Puzzles puzzle ...

I found and bought two puzzles for Xav recently. One is in a shape of a crocodile. With words in one side


And numbers on the other.


As he already knew his basic counting and being able to recognise numbers right up to 30s, I thought that it could be just nice if I could show and teach him the words for number 1-10. I noticed that he could count verbally but visually to place the numbers in ascending numbers, seemed a bit hard for him.

The second puzzle is an alphabet snake. With block letteres on one side and small letters on the other !


Xav's trying to fix the puzzle.




Hopefully he will be better at in soon !



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Twoosy Doodlers Trial class

Xav attended an Art class today @ Abrakadoodle Art Studio for Kids.

Great thank you to Angie for coordinating this trial class for the todds ! It's fun ! I enjoyed it and hope Xav enjoyed as much as I do !

The two engrossed children...

They strongly encouraged the kids to explore the paints and glue using their fingers !

The workpiece for the day would be " Tree", inspired by Natasha Wescoat.

Xav's ready for it !


Started working on his art piece ! Slowly experimenting yellow and blue with gold mixture.




Here's Xavier's interpretation !
The todds will have a presentation on their work, which I find it pretty good as in the long run, this could help build up the confidence in the kids in making presentation infront of the class.

Have decided to sign Xav up for the weekday class !

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Hunting hunting

Recently, we were on a hunt for a totally red vase and a water feature as required to be placed in the new home for feng shui purposes.

We managed to find a vase at Chinatown, liked by the both of us which is the most important =p

On the hunt next is a water feature. Best option is to get a tank as not all water feature are suitable. The more water the better it is. So we concluded to get a fish tank.

We went to Serangoon North Ave 1 if I didn't remember wrongly. There are plenty of pet shops there. Ranging from birds


fishes


chinchillas


rabbits


and hamsters !


Xav enjoyed going to shop by shop and was so excited when he saw the lovely animals!

Still we didn't managed to find one which we like. But seems like we will be settling for some environmental friendly corals !

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Zoophonics ~ Lesson 5

Today's Chinese class covered them on Frogs. The teacher explained to them the life cycle of a frog.





卵 (eggs) >> 蝌蚪（tadpole) >> 青蛙 (frog). I almost forgot what is tadpole in mandarin and also learnt the correct term for the eggs as well. Thanks to the mandarin class !

The kids were asked to arrange the eggs, tadpoles and frog as accordance to the lifecycle an afterwich they were asked to do matching.






Followed by painting a big green frog !





Sometimes when Xav spotted a picture of a frog, he will goes "grreeebit" ...

And after completing his task, Xavier boy went to return the smock.


The over helpful boy, saw others still holding on to the materials after the teacher said that they have to return, went over and wanted to take over from his classmates' and "help" to return !


Today, he was pretty good. He went to take his share of the instrument, guess what, aftet taking two, he went over and took another one for me so that I can join in ! How sweet !



During the english class, Teacher Janet covered the story "The very hungry caterpillar" and the kids made a caterpillar out of colourful circles.




First, they painted a piece of big leaf.


And added the circles thereafter to form a caterpillar.


And it's just nice that Xav can write his name on the circles.



Then, the lifecycle of a butterfly is covered. Singing and dancing with a butterfly held in his hand.



And this was last week's work. The bird and it's nest.





And Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow !! Looking forward !

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Location:Sennett Terrace,,Singapore

Yong Tau Hu

Been lagging this post for a long time !

Finally got a chance to eat the home made Yong Tau Hu by 2nd Aunt from KL. This was prepare since morning... Spent a few hours to prepare and cook and gone in a few seconds !!!

But seriously this is yummy ! I saw how she scrapped off the meat from the fish. She went to buy "gao yu" (in cantonese). Here is the chef !

Scrapped off all the meat (Five big fishes here),

pound into paste using the traditional pound as there is no blender at mum's place.

Then, got to "throw" the meat hard so that the paste would be springy !

