Kids Love Dancing and Perfoming

Last Sunday we had our dinner at Sunway Carnival Mall and my daughter spend about an hour's time "performing" her dancing skill and taking photo around the stage area.
I guess not only her, but most of the kids nowadays like to dance and sing openly in the public and they are not shy like we use to be. If you watch the video below, the 2 years old gal beside her can really twist her butt nicely and they seem to enjoy it so much!
It's kind of entertaining to watch them dancing so happily :)

Kids like dancing?

Recently we have a new entertainment. Guess what is it? It's the dance performance from our little girl. I don't know where she learn all those funny steps from, maybe it's from TV that she might not be able to followed it correctly. Anyway, it was really funny and it looks like practicing taichi to me...haha..see the video below and you will know what i mean...

Also when I show her the many different dances from the Youtube and asked if she would likes to learn one of those, she seems to be attracted to only the cheer leading. I wonder where she can learn cheer leading in Penang though, any idea, mothers?

What Kids of 4 years old love to do?

Whoa..It's been so long since i last wrote my blog. Geez..am i became so lazy, or was it because nothing to write? Anyway my interest to fill my blog is coming back and so will start with some interesting story about my daughter.
She's growing up well and starts to show interest in many sports and outdoor activities as well. A very obvious change recently (she is 4 years old this year) is that whenever she played in playground nowadays, she'll choose more challenging one compare to just slide or seesaw. She will try out the monkey bar although she was not able to climb it by her own but rather clinging on her dad and just move her hand. I guess she inherit it from you, liking all outdoor stuff but i bet she will be even more aggressive than me in future when she grew up. :)

Many asked me if i am going to sent her for piano class but it seems to me that she's not the type who can sit still for .5hour playing the piano. Rather, i asked if she wanted to go for dancing class. I shown her some dance video from the youtube and guess what her interest is? Among all those clip I shown her, she was so excited with the cheer-leading clip. Immediately after seeing it she wanted to have a try and asked us to hold her up high with our hand...I guess a person's characters can be noticed since very young, isn't it? This has lead me to think about what was my own interest during young time..which i might have forgotten due to the overwhelm of life....

Right brain development

I'm back to talk about what are some of the methods used for right brain development for kids following the first article release about why right brain development is so important for young kids.
The very key method used is flashing the flash card/dot card in the speed of .5 to 1sec to the kids. It's not meant for children to understand the content, but rather to try activate the right brain. As we know, right brain work differently from left brain. It can process fast and lots of information at one time which left brain cannot. Thus when we trying to inputs kids with lots of information at short time, the left brain will stop working and pass the job to right brain. Hence, this method is an excellent way to help activate the right brain.
Second most important method i felt is letting the kids listening more often to the songs, poem, classic Chinese teaching and so on, or read to them. Again, in this process, what we want is to develop the right brain which works with sounds better than text and not emphasize on the understanding of the content.
Next is playing some fun memory games or puzzle with the kids. One of the game i like to play with my daughter is to show her 10 picture cards, asked her to memorize it them flipped to the back and start calling out the picture's name one by one. If she get it right, I'll give her some cards as the reward. She played well especially when there is competition with Daddy :)
Of course there are more method that I haven't discover and will be glad to hear from you guys :)

Anyway,one thing not to forget is, the foundation to all this are still loving, healthy child. Don't even talk about brain development without a healthy body, soul and mind, isnt it?

Right Brain development is essential for 0~3 years old

Recently i had been reading the book about the right brain development for kids especially at the age of 0~3, and the method is called Shicida method. All this while I know that right brain is very powerful if we can properly used it but i dont know what is the best method to train the right brain. I have gotten lots of tips and way to help developing my daughter's right brain after reading the book by professor Shicida from Japan.

According to him, we are born with smaller right brain compare to left brain. So it is essential to develop the right brain at the age of 0~3 so that the size of the 2 brain can get balanced. Right brain is much more powerful than the right brain. It has the "camera"type of memory which can captured lots of information at a glimpse and record it at the right brain for future processing. The way it works are very much different from the left brain. For left brain, it needs to understand the information, analysis it then only it can be register at the left brain, but for right brain, it doesnt need to process and understand the information before capturing it. Which is so through over my observation on my daughter and me memorizing the klasik chinese teaching called "Di Tzi Gui". Recently i bought her the CD of it and played to her whenever she is sitting inside the car. After just 4/5days of continuous doing so, she can read to me the 4 sentences of the first paragraph of the Di Tzi Gui. However, for me, i was trying so hard but i couldn't remember it until i read it word by word and understand the meaning of it, then only i can memorized which proven that I'm the typical left brain person.

