discovering the joy of play outdoor with kids..

About 3 months ago, I wrote a post to encourage parents putting down their smart phone and spending more time with kids. So during this 3 months period, I did follow the 3 suggestions I gave to myself, and other parents about how to cut down time spent on phone.

Just in case you might be wondering, did I end up spending more time with my kids? Definitely! And how's the result??? I must say I am extremely satisfied so far, Renzo being the usual Renzo still have his little drama episodes at times but overall I think he's getting back on the right track! The result on Rynus is indeed even more obvious. He's getting more and more interactive, vocal and expressive. The worries about our late bloomer's "speech delay" (as compared to Renzo only) were all gone by now.

Especially during the past 3 weeks, we've sent our be loved helper back to her hometown for her son's primary school graduation. And she will only be back in another 2.5 weeks, right that's a total of 5.5 weeks holiday for her, hooray!!! So this, allows forces us to spend a lot more time with the boys outdoor. By the way, the whole Chan family is pretty homely kind except for little Rynus who seems to enjoy playing outdoor more. So in the past when we have our hardworking helper maintaining the house spick and span at all times, we didn't mind letting the kids lazying their entire Saturday and Sunday off on the couch. But now, we rather bring them out during the weekends, time flies faster, their energy get exhausted faster, and we can clean up the mess at home faster also, considering there won't be much mess since most of the time we are all out.

So during our 1st "maid-less" weekend, we made an impromptu trip to Malaysia Legoland and stayed 1 night at their Legoland resort hotel. Daddy Chan's last minute decision to visit "The Little Big Club" nearby was brilliant! Hearing the boys' loud cheers upon seeing their favorite Thomas Train made the trip all worthwhile, and being able to take a ride on it, is definitely a dream come true to them.

 

I had so much fun editing a simple video clip from that trip and seeing the boys sitting down side by side to watch it again and again, made me chuckle nonstop with them too. 

And nothing beats this marvelous piece of drawing from Renzo a few days after our trip, he did it purely based on his memory about the legoland hotel, water park, theme park, and even the traffic jam at the custom.

During our 2nd "maid-less" weekend, we brought the kids to Wild Wild Wet at Downtown East to enjoy some wet play time with their cousins. And also to Pasir Ris Park for the boys to practice some cycling skills and get rewarded with their ice creams on the beach.

 

And during our 3rd "maid-less" weekend, since the boys have had enough water play and sun tanning, we brought them on Rynus' favorite 518 bus ride to Renzo's favorite indoor playhouse - Cool de Sac and Suntec City. Although Renzo seems to have outgrown his interest in this playhouse, and Rynus seems to only enjoy the first half of his bus ride, they both slept peacefully on their journey home after a short few hours of play.

Outdoor play is a great way to encourage parents give their undivided attention to kids, no time for phones except for taking pictures and videos. We forged deep bonds with the boys by playing with them and there are just so much more laughter and pleasure in moving up and down the slides or dipping in the water (than reading a book at home of course). I got a strong sense of accomplishment while watching them build their muscles along with their imagination and confidence. I feel so proud hanging out with my children and playing like a kid myself. And we have so much more fun topics to share after lights off time at night in bed!

back on the piano topic, again...

From September 2012 when Renzo first started the Music Wonderland course with Yamaha, which lasted for only 6 months due to logistic concerns, till we restarted his piano lessons in October 2013 with private teacher at home, Renzo's piano learning journey has not been all smooth. And a month ago, we finally made the call to switch him to a school in the same building as his childcare center, so that he could attend his lessons once a week during school time, just like his GlobalArt lessons. He follows a teacher for one on one lessons and the techniques taught are very similar to what he's been learning under his previous teacher in the past one year. Now he's totally free on Saturdays and Sundays and he could play all day long, what a wonderful childhood, seriously!!!

The new piano teacher commented a few times that Renzo's previous teacher has built a solid foundation so he knows his theories very well, and Renzo is extremely good with his rhythms. Hence he's progress is rather fast because the new curriculum is indeed easier than the previous one. I do feel sorry for Renzo as we have been making so many changes to his routine within a short span of 2 year, yet he's able to cope well each time.


