Little 时旭

I like to use various activities/objects to teach Shi Xu the concept of opposite/comparison and he enjoy learning them .

By now he know far/near , long/short , tall/short , clean/dirty , big/small , up/down , left/right , more/less , cold/hot , day/night , happy/sad , fast/slow , heavy/light ,wet/dry ,narrow/wide etc .

Sometimes I am glad to see him exercises with opposites in his daily activities .

"papa is TALL , Shi Xu is SHORT " ,
" mummy is BIG , Shi Xu is SMALL " ,
" i am FAR away , you can not reach me " or " I am NEAR now , you can reach me " ,
"this is HAPPY face " ( he makes a happy face ) , " this is SAD face " ( makes sad face ) ,
"this dudu (pacifier ) is DIRTY " ,after i clean it , he will say "my dudu is CLEAN now " ,
"papa' hand is LONG , Shi Xu's hand is SHORT"
When we are cycling , he will say " I am FAST , mummy is SLOW " ,
and the list goes on ,we make learning opposites easy and fun !

**Shi Xu @ 2.75 years old

2 days ago , Shi Xu asked for drawing . So i gave him a piece of paper and a pen .
Shi Xu : I draw a big circle . ( drawing the "head" )
Mummy : What are you drawing ?
Shi Xu : cat !
Mummy : ha?
Shi Xu : 猫 ! ( He thought i didn't get him )
Shi Xu : I draw small circles ( drawing the "eyes" )
Mummy : Does cat have nose and mouth ?
Shi Xu : Yes! ( started drawing the 2 lines for "mouth " and "nose " )
After the mouth and nose , he drew 2 more lines (outside the "head" )
Mummy : Then what are these ? ( pointing the 2 lines )
Shi Xu : Ears !
I thought it was done so i got my camera ready . Shi Xu was still busy drawing ...he was drawing the curly lines on top of the "head "
Mummy : What are these? ( pointed at the curly lines )
Shi Xu : Hair !
Haha......this is his "cat " (above ) . Oh well , i think this look more like human face than a cat , isn't it ?

so on the next few minutes , i was busy capturing his drawing , while i had finished the photo shooting , he had done the other drawing and he named it as "cat " as well .

Children are naturally curious about the world around them.

Last night Shi Xu looked up at the sky and stared at the Moon in wonder,he asked me why we can see the moon at night.I stumped by his question again . Daddy is always the person who will answer his question . daddy told him because the Sun’s light shines on it.But I think the answer is too brief!

It is not easy to explain the moon to a 2.5 years old toddler . After back home , we searched some information from internet and used his 3 different size of balls ( to be Sun , Moon and Earth ) and share with him how we can see the moon .I have no idea how much he can understand it but at least let him grasp a deeper knowledge about his world.

I am wondering what is the next question now .We are feeling the joy of seeing him make some amazing progress.His learning journey is filled with joy and fun and so we are .

**Shi Xu @ 31 months

lately we are bombarded with so many questions(or perhap answers ?) from my little boy.Sometimes we really need to think hard to answer his questions .But we truly enjoy the conversation with him .

Here are some tricky yet funny Q & A we had

Case 1 :
Shi Xu :爸爸，fish 有没有喝水？

爸爸： 有！ (**very confident answer **)

Mummy : ........

( i remained hesitant to answer because i do not know the answer ! )

Isn't it a funny yet tricky question ? I asked around and I got different answers. My brother said fish do not drink water but use their skin to absorb water , while my husband insisted that fish do drink water . Both sound logical .(then what is the correct answer? ) we stumped by the scientific question posed by my little boy .

Well ,my collegue got the answer from internet ,here is the explanation .

"Fresh water fish absorb water through their skin and gills, saltwater fish actually do drink water.
In saltwater fish, they have to drink because their body's concentration of salt is lower than the surrounding water. Therefore, they have to drink huge amounts of water every day to stay hydrated.
In freshwater fish, their salt concentration is higher than that of the surrounding water, and, as osmosis dictates, they absorb water through their highly permeable skin. To keep from bursting, freshwater fish actually have to excrete water, up to 10 times their body weight daily, unlike saltwater fish. "

Case 2 :
The other day ,we were chatting on the bed ..

Shi Xu : 爸爸 can not fly ,mummy can not fly , Shi Xu also can not fly .

