Cerulean Skies

Big Bee striking a lone pose, with nothing between her and the brownish-green - albeit still pretty - sea, the bronze sands and the sapphire sky filled with happy cirrus clouds.


Last Sunday, the weather was close to perfect - spotless, azure skies with the absence of ominous low clouds, despite the weatherman's (inaccurate) forecast of a rainy weekend. Being a family who loves the outdoors, we immediately packed our beach toys and set forth to the East Coast for some sun worshipping.


We perched ourselves under the solicitous canopy of a large, shady tree right on the sandy shores. It was heavenly - the breeze was gently self-effacing, the sun was beaming cheerily and the sea was sighing sweet whispers of contentment.


We munched on our takeaway KFC breakfast with rapturous relish. The Bees were devouring my waffles and scrambled eggs at such a swift rate that I hardly ate them! This was our first time tasting the KFC breakfast, and I give it a thumbs-up, together with the very agreeable latte. I am not sure if the ambrosial delight was falsely enhanced by the picturesque surroundings though!




Delectable KFC breakfast - cheap and good!




Happy Bees munching on crispy hash browns


The Bees set to work playing with the sand and toys, busying themselves with the creations of sandcastles. As the sun crept up its linear journey in the sky, we decided to pack up at noon, much to the chagrin of the Bees.


Later on, I could not resist the enchantingly soft golden rays of the early evening sun, and decided to bring the Bees to the pool, much to their delight. With Hubby away for his weekly soccer game, the trio of the Bees and me spent a great deal of time hugging each other in the pool, and generally fooling around, rather than getting any serious swimming exercises!




Bobbing around the ultramarine pool with winsome mirth


That day, I did not conduct a single homelearning activity with Little Bee nor coached Big Bee in her studies. But I don't care. Because I think the greatest lesson in life is to appreciate what nature has to give us, and learn to live in the present moment, blending in with the breathtaking natural beauty that is omnipresent all around us!

A Love Affair With Yoga

I had been constantly practising yoga since year 2000. The only significant break I had from yoga was during my difficult pregnancy with Little Bee, when I was bleeding till my 7th month. 

Ever since my first session of yoga (I remember it was with my good friend, YM!), I had never looked back. I remember feeling brilliantly exhilarated yet miraculously calm on the mat, physically challenged yet relaxed, and spiritually invigorated yet serene. It is a practice of juxtaposition. It is a salubrious tradition of holistic well-being for both our mind and body. 

Since then, I had brought my yoga mat to myriad cities for overseas work trips, and had always depended on this reliable companion to immerse myself into a cocoon of tranquillity and peace on my lonely and sometimes stressful journeys abroad without my beloved family. I had escaped to yoga in times of stress, despair and anxiety - and never failed to emerge stronger, happier and calmer. 

Since the Bees came into my life, I had lesser opportunities for the standard 90-minute practice, but 2 years ago, I started a daily practice of just 20 minutes a day, in between that precious, halcyon respite after I fetch Big Bee to school in the morning, and before Little Bee wakes up. Well, almost daily - there are times when I do feel a wee bit lazy!  

The intensifying light of the rising sun and the sweet, light morning air, coupled with a short yet gratifying practice, provide that fundamental fulcrum of insight and context that usually pulls me through a weary workday without the Bees. It gives me that sanity, that perception and most importantly, that realisation that life is ever so beautiful, manageable and liveable. And if I encountered a particularly debilitating workday, I would engage in a gentle practice after the Bees slept to ease my mind into a state of repose, putting everything into benevolent perspective again. 

I tried imparting the practice - although not on a regular basis yet - on my feisty and fiery girls, especially on days with vile, incessant spats of sibling rivalry. A 30-minute practice will never fail to cheer up their grouchy little souls and lighten their minds. 

Vivacious and unfettered Bees towards the end of a yoga practice

It is definitely a lifelong journey for me, and I am currently trying to renew my personal challenge of involving Hubby in a regular practice too! 

Time Alone

Every 3 weeks, it would be my turn to bring Big Bee for her protracted ballet and piano classes, which will last from early morning till after lunch! Although I do enjoy the majority of the weekends when I am at home with Little Bee, I will never fail to relish those rare weekends with Big Bee too. This is a perfect way for Hubby and I to spend some time alone with each of the Bees, making them feel special and precious. 

