a bit of entertainment during our ice-cream….

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thankfully, we he survived his first week of spelling.

i was initially apprehensive when i saw his spelling list (twice a week, starting from the third week). they went straight into long vowels, double letter words, and past tense. how delightful.

i turned ‘a-n-i/m.a.l.s’ into a catchy rhyme. i bribed him with a kiss for every correct word. i barked “LONG VOWEL E, ‘E-A’!” probably a hundred times. i promised a scream at his sister every time he got the word ’screamed’ right. (hey don’t judge, it worked.) his daddy and oma too took turns to – shall i say it? – *drill* him. yes, the dreaded drilling has (sadly) begun….

gladly, his ejaan (once a week, phew) was slightly less stressful. i was more amused by the stickers than the fact that he got them all correct. the stickers say “Teruskan” and “Menakjubkan”. indeed.

atrocious handwriting aside, i think he did ok. we asked if he copied. he assured us he didn’t. because everyone did this: *demonstrates hunching over with arm covering book*.

**********

meanwhile:

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‘Stuck’ is a story of a boy whose kite got tangled in a mess of a tree, and his subsequent efforts to retrieve it, his mode of strategy being throw-something-to-knock-something-else-down. i can always raise a few chuckles out of the kids when we read this, especially the parts where, instead of things/people being used for their obvious purposes (i.e. ladder, saw, firemen), he heaves them all up into the tree where they each get, well, stuck.

not only is oliver/jeffers a multi-award-winning children’s book writer and a brilliant artist, he’s also irish… and a DILF.

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“…and at once i knew
i was not
magnificent”
<3
#currentobsession

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turned seven. i don’t see him as often as i did when he was a baby and i’d drive to mum’s all the way from work during lunchtime just to play with him (those being pre-aniq days). these days, i can’t seem to elicit as much response from him as i did then.

what i do know is, i’d borrowed his Diary of A Wimpy Kid, and haven’t returned it. aunty will, i promise!

how about i get your NOISY cousins to sing for you again in the meantime?

(dies in embarrassment.)

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i first heard this through a storytelling session, and only realised how much of a perennial hit it is with pre-schoolers when i brought the book home and aniq instantly recognised it because his teacher had read it to his class.

a father and his children and their dog go on an impromptu adventure to hunt for a bear, overcoming obstacles of nature in the form of swishy grass, sploshy river, squelchy mud, stumbly forest, and swirly snowstorm (gotta love alliterations!). they find that they can’t go over or under these obstacles – rather, they have to go through them, battling their discomforts and fear, all in the name of thrill and adventure. they end up in a cave by the sea, where they do eventually come face to face with… well, a bear. which makes them all helter-skelter trace their route home (and here’s where the kids put their memory skills to use), the bear close on their heels. and they resolve, all huddled together under the bed covers, never to go on a bear hunt again, however exhilarating the experience was.

i like how naturally playful the children are portrayed, and the subtle ways they look out for one another; the older siblings taking turns to carry the baby, the older sister helping her younger sister put on her muddy shoes, the baby reaching out his hand to his older brother and dog as they cross the river.

and i know the bear’s made the villain in the story, having chased the family all the way home and seemingly trying to paw his way through their front door. but i prefer to interpret the bear, shoulders slumped, trudging back to his gloomy cave all alone, as somewhat… despondent. sad, because all he wanted was to be part of the family.

BUT THAT’S JUST ME BEING EMO.

as for auni, well, the repetition of these catchy, sing-song lines won her over, obviously.

and hey whaddaya know, a stage adaptation of this book is coming to town in jan/feb next year, and if you have funds to spare, sistic is selling the tickets. (though, as what i mentioned on twitter, it’ll probably cost me less to go on an actual bear hunt than buying tickets for the family to go to the thea-tuh, sigh.)

