Monday, September 22, 2014

Renzo's first "scrapbook"

Just recently, I got really inspired by a mummy friend's beautiful scrapbook ideas and decided to start filing Renzo's drawings, as some of his drawings are really very nicely done, and I do wish that 20 years down the road, he would appreciate the fact that we've kept all his hard work for him. Well of course with this watchrenzogrow blog, indeed we have been keeping lots of wonderful memories for him, but I still think nothing beats a physical collection of his drawings kept intact, for his children's viewing pleasure in the future.

I went to Popular bookshop 2 times in a day, and finally decided to get a traditional photo album instead of a standard scrapbook, the reason is simple, I am not a creative person and a scrapbook sounds like too big a challenge for me, whereas for the photo album, it is much cheaper and easier to maintain, at least for a rookie like me.

The filing process was pretty fun, till we realized some of his most amazing pieces, were thrown away by our helper. Honestly I was a bit cross, I meant it's no doubt my fault, to have told her that she could make her own decision and feel free to throw anything in the house while packing. But obviously, those drawings are so delicate, cheerful, lively and came with so much efforts!! How can anyone deem those as "not-worth-keeping" stuff?!

I got over it when Renzo told me, "It's alright mummy, I still remember how I drew them and we have a lot of time in a day right? I can draw again, and I can draw even better ones!"

Fortunately, I kept some pictures of those drawings so we went ahead to develop those out. While I was embellishing those particular pages, Renzo read the contents I added and somehow, he felt that some true facts were missing there, so he cut off a small piece of paper and added "Mummy has thrown it away -->" next to some of those missing pieces, he sure knows how to rub salt into wounds =(

He was thrilled when I presented the album full of drawings eventually, and went ahead to complete another new piece, just so he could add it into the album. I am so glad to see how much he is appreciating this album and he told me, "I want to draw everyday, forever!!".. I am loving this great new start and hopefully we will move on to a really great looking scrapbook in the very near future!

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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

5-A-Day-Books with Renzo


Last week, when I went to fetch Renzo from school after work, we met one of his classmates and her mummy at the lift. The friendly mummy pointed out to me that the lift is not working as I didn't notice the signboard pasted on the wall. And Renzo asked, "Mummy, why we are not allowed to use this lift?", I told him to read the message on the signboard so he could find out why. The mummy was in shock when Renzo started reading: "This lift cannot service level 4.....".

So she asked, "Isn't he in K1 also? He can READ??!! How do you teach him to read??!!". Renzo carried on reading:"Sorry for any... any... mummy what is this word?". I tried to break down the word "inconvenience" into 4 syllables and point at the letters while Renzo was decoding and sounding out "in-con-ven-ience", and then I explained to the mummy about how we guide Renzo to "decode" complex words by breaking it down based on syllables, make the sound of each syllable, blend them together and sound it out.

The mummy said bye to us with an amazed face, leaving me behind, wondering for a while about the question, how do we teach Renzo to read?!

I probably have never shared any tips here about how, because we never really have any tips. The one and only one tip I could think of, is to cultivate good reading habit from young, so kids will find reading rather a fun routine they enjoy doing daily. Usually the only reason Renzo refuses to sleep on time at 9:30pm, is because he has not finished reading his books. He's currently on a routine called "5-A-Day-Books" which is widely adopted by many parents.  The idea is to have your kid pick any 5 books and repeatedly read them everyday for one whole week, and move on to next set of 5 books. We let Renzo pick anything he likes because he has already formed a routine of reading books with us before bedtime since he was 3. Before that, we were the one reading to him as he couldn't read on his own.

And recently Renzo has been very eager to improve his Chinese so his 5-A-Day-Books choice often includes 4 Chinese books and 1 English book only. And amazingly, he is improving! Of course I must give credits to his childcare teachers who have taught them hanyupinyin in K1, I know most pre-schools start that in K2 only. He's now able to read simple Chinese books independently.


Last night when we asked Renzo to pick his 5 books, instead of going straight to the bookshelf as what he always does, he suddenly said, "I am not sure, I do not know which ones to pick because I've read all these books already. I want to be smarter but I do not have many books to read!!". He's quite right because he really doesn't have a lot of books, so I've decided to get him some new books on his favorite Disney characters like Jake or Sophia. And I am sure I have the need to up his book collection immediately, because now Rynus didi seems to get more and more interested in this 5-A-Day-Books routine too!!