On weekends with Big Bee, she and I would saunter about in the bookstore, burying our noses in our common love - books! And we would then have lunch together, gleefully giggling and mirthfully chatting about anything under the sun, just like best pals.

On weekends with Little Bee, I would spend a beautiful morning engaging in homelearning activities without any distraction, conversing sweet nothings with her and strolling around the leafy estate with her soft little hand in mine.

Hubby shares the same joyous experience, and we certainly agree that it is so important to give some time alone for each child for that very special bonding experience.

In addition, I do love my solo time when Big Bee is in her classes - perfect me time for myself! I could read books at length, indulge in a long, leisurely breakfast with a newspaper as a companion or just ambling around, indulging in retail therapy! Last weekend, I even managed to steal in an indulgent yet relaxing hair wash session with a head massage - blissful indeed!  

Merrymaking

Last Saturday, we attended J's 2nd daughter Desiree's 1st birthday party. The kids had lots of fun together again. It was mind-boggling to see how fast children grow and transform - all of them used to be little babies, and now, most of them are tall and lanky, almost like little adults! Soon, they will surpass us in their heights, making us old foggies look like shrivelled old souls!

The Bees were utterly entertained by bouncy castles and a clown who created the most exquisite animal balloons. Little Bee was elated by her charming cat balloon, whilst Big Bee had an utmostly zany time frolicking on the bouncy castles with Joanne and the rest of the bigger kids. The poor little kids all fearfully steered clear of the bouncy castles that were bent and deflected to almost unrecognisable shapes by the rowdy big kids!

They had a great time thereafter munching on numerous dainty cupcakes, whilst we adults indulged in delicious moist chocolate cake! This is the start of many impending parties this month - what socialites the Bees are!

Math With Squirrels!

As part of our learning activities under the Forest Animals theme, I created learning aids from pictures of squirrels and acorn nuts to demonstrate to Little Bee how fun Math is, and how it is so applicable to everyday life.


Our cute little squirrels with their big fat acorns!

Little Bee is enthralled by this, and we take these out as "toys" to play with on a regular basis. With this learning aid, I could inculcate in her the concept of counting and addition/subtraction.

We also enact stories from these cute squirrels and acorns. One of her favourite games is about how she would pretend to run a restaurant selling acorns for the squirrels, who would then form a long queue with numbers on their tummies to indicate how many acorns they would like to eat. She loves this game and would be busy "dishing" out the right number of acorns to serve these greedy and impatient squirrels.


Learning the concept of numbers and quantity

This number game can be used for any combination of numbers, and hence, could be played over a long period of time for teaching numbers right up to 100 (and even groups of numbers, like counting in 2s, 5s, 10s, although I had not done that yet!). This was why I laminated these squirrels and acorns so they can withstand the rough handling of Little Bee! I also stuck velcro pieces on all the numbers and squirrels so Little Bee can have fun attaching and reattaching new numbers.

Plump squirrel with a velcro piece on its tummy

Simple addition the fun way!

Brand New Home

The grannies with their brood of grandchildren. What bliss! 

Last Saturday, Irene and I - together with the grannies! - gathered for an evening of relaxation and bonding at Fio's brand new home. I am suitably impressed with the all-embracing balcony hugging the entire perimeter of the house! Her home is lovely with sleek and clean-cut decor. The kids loved the balmy balcony and all of them chose to have their dinners there. They definitely know how to enjoy life at such young ages! 

We then adjourned to a scrumptious zi-char stall and ate our hearts out. The cousins (both my generation and the Bees' generation!) and grandparents were contented with so much delicious food in our stomachs. The grannies were luxuriating in the delectable local delights while catching up with each other, and we cousins were gorging incessantly while minding our active kids. And our kids were cheekily making faces while eating alongside each other too. What enjoyment indeed! 

Downtown Fun

Shopping queens in the making...

We had a relaxing weekend by ourselves, gorging on scrumptious food, meandering through the dense crowds of Orchard and rummaging through cheap buys along downtown weekend bazaars.

The Bees had developed Hubby's and my loyal affinity to local food, and we could see them relishing yummy favourites like roti prata, chwee kueh and fried carrot cake!