I think most of us are left brain educated and so our IQ cant really go that far. Nowadays since people has discovered the powerful of the right brain, it has then become important to change our education method to our kids which more focus on the right brain development at younger age. In the book, it shared some of the way to help developing the right brain and i'll share with all in the next post. Till then, have a good day!

Showing my daughter a life of a plant

We have gotten this free toy from enfagrow milk powder and I decided to give my daughter a simple experience of plant growth cycle. So i get 4 mung bean from my mom and put it inside the test tube provided by the toy set. I put 2 beans inside one tube with some cotton and water so that i will slowly growth into the bean sprout. The growth process are fast and in the 2nd days we can already seeing some significant growth. Kai Shuen seems amazed by this discovery and she keep checking on it everday.On day 4, one of the bean sprout has grown so tall compare to the rest and I was astonished by what Kai Shuen said. She said to me"Wah, mom this bean is great, she grow so tall compare to the rest, the rest are not good" She seems to adore by the one that growing so strong and tall and praise it. So I took the opportunity to ask her, which one she wanted to be like, and she answer - the tall one...haha..she always like to win, no matter what. I guess it is human nature to like victory, winning over other. It can be good or bad and I hope she will grow up to learn wining through the right way...:) Anyway, it's just a small exercise/experience, but i feel great that i try my effort to let her exposure to the nature life cycle. Should do it more often in future!

Unforgettable experience

I had never encounter such a scary but funny experience before. Yesterday my daughter wanted to take her story book from the bedroom upstair and she asked me to accompany her to the room. I was lazy to walk upstair and hence asked her to go up by herself. After a few minutes later, i heard her yielding me from the room, so I went up to check it out. To my surprise, she was locked inside the room. She was not able to open the door, whcih i suspect she has locked it accidentally. The locked is somehow unreliable and my mom has encounter similar issue before (it was my nephew's bedroom actually). My sister-in-law quickly rush to get the room key while i tried to comfort her by talking to her. Luckily she was calm and not crying, thanks god for that! However the key can't open the door, it was stucked somehow. I become more and more nervous. How are we suppose to get her out??? We try to climb out to the balcony from the room next to it and see if we can get into her room,  but you know what, the window's grill was locked and the key was inside the room itself!! Oh no, what to do next? While we were out of ideas, suddenly my dad opened the door with the key....Thank god, we rescused her finally :) What a scary but funny experience we have had...

Learn counting through play

We know that the effective way for kids to learn new thing is through play, but not all time we are able to think of a creative way to do so. Fortunately I came across this creative idea and finally successful to teach my daughter how to count things. She has been able to count 1-10 for quite some times but she just can't tell you exactly what is the sum/total after counting. Example, she can count the numbers of aplpes in the book, 1, 2 and 3, but then when you ask how many are there, she couldn't tell you it is 3. Recently I bought her some Big red bean to play "masak-masak" or the cooking games. She loves it so much. And out of sudden, i came out with this idea to put some read bean on the floor and ask her to count while picking it up and putting it in a tray. She was kind of happy to do so and when it is done, i'll ask how many read bean is there in the tray. After a few attempt/playing, she was able to tell the sum/total finally. So i guess this is a good example where I find kids can learn better and easier through play. The thing is, we parent really have to be creative and patient helping then to learn through play...gambateh all parents :)

Learning at Nursery

There is always some debat among parents whether to sent the kids to nursery at the age of 3 or younger. Some said sending them to nursery can let them learn some social skill, sharing and also some other academical knowledge. However the draw back is that, kids are more prompt to getting sick as they can easily pick up the viruses and bacteria from their friends. For me, I was forced to sent her to half day nursery because my mother was not able to take care of my daughter in the morning as she needs to cook. Good thing is, my daughter likes to go school. She loves playing and mixing around with other kids. Just that she don't like to study and can't seem to sit quietly for long. Anyway, she still learnt a lot from school. Starts to sing songs that i dont really understand what she was singing about, whether it's English or Tamil :). She also learnt what is big and what is small...etc...The most significant changes that i can observe is her colouring skill. I was surprised to see her color within the boundary that i draw for her. Good job Kai Shuen! Do keep having fun while learning new thing everyday... :)

