How to remove shoe odour

My SMALL FAN has this really weird habit, he only wears one pair of shoes every where he goes, he will only change his shoes when it gets too small and it really hurts his feet. As he don't wear socks, he shoes tends to get really smelly. Tried washing and soaking it in detergent but it doesn't really help. So, search the web and found this website Helium about removing shoes odors, here are some of the tips I gather from there:

• Wash any washable smelly shoes in bleach. If your shoes are not bleach safe, but are washable use a heavy duty detergent and a quarter cup of baking soda. Regardless of what method you choose, select the strongest wash cycle on your washing machine. Putting them in a washing bag or pillow case will help to prevent them from becoming damaged in the spin cycle. Allow your shoes to air dry and rewash them if the smell is still at all present. Do this at least 24 hours before you will wear them next.
• Stick in a plastic bag and freeze for 12 hours - this will kill the bacteria.
  
• Sprinkle baking soda in shoes, leave overnight and shake out the next morning. The baking soda absorbs the odor.
  
• Pour a small amount of rubbing alcohol and dry shoes (make sure shoes dry completely).

After you have gotten rid of the initial shoe odor, be proactive about keeping the smell under control. Here are some tips:

1. Keep dryer or fabric softener sheets in your shoes between wearing them or spray them with Febreeze after use.
   
2. Avoid wearing your shoes without socks.
   
3. Generally, shoes odor is caused by our feet sweating and the sweat absorbing into the padding in the shoe. Keeping your feet clean and free of dead skin and athletes foot will also help prevent shoe odor. Soak your feet every now and then to help remove dead skin. Additionally, use creams and foot powders to help cure any athletes foot you may be experiencing.
4. Spray shoes daily with disinfectants and deodorizers specially designed for foot odor problems.
5. Apply foot powder specially designed for foot odor problems to feet and/or shoes daily.

Christmas Tree Project

Wanted to buy a Christmas Tree this year so that SMALL FAN can decorate it, but it's a little too expensive and we don't really celebrate Christmas, so decided that we should made our own.

So, I cut out triangle and trapezium shapes, find a nice corner at home and started pasting a Christmas tree. Then I printed some Christmas ornaments from Making Learning Fun and get SMALL FAN to decorate it, then paste it on the Christmas tree using blue tack, then I used the LED light that I bought from IKEA and pasted it on the tree and wa lah....got out very own christmas tree.


a Christmas ball painted by SMALL FAN

Book Review: Positive Plan for Creating More Fun, Less Whining

SMALL FAN nowadays watch a lot of TV, worried that he is going to be a couch potato. So, decided to look thru some books from the library for activities that I can use to entertain him. Borrowed this book A Positive Plan for Creating More Fun, Less Whining from Karol Ladd, thought it quite interesting and have quite a few good ideas to keep kids entertain. I won't really buy this book as I felt that it's a little Christian-based, so I'm penning some of the ideas that I like on this blog so that I can refer to it when required.

Boredom Busters for Waiting Rooms
Picture-Perfect Stories: Look around the room in which you are waiting. Typically, there will be at least one picture on the wall. If there is more then one picture, allow your kids to pick one picture for this activity. Tell your kids to give careful observation to the picture and the objects or people in the picture. Now they must create a story about what they see. They can either write it down or tell it to you. Depending on how long your wait may be, have them draw a picture showing what happens next in the story.

Terrific Travel Tips
Prepare a travel goody bag for each child. This can be a simple bag of goodies that you hand the kids right before you begin the journey. Customise the bags to your child's interests and age. You will want to include a snack and a small drink, a simple game or book, coloured pencils or markers, a journal or colouring book or puzzle book, and perhaps a small toy. For older kids, you may want to give them favourite CD for their player with earphones.

Plan to stop along the way. Do a little research to find out a good restaurant or park or place of interest along the route. When it comes to kids, your trip will be much more enjoyable if you offer them a few bathroom breaks as well as a chance to stretch their legs.

Add some entertainment. Many families now take their portable DVD player or laptop in the car to watch movies the entire way. I do think movies help the trip go much faster and make the traveling much more enjoyable. You maay also want to include a book on tape or CD. But I also want to encourage you to leave some room for interaction or to talk about the trip itself. For younger kids, you can have a story hour or even bring along a puppet for entertainment.