Their love affair with prata...


You wouldn't want to be caught in between them and a piping hot plate of chwee kueh!


Reminiscing our Japan vacation with Japanese food in Orchard Central: We were treated to some really mouthwatering Japanese food over lunch. I love the kid's bento set!

Formidable Fractions?

I didn't recall learning fractions at a tender age of 8, in primary 2. I remembered all we learned then was some basic addition and subtraction. This evening, when I was in the midst of some reading activities with Little Bee, Big Bee - with furrowed brows - remarked that she was utterly confused by "this difficult Math thing called fraction", in her own words. 

That provoked my radar screen immediately. "Fractions? Oh, you are learning that today?" And she told me her class just launched into their first fraction concept today. I quickly wrapped up my learning activity with Little Bee and whipped out a pencil and paper to teach her the concept of fractions, using everyday elements at home, like wedges of cakes and trays of ice cubes. 

Unfortunately, poor Little Bee was constantly interrupting us as she was displeased with the fairly abrupt way in which I concluded her learning activities. So, it was truly a game of juggling the concept of 4/8 = 2/4 = 1/2 with Big Bee versus getting Little Bee to identify words like "bear" and "duck" in our forest animal theme - all at the same time! 

Big Bee understood the concept and was beaming at the end of the evening. Little Bee could also read "bear" and "duck" independently. 

It could be frazzling with 2 kids demanding for your attention simultaneously. But instead of feeling frustrated or distracted having to turn my head left and right every 5 seconds, and reprimanding the children, I chose to take a deep breath and imbue myself with patience. True enough, that led to cheerful, contented Bees who learned constructively and a more peaceful Mummy. 

Patience is truly a virtue that we should stock up our Mummy larder with :) 

The Path Less Trodden

The weekend before, Hubby dragged the entire brood to a secret road just behind our estate. A road that was still in the midst of dishevelled construction, where a dense profusion of dark grey shale and gravel lay innocently, ignorant of the fact that they would soon be compressed into hard, cold and unfeeling asphalt soon. A road that penetrated right through the beautiful green meadow that we used to run through with carefree, abandoned spirit, and where many little beasts of the wild used to call home. A road that infiltrated right through the core of nature.

One may not have heard the moans of the large raintrees as they were felled by the ubiquitous foreign workers. Nor the wails of the cut shrubs from the thick foliage that used to be part of a virgin rainforest. But my heart bleeds for the devastated woodland that was annihilated to pave way for vainglorious urbanisation that supposedly made the lives of humans more convenient.

We strolled for almost 2 hours in this long stretch of supposed civilisation, ambling beside the formerly impenetrable frondescent rainforest. We were a captive audience to the myriad bird calls from an orchestra of different birds. We witnessed an explosion of flourishing impermeable antiquated trees - trees that were so sturdy that one is led into the delusion that they are invincible. But we know they are far from indestructible. Under Man's noxious, malignant machines, they are but frail, feeble beings.

We were silenced and awed by the omnipresent dewy existence of living, breathing trees, flowers, grass and shrubs. Elements of nature that were silently, sullenly and oppressively observing our every movement, wary of our next moves. This silence, this tranquil quiescence is precious and sadly temporary. For it would be destroyed like a brittle matchstick the day the road is open, when cars would whiz past, bringing with them sound and air pollution.

But for now, we revelled in the beautiful juxtaposition of laconism and eloquence of nature. So close to us. Savouring the last bit of the unexplored frontier before it is rudely interrupted by noisy urbanisation. Such little pockets of bliss are so rare, yet we are witnessing the destruction of these tenuous spaces gradually but surely in this city we call home.

Resilient mushrooms spouting up against all odds.

Learning At Home: Japan

As we had planned for a vacation to Japan in June, I thought this provided a marvelous opportunity to immerse the Bees through homelearning activities on Japan, so that they would be very familiar with the country as we travelled through Japan. It was really fun organising a lesson plan on Japan. I was seriously astounded by the wealth of activities surrounding this theme and learned a lot myself as well! That is truly the beauty of learning at home with our children, isn't it? Not us merely imparting and teaching, but cultivating and nurturing together as a family. 

