Baby Le Xin

Monday 25 November 2013

Little Leopard On The Move!


Read this beautiful story to Le Xin about a cute little leopard and she was really fascinated with it.

This sparked her interest in wanting to paint a leopard.

She asked Mummy can we paint this baby leopard

 That's a great idea, I am sure we can do that....I replied with lot's of enthusiasm but at the back of my mind I was thinking  should I look for a leopard template over the internet and have it printed out for her to paint since I know I really can't draw a picture of a leopard? 

As I was flipping through the pages, an idea came!

Even though I think I do not have a flair for drawing, I could still make use of a tracing paper to trace the leopard and have the picture transferred onto a piece of drawing board. 

With that, Le Xin began to paint, she chose yellow as the main colour for her leopard....Good choice Le Xin :)


I like how Le Xin knew exactly which areas to leave out...She said Mummy, I cannot paint the ears, the eyes, and the mouth, they are not lehlow (yellow)

Next, she chose brown for the leopard's ears....

black for the eyes....

and pink for the nose....

She also used a cotton bud to create the spots for her leopard!

Forming the dots carefully....

Lastly, she painted the leopard's mouth black and I used a a bit of white paint  to paint the curvy lines on the mouth...

Ta Da....Le Xin's representation of The  Little Leopard!

Today, I would like to share with you about the Wonder of Learning... "Do not point to the children, the path already known, but if you really want , only teach life's magic!"  - George Gaber  (An Italian songwriter)

At one point, I used to really worry will my lack in talent for the Arts hinders me in teaching Le Xin? What I was really missing out was the life's magic that tags along whenever I engage myself with Le Xin in every Art activity.

So what's is this life's magic that I am talking about?

Well, it's a pretty sophisticated idea! 

Basically, life's magic is to experience a change in consciousness, walking inside of a great mystery on another path. Sometimes I heard people saying "Magic is in the air" but  I really couldn't figure out what it is all about.

For example in the above experience, I was so conscious of how the leopard would look like, I even wanted to print out a leopard template for Le Xin to paint but  I chose to trace the picture instead. I believe if I want to, I can actually draw the picture by myself and who knows, it might end up looking quite decent :p 

Le Xin on the other hand led me into the idea of  JUST DO IT AND SEE WHERE IT TAKES YOU....She confidently painted the leopard without any given instruction by me. She was capable of  choosing the colours by herself, confidently dipping  the paint using the cotton bud when creating the spots and the best part was her leopard looks the fantastic to her because she has put in good effort! 

When I compare myself with her after the whole experience, I realised that at a tender age, Le Xin has already mastered the life's magic that I have missed out and I hope you have a clearer picture of what I was trying to put across. There are indeed many things we can learn with and learn from children and that's the wonder of learning! 

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Five Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed!


 After watching this for a zillion times, I guess Le Xin was probably having LSS (Last Song Syndrome) because she kept singing it wherever she goes!

Then I observed her doing something really cute!

Haha she was role playing with the moneky printouts and singing that song...

Check out her video!

Such cute singing isn't it?

Youtube is such a great resource to introduce rhymes and songs. Needless to say, too much of anything is definitely not good.  You just need to ensure the exposure time is not too long and one of my house rule is no watching of iPad during meal time

Le Xin enjoys watching Youtube. She learned several songs, rhymes and improve her language skills through some of the educational programs that she watched. Her favourite Youtube videos that she really likes include Maisy Mouse, Dream English, Pingu and Mother Goose Club. Sometimes the shows that she watches gave her new ideas on what to say or what to do which was evident during my interaction with her. How cool! 

Do you expose your child to Youtube videos too?  

Sunday 10 November 2013

Random Photos for November!

I found some of the sweetest and the most memorable photos taken in November!

To cut things short...let your eyes do the work :) 

Le Xin eating her breakfast with her cute Halloween Hat!

She even wore hat out for her tricycle ride and look who did she ferry behind her?

Smiling sweetly for Mummy while Daddy Scott tried to show his peace sign!

