Foodie Friday - Han Yu Pin Yin Sandwich?

Alright. I have to admit that I am having F.U.N creating all these open face sandwich for Dumpling's morning bento. To me the slices are not unlike a blank canvas where I can create where my inspiration takes me each morning.

There are days that I use jam to include some colours but I do love using seaweed, cheese and ham to create "scenes"! To make it fun for both Dumpling and I, I have recently gone into adding Han Yu Pin Yin to her open face sandwich! I have purposely left out the "accent" mark/stroke on the "vowels" as this is a game Dumpling and I are doing to increase her sensitivity to the different intonation and she has to tell me what tonation it is for each word. :) How's that for edible learning? :p

Wordful Wednesday - Literacy Readiness 2

I am sorry that it took so long! Following one of my earlier post which shares the first 3 tips to ‘reading’ which I touched on the first 3 points of the below:

1) Letter sounds 
2) Letter names
3) Beginning sounds
4) CVC Blends
5) Whole words / high frequency words

Here’s part 2 of the post where I would like to share a tad more on blending and some tips to whole word approach.

4) CVC
After your child has mastered the beginning sounds, the next thing to do before the blend would be to work on the ending sound. I know of parents who work with the child on the ‘middle’ sound first which is fine, but my preference is to work on the ending sound next. This is because some children may not be sensitive enough to break the word into the respective parts and may not pick up the middle sound easily.

CVC stands for Consonant Vowel Consonant - so this is where you will be blending only 3 letter words: m / a/ t. I am a firm believer of 'manipulatives' for the younger kiddos so do use magnetic letters / letter tiles and push them around with your child as you sound out the individual letters. Say the letter sounds faster and faster as you push the tiles closer and closer till it forms the word. 

Depending on the age and readiness of your child, blending requires a lot of practice before they pick up the technique. I have also shared another phonics system which Dumpling and I are using at home. In this post (last clip at the end of the post) you are able to view how Dumpling attempted to spell out a new word with me sounding it out slowly.

5) Whole words / Sight words / High Frequency words
For sight words / whole words recognition, exposure is key where you need to read, read, read a lot with your child as you point out the high frequency words again and again. There is an element of "rote" learning for such words.

However, to be able to recognise is one thing, being able to recall is another. So, to start off, work on perhaps 2 / 3 new words per week. Identify what those words are and you can try the following in guiding your child in this.

:: Look / Recite / Cover / Copy / Check 
This is a bit "old" school where we let the child look at the word, recite (spell it out via letter name) and then cover and get the child to attempt writing it out, check and repeat if necessary. If the child is older, you can practise penmanship too. Now, to make it more engaging and especially for younger learners, you can also use other "materials" for the child to write on - foam, salt, sandpaper, sand, etc.

:: Games 
Games are sure ways to commit these words to memory!

1) Bowling contest 
Paste words on toilet roll core and placing this into a formation like the bowling pins. Take turns to shout out a word and use the tennis ball to roll / hit the chosen word. (Squeals and laughter guaranteed!)

2) Words Bingo (with a twist)!
Place the various sight word cards on the floor (on anti slip mat) and take turns shouting. You can either jump / use a fly swatter to hit the words. (Mayhem guaranteed!)

3) Fill in the colour
For the arty child who likes colouring, you can prepare an outline of the words and get the child to stamp / colour via the number / colour code. With such a practice, the child is also being taught the read colours too.

4) Word Search Puzzles

Head over to sites like this where you can generate word search puzzles. Transfer the puzzle over to a word doc, change the font size and print! Great for car journeys and quiet time too! 

:: Songs

Songs are a great way for the young ones to pick up the spelling of sight words. You can search for loads of them via YouTube or you can even make up your own with popular kid songs. It is ok for the song to sound silly as long as it is catchy! 

Example: (Sing to the tune of "Mary had a little lamb")

T - H - E - Y spells out 'They'

Spells 'They', Spells out 'They'  

T - H - E - Y spells out 'They'

We can spell 'They' now! 

Once your child is comfortable with these (or if your child is reading) and you are looking for ways to encourage Creative Writing, head on over to Upside Down Homeschooling where I guest blogged and shared 5 tips! 

Have a great week ahead! 

Alicia - Mama Sue :) 

Homelearning Workshop - Alice in Variousland!

March has been a mad mad month for me. Besides being tied up with work, I was busy rolling out and planning for a couple of activities for the homelearning community that I moderate. As you readers are aware, Chinese is one area of worry for me in terms of Dumpling's academic journey (for the lack of a better term) so I do look for ways and means to get her exposed to and have fun learning Chinese at home.

I first came to know about Apple Pie in a play we watched last year and I chanced upon their website this year and contacted the person-in-charge to run a Chinese Speech and Drama workshop for the group. After weeks of coordination and handling the many logistics hiccups along the way, it finally materialised during the March holidays. The workshop was entitled Alice in Variousland which is a tweak of the classic Alice in Wonderland :)

The teachers for the workshop were extremely organised where health checks were done every morning and recorded down on a sheet. The children were also handed a name tag on the first morning. 