Monday, September 8, 2014

Never late again for homework submission

This morning, when I woke up and checked our "notice board" on the fridge (we have a habit to put up all the notification from school with fridge magnets, so we won't miss out any important deadline), I suddenly recalled that besides bringing a mooncake to school for Mid Autumn festival celebration, kids are supposed to make a lantern with recycled materials, and the deadline for submission is, today! September 08!!!

I remember last week when we first received this piece of notice in Renzo's comm book, we briefly talked about what to do with it and since he was having an earlier deadline for "teacher's day heart decoration" before this, we decided to leave the lantern till the weekend. Being the least creative one in the house, I suggested using red packet as I've seen many before so I was very sure it's easy to make.

It's already 6:15am and I usually wake up the family by 6:20am to prepare the kids for school. So i quickly did a search on the internet and found some pretty good tips there.When I asked daddy what are we supposed to do, my half awake husband gave me that same one million dollar answer as usual:"no choice, just submit it tomorrow lor..."

No way!!! That's what i told myself because last week when we received the teacher's day heart for decoration on Wednesday night, the deadline was Friday and when I went to fetch Renzo on Thursday night, half of the wall at the school entrance has already been filled up with beautifully decorated hearts.
Renzo was a little upset and commented:"I'm late because my friends have made their hearts already..". When i explained to him that the deadline falls on the next day and he's not late at all, he responded, "but, I can always submit earlier right?!". So the moment we reached home, he looked for his heart and started drawing and writing without any help at all. He's very certain about how he wants his heart to look like and I'm truly impressed with how confident and independent he is because in the past, he always needed some guidance on artwork like this.

So tell me, how can let him wait until tomorrow??!!

By the way, Renzo was late for his submission once before, and being late is never O.K. to me. I was never late for submission at school or at work, not even once, and I attribute that to the great habit my parents cultivated in me since young. And I always believe in leading by example, though this is Renzo's homework, he's still not at the age to do it independently so I feel that I am partially responsible for his lateness (almost late, not yet) too.

Luckily, Daddy Chan is really good at artwork, but of course he needs ample time to deliver great result, wow that sounds exactly like Renzo, lol, slow but steady. Anyway so given a limited 5~10 minutes timeframe, this has to be the best lantern daddy could come up with I guess.

Renzo was excited to see the "red packet lantern" that he could bring to school! I was in great mood that my son is not going to be upset seeing others running around with their lanterns in school, and most importantly, I promised myself to work harder in teaching Renzo to be more responsible in submitting his own homework on time, and I thought it's a pretty good start at least. So I decided to make Renzo even more excited by allowing him to wear his own clothes (of course the nice piece he chose himself) to school for his celebration, Happy Mid Autumn my little darling!!

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Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Renzo is teaching us to be better parents

Since Rynus started going to full day childcare, I've changed their daily routine, instead of having my in laws fetch Renzo and my helper fetch Rynus on 2 separate trips, I rush down to their school by public transport, and take a taxi to bring the 2 boys home every night.

We have been meeting different taxi drivers, some love kids and chat with the boys happily, and even allow them to eat some snacks in the taxi, (Of course I make sure to bring those without crumbs, and yes they need snacks or else, you will see a grumpy Rynus sitting on the floor at the middle of the road and insisting to cross the road only when red light is on), some are rather quiet but that's perfectly ok, it's just a short 10 minutes ride anyway. And interestingly both of my boys have learned to tell the drivers our destination once they get into the car.

A few weeks ago, there's this one night, I had to rush back to office after bringing them home, so when we are approaching our car park, I told the taxi driver, please drop the kids off so my helper will bring them up, and drive me out to the nearby MRT station, so I could take a train back to office. The driver responded in a not so happy tone, "Why you never tell me earlier??!!"
So last night after we off the light, Renzo brought up this incident to discuss with me, he asked:"Mummy, that uncle is not friendly, were you angry with him?!" I explained that of course I'm not, it's my fault that I didn't tell uncle about the plan when we first got into his taxi, because I assumed the MRT station is not far away so it shouldn't cause any inconvenience to the driver, which apparently, I was wrong and the driver was rushing to change shift.

