had to use a safety pin. Due the missing folder (however the school had professional photographers), I can only show you what he got from the concert.




Surprise, surprise, yes, he got a trophy and a medal! For best improved student and the other one is a merit award I think. You know, I cannot read Chinese and my Mandarin is not that great when I was trying to understand the explanation given by his teachers.

Ok, other things that we are doing at home now is I am trying to teach him to read - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons! Yes, this is a great book (and only about RM80 as well!). At first, I was a bit sceptical but once I start, I could see the sequence of teaching phonics.


Unlike other programmes which just have a phonic song, cards, stories...this one actually even has the dialogue to tell me what to say during lessons....which only last 15 minutes. Before this, when I checked on other phonics program....


example : MAT - Ma...Ahhhh...Tuh....and then they will saw it so fast..until it becomes MAT...but I never understood how??!!!


With this book...it teaches to say it slow first...MMMMMat.....say it fast..MAT! So when you sound out the individual letters, MMM...Ahhhh....T (because the T is a short sound and it usually is for many words)...so it becomes...MMMM AT.....which then becomes MAT! when you say it fast....! So logical! So good for me! And only RM80 for the whole book without needing to supplement with any other products - stories, songs or anything.


My issue now is that Ben is really plafyful and would not focus. But I have been trying to get him to pay attention to me....until today, I bribed him with a square of chocolate which my parents brought back from Auckland!

This is the tracks that we set up for Ben using our old coffee table which we kept in the storeroom after Ben was born. Not as big as friend's but keeps him occupied and keeps the living room much neater as well!

Supplemented the current tracks with a crane and a palm tree!

Bao Bei

Ben started with Bao Bei ever since February this year and can see the vast improvements in his social behaviour. Further, he can recognise 80 characters and can read basic Chinese books! I am so impressed with the patience of the teachers. Another good thing about Bao Bei is that the teachers encourages the students to drink loads of water. Ben can finish this whole cannister of water in 1 1/2 hour.

Bao Bei had a one day camp a few weeks ago and Ben thoroughly enjoyed himself.

It involved some writing games.

Eating rice with his friends.

Physical games which his teachers said he was very good. So I am now thinking of starting his gym class at Fly Kidz again.

Balancing on the poles....

...and walking on the rope.

Finally his take-home gifts for that day was a small aquarium of fish and a cute paper bag which contained a sushi he made. So proud of my little prince.

Things to do with your toddler

Recently I was asked by 2 friends where to take their toddlers - playgroups, etc...So thought that I will post it here for future reference.

Playschool:-

(i) Lara's place http://www.rix.com.my/Lara.html - never tried this before but it is one of the few places which allows mummy and child to go in.
(ii) Ibu - http://ibufamily.org/ - a lot of expats mummies here. They are supposed to be meeting at Gardens International School now if I am not mistaken. Contact them to find out.
(iii) Chiltern House - this very expensive. http://www.juliagabriel.com.my/chiltern/index.php

Others activities which allows mother to accompany child will be:-

(i) Musichaus http://www.musikhaus.com.my/
(ii) Kindermusik - got one free trial. http://www.simmusic.com/kindermusik-about.htm
(iii) Kidz Sports
(iv) Gymboree
(v) Flykidz - this one going to open a new centre at Sunway Giza http://www.fly-kidz.com

These are what I know so far :)....

Artist in the Making

Ben loves painting and I bought some painting materials for him. You can see him hard at work here. Do take note of his blue Thomas train shirt! :) Hard at work....concentrating....note also he loves blue colour! The blue colour paint will finish first compared to the rest of the paint. Same with the colour pencil, the blue pencil is the shortest now.

Blue, blue, blue.....

hmmm...mix with a bit of white....

....and let's get it all over the paper....

...then tah dah....all done!

.....so happy with my results...

...hmmm...might have missed a part here....

Ben's First Class

After listening so much from ex-colleagues about the wonders of right brain training, me being a kiasu parent signed Ben up for a nearby class which claimed to train right brain. It goes for an hour each week and cost me RM100 per hour! Yah...that is expensive. But I have been very curious about this program.