Up to now, I think it's pretty clear to us that Renzo's interest and passion in music is just not as strong, wait, was he ever keen??!! He could spend hours drawing or coloring but 15 minutes of piano practice a day, is still something he is not willing to commit to. He needs a lot of encouragement and discipline. Just this morning, he was pretty upset when we forced him to practice. I had to "threaten" him by asking him to choose between piano and his toys, so if he chooses NOT to touch his piano anymore, I will choose NOT to let him touch his toys anymore. Well, I know it's not fair but once a while, I do have to remind him that I AM THE MOTHER! Okay authoritative parenting is not my style for sure, but, just once a while... I meant, who doesn't face such kind of challenges with toddlers at home?!

The "threatening" didn't work out very well, although he continued to practice, he wasn't happy. I then showed him a video of his cousin playing a difficult piece without making mistakes. He seemed a little more inspired and carried on to do better and better.

At one point, I caught him beating his own left hand when Daddy reminded him to keep his fingers naturally curved, as he was accidentally pressing 2 keys at a time with his left hand. That act of him, was a wake up call to me that kids might not understand or react well with criticism, but they definitely feel embarrassed, or even shameful while being criticized and we as parents should take care of their feelings, and motivate them to come up with better solutions on their own, which are often way more constructive.

So I explained to Renzo that there's no need to "blame" his left hand, and the fact is, he's still young and when he's fingers grow longer, he will definitely be able to play better. But for the time being, a better solution would be, practice, practice, and practice more...

the awesome yearly school concert...

On Thursday, Nov 13, 2014, we took one day off from work, to attend probably the biggest event of the year, Renzo's childcare year end concert.

Renzo refused to reveal any details about his concert despite me asking him numerous times at home. Every year, the preparation of their year end concert starts around July, and the kids spend time every day to learn and practice their dance moves. The concert is held around early December though for some reason this year it's in November, which is not a bad thing because we simply couldn't wait any further to see him performing on stage again.

And the efforts teachers put in, are simply astonishing. The teachers request kids to bring their white shoes and white socks to school, a couple of weeks in advance, just in case anyone forgets to bring their shoes/socks on the actual day. The teachers spend hours selecting costumes and making props for the concert. Although some parents might find it insane to pay S$40 dollars for a set of costume which is likely to be wore only once, I personally love all Renzo's costumes as he looks super duper adorable and cool in those costumes. The teachers organize full dress rehearsal for kids to get familiarized with the stage, as each time the concert is held outside the school at places like Kallang Theater, Simei ITE auditorium, etc. I've heard once the founder of the school commented during the rehearsal, that the hairstyles of girls from a K2 class is not flattering enough on the stage, the teacher made last minute changes to make sure the concern is addressed and the girls are looking their best on the actual day.

 

What I truly love about his school concert, is that the kids spend time together to learn their dance steps. They get to experience what is team work beside focusing on their own body coordination. And we as parents do not need to worry about getting to the concert to find out our poor kid being the "unlucky" one to act as a tree, in hot unglamorous costume and basically is not allowed to move the body, or maybe occasionally get to move the arms (branches) a bit.

Renzo told us that it is going to be an amazing surprise for all the daddies and mummies, and it's going to be the most exciting event of the year. So we arrived at the concert without any clue about what to expect, honestly, till that very moment, I wasn't even sure if my son is able to dance well. So yes, he has definitely surprised us, year after year. Pianica performance is added for K1 and K2 kids, hence this is the first year he's participating. I do believe it's rather easier for him since he's been learning piano for quite a while. As for his dance, I was totally blown away because I never know that he has any flair in dancing but just like what his teachers told me, his rhythm is really good. He might looked a bit zoned out, a bit slow motion, a bit short hands short legs but, he looked damn cool throughout without making any wrong moves at all.

For the fact that we do not own a powerful camera and we prefer not to rush to the front of the stage like many other parents often do, we didn't manage to capture any great quality pictures of videos, but we did enjoy the show to the max. And I just can't wait for the professional up close video/pictures from the school.

 

Last year, the theme of the concert was Retro and Renzo did a gorgeous "Hey Mickey" dance.

 

 

 

 

   

If you think that it's a big deal to put up a nice show at such tender young age, let me show you the dance he did in 2012 when he was only 3 years 4 months old.

 

 

 

 

 

It might sound a bit crazy to get a bunch of active 3 years old kids to put up a show on stage, but I strongly believe the opportunity and exposure given to have them enjoy some fun time on the stage, will encourage them o foster a more positive attitude and explore their own self-expression.