Play a few travel games. Stimulate the brain and add some family interaction with good old travel games. Here are a few to consider:

• ABC Adventure. One family member begins by saying something lik, "I'm Anne. I'm driving in an automobile and I'm going to Alabama." The next person syas a name that starts with B, traveling in something that starts witha B and going to a destination that starts with a B. And so on throughout the alphabet.
• I Spy. Before the trip, tear out pictures from magazines of objects you could possibly see out of the window as you travel. Find thre or four per family member. Place the pictures facedown and allow each person to take several. When the driver says go, everyone looks at his or her piectures. The first person to spy objects that match each of the pictures wins. YOu can then scramble the pictures and play again.
• 20 Questions. YOu star of saying, "I'm thinking of a place." A family member responds, "Is it in America?" Each questions demands only a yes or no response. If you make it through twenty questions and no one has guessed what you are thinking of, then you win. If someone guesses wrong, they are out. If someone guesses correctly before twenty questions are asked, they become the winner and start a new round.
• Car Trip Sing-Along. You may want to bring a sing-along tape or if you are musically talented, then you can do it yourself. Start with some kids' favourites.

Keeping your Sanity while Shopping

Preventive Measures
Consider the following checklist before setting out for shopping adventure. It may take a few extra momenets before you leave, but the end result will be a good experience with fewer complaints.

• Are the kids well rested? Tired often equals temper tantrums.
• Have the kids been fed?
• Visit the bathroom before you begin.
• In a positive tone, tell you kids where you are taking them and what you expect of their behaviour. Caryl Waller Krueger, in her book 1001 Things to Do with Your Kids, suggests the big three grocery shopping rules: walk, talk and gawk. Walk, but no running or pushing permitted. Talk, but no crying or shouting allowed. Gawk (or look), but don't pester for things! (boringtazz: tried this with SMALL FAN before my shopping trip, he seems to understand but tends to forget once he reach the shopping mall and I have to keep reminding him)
  
• Make your list of what you need before you go. You can speed up the shopping if you wrtie what you will need in each section of the store. YOu may find it helpful to create a master list of your most commonly bought items. Print copies so you can simpley circle the ones you need for the present week.
• Instruct the kids on what they can purchase or choose within the budget.
• Pack what you need. A toddler may need a toy in hand to keep his attention while you shop. A bottle or extra diapers can prevent a shopping trip from turning into a disaster.
• Consider shopping online for certain products and clothing.
• Choose kid-friendly stores and malls.
  

Shopping Can be Fun
Make the shopping exericne a fun time for both you and the kids. Here are a few ideas for a variety of ages.

Babies

• Teething toys. Bring along at least one or two to use if your baby becomes fussy. You may want to use a ribbon to tie it to the basket so it won't drop on the floor (boringtazz: personally find teething biscuits more useful, my baby FAN can chew on the biscuits for a whole half-an-hour while sitting on her stroller)
  
• Sleeping Babies. For young baby who sleeps soundly, tiem your shoppping so he can sleep through the ride in the cart.
  
• Front Carrier or Sling. If your baby does best by being held, then consider bringing along a sling or front carrier so your hands can be free while your baby feels your closeness and warmth. (boringtazz: this works best for baby FAN, she loves to be carried in the front carrier and I can go shopping for 2 hours with her and she never complaints. The only problem is that after that, I had a really backache, so make sure you can a good sling.)

Preschoolers

• Busy Hands. Busy hands are happy hands. Bring a small toy or book to keep your child's interest. You can also give your child an assignment to help you, such as holding your coupons, looking for an item on the shelf or holding certain safe items.
• Learn and Shop. Engage little ones in the shopping experience and create a learning opportunity as well, For instance, help your kids learn colours by saing, "Mommy is lookign for the green jar. Can you point to the green jar? Yes! That's it!" Encourage the kids to help you count the apples or the cans of soft drinks.
• Positive Motivation. You can call it bribery if you want, but I am not above offering my children a simple motivator if they maintain a good attitude or don't fight during grocery-shopping time. The reward should be simple: their favourit movie after naptime, snuggle time with Mommy during reading time, calling Daddy to tell him what a good job they did, special playtime when they get home, etc. Make the reward clear before you set out to shop. YOu don't want your children to get the impression that if they are bad enough, they can motivate you to offer a reward.
• Containment. If possible, bring the stroller or double stroller into the store to help the kids have their place instead of wide open space for running.

Older Kids

• Divide and Conquer. Give each child a list of several things you need. Tell them to meet you in the frong of the store in a certain amount of time. Besure it is a safe environment before sending kdis off by themselves. Send them in groups if possible.
• Coupon Accountant. Perhaps one of your kids has an accountant type aptitude. Assign him or her to be in charge of clipping coupons each week, organising them and helping you use them accordingly.
• Meal Planing. Allow each of your odler children to paln one meal that they would like during the week. Tell them to write down the ingredients they will need (encourage them to look up the recipe). When theya re at the grocery store with you, they can find the things on their list for their favourite meals.
• Push, Bag and Unload. Older kdis can feel useful by pushing the cart for you and helping the checker bag the groceries. They can also help hand items to you if you are doing self-checkout. Loading the groceries into the car and unloading the groceries at home can also hlep the kids feel a sense of responsibility.