Mummy : Why we can not fly ?

I expected he would give me the answer something like "because we are not bird ", however....

Shi Xu : no more wings! ( he always misuse "no more " as "don't have " )

He caught me by surprise!I was COMPLETELY shocked.Where on earth did he understand that we can't fly without wings!?

**Shi Xu @ 31 months

Shi Xu has always been an inquisitive child , he constantly bombard us with questions and some questions I even need to think hard to answer.

He likes to ask the WHAT, WHERE, WHY ,WHO questions.When we about to go out , he would like to ask WHERE we are going ,WHAT we are going to eat for lunch or dinner ;When he get a new thing , he will ask WHO buy this and that ; when daddy stop his car ,he will ask WHY daddy stop the car , WHY daddy turn his car to right or left .When we angry with him due to his misbehaviour , he would ask WHY we angry with him ; and he loves to ask us WHY we do this , WHY we do that .I try to satisfied him by answering all his questions and make him understand .

He loves to ask what the objects name which is easy peasy to answer,but sometimes it could be difficult as well . Last week we took taxi home , he kept asking the taxi driver the name of the objects in the taxi , from booking machine , credit card machine ,receipt printer ,to taxi driver name tag ,acupuncture car seat (what funny was the taxi uncle had hard time to explain the acupuncture car seat , the taxi driver could not name out the name of this , he just simply described it , the answer did not satisfy the curious kid , so he kept asking again "这个是什么" hope that can get the name of this object ,the taxi driver ended giving up to answer )

Well,I think probably is time to get him one of those children encyclopedias.^_^

**Shi Xu @ 30 months

A few months back , Shi Xu only managed to pledge about 60% of chinese version national pledge .Now he is able to FULLY recite the pledge

我们是新加坡公民，
誓愿不分种族、言语、宗教，
团结一致，
建设公正平等的民主社会，
并为实现国家之幸福、繁荣与进步，
共同努力。




And this is his school song and "patially " national song .



He makes us gleaming with pride.

**Shi Xu @ 28.5 months

It was a special day , Shi Xu got to perform in his first school mini concert! I just couldn't wait to see him perform and wonder how things would turn out on that day.

My mood today was a thrilling roller coaster ride .Daddy was away for business trip . My mission was to video down our little one's performance .

The teacher took the children out to the stage . All the PG1 students seem like unexpectedly became open to a larger group.All of them were stunned and didn't know what they should do when they stand in front of the audience,so was Shi Xu ,he looked uncomfortable ,occationally waving his hand (he seem like wanted to perform but remain hesitant on doing so as no one performed at that time ).Non of his classmate perform when the music was playing .Some of them cried , some of them just stand still , some even not knowing where to stand . They just stand on the stage till the music was over .Haha..

I would like to share the video here .Turn on your speaker and enjoy his school mini concert (he was at the first from left ,kept moving his hand ).Hehe ...

At night , when left only 2 of us at home , Shi Xu got the mood to host his personal concert .He made me chuckle with delight and he enjoy the 100% attention i gave .
I am proudly present his "personal mini concert" here

**Shi Xu @ 28.5 months

Were were invited to attend an informal parent teacher conference (PTC) by Cherie Heart.The purpose of this is mainly to update parents about their children's development progress.
Shi Xu , mummy would like to share with you the comment from your teachers .

Teacher Naizirah ( form teacher ) :
Shi Xu is excellent in his language and cognitive development . He is able to express himself emotionally . He is able to speak in more complete sentences whilst others at his age might have fewer words and speak less. He is a fast learner ,intelligent and independent boy .He can remember what teacher had taught him .

He is not so good in physical development .He scares of falling down when he stand at high place and he has water phobia . He cries whenever teacher bathe him .
** i have suggested teachers do not directly shower on his face ** .

Shi Xu is well trained in potty training , he knows to signal teacher whenever he wants to pass urine .However pass motion still need more training on it .

Teacher Xu( chinese teacher) :
Shi Xu sets a good example to his peer. He is such an independant boy , he can take care of himself . The deepest impression to teacher Xu is whenever the school bus come to fetch him , he will pull his school bag , get his water bottle , all his belonging and walk to the bus .He refuses any help and insists on doing on his own . Recently there has one boy who same age with him also learn from him .he is his peer's role model now .