Fun cycling at Mengkuang Dam

Last week although it was raining, we still brought Kai Shuen to "Mengkuang Dam" at BM for cycling. When we reached there, it was just drizzling and so we walked with umbrella to the shelter and let her play her bubble while waiting for the rain to stop. Luckily it stop after half an hour and she got the chance to cycle. She was very excited as this was the first time we brought her outdoor to cycle. She was cycling very fast and enjoyed been chased by us from the back. I have to run to be able to catch up wtih her and she laugh when i was not able to catch her, very naughty..well kids are all like that i guess, being playful :)
Mengkuang Dam is really a good place for kids and family to run, stroll, feeding fish (i am not sure if it is allowed but i saw poeple doing so), and many tooks beautiful photos of the environment...

Kai Shuen in action

 

She cycled very fast and enjoyed see us chasing after her :)


 We have a good time and she definetely was very very tired until she fall in sleep while we were having dinner right after mengkuang dam. See the picture below, I have to hold her with one hand and eat with another :)

Photo by the beach

About nine months ago i wrote about how my daughter scared of the beach, but now she loves going to beach. After we brought her to the beach a few times, she likes running at the beach and also throwing the pebble to the sea. I guess this is one way we can help our kids to overcome her fear, by keep letting them try it! Anyway, I managed to capture this photo of her at the beach - got style ler :)

My girl likes to think at night

Oh, i missed my blog. It's been long time i didnt update my blog. Reason? Busy, or it's just an excused :)
Anyway life has been very unstable for me for the past few months. Nothing seems to work as planned...but I'm feeling that it's over and I can see the rainbow :)

Ok, lets talked about something interesting...about my daughter :) I was amazed that at her age of 2 years and 4 months; she got a lots of thing to think about especially at night before sleep.
Yesterday after I switched of the light and laid down with her on the bed, she starts to say...Mommy, I missed teacher Holly( her teacher in the US nursery) and Avery (her friend in that nursery). I want to go find them...
The other day, also during the night, she suddenly request from me " mommy, can you bring me to old town for breakfast?"....lol
Another time, she said "Mommy, Big Aunty has went back home (they come for holiday and now back to Muar)...I said, yes, dear, do you missed them...She replied, Yes....

She's just adorable!

A triumphant feeling....

It has beenseveral months I tried to potty trained my 2 years old daughter. At first, she wouldn't even want to sit on the potty. Only after many times of persuade, she finally gave in. However, everytimes she sat on the potty, nothing seems to come out and she just want to play with the toilet paper :(
Even when I noticed her standing there trying to poo, and quickly put her on potty, yet nothing can come out. I was about to give up but my husband encourage me to try it slowly. Hence, I just occasionally let her tried without hoping too much. Just now, before she went to sleep, i let her tried again. Too my surprise, she successfully pee in the potty...I was so happy and so do her...Finally there is something come out, thank god! I cant see that she was also very happy or rather amazed listening to the sound of her dripping urine...What a triumphant feeling I have had, although it's just the first step to her journey of fully potty trained. Well, the first step is always difficult and I believe that once she has made her first step, success is near...hopefully :)

Fun playing with clay

Recently we brought Kai Shuen to Portland Children Musuem and bought back some clay for her. So we start with simple built like turtle. I make most of the part of the turtle, and she helps me to match the head and legs of the turtle to its body. It's not easy for little kids to rolled the clay or to shape it but she enjoyed watching me doing it, as well as "combining" the part into one piece...Then she asked me to make her a man. Although i was not good at art, still able to make one for her that she think it look like a man sitting on the floor....We have lots of fun playing with it and also capturing the photo of our "masterpiece":)

Little Turtle that we had built

kai Shuen signature smile :)

She also want to take photo of our finished good, this one is taken by her.

