Early reading : Recommended blog read

As a long-time reader of Lilian's blog, I have, at times refer to it for inspiration for "educating" Shean Wenn on various subjects. I just recently found an article that she wrote about her techniques of teaching reading to her kids. Her eldest son started reading at 3YO and Sean, her second son started reading at 3+.

Wrong Side of Thirty: For Stef: About early reading

Thanks for the insights, Lilian.

Grateful (SW : Through the eyes of others)

There are many things that I am grateful for in my life but the one i am most grateful for, is having the chance to see Shean Wenn grow & to mould her.

Since she started kindergarten, I have been able to witness her character blossom and got to know her better, not through my eyes, but through the eyes of her teachers, her peers and some of the other parents (her friends' parents). I am always earnest to hear about her days from her account but what really made my days are the days when her teachers or some of the parents coming up to me to tell me certain things that Shean Wenn has done in kindy. For example, just the other day, D - a mom to a younger girl whom we knew from playgroup (her daughter goes to the other class in kindy, not the same class as SW) told me with a twinkle in her eyes how one morning, Shean Wenn came running up to her smiling and saying "I really love your dress, it looks very good on you!". She said it totally made her day.

(Shean Wenn with her friends at the farm)

(Shean Wenn trying out high heeled shoes at Bally, to the amusement of staff & customers)

Anna, who was a parent from playgroup but has now become the co-ordinator of the playgroup constantly tells me how SW would always greet her & chat with her in the mornings when Anna comes in to set up her playgroup. She says the things SW says shows great understanding of things and SW is always smiley & positive. Anna says SW makes her laugh all the time.

I think it's small gestures like that about Shean Wenn that people notice. And I'm so grateful she seems to be a kind child, which was the reason I chose the name "Shan"/Shean (which means Kind in mandarin) for her.

Before I go on further (rather smugly), I must say i'm recording this down not just for posterity sake and definitely not being smug, afterall I can't give myself a pat in the back - she's not even a teenager or an adult yet, I'm recording this down because I feel grateful. Good parenting is crucial to a child's development but I also know I'm probably lucky to have such an "easy"(going) child. She is independent around the home, and would be able to find things to entertain herself with, she loves reading and drawing & writing but she also loves the outdoors.

Sometimes when I send her off at kindy or while picking her up, her peers would come up to me and say things like, "Shean Wenn's mommy.... today Shean Wenn made me a card!"

There were wonderful stories I heard from her teachers, and they all made me feel like I was part of her life in kindy. The Steiner Kindy also has a folder of each child, individually made of the things she did in school, some photos to show us their activities, it is like a visual progress report. I brought it home last week to show Meng. I really loved watching her grow, through the eyes of others. I'm grateful I can "see" her, from another perspective because often, as a stay-at-home-mom, we get so stressed with everyday life that we overlook the kinder things in our child, the positive character that they have. Sometimes it all gets lost in cleaning up, the shouting when she spilled her apple juice, then knocking off the sushi box with all the contents strewn across the newly-vacuumed & newly-mopped floor..

Here is a peek at her folder :

(She loves dressing up! Here she is a bride!)

(I love how she uses leaves to stick to her artwork. Her teacher, who happens to be a prolific illustrator herself, tells me SW is very artistic as she always comes up with her own style, for example, she "developed" leaf rubbing (using crayon to colour the leaves and transferring that to paper by rubbing the leaf on the paper!)) Fascinating!

I noticed the teacher wrote down Meng's name on the paper, they don't know his name and rarely writes this so I figured SW must've told her teacher how so spell Meng's name. I'm always amazed at a child's memory. Her teacher told me that day, she just decided to clean the class and took a cloth, wet it and went around cleaning every nook & corner. Hahaha..

(Above)These 2 photos are contributed by me. They asked the parents to capture some of their lives at home.

London Aquarium

Date : 23 Aug 2008

Hubs thinks it's a good idea for us to visit the London Aquarium on Saturday as Sunday (today) is when Central London will be packed to the brim because of the Olympic Party happening at The Mall. And tomorrow (Monday), there is the Notting Hill Festivals, another traffic-stopping event.