Shi Xu doing well in his language development ,he is able to recite 2/3 of national pledge .This is amazing speed in speech development at his young tender year . She commented that even some of her K1 student still unable to recite the national pledge as the pledge is using some abtruse words.Shi Xu also able to read after teacher when teacher reads the story book .
On the other hand , his limited attention span and diet have significantly improved .

Shi Xu used to be the center of focus in his school, teachers love him due to his face always beam with joy and happiness.But recently there has some new children just join in , so teachers always have to take care of these new kiddos ,Shi Xu feels that he is out of favour of teachers ,hence he will whine occasionally to get some attention . He is expressing his jealousy !!** I can't imagine what happen if i have 2nd baby :P**

After the session , Shi Xu was so proud to show me his works which teacher paste on the wall , he was happy to show me his peer's work as well . I was wondering how he diffentiate them (as 10 same set of works which done by different children paste on the wall all look same to me except the names are different ) .

Overall , i am glad with his progress with Cherie Heart , i am looking forward to the next PTC .

**Shi Xu @ 26 months

How fast time flied , today was last day of 3rd semester in LNT . Teachers were busy writing their comment to their students .Here we go ..

"Shi Xu can concerntrate very well in class! He is excellent in open focus (eye exercise ) and enjoys singing song in class .
Fantastic work ,Shi Xu ! "
From : Teacher Deon (English teacher )

"Shi Xu has shown great improvement .He can now speak a lot of chinese words .He enjoys songs and does well for IQ games .Good job ! "
From : Chinese teacher


"Shi Xu is able to read after me for the japanese words , and he does well in his photograpic memory game " ** I wonder why he likes to give me wrong answer when i play with him at home **
From : Japanese teacher .

**Shi Xu @ 26 months

Shi Xu starts understanding some basic concept , eg : concept of time , days of the week and basic traffic rules .

I have been teaching Shi Xu the concept of time . I show him events that he will relate such as time to go to school, breakfast time , lunch time , dinner time , sleeping time ,playtime etc . I am sure he still not really grasp the concept of the time but his concept does gradually become clearer . For instance , he knows to tell me "10 o'clock ,Shi Xu study " ( i told him 10am he should study at classroom at cherie heart ) , and when i say 6 o'clock , he knows to answer me " dinner at Ah Ma (his grandmother ) house " (he take his dinner at my MIL house at 6 o'clock in the evening ) .

I start teaching Shi XU some basic traffic rules.Recently evertime when we come to traffic light , you can see him lights up to tell us " traffic light!(but he pronounses as "fancy light!") red colour stop , green colour go !" He has so much delighted to show us every traffic light and the rule he knows .

For the days of the week, he knows his daddy has lesson on monday and tuesday .And he knows other days like friday , but so far we dont mark any particular event for the days , so i think he still does not have a full picture yet.

Shi Xu has very good IQ . He is able to answer correctly for most of the IQ questions conduct in LNT lessons. However , his memory is not so good , he always gives me the wrong answer when i play the memory games with him .

Shi Xu can recognise and name out most of the characters now , but some characters still confuse him like W,U and V .

How time has gone by ,my baby has grown up as a little boy .He is growing at such an amazing pace.

I realized that I’ve skipped the updates on Shi Xu development for few months (After the previous update on language development and his milestone ).

I want to pen down some updates on his development before my memory goes rusty.Over the last 6 months Shi Xu fine motor skills ,language & cognitive development improve steadily.

Scribble ,drawing & colouring
He is able to scribble vigorously although his scribbles yet taking discerbible shape .he's become enthralled by anything he can draw with — crayons, pens, and colored pencils.He also start attempting to incorporate language into his drawings.He always attempts to tell me that this is rainbow ,star ,moon ; that is ant ,spider,circle ,triangle ,singapore flag ,bla bla bla ...Although his draw wouln't look like any picture I recognize ,I totally indulging him in this .He show interest in colouring as well ,despite his colour does not match the real thing , I just let him colour by his imagination .

Cutting
He’s so good with scissors by his 23 month .He refused any help for cutting out the shapes.Most of the times the pieces he cut are out of shapes , but he is dexterous and quick in cutting .