Five Ingredients for enjoying a delightful meal - Fun Flair
With a little thought, you can add some flair to your normal mealtime routine. Here are seom easy tips for putting a little pizzazz into your family dinners.
Manners Night. Once a month, declare a manners night. Ask all family members to dress nicely. You could hand out invitations if you want to go the extra mile. Serve dinner on the fine china and nice tablecloth. tech one or two rules of etiquette at the dinner table and talk about the importance of respecting one another.
Dinner Theme. Every once in a while, build a theme around your dinner. On Mexican night, decorate the table with bright colours and a sombrero for tacos and tamales. On Italian night, use a red-checked tablecloth as you serve spaghetti. Of course, Valentine's dinner can be red foods with paper hearts....
Seasonal Celebration. At the beginning of each seaon, celebrate with a related dinner.... (boringtazz: For Singapore where we don't have any seasons, maybe we can celebrate festivals like, Lantern Festival, Hungry Ghost Festival etc)
Kids Cooking Night. Allow older kids to search the recipe books and plan their favourite menu. They will need to amke a list for you ahead of time so you can get the ingredients at the store. Then allow them to cook the meal, with only a little guidance from you if they need it. It is also their job to set the table. This activity tends to give them a greater appreciation for what you do.
Place Mat Art. Allow kdis to make different place mats each year. Using a large piece of coloured construction paper, they can draw or colour, make a collage, paint at scene, or use photos. Take the completed mats to an office or teacher supply store to get them laminated or use clear contact paper to do it yourself. Keep the collection mats over the years and bring them out now and then. It's fun to see the progression of your choldren's talents and abilities.

Teaching SMALL FAN to read - Part IV

SMALL FAN seems to have lost interest in the word matching games, so I'm kinda stuck, not too such how I should move on with his phonics lesson. So, hunted around for ideas and stumble upon this book from the National Library. It's call Games for Reading: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Read by Peggy Kaye.

This book is not really a teaching phonics book, but basically it contains a lot of fun activities for you to play with your little ones from heightening him/her to words right to letter sounds and also activities to enhance their visual skills (which is necessary for reading) and stuff like that. Thought the ideas were quite cool. Am thinking of buying this book and trying out the activities with SMALL FAN. Just to state a few:

• When going on a shopping trip, have a competition with your kid to look for words, for e.g. chocolate and sweets. End of the trip see who can find more words. This heighten their awareness of words.
• While waiting in queue (such as seeing a doctor), take out a magazine which you don't want, choose a paragraph in the magazine and start hunting alphabets in the magazine with the kids. He can look for the letter 'a' while you can look for letter 'e' and see who can find the most letters.
• While seating in a car, get your kid to love for letters as you travel along the road. Get him to look for cars with the letter "A" on their license plate or look for signboard with the letter "A" etc.

Trip to the National Library

Put Baby FAN with my mum and brought SMALL FAN to the National Library at Bishan today. Was planning to get a few books and sit down with him and do some reading. But ended up, he was busy running around the library. What happen?

Well, I told him that after reading a book, you need to put it into this big container so that it won't get lost. He got so sold into the idea that he started taking books out from the book shelves, flip a few pages and put the book into the big container. He keep doing this until I have to get him to sit down and rest, here's few pictures of him sitting down and resting on the sofa there.

Well, there is still a long way to go to get him to read quietly by himself but it's a good fun trip and SMALL FAN really enjoy it. I think I might want to make it a regular affair next time.

Entertaining your kids with household chores

Was reading a book about getting your kids to help you with your household chores and felt that I should be doing that now since SMALL FAN is getting better at listening instructions. So today, SMALL FAN give me a good idea to get him to help me with the chores, he say that he wanted to clean his cars (actually he just wanted to play with water).

This got me thinking, since he wants to clean his car, I might as well get him to clean up his toys, it has been a while since I last clean it. So I got a pail, pour it with the soapy water that I use to bathe him(trying to save water), give me a cloth and ask him to wash his toys and dry it with a cloth.

Meanwhile, I got some free time to mop the floor. It kept him occupied for a whole half-hour. After that, I have to stop him as he started to play with the water instead of washing the toys. By then, I have finish mopping the floor except for the area that he was playing in. What a good way to keep SMALL FAN occupied, give myself some time to do some chores and get him to help me do chores...