I couldn't imagine how touched I will feel during his next school concert as by then, he will be graduating from K2 and that will be the last time he has the chance to show case what he's learned in this wonderful childcare center. The best part is, it will be the first year that Rynus didi gets to participate in school concert also!!

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!!

Chinese enrichment for Renzo at home

Ever since Renzo started reading his very first simple English book independently when he was 2 years 5 months old, we've been putting in quite a bit (or I should just admit, it's quite a lot) of efforts to guide him along with English reading as we didn't plan to send him for any English enrichment lessons. I borrowed the whole set of "I CAN READ" books from my niece as she attended their lessons for about 2 years, and achieved amazing result so I was thinking to self study their materials and teach Renzo with their special curriculum/method at home. In the end, that's not needed at all. He's turning 5 in about 15 days and I totally do not have concerns about his English as he loves reading and is able to read very complicated books by blending words on his own.

But here comes his headache, or rather say our headache - his Chinese! He could finish his once-a-week Chinese homework without any problem. His handwriting is never a concern but rather, recognizing and reading Chinese words on his own.

You got to understand that you just can't have the best of both worlds. How can I expect him to read Chinese well when clearly, we've been putting all our focus on his English reading skill. I only have a video of him learning to read Chinese words when he was 2 years 2 months old and since then, I didn't really teach him much but rather leaving him to his Chinese teachers in the child care center.

 

Just to side track a bit, while browsing through all the videos we've taken for Renzo, I suddenly realized that we've exposed him to English/Chinese/Maths extremely often during the age of 2 to 3, maybe that's a critical age for kids to learn as they absorb super fast? I am not sure but I know we have to work harder for his little brother Rynus from now.

Anyway, a recent talk with many other mummy friends made me aware, that Renzo's progress with his Chinese study is rather slow. His spelling list from child care center comes with words like "一二三，上中下" where some other kids at the same age are expected to write more complicated words like "厨师". Alright my intention was never to compare them but still, I know I got a lot more work to do with his Chinese, if I insist not to send him to Berries (a famous Chinese enrichment school).

A mummy friend shared her 3 steps in teaching her boys Chinese words, which worked like magic for Renzo too. She's using a set of Chinese learning books 四五快读，but I am sure these steps can be used on any other materials too:
Step 1: Parent reads and explains individual words (from one chapter)
Step 2: Parent reads out words randomly and asks the child to point them out one by one
Step 3: Parent points at the words while the child reads aloud 

Based on our own experience with Renzo's English reading, I know for sure these steps are going to work even before I tried them. Those "read aloud, read along, read alone" type of books usually attract kids' attention easily, as they find reading together with adults in a "role play" kind of way rather fun. And these steps above, are of very similar concept to me.

After trying out the above steps, I got really inspired and invented my test worksheet to reinforce on Renzo's learning. Since he's still young and is not expected to write all these rather complicated words, the goal is to get him recognize the words. So I printed out 2 sets of word lists with the new words he learned to read the day before, and added in a similar word to "confuse/distract" him. When I read one word, all he needs to do is to choose the correct one between the two. He was struggling with 1 or 2 sets of these words but overall, he did very well.

On top of learning Chinese words, I added Chinese story reading into Renzo's daily bedtime routine. So after reading this story "渔夫和金鱼" to him for 2 nights, I was astonished to see him grabbing this book last night, and started reading on his own based on 汉语拼音, which is usually taught in K2 at most childcare centers and kindergartens.

I love the fact that his teachers are teaching them 汉语拼音from K1. As most of the schools start teaching only in K2, and personally I feel the sequence of teaching Chinese words, then followed by 汉语拼音 is just a bit wrong. As 汉语拼音 serves like phonics in English, it helps to build a child's interest and confidence level in reading Chinese books although they might not really recognize most of the words or understand their meanings just yet, at least, they could figure out the sound with 汉语拼音 and for Renzo's case, I am very certain that he will soon start to recognize more words and enjoy learning Chinese more!

Renzo invented a new way to complete his homework faster

As I have mentioned many times in the past, I am not a fan of enrichment classes so Renzo has been attending one and only one enrichment so far - Piano.

He has a lovely piano teacher who sees him once a week for 45 minutes, he's learning the basics now and he has homework to do after each lesson, usually one page of coloring and a few pages of notes reading. I must say knowing his letters and numbers well before the age of 4 is an added advantage to him, as he could easily cope with his homework independently.

