Year End Exams

Today is the last day for H's exams. Phew. I can finally breath a sigh of relief. Its Art and Music today, so technically, it was over yesterday. Its so competitive these days....she is only in primary one, but the competition is so stiff. Everyone gets high 90's for all papers so, if you dont get 100, your position would drop. They shoudl do away with positions as it causes unnessary stress on everyone. With the new KSSR system in place, its suppose to move away from exam oriented structures, but sadly, despite parents opting for a more holistic environment, at the end of the day, they still look at how many As you get. In this case, it is getting 100% for all papers.

H worked hard, not crazy hard , but hard enough. So I should be happy for whatever marks she obtains. Yes, I would be dissapointed, if she does not obtain the top 3 placings, but since I opted for THAT school, I have to accept the competition. More so, most of them there go for private tuition. She does not - I am her private tutor :) I believe in the early years, its nothing like having the support of your own parents, than depending on external help. So, if she does well, I deserve a pat on my back too!!



Rowena icing a cake at Roald dahls bday party



Harvynna's turn to ice the cake



Anyway, exam week is actually a good bonding week for us as I pick her up from school (which is a treat for her), bring her out for a nice lunch (her choice), and then she gets to spend one on one time with me.... without R hogging the attention. We do some revision - and then have a nap, and I think she values that and seems very happy and relaxed to have mummy with her. That is a luxury these days for most kids as most mothers are working mothers and time is a rare commodity. For this exam, I opted for a more relaxed mode as preparations began much earlier than the last round.

Of course, during the last 1 month, R has been slightly neglected, as most of my time is spent revising with H. But that will change after today. Yesterday, I got both of them to practise their art together for Harvynna's art paper today.

Sometimes I wonder, if the girls are too busy with all kinds of activities. They dont complain, so I take it as ok. I always offer the option to stop, but they dont want to. (except for R - who wants to stop Enopi coz its too much work!!) But i would like to give them the opportunity to try various things, as good academic results alone is not enough today. I have interviewed dozens of people at work, and many with good academic results are just bores, speak horribly and do not have the guts to do a presentation. That's why I hope by exposing them to various other non academic programmes, they will grow to be more confident and not for anything else.

The girls are starting classical Indian dance next week. Let's see how that goes.

2011

My first post for the year!! With the convenience of Facebook, blogging is such an effort.

2011 began as a new and exciting year. Harvynna started Primary One and Rowena is now a semi-senior at kindergarten.

Let's start with Harvynna:

Its been more than a month and she has settled in well at her school. Well, the first 3 weeks was more of an orientation programme. It was only after that that they started with lessons proper - of which, she is bored to tears. She wonders why she does the same work that Rowena does at kindergarten. Poor gal! She said that ' I know you sent me here because its the best government school, but it is still lousy'. Told her to keep that opinion to herself or she will be blacklisted!!

The only consolation is that they have watered down the BM syllabus, so its not as difficult as the KBSR syllabus. To overcome her boredom, Harvynna has increased her appetite for reading. Her favourites are Amelia Jane and Mr Meddle  series by Enid Blyton, The Magic Ballerina Series and Roahl Dahl books. She thinks Roahl Dahl's books are the greatest!
To maintain her sanity, she continues with her Taekwando classes at her previous kindergarten (together with Rowena), and also goes for Musical Theatre, Speech and Drama and will start swimming lessons this weekend. Hopefully, all these activities will tire her out and she will complain less!

Most of her front milk teeth have dropped and have been replaced by permanent teeth. Its quite funny to see that the permanent teeth are much bigger than the milk teeth.

As for Rowena, she is now in the 5 year old class. She still can't read and refuses to learn. I tried many tactics, but she still does not want to learn - so I decided not to push it. Eventually, she will learn. After all, her ambition is to be a 'tol counter'   - the person who collects toll money at the toll booth.

