Flying at the Singapore Flyer

The Singapore Flyer is the latest tourist attraction here and we brought our twins and their grandparents for a ride last week. As the 'capsule' of the wheelbarrow moved higher, we got a breathtaking view of Singapore city; might have been better in the night with the city lights up but the day view is equally scenic. Thankfully it was a clear day and we managed to take some "postcards" shots of the city view.

My twins, Gwyneth & Asher, are definitely ecstatic about the 'excursion' and both were running round and round in the room size capsule while it lifted higher. Look at their pose and you knew what I meant!
In fact, after the ride, the twins got some "dogs" balloons and watched a magic show. I would say to the kids, that's already a lot of fun.

Baking Cupcakes with the Twins

Occasionally on a Saturday weekend, the twins and I will do some bakings. We just did one baking session yesterday - making cupcakes. Kids love cup cakes and they are fun to make.

Ingredients (make 12)

1. 120g butter, softened


2. 120g sugar


3. 1 tsp vanilla essence]


4. 3 eggs


5. 180g flour


6. 1 tsp taking powder


7. 12 cup cake papers

Method

Cream butter and sugar until pale, light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla essence. Add eggs one at time. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder. Fill cupcake papers or tray 1/2 ful with the mixture and bake at 180 deg C for 10-15 mins until the cakes spring back when touched.

The twins love the process of baking. Off course as young kids, they are there for some fun and "messing around" at times. But most importanly, baking with kids is a good time for bonding and you can also see the satisfaction of the kids when they ate their own "production".

4 Useful Tips to Get Your Child to Read!

My twins love to read.
Start Young : Thanks mainly to their daddy who had been reading voraciously since they were 8 months in my tummy. *wink*

Find a specific time daily : We would borrow or buy either infant or toddlers books and read to them daily in a specific hour, usually before bedtime. It has became a routine. Such that if we would consider a miss session on that night, the twins would throw tantrums (a justified one) and refused to go to bed.

Previously, one of their favourite English child author is Eric Carle. Recently, Dr Seuss and Jane Simmons' books are on the hit lists. Particularly Dr Seuss's "Hop on Pop" - the words just rythm, good illustration & it's funny; Jane Simmons's "Daisy" and "Ebb & Flo" series. For chinese books, they seems to prefer this "Xiao Tai Yang" series.

Find interesting books : Usually a book with clear good description, big and nice drawings and most importantly, a captivating story is what attracts them to sit through the reading session. And they would want to read that particularly book over and over again, until you had to put a white flag in front of the twins.

Be consistent : Some parents asked us how did we manage to read to them so consistenly and in fact, daily without fail? We do feel tired at times but we force ourselves to read to them, whether it's a 30 mins session or just a 10 mins session.

The benefits are tremendous - their vocabs are 'richer' and you open them up to the world of wonderful things. You will be amazed the next time when they started to describe vividly an action, event or object using certain adjectives that they had just read in the books. So start reading to your infant, toddlers or kids now!

*If you are an Amazon shopper, please support me by purchasing through the links. Thank you.
*Note : All books recommended here are read by my children and found worthwhile recommending

Related post : What's so funny about Dr Seuss's books?

Develop Multiple Intelligence through Nature Discovery

Since Asher and Gwyneth started to walk, we often brought them to the gardens near our flat for some "educational fun" walk. We bought two toy-like magnifying glass and let them do some "discovery". They watched the ants crawl in line, the birds & butterflies flying around the trees and discovered the different type of leaves and flowers in amazement.

Even till today, as we walked to their childcare centre nearby, we will often do "snailies watch" and "mimosa teasing".

There are simply lot of snails around that garden near the centre, particularly after some morning rain or drizzling. Asher and Gwyneth would then love spotting snails crawling and searching for foods around the muddy sands or wet floors. We would label the snails -"Ah gong", "Ah ma", "daddy", "mummy" , "Jie Jie"(older sister), "Di Di"(younger brother) or baby snails, depending on their sizes. BTW, the "Ah gong" and "Ah ma" snails are really huge, even bigger than a golf ball. Sometimes, the twins would also spot the snails "doing their big business" and once even saw a couple snails mating!