Will be thinking of others chores that I can start giving him... :)

By the way, here's what you need to get him cleaning his toys:

• a pail of soapy water
• a small towel to dry the toys
• a floor mat to absorb all the spills
• lots of washable toys
  

A Visit to Hort Park

Brought SMALL FAN to Hort Park for our morning walk last Sunday. It's quite a nice place, got a lot of flowers and water features with special themes to see. SMALL FAN likes to look at those water fountains and the small caterpillar-like insects crawling on the ground. It's a nice relaxing walk although I would recommend that you go there really early as it gets really hot after 10am since there is not much big trees to keep you sheltered.

Main Entrance area:


Playground:


Special Theme Corners:




Plant Sale Area:

Christmas Cookies

Tried making some healthy cookies to see if I can use this recipes again for Christmas. The cookies tasted really good but somehow I think I put too much eggs (I use 3 small eggs as I felt that the egg I bought was really tiny), so the dough was really too soft to cut-out shapes, got so frustrated that I ended up just making it into round one. But I think I will try again next time using less eggs and maybe less sugar as I thought it tasted a little too sweet for me, especially if I want to decorate it with icing for Christmas.


Christmas Cutouts Cookies
original recipes from allrecipes.com

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I did not put this)
  
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups oatmeal

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease baking sheets.
2. Cream together the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Blend in the eggs, lemon extract, and vanilla extract. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda in a separate bowl. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating continually. Stir in the oatmeal.
3. Roll the dough out onto a lightly-floured surface to about 1/8-inch thickness. Cut dough into shapes using cookie cutters and arrange them on the prepared sheets.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until edges begin to brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Allow to cool on a cooling rack before frosting.
   

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Brought SMALL FAN to see THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR AND OTHER ERIC CARLE FAVOURITES on Saturday. He enjoyed it and was hooked on the show for the entire 45 minutes. There was a total of 3 stories told: The Little Cloud, The Mixed-Up Camelon & The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was in a form of puppets that glows in the dark. The entire show was puppeteer by 3 persons wearing in black. Personally thought it was a very simple concepts and props but it works quite well and I think all the kids there really enjoy it.

Well, although both BIG FAN and I thought it's quite expensive (we bought the circles seats causing $25 each, including SMALL FAN), but I think SMALL FAN really enjoy it and it's a good experience for him, so guess it was all worth it. Initially we were still worried that he can't seat still or wasn't interested in it. So we can now start planning to bring him to other such events.

SMALL FAN first self compose song "E E O"

SMALL FAN made up this song himself while playing with his toy piano.

Singing Baby Girl

Visit to the Central Fire Station

We finally get our gears together and brought SMALL FAN to the Central Fire Station at Hill Street the let him see a real fire engine.

Had our breakfast and took a cab there, reach there around 10plus (the station opens at 10am). The moment we reach there the registration guys ask us to go straight to the open space area where they display all the real fire engines and rescue vehicles. SMALL FAN got scared by the loud sound created by the generators there and started to ask to go home...sigh....

Well, we persisted and the daddy has to carry him as we went around taking pictures with the large fire engines and watch the visitors and kids trying out spraying water using the fire hose and the spray gun (not sure if that's what it's called) and also standing on the ladder as it goes up and down.



After that we proceed to the exhibition area where they displayed the history of fire stations and fire engines and also some see some exhibition about fire safety procedures. SMALL FAN likes there displays better then the real thing and was enjoying himself pressing the buttons of the displays and looking at what happen as the button was pressed.





All in all, quite a nice trip for us but when I ask SMALL FAN if he likes to visit the station again, he says "no" :( guess he is still too young to appreciate it, maybe we can plan another visit when he is older.

Service Review: Rent A Toy

I'm running out of idea on what I can play with SMALL FAN to keep him occupied at home. So, decided to rent a toy for him from Rent-a-toy.com. Excellent service, I placed the order thru the net yesterday afternoon, and he deliver it yesterday night and properly installed it for me. SMALL FAN really loves the slide, beside sliding down, he also use it as slides for his cars and bus. As for Baby FAN, she is enjoying herself on the swing. The slide also has a small basket ball net for SMALL FAN to practice SLAM DUNK. Cool...right?

Walker or Not?

Baby FAN is now getting really good at moving around in her walker. It starts me thinking about the argument on whether is it good to put your child on a walker. Many parenting books and children guides nowadays advised against putting child on a walker. Reason being that it develops a different set of muscle as that of walking and may slow down the baby's ability to walk. For some books, although they don't encourage a walker but they do give advise that if you were to put a baby in a walker, don't leave him/her in the walker for more then half-an-hour each time.

Personally, I actually loves the walker as it gives me the freedom to do my work while my baby has the freedom of roaming around the house without having to scream for me to carry her. My SMALL FAN grew up on the walker and he was able to walk independently by 13 months. As for my baby girl, she is now learning to stand up. So, personally I don't find that the walker has affected their walking ability.

