1 Scene, 3 Renditions

Big Bee had been fascinated by the short brush strokes painting technique of Vincent van Gogh, as well as his brilliant use of colour blends and psychedelic hues since May this year, when her art teacher in primary school introduced his techniques to her class. During the mid year exams, they had to produce a painting in Van Gogh's style, and her art piece was graded top in the class, much to our pleasant and unexpected surprise. 

Subsequently, after we visited his exhibition in the ArtScience Museum and through idyllic evenings at home, she would randomly paint the same scene using a similar brush stroke technique but different colours to reinforce the influence of colours on the mood of a painting. Well, of course she doesn't know the impact of colours and their influence on the mood of a painting in depth yet, but I am happy that she is experimenting with painting during non-study times at home, as painting is an excellent way to destress! 

Here are 3 renditions of a similar scene that she had done. Like me, she is particularly fond of landscape painting - I think it helps us dreamy souls escape into another tranquil world. Which version do you like best? :)

This was done in class during as a mid-year art exam, using oil paints on canvas

Done right after visiting Van Gogh's exhibition, using poster paints

Done on a lazy weekday evening, using oil pastel crayons

Making Sentences

Little Bee is a highly visual learner, so she truly relishes learning new Chinese words through flashcards, before reading story books with these familiar key words. 

Through the 四五快读 series, she learned to create sentences using the flashcards. Sometimes, we played around with the flashcards and created nonsensical but really funny sentences. At other times, she would be quietly arranging the word cards into a sentence like the one below, called for me to read...and melted my heart :) 

妈妈爱我和爸爸. She insisted I must take a photo of her and her heartwarming sentence! 

Happy Babies

Tomorrow will be the last day of Big Bee's P3 final exams, and she is eagerly looking forward to it! (And so am I...and hubby as well, haha). In fact, she had already made plans with her best friend for a lunch in school, followed by a playdate at our place tomorrow! Soon, it will be outings after exams when they grow bigger, sigh.

We had been very busy revising with Big Bee since last weekend, and had not been spending as much time on homelearning with Little Bee, poor her! In time to come, by next year, we would hope Big Bee could learn to revise on her own...

So, we are definitely looking forward to imminent happy days in the long year-end holiday, back to lazy weekend afternoons of romping in the parks or having scrumptious tea or just lazing by the beach. Yippee!

The Bees at a cafe on an idyllic Sunday afternoon...

Heuristics For Math

With final exams looming next week, I try to be calm and composed when encouraging Big Bee to revise her work. I am a firm believer in constant revision, and not last-minute cramming, so as not to stress the child (although I was the direct opposite when I was a student as I operate much better under adrenaline rushes, haha!). I also believe in regular revision so my child will not be put off by this entire concept and philosophy of examinations. 

Besides, with longer days at work due to a new but exciting portfolio, Big Bee and I typically have less than an hour of revision each night, as I also set aside time for fun bonding, which is a lot more important than aggressive mugging for examinations. I want my kids to associate me with loving fun and not as a kiasu mum worried about exams results!

Hence, I am thankful that Big Bee is rather self-motivated (can be improved further, though!). I give her homework to do before I leave home for work, and she usually completes them when I am back in the evenings. I am also highly grateful that my Mum is around in the day to keep an eye on Big Bee, although the latter usually takes advantage of her nice granny whenever I am not around, thus resulting in a frustrated granny! She is a lot more disciplined and well-behaved with me around though! 

I am also heartened that Hubby is entertaining Little Bee to the max as I focus on revising with Big Bee these couple of weeks. Teamwork is indeed a fundamental key in a successful marriage. 

I am digressing actually. I meant to write about a couple of interesting Math sums in an exercise that I am currently marking after Big Bee had completed it. These Math sums are quintessential demonstrations of the heuristics and modelling methodology that most parents complained about (many very much prefer algebra that we had been used to). 

On the contrary, I had begun to truly appreciate the beauty of heuristics when explaining such sums to Big Bee - as they are a lot more logical and visual, hence, much easier to understand, compared to the remote concept of algebra (although they will be acquainted with good old algebra very soon!).