But her Maths skills is slowing improving.  I guess she is keen on picking up the necessary skills for that job!
She goes for Taekwando, Ballet and Speech & Drama and will also start swimming. She loves anything that has nothing to do with academic learning.(except for Taekwando as she gets lots of scolding from the teacher)

The year has only just begun and it is already madness. From waking up at 6am to prepare her breakfast and lunch, send her to school and head off to work myself and rushing around on weekends for enrichment classes. To think, there's just another 13 years more to go!!!

How do children learn to read?

I recently bought the Ladybird Key words reading scheme books for Harvynna. As I was looking at it, I was wandering how children really learn to read. I know most kindergartens use Phonics nowadays and it is quite effective as they will also learn the right pronounciation.

I have been reading to Harvynna since she was very young and I realise that she memorizes the lines from the books. After reading a book a couple of times, she can actually 'read' the story. Somehow, I think either, she has memorised the story or linked the words to the pictures in the book.

The ladybird key words may actually get children to learn by sight the words as they emphasise on the frequently used words in the English Language. So, the more they are exposed to the words, the more they will know it. This is similar to using flahscards. But with flashcards, there are no distractions from pictures

I actually learnt to read using this method.

I will try to slowly introduce Harvynna to this method and see how she takes to it.

Just me and my gal

Since hubs was working on saturday, I took decided to take Rowena out. I havent really done that as Harvynna was around and was less adventurous since. I used to take Harvynna out alone and still do.

It was not too bad - we left the house a little after 10 and decided to go to Mid Valley since Mothercare was having a sale. It was quite good with discounts up to 50%. I bought the girls a few dresses since I just love Mothercare and their quality is good. But thanks to Rowena, I could not really shop much as she kept running outside the store - so I had one eye on her and one eye on the clothes. That's one of the reasons I dont like going to Mid Valley - fear of psychopaths lurking around as they place is just too huge. Luckily, the salesgirls there took some toys off the shelve and let Rowena play with them.

After that we just walked around and I realise that Rowena has become a real toddler. She will not sit in the stroller for long, after a while she will start fidgeting and arching her back (all the tantrum signs) and I have to let her out where she will RUN, and I mean really RUN. So that was the end of the shopping episode.

Later, we went to the play area at Jusco and she played on some of the rides including the carousal (mini one). She really had fun there.

Finally, I got tired and we had a bite at Dunkin Donuts where the grand finale was Rowena squashing the chocolate donut in her hand and all over her face. That was the sign that said, its time to go!!

Finger painting no more

As mentioned in my earlier post, I was planning to do some finger painting with Rowena. So I prepared the stuff using pink food colouring and got all the newpapers laid out on the balcony (to avoid staining the furniture), stripped her to her diapers and we started our arts and crafts activity.

First of all, she looked at everything hesitantly and sat on in the hall (refused to sit in the balcony). So I dipped my hands in the tub of paint, she copied me but rubbed the paint all over her legs,then she decided to taste it.

Haha, she started the gagging thing where she goes buaaak, buaaak non stop. Everytime, I ask her to dip her hands into the tub,she will say buaaak. OK, I get the message.

Then I ask her to come sit with me, and she comes, and SITS on my lap with all the paint on her and she just stares at the paint.

I think it will be a long, long time before I try painting with her again. I did not take any pictures as i did not want to end up dipping my camera in paint!

Rowena with Uncle Jovan

Finger painting

Since Harvynna is not around, I was looking around for ideas to entertain Rowena. Currently, she is happily walking around, dipping her hands into everything, pulling out all the toys and exploring them and 'reading' her books without having them grabbed by Harvynna.

Was thinking of doing some finger painting with her this weekend. I had a bad experience the last time I used Finger paint with Harvynna as it stained really badly and I had to get rid of the clothes she was wearing. I got the set of finger paints from Toys r us and was so disappointed. Later, I did not allow her to wear any clothes while painting! (just diapers)

I found some easy recipes to make finger paints which may be less lethal!

Easy Fingerpaint
Ingredients

2 cups white flour
2 cups cold water
food coloring

Directions

Put water into a large bowl. Slowly add the flour, while the children are stirring. Once it's all mixed together, divide into smaller bowls and add food coloring.