It was just an hour but wow, they do a lot of stuff during the hour! They have EVERYTHING! Phonics, Japanese words, Chinese words, Math, public speaking, speed reading, memory games and linking games. I think that is all if I remember right. Even I have problem to remember everything! haha.. I was a bit overwhelmed.

The only thing is I wonder in that ONE hour, we can do so much things (or it was more like I was doing the things) - whether this will increase or decrease attention span??? I mean if the subjects pass so fast, I will be so blur-blur until dont know what happen. Or to look at the other perspective, to get children attention, we need to move fast? I also dont know. Will see what happens during the new few lessons.


5 of us - kids with mothers sat down on the floor with our children in front of us. Then the teacher start off with a greeting very fast and smoothly - about the date, day, time and weather. However teacher's English pronounciation is not good. Then she flash cards on road signs - no turning, children cannot cross here, there....followed by flash cards on elements like the one below Xenon 54. Even I dont know what is that? Haha. Then to enhance photographic, they showed this on the screen for a minute and we were supposed to colour according to the show (my only issue is that Ben only like blue colour...so he wanted all blue colour). I was having problems with this since Ben was starting to get antsy. Subsequent to that we were supposed to also draw out the shape. I think this part of the lesson is called Mandala and is available at some shops which specialises in IQ toys.

One part of the lesson was also they gave us this shape and some pieces.

It happened that at home I also had this pieces so I can do this and showed it here.

Then this I had some problems as well. They showed 3 rows of numbers and then we were supposed to write it out. Of course, they showed it row by row. As you can see, I also had problems to remember here as well! Haha. And they expect Ben to do all of this?? He cannot even sit still.

There were Japanese songs as well and Japanese flash card. Then a sandpaper of this following word was also given where Ben used his finger to trace. Then we were given this homework to trace at home.

And another homework, follow the arrows to draw lines.

Other things that I can remember was dot flash cards (popularised by Glen Doman), artist flash cards with song about the artist (ours was Picasso), public speaking (Ben had to go in front and say his name to the rest of his class-mates), Chinese flash cards, speeding reading (a story was read out from a taped recording and then played again at a faster speed. I wonder is that how you learn speeding reading???.....)

Lastly a sticker was given for attendance. We stick it in an attendance sheet and later after we accumulate some stickers, we can exchange for some small toys!

And for paying RM100 registration fees, there is also a bag!

Yes, I do sound sceptical. But when I asked Ben whether he like the class, he said yes....and I am scratching my head.......because he hardly listen during class. I guess I will give it another few more lessons. But Ben seemed to be ready for some kind of structure - he loved to sit down and do coloring, etc....maybe I will go and find some kind class. Of course, a cheaper one! :)

Painting

One day, thought will try out painting. On the trip down to Singapore, I bought a painting set consisting of a few colours (which include black!....why I emphasize this, I will explain later) and a paint brush for S$2 and also a drawing block for S$2. So dressing him up nicely (another mistake!).....smiling for my camera.

Then off, we go...look where I put the table with all the art stuff.....Look carefully...what happen to the hand portion of the sofa - oh dear...a paint mark!!!! ....and why you should not have black paint.......it takes over all the other beautiful colours.....

...see the artist, the other hand also held out like a professional trying to explain things...but again, it hit the sofa...sigh....

...you can see the water colour here...another mistake, should have buy a water colour pallete and not let him dip into the water colour bottles directly.....

.....and finally the artist at work...... .....it looks like he had a lot of fun. But mummy later had a hard time cleaning up. The final mistake as advised by the playschool teacher was to do it at the balcony so that I can easily just throw water all over the paint. Instead I have to wipe and wipe and wipe. Sigh...

Playschool at Bandar Utama

Friend asked me what does Ben usually do at playschool. Well here are some picts...a little bit of something...but I have to warn you that his attention span is really short. So even though these picts seemed to look pretty good - writing, drawing, puzzles, etc....but most of the time, it only holds him for one minute or so. Then he is off running around the house.

On the way back, asked him did he enjoy himself...he gave me a smile...! He He...ok, I cheated. I told him to smile for the camera.

A few minutes later, he is off to Z-Z land.