Kids take to heuristics and modelling very well. It is also not rocket science for parents, and I learned the methods myself, just by browsing through her textbooks. However, this evening, as I was working through a problem sum with Big Bee, she came up with the solution much faster than me, much to my amusement! I used to be embarrassed if I could not solve a problem in front of my child, but these days, I will graciously tell the Bees that I am learning from them too. Parenting is all about learning from our children as well, and our children will definitely love it if they know they can help us. 

Anyway, here are the problems: 

1. Carena and Megan save some money every day. Each day, Carena saves the same amount of money, and each day Megan saves $1 more than Carena. After several days, Carena saved $18 and Megan has saved $27. How much does Megan save in 1 day? 

2. Alice, Susan and Jane have 270 buttons. Alice has twice as many buttons as Susan. Jane has 3 times as many buttons as Alice. How many more buttons does Jane have than Susan? 

(I know it is just sooo tempting to use algebra on this - I did use it at first! - but bear in mind the kids don't know algebra!)

3. Ali has 3 times as many marbles as Bala. After Ali lost 4 marbles and gave Bala some marbles, the two boys now have the same number of marbles. Bala has 22 marbles now. How many marbles does Bala have at first?

For Us, The Working Mums

Not many people talk about the issues of working mothers: the fatigue, the incessant mental juggle between work and family (yes, even at home), the guilt (both ways, at work and at home!), and the stress.

But as a working mum, I relish the challenge, especially the multi-faceted roles. I cannot live without my family, yet I cannot live without work that is stimulating. I cannot bear to leave the kids for work, yet I am thinking of work while I am at home sometimes. I cannot truly enjoy working, knowing I could've done a much better job mentoring my kids at home, yet, I know I will not give up on my work that excites my mind.

Life as a working mum is all about dilemmas. And choices. And decisions that we should never regret. Be it taking leave and immersing ourselves totally with our children, irregardless if our office needs us at work. Be it working long 12-hour days or travelling overseas for work, leaving our kids pining for us. Be it feeling truly tired yet peeling open our eyelids to stay awake to spend coupletime with Hubby, watching a home movie or just chatting.

It is always about choices and decisions that we make and never should regret. It is a long journey of constant "what-ifs".

And thanks to my good friend J, who sent me this trailer from Youtube for Sarah Jessica Parker's latest movie "I Don't Know How She Does It", it kinds of reminded me to savour the moment at this time when work is gruelling, when I have to help prepare Big Bee for her final exams, when I have to start preparation work for Little Bee's birthday party. But indeed, to be able to do all these and more, it just indicates that we are alive and healthy, that we have family and friends loving us, around us, that we can still contribute productively at work.

Little blessings in arduous times :)

Housing Of The World

Big Bee completed a project recently for school, titled "Housing Of The World", which I found really interesting. She researched for the various housing of different cultures - with a little help from me to focus her search to a few salient cultures - and did her own independent internet research for the write-up of each culture. 

More importantly, she learned about how different people in the world live, which opened up her eyes that the world is truly a multifarious, diverse place. Little Bee also derived much pleasure and knowledge while flipping through jie-jie's project book. 

Big Bee is the most intrigued by Mongolian yurts (and also because she discovered that Mongolians live amongst many horses, some of them gorgeously wild and free!). So, she is now persuading me to go to Mongolia for a holiday, so she could also live in a yurt, amongst horses! Sounds like a very compelling idea indeed... 

This pictorial reporting format - combined with internet and library research - is truly a wonderful way to teach our older kids about the many facets of our varied world :) 

Some other pages from her project book: 

Chilling Out In Marina Bay Sands

We watched the Mickey's Music Festival in the theatres of Marina Bay Sands on 11 September, but Hubby and I were not very impressed, largely because we felt disillusioned by the mix of current pop songs in the musical repertoire. We prefer the magical old songs of Disney, but those were jarringly mixed with rock beats this time. 

However, Little Bee loved it, and watched the entire performance captivated with rapture. There were also a lot of other kids who were bopping and dancing away to the fast-paced rhythms, so I guess it could be a generational divide that only Hubby and I did not enjoy it! Big Bee was utterly blase and nonchalant about this, solely because Miss Tween thought it highly uncool to be watching Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Disney Princesses in a show, haha. 