Funny child talk

Since Kai Shuen has been going to day care and she don't understand English, i thought it might be good for me to start teaching her some simple English word. Below was the funny dialogue happened this afternoon :

Me : Kai Shuen, would you like to have some milk?
KS : Har???
Me : (I showed her the bottle) Milk...Yes or No?
KS : (Pointing to her nose) No..
Me : Hahahaha...


The other day I dropped my glass of water :
Me : Oh...
KS : Oh my god!
This was my first time hearing her saying it. She must has learnt it in school :)

Kai Shuen 2nd Birthday

Kai Shuen is turning two this Sunday. Hence we have a little celebration for her at her day care center today. It was a pretty short one but i guess everyone did have a good time. We gave the M&M, Kit Kat and the animal balloons that we made ourselves to those kids in her class and I can see a smiling faces in them. Too bad we are not allowed to lit the candle due to safety issue. Although she has no chances to blow a candle today, we'll let her try on Sunday :) Anyway, we have a wonderfull time and it was her first party in US :)

Tinker Bell cake that I had choosen for her

She is wearing her Birdayday Girl shirt :)

She request us to take a photo with her teachers

Kai Shuen's friends enjoying the M&M and Kit Kat more than the balloon :)

My girl likes to watch action movies

I didn't notice how much Kai Shuen enjoyed watching action movie until the other day when we were watching the "kiss of the dragon"by Jet Lee. There was this bad guy no.1 wanted to kill the bad guy no2  and the scene was getting very exciting. The moment when the bad guy no.2 is been killed with the knife, Kai Shuen turn to me and said " the uncle is dead"! I was so surprise that she can somehow follow the story of the movie. On the other hand, i was worried too that TV really have a huge impact and influence on kids.
Although I try not to let her watch too much TV but sometimes it just can't help it. Sometime when she was bored playing with her toys, she will request me to switch on the TV. And if I don't want too, she will askme to bring her out. So sometimes i would rather bring her to the library or the playground than watching TV. Although she doesn't enjoyed me reading to her, she still love to go library sometimes :)

Read to the dogs programme

For dogs lover, you may wonder what this programme is about. I was surprised to find out this programme at Hillsboro public library. Kai Shuen normally like to play inside a room in the library, but on that day, it was closed. The notice on the door said that the "read to the dogs" is in progress. I was shocked to read this notice.  In my mind, i thoguht that nowadays US poeple even read to their favorite dogs?? I was really curious to find out more about this, thus i asked the librarian. "We teach the dogs how to read" said the librarian then she laugh, "I'm just kidding. This is a programme where we help young readers to build confidence by reading aloud to trained theraphy dogs in private 20-minute sessions". Oh, so that is nothing to do with the dog, I said to myself...haha..Such an interesting and wonderful programme, isn't it?

Refuse going to day care

It is the 8th of my daughter going to the day care and she still doesn't get used to it. She cried every morning when we drop her at the school. Today she doesn't even want to get into the car. Contradictory to what i thought it should be, the situation has become worsen. I really feel stressed each morning when I need to sent her to the day care. But i know that I can't give in. Others keep telling me that this is normal and depending on child, some may take one month to get used to it. I understand this but it was just hard for me seeing her crying, screaming for mommy and holding on me tightly. :(
If you have any tips how can I handle this situation better, do feel free to put your comments, thanks.

Second day of school

Today was the 2nd day I sent my 2 years old daughter to the day care in the US. I'm glad that she waves good bye to me when the teacher carried her over. First day was a rough start for her. While I was outside the classroom talking to the principal, i can hear her screaming and crying looking for me. Her teachers said she is fine after a while and starts to join the activities and play in the group. Until when the light is off around 12.15pm for the nap time, she started crying again. This is normal because since young she's so attached to me that even in her grandma's house at night when the light is off without me, she will cry out loud. I hope she will get use to it soon, poor little girl! Today, even she didnt cried when i was leaving but her teacher said on and off she will cry for a while, guess that she suddenly notice mommy is not around :) But she did very well in the class, joining others children to play and have fun! When she was home this afternoon, I asked her if she wanted to take a bath first or eat first, and guess what she replied me- I want to sleep first! haha..She must have been really tired in the school :)