Featured books

There is a small but impressive collection of books on Japan for children in the library, and we borrowed the following:

A Visit To Japan (this is my favourite - very easy to read with eye-catching facts and large attractive photos that captured the attention of the Bees. Big Bee picked up lots of amazing facts to include into her lapbook, eg Japan has 1,500 earthquakes a year!)

We're From Japan (great for letting the Bees understand the lifestyles of fellow Japanese children)

A-Z Japan (good for teaching the alphabet to Little Bee, while imparting simple concise facts to Big Bee)

Games

A fortnight before we left for Japan, I played pretend games of going to the airport, getting on a plane, stepping into a new country, sitting in a bullet train and checking into a hotel (the whole works!) with Little Bee. From these games, she was able to pick up the concepts of the myriad transportation in Japan - plane, bullet train and bus! We arranged chairs to create a makeshift plane, and Mummy here was the old aunty air stewardess serving children's meal to an eager Little Bee! 

Song and dance

We learned to sing the song Sakura and watched (as well as imitated!) geishas dancing an ancient fan dance online. Little Bee, whose learning style is highly kinesthetic, loved the geisha fan dance, and even sang and danced to Sakura in a shabu shabu restaurant in Kyoto! In fact, she was humming the song all across Japan, and even bought a fan to accessorize her dance!

English - Reading

We learned the letters "Jj" for "Japan" and "jet", as well as "Ff" for "fan". Little Bee can now read "Japan" and "fan". Unfortunately, she was so familiar with the association of "J" with "Japan" that she will refer to all words starting with "J" as "Japan"! 

Big Bee and I created a worksheet for Little Bee to match words that she knows to pictures. Big Bee drew the pictures on the worksheet and Little Bee was thrilled to work on a worksheet that jie jie created!

English - Phonics 

I am not a believer of learning to read by phonics, as phonics merely make up less than 50% of all English words. However, I had been told by Little Bee's teacher to try to imbue phonics reading at home, so here I am, being an obedient mum and trying my best to impart something I do not really believe in. 

So, we worked on the word family of "an" this month (and we are still in the learning process, with Little Bee a wee bit confused!). I chose "an" because we were learning to read "fan", so naturally I made flashcards for "man", "pan", "can" and "ran". I used a different colour to differentiate "an" from the beginning letter to enhance the learning process. 

Mandarin - Reading

Little Bee has more affinity to reading Mandarin words. Perhaps it has to do with her other dominant learning style, of her being a strong visual learner. Mandarin words do not involve any phonics or mental matching of sounds, so I suspect it might be easier for her to look at a Mandarin character as a symbol and utter out the right pronunciation. She has a longer memory tenure for Mandarin words, being able to read more words that she used to learn, compared to English words. 

This month, we learned the Mandarin words "飞机" and "火车" to reinforce the theme of travelling in Japan. She can now read both words independently without needing to refer to the pictures.

Math

I could not think of interesting Math activities for this theme, so Little Bee created a flapbook for numbers 1 to 10. She had great fun creating it with her jie jie! 

Geography

We have a globe map at home, so I took the opportunity to let the Bees identify the locations of Singapore and Japan from the globe. Right before we depart for Japan, both the Bees can confidently point out to where Japan is on the map. Little Bee tended to struggle a fair bit when looking for Singapore though, and I can't blame her! 

I also printed out blank maps for the Bees to colour and identify where Japan is, and for Big Bee to understand the geographical borders (both land and sea) of Japan. We had great fun exploring the globe and I also learned lots of new things, eg Singapore is 5,000 km away from Japan! 

Big Bee's map

Little Bee's map

Big Bee also learned to identify all the Japanese cities she had visited, as well as understood the meaning of the Japanese flag through some reading and research. 

Painting

Japanese flag

Little Bee painted the Japanese flag, so she was always zealously shouting out "Japan flag! Japan flag!" whenever she spotted the Japanese flag as we trudged all across Japan. Back home, my mum - probably with passed-down memories of the Japanese occupation in Singapore - was aghast as to why Little Bee can recognise the Japanese flag and showed such strong enthusiasm in identifying it! 

Cherry blossom tree

Little Bee painted a cherry blossom tree and wrote the word "tree" above the painting. It is wonderful how children can absorb information so much faster if they spent time in the creation process, and this was what happened with Little Bee. 

