Being Mom

Tracing is one of the many simple arts that young children would enjoy exploring. Tracing different kinds of texture and surfaces could initiate discussions about rough and smooth surface too! Then, use the traced patterns to make a collage. Wouldn't that be fun?  WEEK 21: ART AND CRAFT TOPIC: Tracing and collage Materials needed:  thin white paper  colouring pencils scissors glue white A4 paper 1. Choose a picture to work on 2. Look for surface with patterns to trace on the thin white papers.  3. Trace using the colours that you want to use for the picture. 4. Stick the original picture on a glass window or door.  Using the traced paper, trace the exact part of the picture you want to use it for.  Example, I use yellow for the star, brown for the house, green for the tree and bushes.  5. Cut the parts out and put them together like putting jigsaw puzzle pieces together to form the picture.  ...

 A few years ago, the print on this biscuit was the word TIGER.  Yes. Precisely. That was what my son said. Very confidently. One afternoon during snack time (when he was 3 year old)... He saw the letters printed on the biscuit he was eating. I looked at him and laughed! BUT In my heart, I thought: Not bad. He is starting to get the idea of how to form an English word. So, I told him that T.I.G.E.R. actually spelt out the word "tiger" instead of "biscuit". Then I had to explained to him why the word "TIGER" was on the biscuit. It was a natural way of teaching him new things. In this case, it was on brands. Being a stay-at-home mom, one of my priorities is to have my children learn as much as possible. Not academically, but more importantly, practical things in life. I find that learning is more effective when the child is curious on the topic instead of when I choose the topic and "feed" him what I want him to learn. Thu...

If you follow my blog regularly, you must know that I am not one who likes to spend money on toys. BUT  there are some exemptions. Like LEGO . This, is good investment . I am sure many of you do not need any introduction to this famous toy that has 40 years of history. WEEK 16: FUN PLAY TOPIC: LEGO We started with a set of Duplo .  My son started playing with Lego Duple when he was 18 months. It is good for counting activities too! Gradually, we moved to the smaller pieces.  Our first set was from the LEGO CITY series, a fire engine with a burning house .  Then we also bought the POLICE STATION .  Followed by lots of freestyle creations .  Then we added one from the STAR WARS collection  and another from the ARCHITECTURE sets and one CLASSIC CAR .  And then we moved on to LEGO KINETIC and LEGO TECHNIC . I do not know how many more Lego sets they ...

Stickers, stickers and more stickers ALL OVER THE PLACE!!! 😱😱😱 On pillows and blankets, toy cars and balls, chairs and clothes AND ON ME?!?! My 4-year-old was on a mission. She was claiming ownership to things she likes.😐 I didn't know whether to laugh or to be upset with her way of doing things BUT her actions stimulated some thoughts in me. Do we, as adults, also try to claim ownership to things (and people) in our own unique ways? Writing our names on items such as pencil cases and water bottles was one of the first methods we learnt on claiming ownership. In a relationship... Sometimes, I see interesting words on people's t-shirts shout out ownerships . For example: " He's my better half " and " She's my better half ", " She stole my heart " and " So I am stealing his last name ", etc... Some men would use a necklace  to "claim ownership" to the girl they are interested in. ...

After weeks of learning alphabets and letter sounds, it's time to move to words! It's fun to learn how to form words using the alphabets. My son is a movie fan (inherited from his father). So, to make it fun for him, I used movie titles for this activity. You can use other category of words, depending on your child/student's interest. WEEK 19: ENGLISH LANGUAGE TOPIC: FORMING WORDS Materials: Paper plates Alphabets Words to be formed (here I use DVDs with the movie titles) 1. On each plate, put all the alphabets needed for one word. Eg: "Frozen" on one plate, "Turbo" on another plate and "Toy Story" on another one.  2.  Ask the child/student to pick a DVD and study the title. Based on the title, look for the plate with the alphabets needed to form the title.  3. Then, the child can refer to the word on the picture to form the title of the movie. These are some of h...

We don't always end up doing what we planned to do. Agree?  Sometimes, we even end up doing things we thought we wouldn't choose to do all our lives! OK. I am talking about myself. When I was pregnant with my first child, I told a colleague that I would not stop working. My verdict was that I wanted my children to "see" me working. To "see" me as a financial contributor. So they would value money. So they would know and understand that money comes from hard work. Or, so they would be eager to earn money for themselves. So this and so that... On the contrary, this particular colleague was me telling that her future hubby preferred her to be a stay-at-home mom. Her hubby thought it was better for the children if they grow up under their mother's care . Fast forward... a year after our conversation... I QUIT MY JOB.  My hubby was assigned a 4-week business trip to Europe and he asked if I wanted to join him. At first, I was reluctan...

Tofu is another "must have" item in my fridge.  It's a "lifesaver" when I am running out of ideas on what to cook.  I have a few recipes that I often repeat, like fry tofu, steamed tofu topped with minced meat, and braised tofu (when I braise meat, I'd just add tofu in or use the extra gravy to make braised tofu for another meal).  This recipe, which I am going to share with you today, is a rare treat at home. It's one of my son's favourite but I rarely cook prawns anymore since my daughter doesn't like it. And, I am allergic to it. My hands would be itchy if I touch them so my son would have to help me peel and clean them.  THIS WEEK's SPECIAL: Steamed tofu with prawns Ingredients: Firm tofu (you can use any type of tofu you like, but not the stinky ones), prawns (remove shells and deveined), shallots, salt, soy sauce, corn or tapioca starch, sesame oil.   1. Boil water in a wok or steamer.  2. Marinate p...