Then, I started to share a bit more with Renzo about anger management, or rather say emotion control. I told him, if mummy was angry with the uncle, I might start complaining to everyone in the house about it, or worse still, I might get agitated easily with people around me, that includes Renzo of course. Then how will he feel if he gets blamed easily just because mummy is not in a good mood?! He agreed with me that he will not feel happy for sure, hence he's glad that I didn't get angry with that uncle. 

I then further explained that everyone might have their own ups and downs, we cannot control others, but we can definitely control our own emotions to make sure we do not spread any negativity to people around us, especially those who we truly love. Yes I'm using all those "complicated" terms in front of my 5 years old. Kid's brain is powerful enough to digest and absorb so I always make sure I talk to him as an adult. 

Anyway so, I continued to ask him:
"Have you ever seen daddy and mummy quarreling with each other?"
"No mummy.." 
"Have you ever seen daddy and mummy shouting at each other?"
"No mummy, never.."
"Then have you ever seen daddy and mummy getting angry with each other?", I asked that questions *proudly*, because hubby and I are always very loving as a couple, we don't need to put in efforts in front of kids just to show the better side of ourselves..

To my surprise, he paused for a second and responded, "I'm not sure mummy. There's once when we need to go out and buy food, you couldn't find your wallet, and daddy said it's ok he has cash, you said but, you need the card in your wallet, in an ANGRY tone... ..."

Gosh, that happened at least a month ago and I was so desperate because we need to send Renzo for his piano lesson and go to NTUC to get milk powder for Rynus. I needed my NTUC member card for points accumulation so paying with cash like what hubby suggested, won't address my problem, Renzo needed to go for his lesson so I wasn't able to take my own sweet time as usual to locate my wallet. So, I snapped, for that 1 minute, till daddy found my wallet left in his car. I then quickly apologized to both daddy and Renzo because getting a little irritated is not my usual behavior in such situation. I still remember how sorry and ashamed I felt at that time.
But honestly, I never expected Renzo to remember that incident at all. And seriously, I always think I'm quite a calm and steady mummy but even a small action like this, could end up with negative impact on my kids. 大人在做,孩子在看! If you are the type who often loses your cool in front of your loved ones, it's time for some serious self reflection.

As I always share with others, kids, are our mirrors. When you look into the mirror and see a dirty face, don't rush to find ways to wipe the mirror clean, take some time to check if your own face is dirty and need to be washed or not... 

I feel so touched and hugged Renzo tight, I thanked him for teaching me to be a better mummy. Yes my kid has taught me so much over the years. All his teachers feedback to me that he's slow in doing everything, even his newest teacher from GlobalArt who's been teaching him for only a month, commented that he is SLOW! It took him 4 lessons to complete a color chart before he could move on to his coloring book and free drawings, I assume other kids can do that within 2-3 lessons. Renzo told me he's just slow because he can't do things well if he has to rush. I've learned through him that kids have their own pace which they feel comfortable with, rushing them to catch up with our pace might lead them to questioning their own identity and ability, why not just watch them and adore how they focus on carrying out a simple task patiently which we as parents, often don't have the luxury of time to do slowly. 

Renzo has also been sharing with us that when he was at Rynus' age, he felt scared and upset when we had to raise our voice and discipline him, so he cried often. And now, whenever we have to do the same to Rynus, Renzo will remind us immediately, "Please, do not get angry with Rynus didi, be softer, cannot shout at him! You will make him cry if you are so loud to him!!".

But of course, we are ALLOWED to raise our voice to Rynus once a while, if, and only if, we are angry and Renzo is angry with his little brother at the same time! LOL... 

Monday, September 1, 2014

reading WITH kids...

If you've been following Renzo's blog, you know that he loves reading since young and I'm very glad that we've fostered a good reading habit at home from day one. Despite the fact that he could read English books independently now, we still enjoy reading together with him so much!

Usually Daddy is the one reading with him before bedtime. Of course for Chinese books, well, only Mummy can help, LOL... And from 9pm to 930pm, usually you will find him busy reading books in the room and he gets really upset if he's not allowed to read by lights off time (930pm or sometimes earlier), so he puts in efforts to finish his dinner, shower and tries to spare enough time for reading everyday.