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she has yet to learn how to decode words since the last post. but i have to say her preschool teachers have been doing a pretty good job teaching them letter recognition, because truthfully… i haven’t really done much. *ashamed*

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our latest read: “It’s Not Fair!” (by amy krouse rosenthal & tom lichtenheld).

i chose this one from the library because the title is one of those phrases the kids, especially the boy, dish out in generous amounts every day. life is SO full of injustices for a preschooler, isn’t it? i like that it shows different perspectives, from children to animals, and even inanimate objects, and teaches that not everything can be fair all the time – oftentimes, there is simply no solution, because it just… is.

the kids love it – their repeated demands for me to read it to them is testimony. and so is auni’s reading of it here:

!!

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recently on our awesome club med holiday, there’s one thing that stands out in my mind. maybe not one thing but more of a collective bunch of people. more commonly known as GOs or Gentils Organisateurs (Gracious/Nice Organizers) they assist the resort manager or chef de village in running of the resort and boy, they really do a pretty mean job! they make the guests, called GMs, or Gentils Membres (Gracious/Nice Guests/Members) feel really at home with their warm and ever so friendly and approachable personalities. they even join us for lunch and dinner at random!

other than having good hospitality skills, they posses an incredible wow factor – talent. some can sing, dance, act and the chef de village can memorise more than 60 different names in 20 minutes, no joke! and this guy below, yep the AYAM man, can mimic the crow of the rooster.

don’t believe me, take a listen below.

the GOs really do have one of the best jobs in the world!!

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will be attending the Asian Festival of Children’s Content 2011 over the next four days, including a Masterclass on Picture Books – i don’t know what to expect, really, but oh, how excited i was when i learnt about this event.

because i LOVE children’s books. a LOT.

i thought i’d start blogging about my own kids’ collection of books for a start, the ones they enjoy asking demanding me to read over and over again, the ones that strike a chord with them.

i’ll start with one of the very first books we got as a gift – eric carle’s classic ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

there is SO MUCH that you can learn/teach in one eric carle book.

you may remember auni’s reading of Baby Bear, Baby Bear back when she was two. the use of rhythmic phrases and repetition of words, along with the rich, colourful illustrations, make it easy for the young reader to read along with it. i probably should have introduced ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear’ to her first, which has more familiar animals and simple use of colours as adjectives. ‘Baby Bear’ has more ‘exotic’ animals (eg. flying squirrel, prairie dog, mule deer) in various actions (eg. slipping, gliding, strutting) – but hey, they sure added to her vocabulary…

so back to the Hungry Caterpillar.

the caterpillar is cute, curious, and insatiable – just like a kid. he has immature impulses to do whatever he wants (ie. eat) – just like a kid. the repetitive phrases (eg. “But he was still hungry.”) are used to help in memory retention.. and because kids just love repeating things, don’t they?!

among the few things a young reader can glean from this book:

1. the life cycle of a butterfly – from egg to caterpillar to butterfly. (well, surely this is the most obvious/important point of the book!)
2. the days of the week – the story spans from one Sunday when the caterpillar pops out of his egg, to the following Sunday when he turns into a butterfly. and in between, the days of the week are introduced progressively; on Monday, on Tuesday, etc.
3. counting – the caterpillar eats one item the first day, two items the next day, three on the following day, four, then five, before he pigs out on Saturday. i’m not a math-oriented person, but i suppose i should use this as an opportunity to teach addition as well.
4. the names of fruits – an apple, pears, plums, strawberries and oranges; they are healthy and yummy.
5. the names of other foods – they pick up words like ‘pickle’, ’salami’, ‘Swiss cheese’, which they may not otherwise find in their daily diet. it’s also useful to be able to highlight the difference between ‘a slice of’ and ‘a piece of’.
6. the consequence of overeating – you get a major tummyache, as seen from the suffering in the caterpillar’s eyes as he doubles over from his greedy binge.
7. green is good – he repented, ate through a leaf (you could say it’s a kind of vegetable) and felt much better.
8. living things need food to grow.

did i miss out anything??

with that, i’ll end off with auni’s own reading of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’…

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