I guess she was the only one feeling so happy despite waiting for the bus for a very long time at the bus stop :)

Eating yummy Indian food @ Sakunthala's @ Little India! 

What about some horse riding at the playground?

Doing her favourite dance before we open to the door to get in!

Crazily in love with the big Minion balloon we bought for her!

Getting ready to do her first stage performance for Carpe Diem's Year End Concert....

Looking cute with the cutie hairdo!

Her usual tricycle ride along our corridor....

Feeling happy while sitting in a not very glamorous pose haha! 

Hope you enjoy Le Xin's happy moment in the month of November seeya will try to blog soon!

Saturday 9 November 2013

Flower Wreath - A Test of Patience....

A random collection of an art learning experience that we had ,

This time Le Xin and I worked on creating a flower wreath.

Let's check out what we have done :)

Look so happy....You just do not know how many flowers you need to paint right?

MummyT2X   cut out egg carton which looks like this...

Just give each side a little bend and it does look like a flower isn't it?

Le Xin began to paint.....choosing pink as her first colour to work on....

MummyT2X helped to hold the petals....


Little fingers @ work!

Le Xin lifted the flower up for a better grip to paint...How smart of her!

Then she just kept painting with different colours......

Final one - Blue Flower....

Tada.....aren't they beautiful? All painted by my precious darling girl!

We thought it would be cool to add a small white circle in the middle to beautify the flowers...

Le Xin helping to put the double sided tape beneath the flowers....

Then she went on to help out with the pasting.....Good effort!

Mummy look, I finished pasting said Le Xin

This activity is relatively simple and a good way to get Le Xin to focus on painting a given object.

I personally think she was quite patient when it comes to painting all the flowers....

I mean painting 7 flowers continuously all by herself  for her age was quite amazing... Or was it just me being a proud Mummy :p (if you are reading this part....you can just ignore me totally) hahaha Well, Le Xin will always be perfect in my eyes...pardon me it's eyes of the beholder......

I like how she kept saying finished after she has painted each flower...



In fact. when she was pasting the white paper onto the flower she also tried to ask me to be involved....I think all the reminders of asking her to use her words really helped... Taking delight in all her big and small achievements.... Words just can't sum up my happiness....

To my little cutie pie....

I love you so much Le Xin definitely more than the MOON and BACK!

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Learning how to recognise number 1 to 10 in Mandarin!

Le Xin's Mandarin teacher was beginning to teach her how to recognise number 1 to 10 ( 一到十)  in school...

Back at home, I use flashcards to teach her to recognise those numbers....

As an reinforcement, I have decided to create an apple tree with the numbers on the apples...

Best of all, I've asked Le Xin to make the tree with me so that she is involved in the project!

Can I start now? asked Le Xin

Squeezing green paint on a plastic plate...

Painting the tree...

Painting the trunk....

Painting the grass....

Painting the flower....

Little hand @ work...

Another flower....

Waiting for the paint to dry....

I helped to display the tree and Le Xin displayed the apples with the Chinese numbers on them...

Done!

这是一 said Le Xin as she pointed to the apple that has the word 一 (number 1) on it...

Most of the time, I try my best to teach Le Xin how to say certain words in Mandarin and recognise some simple Chinese words. I started off with showing her basic strokes (笔画) and went on to use flashcards to teach her some high frequency words that she will often get to see in her Chinese readers. 

The challenging part is that Le Xin usually prefers to speak in English. No matter how hard I try to converse with her in Mandarin, most of the time she will reply me in English. However, she could perfectly understand what I am trying to tell her so I think that's good enough.

I hope  learning experiences such as the one above which I have exposed her will help to spark her interest in learning Mandarin. She really kind of enjoys putting the apples on the tree and saying the numbers out loud as she does that...I displayed the 号码苹果树 (number apple tree) on the wall for a few weeks before I took it down! 

Ending this post with Le Xin's cute video of her learning to recognise the numbers!


How do you help your child to learn his/her Mother Tongue?

For me, it's always about coming up with interesting ideas that will encourage her to participate....