Talking about Renzo's books, his kiasu mummy spent more than 1000 dollars on a set of Grolier children's books for him when he was barely 1 year old, which he only started reading 1 or 2 recently. But since then, I've not been buying a lot of books for him, maybe I am under better control because I thought I've spent more than enough. So a few months back, when we decided to migrate his books all to the bedroom for easier access, and get him to label his bookshelf, I realized that he really doesn't have a lot of books. He mentioned that he wants to finish all his assessment books in order to be clever, and I could only find less than 5 of those on his little bookshelf.


But I somehow like it this way. It's just like many parents believe kids do not need too many toys, I feel that they do not need too many books either, not all at one time I meant. So at least they could focus and finish reading before you get them new ones. Look at the your kids' bookselves at home, who dares to say your 3-7 years old have already finished reading at least 70% of their collection?

And by providing them with limited range of books, they also learn to treasure their books more, just like how they treasure their toys. This was how heartbroken Renzo was when he found out Rynus tore one page out of his book and threw that away. I bought him a new one though I was told by many that he needs to learn to cope with losses, but his reasoning was that he really wished to finish reading that exact same story. So you see, it's not that I am not willing to splurge on books, I just want to only buy for a good course rather than keep buying without knowing how much my kids will really enjoy reading.

So here are some of Renzo's great books I really love:

Thomas and Friends 
His all time favorite. He can read them again and again without feeling bored at all. And I believe it is extremely important for them to start with books that they are interested in, if you are training them to read independently. Renzo could tell most of the stories using his own words, more amazingly, I think he could recite some of them because he will remind me if I miss one or two words when I read to him, without looking at the text. And once, he even pointed out a picture that was used wrongly in one of the books because that entire book was about "Percy" but a picture of "Henry" who looks almost the same to "Percy" in our eyes, appeared somehow.

And a 3 full pages long story is not challenging to him, he could read fluently without getting any help from us at all.

I CAN READ 

This is a set of books I borrowed from my sister as my niece was with I CAN READ school for English enrichment in the past. And I've brought Renzo for an assessment when he was 3. Though I've decided that he doesn't really need their course, I still got the set of books to stand by, in case I need to teach him phonics using their system/method/curriculum. I've picked a random page from their volume 6 book, which is supposed to be their most advanced level of reading, and Renzo had no problem reading it so I guess it's time to return the whole set to my sister since her younger girl might need them, after I zap a copy for Rynus first of course.

Leapfrog
Another set of books I borrowed from my sister, we planned to teach Renzo reading with these easier books and the Leapfrog Tag reading pen, but he somehow picked up the skill of word blending on his own. He read these books only for a short period of time when he was 2-3 years old.

All about discipline (Chinese: 儿童礼仪正能量)
The set of books I love the most. There are short little stories and related questions to help Renzo better comprehend what he's learned from the story. He often pick 3 stories at one go, and ask me to read to him, and answers those questions by relating and citing his own experience in daily life.

IQ/EQ books (Chinese: 完美情商智商)
Another set of great books to guide him on proper behaviors. The stories are a lot longer, so I do need to explain to him in English often. Last night we were on a story about baby snail complaining on his heavy "house" - shell on his back being a huge burden, and mummy snail explained to him the reason why this "house" is important, hence encouraged him to always rely on itself!
 

Renzo related that story to his recent efforts in being more independent, like keeping his own toys after playing, taking shower on his own, putting back his plates into sink after meal, helping our helper to sweep the floor, and even opening car door for himself, and his mummy who often feels like a princess while he does that.

I've seen so much benefits of reading together with Renzo everyday! It allows him to think more, discuss more and share more about his opinions. So I am trying to refrain from getting too excited whenever he's able to pick up a complicated story and read on his own. Instead, I am enjoying the time we read together.

Recently, I've read a blog post "5 A Day Books" , and decided to adopt the method introduced there.  Forget about the agenda to get Renzo expand his vocabulary through more reading, and just simply spend time to read WITH him, oh, that means another 5 A Day Books with Rynus didi, that's 10 A Day Books!!

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