As this was our first Chinese speech and drama, we (as in Dumpling and I) do not know what to expect. So it was a pleasant surprise to know that the 3-hour daily sessions were not just on 'lines and places' but games, songs and craft were woven in daily. Importantly, chinese stories were read and shared daily too.

Above pic: Children and teachers in a 'catching' game (老鹰捉小鸡)

Above and below pics: Children engrossed in craft work which were used as props

Snack time was incorporated daily, needed for the kids to fuel up before more games and songs and of course, lines were practised!

Above pic: Lines and places for the Queen and the card soldiers

One of the things which I particularly like is the clever use of songs. Children generally respond well to songs and Apple Pie made it easy for the kids to 'remember' their lines with such an approach! 

On the morning of the day of performance, the teachers were making final preparations and then... the glass panel was blocked off! 

But that certainly didn't deter parents from trying to peep into the room as the anticipation mounted... *Guffaws*

The fittings continued and the anticipation mounted further...

And finally, the children came out of the room and here's Dumpling!

The costumes were so cute! Here's K as bunny and N as one of the card soldiers

MS as the Hare (with the craft work that they did earlier)

And Dumpling getting into her role as Alice

(Photo courtesy of PrincessDanaDiaries) 

Above: El was great as the Red Queen

Above: The finale song. Check out how cute the card soldiers' headdresses are!

(Photo courtesy of PrincessDanaDiaries) 

And finally, Mama Sue, Dumpling and MS as the 3rd wheel here! LOL

The whole performance was about 12+ mins long so here's are the short clips for your viewing pleasure :)

And of course, all the parents melted at this part. It was indeed a sweet surprise :)

It was just a short 5-morning session. None of the parents had any expectations that this was to be a movie perfect production. The most important thing is for the children to have fun during this Chinese immersion programme.

Dumpling has repeatedly told me how much she enjoyed the workshop and had mixed feelings on Friday as that was the last day. Fellow mummy friends have also shared how much their kids enjoyed the sessions with some citing that their kids do not want to head back to school! *Oops*! So, we shall wait in anticipation for the next holiday workshop. For the mummies with kids who participated in this workshop, thank you for being part of it, it was certainly nice to be able to chat (though briefly) and catch up with you all. :)

Update: Dumpling has gone on to participate in more of Apple Pie's productions and here's a post on 'Little Red Riding Hood'.

Disclaimer: This was a workshop which was organised for the Homelearning for Preschoolers group. Dumpling and the other children were paid participants. All opinions expressed are my own. 

Saturday Science - Bob the Blob and Salt

Following the earlier post on making water disappear and having made Bob the Blob (yes, we named it!), I researched a bit more and found out that salt actually breaks up the molecular structure. So, hence, we decided to have a go at it and added some salt to Bob.

It certainly was a great way for the little ones to hone observation skills and patience!

This was about 2 - 3 mins after we added and we swirled the salt in. Bob's structure was broken down slowly.

And finally, this is how it looks like 5 mins later - liquid.

It was a simple and definitely easy experiment. Dumpling got to:

- Predict

- Observe 

- Compare and Contrast (I got her to draw both versions of Bob out in her journal)

- Practise her writing skills 

- Understand the various states of "matter"

Dumpling took it a step further when she got a tad sad and asked me if she can reverse the process. So that in itself, led to various few discussions and other experiments where we discussed reversible and irreversible changes. :) Stay tuned! 

This is part of a Saturday Science Series which I capture down the science moments that I do with Dumpling. Moving on, I will try to post these on every 2nd and last Saturday of the month! :D

Foodie Fridays - Homecooked Prawn Noodles!

Now, if you have read last week's recipe on Sambal Prawns, you may have wondered what did we do with the 2kg prawn shells and prawn 'heads'. Lol

It is a lot of shells and yes, we kept it for another meal. Specifically, we kept it to make the broth for Prawn Noodles! The secret of Prawn Noodles (soup) is all in the broth. A good bowl of prawn noodles need to have broth which is "sweetened" naturally with the prawns and ribs. Boil this over low heat long enough and the smell waffling through the air will be enough to make your mouth water. The meat should also slide off the ribs easily, leaving the bones clean.

:: Ingredients
1) Prawns x 12 pieces (we found some XXL glass prawns from Giant that morning that was on promotion and were going for $2.29/100gm)

2) Prime Ribs (we bought 2 packets of frozen ones which had 6 in each packet)

3) Spare Ribs (about 1/2 kg)

4) Kang Kong

5) Yellow noodles

:: Method
1) We used up all the shells and heads and put it to boil in a medium pot of water as stock (1.5 - 2l)

2) We scalded the prime ribs and spare ribs with hot water and then added them to the stock. We boiled this on low heat for about 2 hours on gas stove / till the meat slides off the bones easily

3) Add oyster sauce, dark sauce and salt to taste (I usually add about 2 tablespoons and 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce and then add the salt accordingly)

4) Add in the prawns and take it out once it is pink and no longer translucent. Avoid over cooking the prawns as they will in turn, become very hard

4) Blanch the noodles and veg, set aside and add the cooked prawns, ribs and soup and serve hot.

5) Garnish with shallots / sliced chili