What Hubby and I enjoyed most was the relaxing lunch beside the Rain Oculus of Marina Bay Sands, where the kids were enchanted by the gushing water and incessant sampan rides drifting past us. We also particularly loved the ArtScience Museum, when we visited the Van Gogh art exhibition. 

It was indeed a fulfilling day - another instance where we need not travel out of Singapore to be truly entertained!

Here is Little Bee's super short diary entry on the musical show, and what she drew to depict it.

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Today, I went to the Mickey Mouse Musical. I dressed up as Cinderella. I like the show because I like Little Mermaid. 

Yoga For Kids

The Bees had been immersed in yoga since a very young age, when Big Bee was 6 and when Little Bee was 2. They both love doing yoga, I guess because it reinforces their relaxation levels and they probably find the poses fun yet challenging. 

Yoga for children is highly beneficial as the various poses and sequences help to reduce the stress of living in this hectic world. It also strengthens the awareness of their own bodies, which is something that we had all taken for granted these days. Physically, it is not all about stretching but could be rather strenuous, enhancing the strength, resilience and flexibility of our kids. Oftentimes, the Bees were perspiring from the sequences after just 30 minutes!

Most importantly, most of these poses help to improve their concentration levels and mental focus, encouraging them to dwell in the present moment. This certainly helps in their learning and memory abilities, and helps in creating mental clarity, which is so important in these fuzzy days of modernity with so many distractions.

We had not been doing as much yoga as I would like, and I think I need to incorporate this into their regular routines on a weekly basis. The Bees love doing yoga, and would often plead with me to turn on their favourite yoga programme. I hope I am disciplined enough to start weekly sessions with them! 

Here are the Bees attempting the pigeon pose, which is a fairly intermediate pose - I guess kids are naturally a lot more flexible...

From A Distance

The feeling of missing the family whenever I am on an overseas work trip is truly inexplicable. When overseas, I used to derive news about the Bees when they were little toddlers from my mum or Hubby over the phone. Then, gradually, I got to converse with the kids a little over the phone. And since late last year, we had been using free internet video, and the Bees had been highly participative chatters! 

However, the crucial milestone would definitely be during my long 2-week trip to the UK in June last year. I started an email account for Big Bee, and we sent a couple of brief emails to each other! That was exhilarating and liberating, as in I could speak directly to her through my emails. 

And during my recent 9-day trip to China a couple of weeks ago, I just casually mentioned to her to email me. And I had the loveliest surprise when I received an email initiated by her on my second day abroad (in the past, it was usually me who would initiate the correspondence first). 

Furthermore, this time, her emails were a lot more informative, longer and were redolent with the hues of her personality. And the biggest bonus was that we were corresponding so regularly, once every 2 days (in the past, she only sent 1 to 2 emails at most)! What touched me the most was that after her very first email to me, I received a wonderful e-greeting card from her, with a little sad bear looking up at the moon, proclaiming "I miss you so much!".

I was almost tearing in the privacy of my hotel room - my eyes brimming with tears of happiness. 

The felicity of corresponding directly with a child is truly gratifying. It is so meaningful to hear our child's voice through the words she writes. 

Little Bee is a little young to correspond by email, but I was pleasantly surprised today again, when I flipped through her diary to find one more new entry that was not initiated by me! Once again, it showed fantastic motivation by Big Bee and excellent teamwork between the 2 sisters for Little Bee to write about her outing to my parents' house when I was away. Apparently, Big Bee was on a date with Papa, so she persuaded Little Bee to write about her grandparents' trip for her. 

Hence, these days, whenever I travel, it is indeed delightful to read about what the Bees are up to - from a distance, from their perspectives :)

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Little Bee's pages from her diary (with one page of illustration) could be found below.

Some excerpts of Big Bee's email can be found below mei mei's diary entry (she mentioned in one email that her emails are private, not to be shared with anyone else, so I need to be extra cautious to take away certain sentences with more personal information!). Max in her email referred to my cousin Irene's cute little Chihuahua that the family was helping to dogsit, much to Big Bee's thrill :) 

Little Bee's latest diary entry

Big Bee's 1st email excerpt:

Hello Mummy!!