Self-dressing
Shi Xu start do some self-dressing after he started his school life at his 23 months . Sometimes he can wear his pant without any help from us .But he still need to have more practice on this .
He also begins developing his own taste and personality .He will pick out what he want to wear and even sometimes he will mix and match his clothes in front of mirror.He is often drawn to clothes which has his favourite Thomas engine print . Occasionally , he will like to put on his Bob-the-Builder sun glasses and self praise "handsome boy!"

Feeding
After Shi xu start his school life at 22.5 month,he is not as picky and fussy as he was .The previous food strike seem to be far from me now . Especially come to his favourite food , he will happily munch aways them and request to eat more by his favourite "somemore! " . I like to asked him if the food nice and everytime he will give me the standard answer by nodding his head and say "nice!" . I’m so delighted to see him eating. No words can describe it .
Shi Xu has started self feeding with fork & spoon after he started his school as well .He smears over the plate , dish the food up and skillfully put good amount of food into his mouth .
Apart from bottle , Shi Xu had started drinking water directly from our cup with our help since he was 17 months .By he 21 months ,he started using straw to drink . He sip yagurt and my mum's home made Rebena happily by the straw and since then he love them so much . And he is confident drinking directly from cup by his own around 22 months .

Potty training
I started Shi XU potty training quite late . Again , is after he started his school .
Teacher started training him and as a parent , i have to participate in his training as well.I seldom encourage him do a dozen toilet sits each day to get him to learn to relax while sitting on the toilet.As such ,he still has pressure to have a bowel movement on toilet sometimes .
Last month he even has pressure to pass urine .I think he has confliction between diaper and pant because he is diaper-free in school while at home , i let him wear his diaper when he sleep and go out with us .Nevertheles , now he will tell us when he need to urinate ,however accidents do happen occasionally.

Language & Speech development
Shi Xu grows very well in his language development ,he utter his first word at his 9 months old .His Vocabulary explodes tremendously fast .He can name a number of objects to his surroundings since his 16 months .He started speak couplet at his 18 months and phrases/sentense by his 19 months .He pick up the words from us and everyone else around him . he knows to speak teochew( learn from his nanny's neighbour )in simple word , manderin ,english and even cantonese (few words ) when i brought him back to malaysia at his 21 months old .

He is become more of chatterbox ,interactive and curious now. He's likely asking questions in an attempt to keep a conversation going and loves to answer simple questions as well.For instance , when he looks at a new thing ,he will ask in astonishment" wow !what is this!? " .Everything is new and waiting for him to explore .
He is able to answer "What is your name ?" " where do you stay? " and "how old are you ?" now .
He has the cognitive skills to remember what he had seen . For instance ,he will tell me that elephant was spraying the water and the tiger was sleeping after few days we had visited the zoo .He knows to use his growing vocabulary to share his "personal experience " and what he is doing in school .

Wheh he turn to 22 months , he loves to sing and knows the words to several songs.Sometime he will hums the melodies when he forget the lyrics .He is a little pop star in our family .

Personal development
Shi Xu is growing more independent after he started his school , he can take care of his own .He always insist on doing the things himself.Self feed ,dress himself ,brush teeth etc,althought sometimes he is notoriously messy ,but it is fine .He start to follow some basic rules of hygiene as well .He wash hand time to time .Sometimes he probably doesn't remember to cover his mouth when he cough , but when we remind him , he will do that .

He is growing at such an amazing pace. It just a little slower for me to relish the moments .

Shi Xu @24 month

Little Shi Xu has changed .Recently he always throw his tantrum by throwing away his toys or whatever on his hand ! He hit me , hit daddy , hit whoever is carrying him when we say "no!" to him . When he throw his tantrum, he will purposely do something to displeasure us (sucking his finger which we always dont allow him to do so )

I guess i am stepping into the stage of terrible twos now !

I am not that kind of patient person ,i admit .Everytime when he throw his tantrum, he drives me up the wall over and over again. I lost my calmness and feel clueless and i had shouted at him for few time (*sob sob * ) . Nevertheles , everytime i tried to calm down myself and tell him in calm that he can not hit mummy and daddy or anyone as we will feel pain and it is not right to do so.

How could i handle his tantrum ?
I think BEST way is distraction . I have an experience in recently night .
When we were on our home way , Shi Xu become grouchy and cranky in the car as he did not have his pacifier to suck on ( he used to suck on his pacifier when he aboard car ) .It is a MUST-HAVE when we go out .However due to childcare teacher careless , his pacifer left in childcare .
After a long time he making noise , finally i come out with a good idea to DISTRACT him .