Lots of hard work !!! Then, filled the chillies,

tau kee,

( Take out the big pieces, wash or wipe clean. The remaining broken pieces can be kept to cook desserts so as not to waste it.)

After deep frying

mini tau pok

(Initially we cut the tau pok and turn the skin inside out as it will be more crispy after deep frying and I tried it. It's true !

and brinjal with the paste and deep fried till they turn golden brown.

I felt that the main lead is the sauce for the Yong Tau Hu. Now I know it !! It's just mainly; garlic, sugar and crushed salted bean paste. Putting all in to fry with the sauce.

Anyway, I was so silly to use my bare fingers to deseed the chillies. Ended up with burning fingers by the end of the day ! Lesson learnt heh !

The sauce was pretty simple and easy.. Only Sugar, crushed bean paste and garlic

When will the next session of the making of YTH comes?

Blinds and Frosted glass wall

The roller blinds are ready ! Got one of dear dear's anutie who deals with this to help us install the blinds. We choose a grey shade for the whole house except for the living room, which is of a lighter grey shade.

This is the window where the compressor is.


This is the living room. Grey shades with slightly see through. Can't tell much difference from the pic but there's a diff when you're there personally !

Cooking area as well as the dry area are done with the frosted glass to prevent the grease from getting the walls dirty.



While we were busy cleaning the house, Xav occupied himself with the puzzle. Guess what he did today? He took up each individual pieces and started to read and spell out the letters for each colour !



The date is getting closer ! Movers will move the big bulky items on the 24th while we will officially move in on the 30th ! Looking forward !

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Location:Bedok South Rd,Bedok,Singapore

Zoophonics ~ Lesson 4

I went in with Xav for lesson 4. I observed how he listened to the instructions given and he is actually doing quite well.



He understands when to go and take the materials from the teacher and to return it when asked to.

What really amused me was, normally at the end of the class, the kids will give teacher Janet a hug before leaving. Lil' Xav somehow went to the teacher's right side, wanting to give teacher a hug. But the other classmates kept streaming in from the front and Teacher Janet did not notice Xav until lost his patience after waiting for so long, he went to tug Teacher Janet's arm.

He was so happy that he has finally been noticed and he gave a big long hug. Not once but five times !! How envious am I when he did not even hug me for once that morning !!

They were introduce to mouse and hamster (chang shu) during the Chinese class. How to tell the difference between the two by the look of their tails. The mouse has a longer tail than the hamster etc.

Activity done was to colour the hamster and stick the hamster onto the correct home as shown on the sheet.





As well as a sorting game on matching the animals according to their habitat, using fishes, hamsters and cat pictures.


And here's Xav posing with his snake from last lesson !


During the English class, they were told of a story of Little Bird by Red Campbell.

Then, they did an activity on colour sorting of the birds and nest.

For instance, they are supposed to place the yellow bird in the yellow nest or green bird in the green nest.


Rhyme learnt was "Two little dicky birds"


and here's Xav during the music and movement !


And they did a bird craft during the English session.

Using paper plates, they made a nest and a bird.

I'm quite impressed with their simple yet fun crafts, best part was using paper plates as the main material .

Shall load the pics after we collect back on tuesday !

After Class we went to Qian Hu Fish Farm to look around for some aquarium stuff. While daddy went to enquire, Xav went around to see the fishes in the huge pools !


Surrounded by tanks and fishes !


Looking out to the ponds out there !





And engrossed with the mini lobsters !


We went to Farmart after that as it's just around the corner. But pretty disappointing as most of the pet shops were closed by the time we were there.


We spotted one shop selling water features with a small koi pond in there ! And Xav was so excited to see so many large kois swimming in the pond ! He tried to imitate the kois that were opening up their mouths as they swam !


He was thrilled when I asked him if he wanted to step on the platform to get across to the other side of the pond and we had fun feeding the kois !





Followed by dinner at Jurong Point before we went home !

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