It is crucial to let children count with real objects. I learnt this lesson a few years ago. My son could recognise numbers 1 to 10 at around 2 years old. I naively thought he understood what they meant. When he was 4 and struggled with addition, it finally dawn on me... What have I taught him about numbers? Nothing! So I came up with a series of counting activities for him. I could still remember we had at least one week of continuous counting lessons! WEEK 14: MATHEMATICS TOPIC: COUNTING WITH OBJECTS ACTIVITY 1 Counting the same objects Materials: Use similar objects from groups of 1 to 10. If your child/student is a beginner, you can start with 1 to 3 or 1 to 5, depending on the child. You can use straws, ice-cream sticks, lego bricks, etc. As long as you have enough quantity to carry out the activity.  If you have ready number pieces, use them. Otherwise use small pieces of papers and write down a number on each paper.  On the floor or the table...

Yes! There is such a day! It falls on the first Thursday of November. I first heard about this day on the radio. Listeners were invited to call in, to tell if the men in their lives cook for them. As I tried to answer the question in my mind, I thought: HEY! MY HUBBY NEVER COOKS FOR ME. I don't think the "less than five times of cooking" in our 18 years of relationship would count. So, NO . My answer would be NO . But, on the contrary, and INTERESTINGLY, my father AND my father-in-law, yes, BOTH OF THEM COOK for me! My dad used to cook very often when we were younger. Like when I was in primary school. And he actively helps in the kitchen even until today. He is already in his seventies and he still does marketing everyday. My father-in-law also cooks very often. He would happily cook for us when we visit him. He also does the marketing on his own. Actually, I do not mind if my hubby doesn't cook for me. I love being the boss in the kitc...

Minced meat is one of the common ingredients in my kitchen due to its versatility. It's easy to come up with a dish whenever I have this item on hand. Be it for rice porridge, stir fry noodles, adding flavours to booth for noodles soup, to stir fry with vegetables, braised with potatoes, the list is almost endless. Here, I would like to share with you a meatball recipe. We love meatballs and I make them quite often. Sometimes, I would make a big batch and store them in the freezer, to be used on busy days. THIS WEEK's SPECIAL: Lemon Thyme Meatball with Zucchini Ingredients: For the meatball minced meat (any meat of your choice) salt soy sauce finely chopped garlic finely chopped shallot tapioca starch  white pepper powder grated carrots (optional) one whole egg (optional) Other ingredients  zucchinni thyme lemon onion 1. To make meatball, combine all ingredients in a bowl, mix them together and let marinate for a few hours....

I am one who doesn't like to spend on toys. I would rather my children make their own because sooner or later, they won't want to play with children's toys anymore. Before my son started formal school, we spent two sessions daily on different activities. Most of our activities involved art and craft. This week, I would love to share with you a 3D garden that we made four years ago. Week 13: ART and CRAFT  TOPIC: 3D Garden Materials: Boxes of different sizes for the garden and flower pots.  Colour papers for grass, sky, and a pond.  Old books or magazines to cut out pictures like flowers, fish and tree. Or you can print out whatever you need.  Cotton for clouds.  Glue and scissors.  Here we go! Get the biggest box, which you want to use for the scene and cut out the left and right sides of the top part. Paste blue colour paper at the top and back (inside) of the box for the sky.  Paste green colour paper at the bottom (in...

Yes, I literally earned my first 10¢. When I was 7 years old. I sold a bookmark to a classmate. I could still remember how it went. I had some bookmarks and I put them in a photo album and showed it to her. I asked her if she wanted to buy and she chose one, which was priced at 10¢. That was how I made my first income. However, I could not remember how many more I sold. One day, not long after I started selling bookmarks in school, we had a pretend play at home. With my mother and my sister. My mother was to wash our hair like a hairdresser at the salon. After she washed my hair, I had to pay her. I could still roughly remember the conversation was about paying her and that we didn't have real money to pay her. That was when I said: But I have real money to pay you! And I told them how I got the money by selling bookmarks. My mom shook her head and said: I don't think you should do that. Please stop doing it. So, I had to stop doing it. That was my first bus...

What to do when you have very little time to cook but you want both meat and veggie in your diet? My "rescue plan" would be steamed fish with okra. Pieces of fish (like the one in the picture) cooks very quickly so it pairs perfectly with okra. It takes about 5-6 minutes to cook. I don't steam okras more than 6 minutes because they would turn yellowish (overcooked). THIS WEEK's SPECIAL: Steamed salmon with okra Ingredients: Salmon steak, okras, salt, ginger, shallots (optional), soy sauce (optional), cooking oil (only if you want to fry some shallots) First, boil some water in a wok or a steamer for steaming. Meanwhile... 1. Cut a few slices of ginger and lay them on top of the plate for steaming.  2. Clean the salmon steak. Sprinkle with some salt and put it on top of the pieces of ginger.  3. Wash and cut the okras. Sprinkle with some salt and arrange them according to your liking, in the same plate with the fish.  4. When the wat...

Traveling with children can be quite challenging. They need activities to keep them busy. From my experiences with my children, they don't really like to eat or shop. They want fun play and they want to explore. So, once in a while, we take them out for little adventures. Last June, we decided to take them to an island. WEEK 12: FUN PLAY TOPIC: A TRIP TO AN ISLAND It was a 3 nights 4 days trip. We stayed at Berjaya Tioman Resorts DAY 1 Lunch: I love burgers so it was a pretty good start for me.  Despite a pretty good lunch, our journey was delayed by about an hour. There were only two ferry trips to the island from Mersing, Johor. We chose the 3pm one instead of the 7am one because we didn't want to wake up at dawn and drive all the way to Mersing. When we reached the island, it was already dinner time. With kids along, we just had a short walk around the resort and went to bed early. DAY 2 We decided to go island hopping and snorkelli...