Be sure to have lots of heavy paper on hand for painting. These paint tend to be too wet for newsprint or regular paper.

Plus its safe if she sticks her fingers into her mouth too!

Musikgarten for toddlers

In my earlier post, I mentioned about sending Rowena for Musikgarten. PErsonally, I had a good experience with Musikgarten with Harvynna. Harvynna started Musikgarten at about 14-15 months. Initially, she used to just run around and do her own things, she would cry sometimes, or she will look at everyone. She put everything into her mouth including the bells, sticks and other props.
The first 2-3 sessions were quite bewildering to me, as I saw the other children participating actively while Harvynna was in her own world.

Slowly, she started to join in as she got used to the people and environment. Slowly, she started to enjoy the activities and picked up songs very fast. She learnt a lot of words and used to recall and recap what she learnt at home. We were lucky that her teacher was very good and did not really follow a structure but rather went with the flow. The children seemed to love her as she was very animated.

I think Musikgarten is effective provided the teacher is good. They have dances, songs, actions, musical instruments e.g. drums, jingles, bells and use simple props like scarves, balls, parachutes.Harvynna defintely benefited from the classes.

I brought Harvynna for a Yamaha Music trial class (for 3 year olds) in Bangsar but I found it very boring and structured. The teacher was so liveless and passive. Basically, everyone had to sit on the organ stool and was confined to a small room. I made up my mind immediately not to enrol her there.

Activities for Rowena

I am thinking of starting some group activities for Rowena, but havent quite decided on it yet. The options right now are Musikgarten, Gymboree and Kidsportz. I am also looking at other factors like the timing and location. The teacher is also important as a good teacher can make a lousy class very exciting and vice versa. Time to go exploring!

Splish Splash at Andalucia

This is a backdated post

We brought the girls for a swim at Brendan & Ameta's place. It was the last weekend before they move out to their new house at taman desa. Much nearer to us now.

The girls had so much fun in the baby pool. Harvynna kept jumping into the pool. The kids pool is nice as it is not too shallow, yet her feet can touch the floor. I think the arm floats are really great as it does not limit kids movements as compared to the ring float.

Baby Asha had her first swim and seemed to enjoy it as well.

It was a late night and the girls were so knackered. The only thing was Harvynna broke Brendan's favourite light in his study. Poor guy - he really loved that light, though Ameta and I find that light cheap and tacky!!

Bye Bye Musikgarten

Harvynna’s Musikgarten teacher informed us that after January, the classes will stop for a while till they find more students. The reason is some of the other children have moved to the next level as they will be 4 this year. So that leaves only Harvynna and another boy. 2 to a class is quite boring.

Harvynna has been attending Musikgarten for almost a year and a half now and she really enjoys it. But I guess maybe it’s a blessing in disguise as we can now look at other options. But then again, I was planning on bringing Rowena along once she turned one since the location in Bangsar is really convenient and the class is specially for working mothers.

Have checked out a few more classes:

There’s another musikgarten in Jalan Telawi at Musik Makers but the location is bad since parking will be a big problem. And other places have their classes on weekends. All these activities have to suit my shedule as well – kind of lazy to have to attend all these on weekends as it’s a weekend and its time to rest. And location is VERY important to me as I am not willing to drive miles and miles just to have a 40 minute activity. Pe-lease – I drive enough on weekdays

Then, there’s Baby Ballet in Jalan Gasing. That’s on Saturdays too.

Then, of course there’s Gymboree at Bangsar Village and that’s also on weekends.

That’s not much options for Working mummies.

There’s this new café in Hartamas called ‘Caterpillar’ which offers Orff Schulwerk, but no options for Working Mummies. Boo hoo. Nothing on weekends for the younger ones too.

Then there’s ‘Talented Kids’ in Jalan Maarof which sounds ok. Will be taking Harvynna there for a trial class next week. This place is good as it is just a few doors down her Musikgarten place.

Maybe we will take a break for a while till we find something good.
Personally, I would like to enroll her for some dance classes but lets wait and see.