After this painting session, she would exclaim "cherry blossom tree" whenever we read books about Japan (as it is almost impossible to avoid this ubiquitous emblem of Japanese nature!). Sadly, we did not see any real cherry blossom trees by the time we arrived, although Little Bee was still excitedly identifying cherry blossom trees from those large attractive billboards in Narita airport. 

Japanese woodblock printing

Woodblock printing in Japan was very popular in the 17th to 20th centuries. We replicated this technique using a recycled thin styrofoam fruit box from the supermarket. I cut the styrofoam box into small pieces on which the Bees drew pictures on, using a pen. They then painted the styrofoam pieces and stamped them on a paper - and we produced our very own woodblock prints! 

This craft proved to be rather challenging for Little Bee, as we need to use a delicate balance of restrained strength when carving out pictures and painting them on the styrofoam pieces, so only Big Bee was able to complete this successfully. She loved the end product tremendously, and was immensely fascinated by this painting technique. 

Crafts

Before I started researching on the types of crafts to work on for this theme, I could never guess at the rich variety of divine Japanese crafts that we can work on! I really enjoyed creating these crafts with the Bees so much! 

Japanese family fans

We created these Japanese fans with all our translated Japanese names, and the Bees were thrilled! They were waving and fanning them around, much to my amusement. This is such an easy craft to make, just took us under an hour to create all 4 fans, although I assisted a lot in assembling the ice-cream sticks. Big Bee was able to write her Japanese name independently after only a cursory glance at the computer's translated name. I wrote Little Bee's Japanese name in pencil and got her to trace it out with a black marker. They both enjoyed the process so much! 

Japanese garden

After visiting the ancient 400 year old Nijo Castle in Kyoto, we were somewhat enraptured by the serenity of Japanese gardens. I decided to let the Bees create a Japanese garden, using simple materials like construction papers, egg cartons, toilet paper roll and tiny pebbles that I secretly borrowed from our estate's landscaping!

It was a great team effort by the Bees, and we spent a peaceful afternoon on it. Big Bee drew the cheery orange carp and Little Bee drew ripples on the stream. Both of them laid out the pebbles conscientiously, and Big Bee and I tried our utmost best to make the tree resemble a maple tree, but I think it looked more like a tropical banana tree!! The egg carton was assembled into a mini Japanese pagoda replica, and I thought it was rather realistic! 

After completing the landscaped garden, I created flashcards for the Bees to identify elements of the garden. Little Bee was able to read and identify "tree" and "fish", whereas Big Bee effortlessly matched "pagoda", "bridge" and "river" to their rightful structures on our craft. This was really enjoyable! And I did get some quiet time to myself as they both laid out the pebbles :) 

Japanese paper lanterns

I did a very simple craft with Little Bee to create paper lanterns. We then strung the lanterns over old phosphorous light strands that we brought home from a party, and voila! Hanging Japanese lanterns. I would love to light little candles inside and see these lanterns shimmer and glow with bewitching incandescence. I also taught the "opposite" concept of "big" and "small" as well as "tall" and "short" while working on the craft. Little Bee also learned about patterning when deciding which lanterns to string.

Lapbook

Big Bee created a lapbook on Japan, after we reviewed the abundance of knowledge that she gleaned from this theme, and we truly enjoyed the entire process of shaping this lapbook! 

Field trip

Needless to say, we learned all there is to understand about Japan by traversing throughout the country - getting mired in its highly efficient transport system, attempting to talk to the locals off the beaten tourist track and observing the locals at close range in the many metro rides. 

Enjoying a bowl of cold Japanese jelly noodles at a beautiful hillside Japanese hut with maple trees surrounding us in Kyoto.

Sisterly love on board the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Osaka.

Monday Humour

Snippets of random (but hilarious) conversations with the Bees...

Big Bee: Mummy, is Chestnut a name for a girl or boy? (Referring to her favourite reindeer soft toy)

Me: Hm...I think it can apply to both boys and girls.

Big Bee: Oh, so my reindeer can be a boy or a girl!

Me: Yup!

Big Bee: Or it can be a gay!

Me: !?!?!?!?!?!? 