So besides some random, well indeed frequent "complaints" from his childcare teachers, about him being extremely slow in doing his school work, I think he's absorbing well in school. His teachers will update us on his progress, and let us view his school work on a monthly basis. Just some of the examples here:

But, getting him to do his homework at home, is forever a chore, not to forget he has only one type of homework to do at the moment, I can't imagine how to manage when there are more coming in the near future. Spelling being one of the many which his childcare will start in July this year. I am pretty sure many parents experience the same, pulling their hairs out to get their kids study, is nothing unheard of.

We have tried to give him monetary rewards and that's how he managed to get a few new Thomas train toys, but I don't like the moral value behind this, as if he should be rewarded for doing homework but in actual fact, it's his own responsibility and it's for his own good. And Daddy likes to time him, so you often see a digital clock counting down right in front of his face, while he's rushing to finish things up. But usually that leads him to nonstop cries and whines as he feels being pressurized, or even threatened. I personally don't like that idea either as I don't think he can deliver quality work when we set a time limit, though yes he for sure needs to get his work done in due time but that clock, just annoys me at the same time too =(

I truly think that kids are able to do well with things they are interested in, that is why we often promote the idea to foster good learning habit. Just look at the drawings from him recently, you can see he simply enjoys doing it, thus he takes his own initiative, puts in more efforts and does an awesome job!!

So I've found what I claimed the most efficient way to get him work on his homework. One night, I have some urgent things to settle for work so I told him that after shower, he has to sit down and do his piano homework, and I will work on my company laptop right besides him. That worked wonders! He managed to finish 8 pages of notes reading in one shot, whereby usually his best record is 3 pages. He even checked on me a few times and reminded me to "work hard, so I can get a better job with better pay (well nope I am not leaving my wonderful company and my boss)".

Since that night, I formed a habit to sit near him, work on my laptop or read a book while he's doing his homework. I feel that I am setting a good example by studying/working at the same time, rather than sitting down with him and bossing around.

But interestingly, he has slowly found a new and fun way, to make himself even more efficient - MULTITASKING!!

Take a look at this video, by repeating the notes of a song he learned at pianica class in his childcare center, he sets a right tempo and gets his homework done even faster!! As he repeatedly sang the notes, he wrote row by row and moved extremely fast to the end of the page till he couldn't even believe in his speed!!

So 30 pages of notes reading in 2 weeks time, of which, he finished about 6 pages during week 1, and the rest 24 pages were all done in week 2 after we figured out the above 2 ways!! Amazing isn't it??!!

a new effective way to cultivate good habits in Renzo

When Renzo was 1.5 years old, he was reciting 三字经 together with us, he could not memorize 100% and his articulation wasn't really clear, of course he couldn't possibly understand a single word of it but I thought that was a pretty good start, to expose our little boy to some ancient, traditional Chinese Confucian classics, which might help him to learn morality, especially filial piety and respect for the elderly.

We did not pursue further to teach him more about it, because I personally feel that  三字经 focuses quite a lot on elements of Chinese history, which is not as relevant to his development at this stage. So instead, I started teaching him 弟子规 since he turned 4 last week. It is another book based on the ancient teaching of Chinese Confucius, that emphasizes the basic requisites for being a good person and guidelines for living in harmony with others.

It's amazing to see some pretty good result after Renzo started learning and reading 弟子规 for just a few days.

For example, after I explained "晨则省, 昏则定", meaning, in the morning I will greet my parents and at night I will wish them a good night, Renzo went to our helper and asked, "Aunty Jonalyn, may I have water please?" in a super polite tone, and after he finished the water, he returned the cup to our helper and said "Thank you Aunty Jonalyn, GOOD NIGHT!"

I bet that's the first time Renzo took the initiative to say Good Night to someone.

And nowadays when he's not behaving well, I could simply remind him to go and read his  弟子规, he will LISTEN, and FOLLOW without making any fuss at all!!

Now, he could read the first few verses fluently on his own, indeed, he understands and remembers these verses very well. Because when I asked him, 父母做什么，你要“须敬听"? (what do parents do, you will listen respectfully?), he answered immediately, "父母教, 须敬听 mummy!" (When my parents instruct me, I will listen respectfully).

