Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Spy and His Gadget

Here were my boys in their matching Wall-E pajamas, crouching in a little corner of the living room, whispering as if they were exchanging some top secrets. 

Little Chip examined the gadget that was sitting on his older brother's palm and murmured something. A serious expression hung on their faces as they stared at the small piece of paper on the floor, oblivious to the unwanted audience who was eavesdropping. 

A small giggle, a few more words and suddenly they rose to their feet to begin what looked like a game of hide and seek. :> 



I couldn't hide my curiosity any longer, so I had to ask what was going on. 

Oooohhhh!!! 

Marcus was pretending to be a SPY! Hee hee..  

He invented a little spying gadget to spy on Chipsy, the villian. The series of numbers on the little paper were codes that will indicate Chipsy's whereabouts. By entering the codes into the spying gadget, the gadget will be able to send out signals to spy on the target and take photographs, which will then be transmitted back to Marcus the SPY. 

'And what happened after Marcus the SPY got the photographs?', I asked. 

'He shoots the villian with his giant gun!' the spy replied immediately.

Oops! He must have noticed my expressions changed, because he added quickly 'Umm..maybe he just tickles the villian'.

Ha ha! 


Above: The spying gadget

It was so COOL!  

I must admit I was impressed with the whole game and marvelled at their fertile imagination. Without a shadow of doubt, this whole spying idea must be from Marcus, who has been reading books of a different genre lately. It's not hard to imagine him drawing inspirations from them. 

Even when they are playing separately, there are always some forms of pretend play. 

Here is my little Chip who has a certain fascination with train crashes and bridges that collapse. His narration of the situations always come complete with sound effects. Kind of cute! 


And here he was fixing a boat for his 'Baby Pig' which needed to cross the river. Since we didn't have a toy boat the size he had in mind, he put together various components from a machinery/tool box toy to construct his little motorboat. 




I like how he had come up with the 'problem' himself and then scouted around for suitable solutions to help Baby Pig solve the tricky situation. :>

That is a neat way to hone his problem-solving skills. 

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Through His Lens

Above: Part of Marcus' school homework. 

It makes me laugh!

I usually don't monitor his weekly English and Maths homework which he gets done within 5 min after school every Friday.

So it was a pleasant surprise to go through his homework book one day to read the sentences that he had made and see the accompanying drawings. Some were so cheeky! :>

The next two were also done in school after an excursion on the theme of recycling.



I love the way he expresses his heaps of ideas, especially through his stories and drawings. 

I'm real pleased that he is able to see many subject matters and issues gripping the world now in a slightly bigger picture because of his strong base of general knowledge and the way he has been exposed to them through trans-disciplinary thematic approach. It gives him the confidence to ask more questions, share his views and debate with others in discussions, which in turn strengthens his understanding and fuel his desire to learn more. 


The next few drawings were done at home.
I thought the 3D tracks on this Robot are cool. Love those added arms meant to defend itself and attack enemies. He insisted that it is NOT a tank, but a robot that has a body which looks like a tank. Hmm..

This maze was created for grandpa a few months ago, during the period when Marcus was crazy about making complex mazes to challenge us. We posted it to London, and grandpa mailed it back with the red line. The boy was in awe that his grandpa could crack it!  Haha!

Well, he is STILL very much in the "General Grievous" phase. So on average, we can expect to see 2 or 3 detailed drawings of this guy on a daily basis. 




I asked him about this impossible-to-pronounce name of this object that he has drawn. His idea cracks me up! He has this funny idea that the longer the name, the more powerful the object may seem! So it is a super duper omnipotent robot capable of the most impossible acts. But I can't remember what acts now. Oops.

This last picture of another robot is inspired by scorpion! :> 


The next few oil pastels and acrylic paint pieces were completed in his art class in school. 








Monday, September 27, 2010

The Breakthrough

One of the most exciting developments recently has to do with my little Chipsy's reading! 

I am so thrilled by how much he can and is reading right now. There was a big leap in improvement a while back and recently, a breakthrough! Woo hoo! 

Besides the letter sounds that he has learnt from his nursery (no blending yet), I did not teach phonics at home since I don't believe phonics is the most effective way to coach preschoolers to read early. 

As with M, we coach Chipsy using the whole language or whole word method, but I do emphasize phonemic awareness as we work along together, which helps him to identify the beginning and ending sounds of words. I've also noticed that he has begun to use spelling patterns and analogy strategy to help him decode unfamiliar words. And he has figured out word families simply through our reading sessions and the lapbooking activities we did.

I swear I smile a giant smile whenever I hear him read the way he is right now. That innocent and high pitch voice and his animated expressions are so cute! I must remember to take more videos of him reading. I'm pretty sure his voice will be changing soon, just like M when he was 4+.

Though I would love for Chipsy to join my classes and learn together with my other students, he has not been able to do so because of E's schedule. E has to be the one ferrying the boys to my classes, so it was decided that M will get priority for now. As a result, little Chip does all the lapbooking with me at home during the week, in addition to whatever else that I have planned for him. It is still effective, but the learning experience is SO different in a group setting. Can't wait for him to join us in a few months' time. 