We parked at hub's office and make the short walk to London Eye, passing by Shell Centre. We saw the queue to go up the London Eye - a 30mins 2km long snakey queue! We didn't know where to get the tickets so I asked a Marshall if I could get it at the "Fast Track" queue, he said yes. Little did I know that in order to get my "Oyster 2 for 1" ticket, I had to queue up at the London Aquarium entrance. So I spent about 20mins queueing for nothing! We then had to join the right queue and that too, was for about 15-20mins (it was about 1km long).

(Lunch at "The Fire Station" on the way to the aquarium)

Upon getting our tickets and entering, Shean Wenn was totally fascinated by the display of fish and marine wildlife.

(Totally fascinated by the fishes)

We allow her to look at the fishes and wildlife up close (at the tanks) and she kept pointing at them saying "Fish/Bish/Ish/Wish" (depending on her pronunciation).

(Koi Carp - so beautiful. I wonder how are my dad's Kois doing?)

BELOW : Moray Eel, I believe

We arrived at the Aquarium at about 2pm (by the time we queue up and entered, that is) and we saw on the board that there was to be a Shark Feeding at Zone 9 at 2.30pm. Which means we had to cover 8 zones to reach there. It was nearly impossible (we didn't want to backtrack) so we just took our time looking at the displays and tanks before reaching Zone 9 - The Pacific Ocean (where the Sharks are).

ZONE 9

ZONE 10 - CORAL REEF

Shean Wenn is so absorbed looking at the Tangs (the big yellow fish below) @ the Coral Reef section. Zone 12 is my favourite bit - looking at the Piranhas. I remember at about 4 or 5 years old, I went with my cousins to their church which was showing the movie "Piranhas" and was so scared for many nights after that because everytime I closed my eyes, the images of the man-eating piranhas eating their preys kept replaying in my head!! Haha. I am glad to say I did not get scarred for life though (same goes for the movie "Jaws"), phew!

TERRAPINS : Here is where I got "excited" debating and correcting the hubs when he pointed to one Terrapin and told SW "This is a turtle". I have always thought that turtles, tortoises and terrapins are quite distinct. Can you tell the difference between a turtle and a tortoise?

Turtle : Lives in the ocean and spends most of their time in the water, has webbed feet (for swimming)

Tortoise : Lives on land, does not have webbed feet but instead have round and stumpy feet with claws for walking.

Anyway, after searching around the internet, it seems that "In a biological respect, a tortoise is a kind of a turtle, but not all turtles are tortoises." (Source : Wisegeek)

And apparently, "turtles and tortoises are common names usually refer to differences in where the species live and how they use their habitat. But the names are also used differently in other parts of the world." (Source : Sandiegozoo)

So perhaps the hubs isn't that far wrong! (I should go tell him that later)

Zone 14 - The Rainforest!
Ahh, something familiar to end our tour in the Aquarium. I spotted this Arowana (from Amazon) - it was a huge one of about 2 feet long! Must be worth alot if sold to the Asian businessmen. (Many asian businessmen believe that keeping an Arowana will help them prosper in their business. I would know because I know many petrol station dealers keeping one in their offices!) Ok, so perhaps this one isn't the expensive species that people pay hundreds of thousands for.. . but still.

(Family portrait)

Shean Wenn pondering about her day out - by the Houses of Parliament

Overall, I really enjoyed the trip there. Barring the queuing, it was quite a smooth trip, and educational one for me too! But if you plan to go there, bear in mind that although they say this is "Not weather dependant", it is too - you need to anticipate the queuing (mostly outdoors), unless you can get there early when they open their doors.

The hubs's verdict : Not as fun as the Seaworld in Brisbane ( he cited there there wasn't any dolphins!). Well, it can't be as fun as Seawolrd because this is an indoor AQUARIUM and not a SEAWORLD, dear hubby.