However, I think I do make the conscious effort to avoid putting her on the walker for more then 1 hour each time and to give her time to crawl on the floor or just being held and cuddle by me.

So what do you think, walker good or not?

Teething Pain

My Baby FAN seems to be teething. Poor girl was feverish and wake up crying, seems to be in pain for the pass few days. My mum say she is teething and she can feel some eruption at her top gum, but I can't see anything yet. A lot of books says that teething and fever is not related, but this is not so for SMALL FAN's case as he almost alway get a fever when he teeth for the first few teeth, so I believe this will be the same for Baby FAN. Bought those baby teething gel to apply on her gum but doesn't seems to help as she is still crying. Guess have to just bare with the cry for the time being until her teeth comes out.

Simple Art Work

Big FAN need to work today, so I was left with two kids at home on a lovely saturday morning. Decided to do some art and craft with SMALL FAN. So, I took out some coloured construction papers, some plain flour and a glue stick. We have such fan doing paper craft project and SMALL FAN really enjoy it. Here's the beautiful art work that we did.

SMALL FAN gets creative after a while, this is done by him

Here's a vid of him, sifting the flour.



We then made some cup cakes in the afternoon and SMALL FAN help me to sift the flour (just like how he did it in the art & craft project) into the cake mixture and put raisins into the cupcake. Cool right....

Educational Trip for Kids

Sigh...with Baby FAN stilling breastfeeding, I'm rethinking about bringing SMALL FAN overseas this year. So, decided that since I can't bring him oversea, I might as well make his days more interesting by bringing him to visit Singapore instead. Was searching thru the web for interesting place to bring SMALL FAN to in Singapore and was surprised with the wide variety.

Nature (Parks & Reservoir)
All the different parks and reservoir like:

• Upper & Lower Pierce (I actually like this place, very nice and peaceful)
• MacRitche
• Hort Park and Garden Walk as a park connector in the Southern Ridges, a 9-kilometre long stretch of green spaces stretching from Mt Faber Park in the east to West Coast Park in the west
• The Canopy Walk, a part of the Southern Ridges of Singapore, is located at the end of Pepys Road near the Reflections At Bukit Chandu heritage museum at Kent Ridge Park
• Henderson Waves, Highest Pedestrian Bridge In Singapore
• Bishan Park - just realised that they have a herb nursery and fruit nursery there, for Fruit nursery, they even conduct educational tour every 1st Sat of the month (check out more about the tour on this link

Nature (Farms & Wetlands)
There is a lot of small farms in Kranji area that are open to the public. Check on these websites for more details:
Kranji Countryside
Wetlands

You can check out the websites of these individual farms for more details:
Bollywood Veggies
Aero-Green Techology Pte Ltd
Fireflies Health Farm
Gardenasiakids Pte Ltd
Hay Dairies Pte Ltd
Hausmann Marketing Aquarium

Oh by the way, check out this blog, the blogger wrote a lot of post on the interesting places he has visited in singapore and beware, it's really a lot:
Seen this seen that

Culture
Can also bring kids to more cultural stuff such as concerts, theatre performance and even free performances at esplanade. Check out sistic and esplanade for more details. I'm planning to bring SMALL FAN to see "The Very Hungry Caterpillar at Victoria Theatre":
http://www.sistic.com.sg
http://www.esplanade.com

Can also visit museums, one free one is the Central Fire Station, planning to bring SMALL FAN there one day.

Tourist Attractions
Of course, not forgetting the tourist attractions like Sentosa, Jurong Bird Park, Zoo, Science Centre. I'm even considering bringing SMALL FAN for the Ducktours.

A Gloomy Wednesday

It's a rainy day today and the weather was really cool and nice. But somehow, I just feel really gloomy as Big FAN, Small FAN & Baby FAN all caught the nasty flu bug from SMALL FAN. So, all three of them was coughing away. Small FAN seems to be getting better after taking his 3rd course of antibiotic although he still has a lot of phelgm (but at least he is able to sleep thru the night).

Baby FAN caught the flu really bad, was coughing and sneezing these 2 nights and she is refusing to drink milk as everytime she drink, her nose got block and she started choking and coughing....Poor girl, she is already so small (only 6.5 kg), now with this nasty flu, she is going to be even smaller. Yesterday, after a few attempt to breast feed her at night, I got really desperate, wake up at 5am and started to take out the the pump breast milk from the refrigerator, warm it up and feed her spoon by spoon. I think she managed to take 1 oz and started coughing again and refuse to drink anymore...sigh...Maybe like what my sis always say, I have to start praying for her to recover faster ;(

Brought her to a Doc on Monday and she was given 4 medicines, 1 for running nose & cough, 1 for lung protection, 1 for phelgm and 1 for fever. Poor girl, I need to force her to drink the medicine as she clamp her mouth shut. After the med, she got so tire that she just doze off while sitting on her walker. I wonder if the med is too strong for her...poor thing. 'm suppose to bring her down to the doc today as doc advise that she should be on the nebuliser if she is still coughing today. But I'm a little hesitate to put her thru such suffering, she is only 6 months old. I'm now hoping for the miracle of my breast milk to cure her....