Here's a video of him reading "父母呼 应勿缓 父母命 行勿懒 父母教 须敬听 父母责 须顺承"

Confucius emphasized that the basic moral values and virtues should be first taught to a child since young. Those values are to respect elders, respect brothers and sisters, respect wife and husband, respect the society and lastly respect the country as a whole. We often question why kids nowadays have no respect for anyone, I think probably it's because these great values are not instilled into their minds from young, instead we focus too much on creativity, imagination, self-esteem, or even academic records. I would strongly recommend 弟子规 to parents, have fun reading and learning together with your kids!!

Little Renzo is working hard to improve his Chinese

About 2 years ago, I wrote a post on Renzo's Mandarin and although we were pretty impressed with his ability to sing Chinese songs or even recite "三字经" at young age, we have to admit that his Chinese didn't improve much for the past 2 years, with our all English speaking environment at home. 

In fact Renzo has quite a big problem dealing with people who speaks Chinese. You know it's pretty common in Singapore to have strangers who try to strike conversation with him in Chinese, he usually gets pretty angry and responds in a very rude manner. He loves to talk to people who speaks English, and somehow he has this concept that all Malays, Indians and Caucasians can definitely speak English, thus he has a strong preference to communicate and interact with them.

Knowing that he definitely needs to brush up his Chinese language in our bilingual society, we put him into Chinese class (form teacher teaches Chinese) at his childcare for the past 2 years. And this year when we were given a chance to choose between English and Chinese class, we picked English class instead as he's not been adapting well in school, and we suspected language barrier might be the major roadblock.

Now he's doing better under the English form teacher, and his Chinese teacher this year is one of the best teachers in the school. So somehow we noticed that he starts to get more and more confident in speaking Chinese at home. Although he's still speaking with a strong ang moh (Caucasian) accent, his Chinese articulation is very accurate, just like his English. His teacher once mentioned that he was helping to teach other kids how to pronounce "红毛丹" (rambutan) in school! The only problem is that he's using a lot of "direct translation" from English to Chinese which makes his sentences less fluent, and more hilarious. For example, "I want to throw this into the dustbin"，becomes 我要丢这个去里面在垃圾桶 instead of 我要把这个丢进垃圾桶里面 in Renzo's language.

Last night, he happily told us, "我是一个火车，爸爸是树，妈妈是一个球，Rynus是一个小松鼠". He always self proclaim he is the longest wheel train simply because he loves trains so much! We asked him why daddy is a tree, he answered it's because daddy is growing taller and taller, yes in his eyes, and in his little heart, daddy is a tall and strong man! And when we asked him why he thinks Rynus is a squirrel, he said: "因为，我不知道他是什么shape的!".. Well not much logic here but at least that's a good try!

Of course I got pretty upset and "complained" to daddy that I must be too fat to be described as a BALL. Renzo immediately "corrected" me, "不是的妈妈，妈妈是一个球，不过，不是一个胖胖的球!".. Awww how sweet!!!!! My son knows what I was complaining about. But then he followed by, "是一个球，就像一个大西瓜!".. Gosh, is watermelon any "slimmer" than a ball then?!!

Anyway we have to really thank Renzo's school and teacher for their incredible hard work. It's still tougher to teach Renzo Chinese than English, but we can definitely conquer, together!!

This is what he learned in school, and all credits must go to his Chinese teacher, 戴老师!!

Maybe homeschooling is easier for Renzo

No I have absolutely no idea how homeschooling works, I was just thinking out loud because this morning, Renzo was making noise again on his way to school.

He said: "If I go to school later, I am not going to do anything! If I stay at home, I will do anything!!!"

I seriously have no clue what's the logic behind his thought, but one thing he's very right about, is that up to now, at 3 years 8 months of age, he still doesn't seem to enjoy going to school, and in fact he's not behaving well there. He's not able to express his needs such as requesting permission to go to washroom, or asking for second helping during meal time. He is the only one in his class who is not fully toilet trained till now. Taking off the socks and shoes and put them on the shoe rack is the simplest task every kid does in the morning, he's still struggling with it (mentally not physically though). The feedback from his English speech & drama teacher clearly indicated that his participation in class is poor though he has no problem with his pronunciation and performance, at all..