Shi Xu very like to enjoy the breeze blow on his face , so i ask daddy wind down the window whenever he ask for pacifier .So it come with this case , when he said "Dudu! " , the window "automacally"wind down ( of course it was controlled by daddy on driver seat :P ) . So whenever he said "Dudu! " , the window will wind down and the breeze blow on his face . He feel so magic and stop making noise ! Guess wat ? He keep saying "Dudu! " so that the window wind down and wind up again and again . And daddy try to wind down different side of window , so he keep playing to say "dudu! " and see which window is opened . Funny right ? but it works ! He stopped throwing tantrum . Hurray ! and we drove home "peacefully " .

Shi Xu on 23.5 month

When it comes to sing , Shi Xu can be very enjoyable .He like to sing with or without music whevener he is in good mood . He always sing along these song "anytime ,any where " and dance for joy .

This is his favourite song list ->"拔萝卜“，” 握紧拳头“，“造飞机“，”小星星“，“生日快乐“， “蝴蝶“,"两只老虎“，“我的朋友在那里“ ，“london bridge ","The wheel on the bus " , "happy birthday " ," twinke twinkle little star " ,"ABC song ","Oh Mac Donald farm " ,"little teapot " , "incy wincy spider , " head,shoulder ,knee and toes " , and many many more ! (he is a little pop star in our family now :P)

Recently he has blossomed of bundle of creativity . He mixed 2 languages in 1 song .
For instance , when he sing twinkle twinkle little star, he mix with manderin and english (previously he could sing the song mainly in english , however after i had taught him in manderin for the same song , he come with funny idea to mix them up ) .
He sing " 一闪一闪亮晶晶“。。。"up above the world so high " , or come with another creative song like " twinkle twinkle 亮晶晶 ". Sometimes he even change the lyrics according to his interest , like he sing "两只老虎,两只老虎,一定没有跑得快,一定没有跑得快...".haha...What my creative boy !

It always be an uphill task for me to take a video for him whenever he sing song or has some funny and interesting movement.It is such a huge challenge to get him to sit still to let me take photo or video , think i should install a web camera at home so that i can video down all his amazing development,isn't it a good idea ?

Today i was pretty lucky , i was able to video my little Shi Xu when he was singing , he was enjoy to sing “我的朋友在那里“ and i quickly took out my camera to video him , he only came to snatch the camera from me when he finished his whole song . Hurray ! i got his video finally !

Shi Xu on 23.5 month

Today when i knock off from office to my in law house as usual , to my surprise , i received a first "report" from Cherie Heart regarding my little Shi Xu progress in school. 
This is what shi xu learn in school in term 3 at Cherie Heart (25 March 2009 ~ 10 July 2009)
Understand the world with our sense 
a) Language Arts
  -picture talk of taking care of eyes 
b) Literacy  
  -Introduce the story"Brown Bear ,Brown Bear ,what do you see "?
c) congnitive 
  -Let children identify objects in the classroom using their eys (for example tables, chairs ,colours around the classroom ,etc) 
d) Gross motor developments 
  -Prodive different type of balls for children to develope the skills of throwing and rolling  
e)Fine motor developement 
  -pasting and tearing of papers to decorate the toilet rollbinoculars 
f) Aesthetic/Affective 
  -Finger play,rhymes and songs about eyes . 
g) 华语：
  故事：《小不点长大了〉〉；《逛公园〉〉
  美术画册：鸡妈妈孵蛋；七色花； 我和音乐做游戏 ； 拍拍胸； 斗斗虫
  手工：彩色的蛋
  体育游戏：逛公园 
h) Others 
  -Arts & craft (paper plate face mask, binocular) 
  - rhymes ( i have 2 eyes , down by the little duck) 

That has some art & craft master pieces attached with the report .I was so impressed when i looked at my little boy's masterpieces . Shi Xu actually learn a lot from school and i bet he would have a lot of fun with the caring teachers and friends in Cherie Heart . 
 

Before my memory become rusty and end up forget what i keep his masterpiece , i think it would be better i blog down his masterpiece .

Shi Xu on 23.5 month 

dfdsfddddddddddddddddddddffMay 2009 (Shi Xu 21.5 month)