****************************

Little Bee (in a taxi, staring intensely at some swanky condominium along Orchard): Mummy, I want to buy that house (pointing to the swanky condominium)

Me: !?!?!??!?! Don't you have your own house, living with Papa and Mummy?

Little Bee: No, that is Papa's and Mummy's house, not my house *frowned* (She probably has the notion that parents do not live with their children after seeing how our parents - her grandparents - all live in their own houses)

Me: Oh. Then you need to use your own money and buy that house, or you can wait till you are married and buy it with your husband.

Little Bee: I have no money! And I don't want to be married!

Me: When you grow up, you may get married and stay with your husband. 

Little Bee: Can I marry Papa and stay with Papa?

Me: Noooo, Mummy is married to Papa, so you cannot marry Papa. 

Little Bee: *started sobbing* I want to marry Papa, I don't want to stay with other boys!! (She probably could not bear the idea of living with other boys, just like Big Bee!)

Of Museums And Theme Parks

LP and I brought our brood of eager, zealous kids for an entire day of adventure in Singapore last Thursday. We met at 2pm and played till 10pm. It was exhausting not just for the kids, but for us, the parents!

The Bees with WW and WD

I love this display at the entrance!

We met at the Singapore Art Museum to explore the Art Garden. The kids were thrilled with all the various displays, but I must admit that both LP and I thought this exhibition was over-rated and not up to our expectations. I was somewhat peeved by the shushing museum assistants the moment we entered the Floribots exhibit, who kept warning the kids not to touch the exhibits. That largely killed their interest in what could be a charming display of a flower's life-cycle, but with the assistants who were scared to bits about the kids even poking a fingertip at the exhibit, I thought it wasn't apt that such a display should be labelled as "interactive" in a "children's exhibition".

Other than that, we all appreciated The Enchanted Forest, which I thought was very beautifully done, and enabled the kids to be immersed in a magical, wild forest. Big Bee and Little Bee, together with WW and WD, diligently coloured butterfly pictures to paste them alongside other kids' butterfly artworks on the wall, and I thought that was a fantastic way to encourage the kids' creativity through displaying their works.

I also thought that the confined space at 8Q, where the exhibition was held, was extremely friendly for children to dash all over the entire building with very minimal supervision, especially for Big Bee and WW. As for smaller kids like Little Bee and WD, the spaces for freeplay, drawing and colouring were adequate, and the 2 little kids busied themselves with art and craft activities. I even had an opportunity to watch a local short film in the screening room with Little Bee!

Of course, the highlight of the Art Garden for the kids was the highly interactive motion-sensor play of light and movement in the Funky Forest and Daisies display. We spent the longest time there. LP and I could sit down, relax and chat whilst the 4 kids went berserk, bolting around the exhibit, playing with the 2 interactive iridescent displays.

The interactive Funky Forest, where kids could magically play with fireflies, swish moving streams around, tease fluttering birds and make fruit trees grow just with touches of their hands and feet.

We decided to stop for coffee and plentiful snacks after 2 hours of boisterous activity. I was amazed at how much LP's boys could eat!

Thereafter, we went our separate ways (I went home with the Bees for a short break!) before re-meeting at Universal Studios! We dragged our hubbies (and my mum) along this time, and I felt like I am a tourist in Singapore! We entered Universal Studios with the $2 night visit pass, and were overwhelmed by the dense, thick crowds. We took a leisurely walk around the Studios, and were all rather pleased by the overall ambience and experience. It certainly felt like we were in another world with the beautiful setting in the Hollywood Boulevard. We will be back for a full day of play one day - it is simply wonderful that Singapore now has our own theme park!

We all sat down for a long and absolutely delectable dinner at the Chinese restaurant along Hollywood Boulevard - Hollywood China Bistro. Scrumptious food, festive atmosphere, moderate service. We were all highly satisfied by the wonderful food, especially our hubbies!

In all - what a day! I think it is so delightful to spend a full day wandering around parts of Singapore that we had not been to before - truly marvelous to feel like tourists yet with the comfort of knowing we can pop home to relax anytime!

Our First Lapbook: Japan

As part of the homelearning theme last month on Japan, Big Bee and I worked on a series of activities over 3 weeks which we collated into a Japan lapbook. 