Happy Birthday in Bilingual

Teaching SMALL FAN to read - Part III

SMALL FAN knows all the sound of the 26 alphabets already although he sometime do forget 1 or 2. So I'm now teaching him 2 and 3 letters words and was thinking how I should do that when I stumble upon this blog Phonics & Reading where Tamarind wrote how she teach her kids phonics in a step by step way. I can't help noticing some similarity in her approach with mine so far and I'm going to make use of her blog to further develop SMALL FAN's reading ability.

Well, I found a way to introduce him to 3 letters words. After introducing him to the 2 letter words (see my previous Post). Then I form 3 letter words using the 2 words and paste it all over the wall. Then I printed an A4 paper with pictures on it (see picture on the right). Then I just paste it on the wall. SMALL FAN, being as curious as ever will point to a particular picture and ask me what is it. Then I will say the word, for example, "PAN". Then I slowly repeat the word and sound out the word slowly "Per + AN" "PAN". Then I ask him to pick out the appropriate words for those on the wall and paste it beside the picture. He really likes it and I'm really glad that he can actually recognise the correct word and pick it up by hearing the sound I produce. Also, I don't force him to do the exercise and leave him to decide when he want to learn it, so occasionally, he will go to the wall and ask me, "Mommy, what's this?" and that's where I start teaching. So, I very much let him lead his own learning this way...






I think he is getting the idea of words forming as I recently printed a picture of a SHIP for his usual art & craft and I write the word SHIP under the picture. He started pointing to the individual alphabet and say "Sss, Ha, I, Per" as in "BOAT". Ok....I was almost there...he knows the individual letter forms a word and still can't grasp the whole concept yet....be patient.




To help reinforce his phonics, I recently bought this book My Phonics Reader published by Pelangi at Popular Bookstore. It's a cheaper alternative to the Ladybird Series. Thought the picture was quite nice and the wordings are very simple and rhythmic, for e.g. Pat Cat sat on a mat. Tried asking him to read the words in the book and he was able to read the work "Cat". mmm...way to go SMALL FAN.

Home Cleaning Tips

Was happily blogging away when I suddenly remember I was cooking Baby FAN's porridge. Sigh...smell the "Chao Ta" smell, Baby FAN's porridge is burnt and the pot is now covered with soot. So, use my secret trick of salt and vinegar again to get rid of the burnt rice, without having to scrub. This is how it's done, pour water, vinegar and salt into the burnt pot and just boil the water. The burnt rice will just come off automatically. See pic below on before and after without scrubbing. I didn't boil it for too long, need to boil longer so some stain still there. The magic of chemical reaction when vinegar & salt is boiled, cool... (see pic of before & after)


By the way, here's more household tips that I gathered along the way:

• To get rid of vomit or urine smell: spray baking soda water (i.e. baking soda + water) into the spot and let it dry, then just dust off the powder.
  
• To get rid of blood stain: Quickly rinse with cold water and wash with shampoo. Never water it with hot water as it will fixed the stain. For old stain, I think hydrogen peroxide seems to work or rather the normal NTUC Bleach seems to work for me.
• To get rid of Super Glue from your skin, use Nail Polish Remover
• To get rid of Pen ink on Microfibre Furniture, just rub alcohol (or anything with alcohol in it like hand sanitizer, nail polish remover etc.) on the ink stain and then blow dry it to hair dryer on cool air.
• To get rid of yellowish stain on your airport or water boiler, pour some lemon juice or throw a few pieces of lemon into the airport and let it boil. Then let it stand for a while and pour away the water. Walla, the pot is now good as new.
• To get rid of grease and stain in your microwave, put a cup of lemon juice and heat it up for 1 min. Then let the oven cool then and wipe the stain off with a cloth. The lemon juice help to loosen the grease.
  
• more to come..he he... will add on this list when I experiment with more.

VCD Recommendation: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Bought this video from wonderbox.com Ok, it's a really really old video, so have been contemplating if I should by it for SMALL FAN for quite sometime. Have been reading up reviews from Amazon on it and it seems really good. Reason I was looking for this video is that I happen to download this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Song from Youtube for SMALL FAN to see. It teachers A to Z in a very fun and catchy tune and SMALL FAN loves it alot. That's why I thought I should go and invest in the entire VCD instead of playing it for him in youtube.