Being young kids, they also love to 'disturb" and "tease" the mimosa, knowing that they will be "shy" and "close up" after that. This simple reaction of the mimosa is quite a small thrill for the twins.

Acutally we did not intentionally want to teach them anything in specific. We only wanted them to appreciate the beauty of nature. And it seems that the kids have since developed a liking for the flora and fauna.

Enrichment Classes - To send or not to send?

We are those parents who believe in sending the children to enrichment classes for learning and experience. We think that these enrichment classes offer external stimuli which the children may not experience at home.

On the other hand, there are parents like one of my girlfriend, Mokkie, who believe that the childcare centre environment will provide sufficient stimuli and learnings in their appropriate age, and it is not necessary to enrol them in additional classes. She is of the view point that if these children learned far ahead of their age, they may lose interest in learnings later on. Certainly a valid consideration. However, so far the twins have positive experience in the enrichment learnings.

Since 18 months old, we sent them to Kindermusik at Tanglin Mall for "Our Time"(for 18mths-3 years old) music lessons. In the 45 minutes lessons, the teacher will sing or play the CD music and used various musical instruments to engage the toddlers, who were accompanied by one parent. The toddlers also learn some nursery rhymes, opposite words like "high vs low", "up vs down" , action words like "stop", "fly", "row" etc, all through the music. There were lots of actions and you would not be bothered that your toddlers will get bored during the lessons. In fact, normally at the end of the each lesson, the teacher will read a story, usually from famous child author like Eric Carle. The music used is very engaging and my twins love them till today. They could even recalled the dance actions of each song and "replayed" them at home.

The twins thoroughly enjoyed the course and looked forward to the weekly lessons even though they were initially shy, a litle fearful of the group setting and merely passive in their actions. I still remember Asher cried for the first two lessons because he was afraid of the "noise" (our house is a quiet resort); not anymore since.

The Kindermusik "Our Time" course is suppose to spread through 4 semisters (3 months for each semisters). But after 6 months, we think that the stimulation had stagnanted and decided to switch to another slightly more "academic" course at Growing Up Gifted in United Square. We could have stayed in both courses together, but that would be too taxing in monetary terms, the weekend time and for the twins, especially when you enrolling two children at a time.

At Growing Up Gifted(GUG) weekly, one and a half hours, toddlers' programme (18 months - 3 years old), it consists of

• 30 minutes of"project time" - art work of various form, edible work using food, some science project for older todds;
• 30 minutes of "Zoo-phonics" - teaching of alphabets phonics using animals, introducing "zoo bag"(consists of things beginning with the letter of the day) and the 3-letter word of the day;
• 20 minutes of other rotational activites like singing, story book telling etc.

My twins totally love the programme, particularly the project work, you could clearly see their eyes brighten up each time. They also like the "Zoo-phonics" time but during the singing session, they would usually stand aside and watch despite some encouragment to participate. Perhaps they were too shy at that time, so we did not really "push" them during that time.

I think that the GUG one and a half hour programme is actually a little long for younger toddlers, particularly under 2 years old, as the children are required to sit down most of the time. Some of their classmates who were under 2 years old were merely running around the classes; in fact, towards the end of the class, the twins were mostly a little restless too, even though they were more well-behaved.

Nevertheless, some of the things that they have learned in GUG are "more advanced" than the peers and my twins still talked about their GUG schools till today. They have since stopped the GUG lessons last September after they were enrolled in the Childcare centre.

There are actually many enrichment classes for pre-schoolers that we have "researched" and the programmes are also quite interesting eg. Shichida Brain stimulation, Julia Gabriel, Gymboree, The Little Gym, Lorna Whiston etc. We have chosen those that best fit our twins and budget.

Kindermusik : http://www.kindermusik.com.sg/
Growing Up Gifted : http://www.gugifted.com/
Shichida : http://www.shichidamethod.com/
Julia Gabriel :http://www.juliagabriel.com/
Lorna Whiston: http://www.lornawhiston.com/
Gymboree : http://www.gymboree.com/
The Little Gym : http://www.thelittlegym.com.sg/