Big Bee and I read several excellent books for children about Japan, which enhanced her knowledge about the geography and culture of Japan in time for our trip. She was able to identify many aspects of Japanese life from the books she read while we were there. When we were back, we compiled this knowledge into a collection of minibooks that Big Bee adores. She was so amused by the different ways of information presentation compared to the typical worksheets in school. 

It was wonderful to work on a lapbook with a big kid, as she had full autonomy to select the types of activities that she thought was pertinent to this theme. With minimal guidance from me, she was in charge of cutting and folding some of these minibooks (she loved it!) whilst creating the content independently. I find such active involvement will reinforce how she absorbed and remembered the information, and true enough, it made learning so fun for her that she wanted to do a Singapore lapbook in time for National Day!

I thought that Little Bee was too young to be involved in the creation of wordy minibooks, and as she still preferred art & craft as the main mode of learning, I did not create a lapbook for her, although she was highly curious about jie-jie's lapbook! 

Here are some elements from our Japan lapbook. It was such a tremendously fun project that even I am addicted to creating more lapbooks with Big Bee, and perhaps more visual ones for Little Bee!

Cover, designed completely by Big Bee. The Japanese words on the bottom right actually represent her name in Japanese, pronounced as Nikooru!

Inside the lapbook: we worked on a day-by-day highlight of our journey across Japan, the time difference between Japan and Singapore, geographical borders of Japan (sea and land), map location of Japan and her favourite places in Japan in a cute quilt square format that Big Bee loved!

More minibooks under the brown flap! The 4 "wow" matchbooks contain information about Japan that amazed Big Bee (see below picture). We also compared and contrasted seasons and currencies between Japan and Singapore, calculated the distance (5,000 km!) and air travel time between the 2 countries, discovered the popular sports and common religions in Japan, as well as unravelled fascinating facts about the meaning of the Japanese flag.

Back of the lapbook: Map of Japan - Big Bee circled the various cities and places she visited in Japan

A Hearty Dinner

We were at PF's house on Saturday evening for a sukiyaki dinner with some intense sake, and it was delicious and heart-warming. Comfort food at its best! The adults sat at one table, spending almost 2 hours catching up with each other after our respective vacations. The 4 children sat at the kids' table, munching and yakking away, and demanding non-stop for the divine kurobuta pork slices that we were frantically trying to cook and match up with their speed of eating. 

Amazingly, the Bees already had an early dinner at home, yet, they were able to devour bowls of rice and sukiyaki pork with Eugene and Claire! Company really makes food so much sweeter. 

It was very gratifying to be sitting for 2 hours, leisurely chatting and cooking our dinner over a merry broiling pot, whilst the kids have their separate set of conversation at another table. Minimal distractions and maximum food intake! 

After dinner, we gorged on ice-cream that I bought from Island Creamery (rich and yummy!) and juicy cherries from Cold Storage (Little Bee was the only kid voraciously stuffing cherry after cherry into her mouth, much to everyone's astonishment!). 

The kids fooled around, playing with toys and video games - sometimes creating such a chaotic din that we adults could barely converse, whilst the adults sat back, relaxed and chatted idly. As we grow older, we all agree that gatherings at home are so much more relaxed and enabled everyone to catch up more. Next stop: teppanyaki and grill at our place! 

My Brother The Chef

My brother has a deep interest in cooking (unlike me!) and relished in cooking for the family. Over the Father's Day weekend, he invited our family, together with my Mum and Dad, for an Italian feast that he single-handedly whipped up for all of us! He almost baked a strawberry dessert, if not for me asking him to take a rest and spend quality time with us in the living room! 

It was such an enjoyable evening. We were treated to starters of a piquant salad filled with fresh lettuce and strips of brilliant carrot, complete with tangy Japanese dressing that piqued our appetite. Then, he brought out steaming plates of spaghetti bolognese with succulent shiitake mushrooms and tomatoes, and a plate of mouth-watering pasta with prawns just for Mum because she doesn't take beef. Glorious! 

Mum was beaming - she was probably thinking that her cooking genes did end up somewhere, unfortunately not in her daughter, but in her son! 

We all enjoyed the evening so much. Thereafter, we sat down and went through all our holiday photos, and had a great time chilling out. The Bees were entertained to bits, and we certainly look forward to another feast cooked by their beloved jiu jiu!