I must say, it's a good buy although I felt it's a tad too expensive, I pay $10 for the VCD and $8 for delivery from Wonderbox as I can't seems to find the video in any of the bookstore in Singapore. SMALL FAN loves the VCD, he watch it continuously for 3 times on the first day and subsequently, he will still ask to watch it. I watch the video with him and I thought the tune are all very catchy. But it's a pity the video was quite short, only 4 stories. SMALL FAN says he want to turn into a butterfly after watching the video, so I guess he learnt that a caterpillar turns into a butterfly and a tapode turns into frog from the video.

By the way, here's the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom song from Youtube.

Book Review - Cooking For Kids by Pancy Seng

Bought this book during one of the popular book sale, another Asian style cook book. Although the recipes was for kids, I personally felt that it's not as healthy as I would like it to as it contain quite a lot of fried food. But some of the recipes seems quite interesting like Cream of Mushroom Soup with Puff Pastry, Japanese Beancurd Pocket Salad, Rice Omelette etc. I must confess I have yet to try out any of the recipe in this book as I'm not sure if it appeals to my SMALL FAN.

Potty Training - Part II

Recently, SMALL FAN likes to wait until he is really on "high tide" before he dash for the toilet. So he wets his underwear and pants and leave traces of urine on the floor as he run. Has been scolding him and reminding him to go to the toilet but doesn't seems to work. My mum-in-law says that it's a passing phase, a lot of toddler went thru this stage. So, for now, I'm training my patient and waiting for this phase to pass :(

VCD Recommendation - Mr Men in the Great Alphabet Hunt

Met up with 2 friends last week and we were chatting about homeschooling kids and started talking about videos and show that we play for your kids. Suggested to her this particular video from Little Learners "Mr Men in the Great Alphabet Hunt". I bought it during one of the weekly sales at NTUC Fairprice Extra at Ang Mo Kio Hub, I think it cost $9.90. A really good buy as SMALL FAN loves to watch it. The video show Mr Clever's journey in looking for all the alphabets from A to Z. Along the way, he met different Mr Men and introduces different objects and stuff starting with the various alphabet and of course, they also teach you how to pronounce the different alphabet. They have a really chatchy tunes that goes like that "Arh for Apples, Ber for Bouncing Ball, Ker for Cakes but Mr Greedy ate it all...."

It didn't occur to me how useful this VCD was until I started showing SMALL FAN some alphabets and he recognises their sound without me telling him, so it looks like he did learn from the VCD. He can evens say "J for Jelly".

Vaccination - Ouch!

Baby FAN got her last 6-in-1 jab last Friday. Brave girl, she only scream "ah" and that's all. Doc say she is the small and brave one...hi hi... She also took the rotavirus medicine, that's her 3rd dose. Last time, SMALL FAN only needs to take 2 dose. Doc says this is the new vaccination that helps to prevent her from many more strand of the rota virus. Poor kids nowadays like taking more and more medicine.

Now have to decide when to give her the pneumococcal jab....SMALL FAN had his at 10 months and only require a booster at 1.5 years old. Doc says Baby FAN can have a jab anytime now. But I was wonder if I jab her earlier, she will needs to take 3 jab instead of 2.

Book Review - Hearty Congee by Amelia Liang

For Asian mums like me who is getting tired of cooking the same old porridge for your baby, check on this book. They have 58 dishes of congee of different types, right from the cantonese style to those with chinese herbs to those normal day to day congee. I have personally tried cooking Beef Congee with eggs, Lotus Roots Congee with Red Dates, Oatmeal porridge with raisins, chinese yam with frog, frog congee with lily bulb etc for my SMALL FAN before (when he is less picky).

I especially like their explanation on the purpose of the different chinese herbs, for example, ginkoo helps to reduce phelgm, lily bulb helps to norish lungs etc. But I must warn that it's quite an expensive book for just congees.

Book Review - Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron

For mum who has just started cooking baby food for your babies and wanted to cook from scratch, can check out this book. This book will tell you exactly how to cook, how to keep it, for how long you can keep the food etc. For example, how long can you keep a pumpkin once it's cut? How long should you cook brown rice, with how much water, how to freeze it, for how long you can keep it? etc..It also list the nutritional content of the food and provide you with a lot of healthy recipes like baking french fries, making breakfast cereal (from scratch) etc. But I must warn that the recipes wasn't very tasty to me but it's really natural and healthy.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, starring SMALL FAN and his xylophone

Cool Blogs - Activities to entertain your kids

Here are some cool blogs that contains loads of activities that you can adapt to entertain or even homeschool your kids:

• Shirleys Preschool Activities.com
• Daniellesplace.com
• Mrs Fischer's Kinder Themes
• Homeschool Your Boys

Websites - for the Lefties

Was searching on websites on how to teach my maybe left-handed boy to write when I stumble upon these huge list of websites for the lefty, check it out:

• Left Handed Children.org
  
• Articles on "Handwriting without tears: Use the Correct Approach when teaching left handed kids
• Articles on teaching Handwriting to Left-handers
  
• Anything Left-handed
  
• Shirleys Preschool Activities.com
  
• Left Shop Online
  

Teaching a Lefty to write

Well, I'm teaching SMALL FAN phonics and part of the requirement of the teaching is for SMALL FAN to learn to trace the letter using his hand. After observing him for a while and checking with my mums, sis and hubby, we think that SMALL FAN could be a lefty. Well, the dilemma came, should I teach him to trace the letter using his left hand or right hand?

As a modern mum, I would probably say, that I should let SMALL FAN lead and since he prefer his left, then teach him to write using his left hand. But, after ploughing through websites (check on my review section on some interesting websites for lefties) and teaching kids to write, I realised that teaching a lefty to write is different from teaching a right-handed person (like myself) to write, the orientation is all different. As a start, instead of asking him to put his writing book straight and write, for a lefty, he needs to tilt his book 45 degree so that he can see what he is writing. Also, for different letters, the stroke is different, for example, if we write "T", a right-handed person will write a straight horizontal line from left to write, follow by a straight vertical line from top to bottom, but for a lefty, he will feel more comfortable writing a horizontal straight line from right to left, follow by the straight line etc.

I also found out reading articles from the net, the many difficulties lefty face in school... Sigh... Teaching him to write the "right" way means that he will have a smoother journey in school, but it will not be second nature to him...I'm at a lost???? Maybe I should try teaching him to write in both hand and hopefully train both his left and right brain...ha ha..

Book Review - A Healthier Diet for your Baby

This is a very old book which I borrowed from the Singapore National Library. Tried finding it from amazon and some books website but can't find it anymore. A very colourful book with lots of pictures of the food. What I like about this book is that it give a very good introduction of the different food groups like green vegetables, white vegetables, protein, meat etc and the are mostly those local vegetables that we can find in Singapore. They also provide a step by step guide on the food to cook from baby to toddler, the asian way. For example, silver fish rice gruel, steam pumpkin cake, kway teow soup etc.. And a 16 days meal plan. Highly recommend those asian parent, who like me, would prefer to have your kid eat chinese food with you, rather then having to cook a separate western dish. This is how a page looks like:

Book Review - Asian Parenting Today by Jennifer Hor, Ho Ai Ling and Jocelyn Oo

Highly recommend this book for asian new mothers. It's very easy to read as it's mostly in point form! But what is most important is that it included a lot of asian cultural practices and issues for us to consider and best of all, it provide baby meal guide "asian style". It's not easy to find a book that provide meal guide for asian baby, most of the book I read are "ang mo" style like puree avocado, puree potato etc, this book have meal like Kway teow soup, Mee sua with fish etc for baby...cool. Oh and one more thing to add, it also include asian nursery rhymes, not the incy wincy spider rhymes but those in chinese and even cantonese and hokkien. Here's one in cantonese that really cool (my mum-in-law also sing for SMALL FAN)

Tim chong chong, chong chong fei. Fei toe nai chee long.

Boosting your kids immunity - Part II

SMALL FAN has been having running nose and cough, on and off for the past 3 months. Getting really tired of feeding him western drugs, especially antibiotic. So, today, we brought him to see a Chinese Physician at Serangoon Gardens. Doc say his lung is weak and body is more "cold", so need to take herbs to built up his lung and immunity. Do you know how much his herbs and medicine cost? $1300.... Can't believe it right? Let's hope he will get cure after taking these expensive drugs which is suppose to be consume everyday for 3 months....sigh....raising kids is getting so expensive nowadays....

Teaching SMALL FAN to read - Part II

Managed to think of a way to visually show SMALL FAN how to blend a word, see picture below.

As SMALL FAN is a very active kid, I can hardly get him to sit still to teach him, so what I did was to quietly paste the NEW WORD on the wall when he is in school or when he is taking his afternoon nap. When he wakes up, he will notice this new word on the wall and he will start asking me what is that? Then I will tell him, it's "U"......."P", "U"..."P, "U"."P", "UP". I think he still can't really see that "UP" form a word, but when I ask him, where is UP? He will tell me "U" & "P", "U" & "P". So he knows that "UP" is made up of "U" & "P"...so do you think it work? I'm hoping to introduce him to 3 letter words next week to see if he can get it...mmm...getting ambitious.