On average, Chip has worked on one detailed lapbook a month and the recent ones are just fantastic in terms of his level of contribution and the depth and breadth that we can go into. He has shown wonderful improvement in abilities and the progress is most obvious when I compare all his lapbooks, right from the ones he did 18 months ago to the most recent.

He is also writing a lot of stories now, all on his own and improving everyday. Amazing rate! All other skills coming along very nicely. Perhaps in another few months, he will be ready to join the most advanced group. 


Friday, September 24, 2010

Art Madness


A pear tree. 


Tortoise at dawn. The rising sun in the background.



Under the sea. All done with one finger.



Thursday, September 23, 2010

Making His Moves



Training the mind and spirit. Honing his competitive streak. 

I LIKE! 



Wednesday, September 22, 2010

All Things Lego

I just realized the lack of updates on the boys' Lego creations. So here they are.

A selection of little Chip's creations between May and now. Everyone was built entirely by himself. 

Fighter plane. 

Rocket

A gun which I mistook for camera. He wasn't pleased with me. :P 

He called this the 'Shooter-bot". Supposedly a robot that goes around and shoot at enemies. I asked him who are the enemies. His reply - all strangers, witches and monsters. :D 

These next two were created last month. Took him quite a while to make this gigantic spaceship. He was real proud of it.





A long-armed robot equipped with a stinger (like scorpion) at the end of the arm. I love the way he built the long arm with many shorter pieces held together with the joints. He learnt this from examining the models built by his older brother. It was fascinating that the arm could be bent at every joint, just like a spider's leg.


Now, the selection of Marcus' recent creations. 
Another war plane built recently by Marcus around May/June. 

A speedboat. 

A road sweeper.

A submarine. 



Marcus made this a few months ago and it just sat around the house for a long time as the creator refused to dissemble it. It looks like a gun from some angles but he insisted it is a cruise ship. 


I suppose when we look up close, there is indeed a rudder and propellor. I must say I love his attention to details. :> 



His Tower Gun. Inspired by tower cranes. The gun can rotate 360 degrees. He was so excited to pose with it for me.


Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Marcus Turns SIX

It has been a few weeks but I still find it a little incredible when I hear myself say 'oh Marcus is 6 years old....'.  

Gosh! My first-born is already six and will be entering Primary school in a few months' time. 

The next immediate thought that inevitably comes to mind - before I realize it, my little poshie will be serving his national service....  going to university .... getting married! Oh no! 

OK, I shall take a DEEP breadth.... BREATHE!!  And return to reality. 

Let's cherish the present while poshie still wants to cuddle me and thinks of me as the only woman in his life. I am still at the center of his universe, so I must treasure all his affections and need for my affections and attention. :>





I love this photo of him, taken when he was 4+. It brings me such joy when I admire it everyday. :>  There was still a little babyishness in him then, but he has since lost most of it and while I was not paying attention, transformed into a little boy. Of course, he is STILL my baby, but nevertheless, the fact is it will never be the same again. 

This year, Marcus had asked for a small party at home with a chocolate cake and just a few school friends over to play Lego with. We dissuaded him for various reasons (though I feel real bad about it, but I also know that we don't have to accede to all requests) and in the end, he agreed to have the celebration in school.




At home, we got him a very low-key cake just for the sake of creating another opportunity to capture the moments of candle-blowing and cake-cutting with the family. 

I would have insisted on a slightly more head-turning cake, if not for the fact that we had to leave in a few hours' time for Hong Kong. Everyone was already too stuffed with cakes that weekend and I was not prepared to dump an expensive piece of confectionery. So the rational mind won and my baby got a lousy 2nd cake. :< 

That said, his first cake was a pretty and yummy choice which the birthday boy had handpicked. He didn't seem to mind much about anything else after that. He is, as always, a very easy-t0-please sweetheart! 


I comforted myself that we will still have so many opportunities in future to throw big parties for him. Besides, the reason for not having a party this year is to splurge that budget at HK Disneyland. It was a brilliant decision with full credit to the daddy. The memories and impressions made on the boys would be so much more long-lasting than those of another party. 

While a big celebration is not important every year, a birthday must surely be accompanied by presents. :>  So the boy received a gigantic Lego box of the much anticipated Lego MindStorms Robotic Toolkit (in picture below) and a compact box of game. 


His recent fascination with the General Grievous character has led to tremendous interest in robotics. He even confessed to dreaming of becoming a robotic engineer in future to create the most amazing robots that mankind has seen. How's that for ambitions, eh? :D 

So the ever-so-doting daddy bought him this very advanced SUPERB set of robotic toolkit (meant for age 10-18) to build and programme his very own intelligent robots that can perform different operations. Totally cool!

He has since managed to build the Shooterbot, Alpha Rex and Robogator on his own, by following the step-by-step instructions. E taught him to programme the robots and when they moved and did what they were built to do, even I, who have absolutely no interest in robotics and Lego, was floored and thoroughly impressed! 

(But don't trust the website for a minute about the 'all it takes is 30 min' crap! It took him hours to assemble one for the first time! 5 hours to build the Robogator, to be exact. And Marcus has a flair for Lego and years of experience handling advanced Lego sets too. So if I were to give it a go, it probably would have taken me 5 days! )





I don't have photos of the Robogator and Shootbot right now but will upload when he recreates them. 

Hmm... we should take videos of him with these robots too..... (Hint, hint ...)



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