Max is already here. He loves our house so much! He's so cute!!!   Max keeps staying on our carpet. Hope he doesn't pee or poop. BTW, Annette is extremely scared of Max. She says that all dogs bite people. Can you believe it, she doesn't even dare to touch him so she just ignored him!!!   Annette woke up SUPER late today. At 10.45 a.m. I can never wake up that late!!!! Nothing much happened today, so that's all.

Love: Nicole 

Waltzing With Van Gogh

We were transported back to the 19th century with Vincent van Gogh in the ArtScience Museum on 11 September. 

Little Bee was decked out in her princess dress because we were watching a Disney musical before this :)

It was a breathtaking experience to see such an exquisite abundance of paintings larger than life, projected as colossal images all over in a massive darkened hall. This was enhanced by hauntingly brilliant 19th century music, the most outstanding of which was by French composer and pianist, Erik Satie. 

The entire experience of inter-mingling images of his resplendent art and bewitching music was inexplicably hypnotizing. The whole family just sat in the middle of the gargantuan hall, transfixed, enthralled, enchanted. 

Big Bee meandering amongst the incessantly shifting images  

The Bees ventured a little out of our perch to sway and whirl to the alluring music and moving images. They loved being immersed in the world of Van Gogh's 19th century art, and were equally hushed and awestruck. 

I wasn't keen initially to visit this exhibition after knowing his paintings would be depicted as projected images, but after experiencing the magic, I think it was utterly worth a visit :) Sadly, the photos were taken from my iPhone, which did not do justice to the ambience of the exhibition.

After the museum, the Bees were so inspired that they wanted to rush straight home to paint! Which was exactly what they did - all by themselves. I merely let them look at some Van Gogh's paintings from some of my art books, and let them dabble in their creativity while I took some private time of my own :) It was amusing to watch them emulating Van Gogh's short, expressive brush strokes though. 

Check out their Van Gogh-style paintings here :) 

Big Bee's "Lone Tree By the River"

Little Bee's "Lone Apple Tree By The Flower Garden" She was trying to emulate - without much success! - Van Gogh's sky in Starry Night

Earnest Reproduction

One evening last month, Hubby bought a painting from an art gallery, painted by an up and coming Filipino artist (see below). 

He was enthusiastically discussing the painting to the Bees and I, when I noticed the 2 girls taking out blank sheets of white paper, and emulating the painting in their sketches! 

I thought their different styles expressed each of their personalities very well. 

Big Bee's reproduction

Big Bee's final rendition in her own style (she likes music a lot too, which explains why she sketched a fair amount of musical notes)

Little Bee's reproduction. She likes fashion a lot, which explains why she drew another stylish model beside the original girl in the painting!

Though I had spent almost my entire childhood learning art, I had refrained from inducing the Bees into formal art lessons, preferring to let their creativity flow when coming to their sketches. 

However, their recent displays of keen interest might sway my opinion with regards to formal art lessons, and I might let them dabble a little in art classes only during the holidays, as I am trying hard to cut down their enrichment classes. That being said, I must admit I spent many happy hours as a child and teenager, indulging in self reflection and internalisation through my art creations, and I would love the Bees to be able to have similar gratifications. 

The Bees, like many children, love to doodle and sketch in their free time. They are particularly inspired by distinctive styles of great artists, and would try to emulate the various styles of paintings to their own creations. It is astonishing how their aesthetic creations and styles reflect their rather polarised personality traits!

More of their art adventures to come...

Lifecycle Of An Apple Tree

We are currently learning about lifecycles, so I thought it would be fun for Little Bee to create a lifecycle of an apple tree using a paper plate. This demonstrated the cyclical nature of a lifecycle and was extremely easy to make.

First, we read a book about how an apple seed became a majestic apple tree. Then Little Bee cut out pictures of each stage and wrote down the stages all by herself, having remembered vividly what each of the stages was. 

It was a fantastic activity for a lazy weekday evening, and we took only 30-40 minutes to complete this. Fun! I shall endeavour to do this in Mandarin too :)