But at home, everyone knows how talkative he is. Not just that, he's quite willing to study, I meant the real kind of study that basically lasts for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour per session. He knows which particular book he wants to read, even for those books that he has read or touched for no more than 3 times, he remembers the title, as well as the size, and the color of the book so it's very easy for him to describe what he wants, and for us to dig out from his bookshelf. He likes to write, especially numbers, He can write letters and words independently also but when he's not in the mood, tracing is an easier alternative as he knows writing on his own seems tougher. He loves doing math, although at this moment he's not strong with subtraction, his concept of addition is pretty good and he even tried 2 digits addition with daddy 2 weeks ago.

Teaching him, at home, seems pretty easy for us so far, no scolding, no shouting, no disciplining and he just follows. I do feel bad when I hear about school teachers' concerns over Renzo, because there's simply nothing much I can do, as he doesn't seem to have those issues at home.

Here's a video of Renzo reading a book that Daddy has read to him for no more than 3 times a few months back. He grabbed it last night and started reading. I was in a shock that only till he flipped to page 2, I managed to take out my camera. I stopped videoing after he's done with page 2 but he continued till he finished page 4.

In any case, homeschooling is never possible since we both need to work, and of course we do trust our well-developed education system a lot more. We are just hoping that we could do more to help Renzo love going to school soon!

Renzo's QUESTIONS...

Yes, Renzo now recognizes the Question Mark (?) sign, and not just that, during these recent months, from simply repeating what we say, to interactively communicating with us, Renzo has entered into a new stage of toddler development - ASKING QUESTIONS!!!  

Everything he hears through his little ears, he will question: "What's that sound?"
One morning, he woke up and heard the birds chirping, he asked, "What's that sound Mummy??" I told him, that's the bird, Renzo! "NOooo...... Mummy, what's that sound?", "That's the bird singing, Renzo!"
"NO.... THAT"S RENZO SAYING 'NOooo'...."


He's picking up his Chinese really fast recently, and he asks "What is xxxx in Chinese" at least 10 times everyday. I have to think of Chinese names for Thomas trains, Dora and many other "friends" of his.. The more challenging question he asked me last night was: "Mummy, what is 'Daddy and Mummy bring Renzo take bus 34, then sit in front, then go to school, then say good morning teacher Angela, then the sky is so dark, then Renzo is scared, then thunder no more already! Then Nainai fetch Renzo back and take bus 69 go to interchange, then change bus 18 go home already!!!' IN CHINESE??"

The question I LOVE and "HATE" the most from Renzo, is when he misbehaves, he will ask me right away, "MUMMY, DO YOU LIKE RENZO??" as he realizes that he has done something wrong. Very smart boy right? He knows how to distract me and ensure that I am not angry at him...



Now here's a video of Renzo singing "Do-Re-Mi" song last night, obviously he's in good mood as we seldom get chance to capture him singing on video. We dug out the video of him singing this same song almost a year ago, when he was only about 20 months old. And personally I am more impressed with his baby voice although the lyrics weren't clear at that time =)

Story telling Renzo and his first "Spelling Test"

Recently Renzo has turned into a little chatterbox (well he's always been one indeed), and he's definitely getting more expressive day by day.

Okay I promised Daddy Chan that I am going to keep this post short as I noticed that my posts are getting longer and longer when I attempt to cover as much information as possible in every post.

So, long story short.. Instead of just repeating video scripts, Renzo has picked up a new skill - Story telling in his own words!!

Story 1: 3 Little Pigs
He built a big house which is almost at his height using lego blocks, and put "3 babies" (3 small plastic monkey figurine toys) inside the house, and start telling us: "Give you some bricks, build house. Three little pigs go into the house, then no more pigs. And big bad wolf blow and blow, later the house fall down!".

Story 2: Little pig eating apple
He saw an apple on his coloring book and started his story: "Pig eat apple. Oinky (name of the little pig from Dora DVD) is eating apple at the tree top, Oinky throw apple, then Oinky fall down. And Dora catch Oinky with a net!".

And many more.. alright his stories are not just about pigs, he talks about baby blue bird, Dora and Boots, chocolate tree, sheep seeing doctor (from some Chinese story books), etc..

We also noticed that Renzo has learned how to spell his name from his granny.
So last night, we tested him randomly on some simple 3 letter words for the very first time and managed to video that done. It's not perfect for sure as we've never taught him how to spell words, he figured that out through blending phonic sounds and what we've noticed is that, he seems to be very confident with first letter sound and pretty okay with last letter sound also, without the need for us to separately read the phonic sound of each letter one by one, but for the middle sound, it's quite a challenge still =)