Sights Words to Reading

Recently, I am pondering on how to teach my son to read. Then I met a friend whom daughter is the same age with Peter. She taught me to teach Peter to memorise sight words, although I did not tell her that I am planning to teach Peter on reading. But when I teach Peter the sight words by asking him to write one word for ten times each day and do flash cards for him to test him. I find that he can read out the sight words when reading. Reading is an important part in life as such I would like to encourage you to do whatever you can to encourage your child to read. This is because reading opens the mind. You may like to check out this useful website for sight words listing and teaching strategy. http://www.sightwords.com/sight-words/lessons/

Peter practising the sight words

My DIY flash cards

Cupcakes Decorating Demonstration By Phoon Huat

Recently, I visited Phoon Huat Pte Ltd store located at Buona Vista MRT. I think this store is Phoon Huat Pte Ltd biggest store. I thought to myself that this is a baker paradise because everything u need for baking can be found inside the store.

When I am shopping in the store, I noticed that a lady was demonstrating on how to decorate cupcakes using various materials such as gum paste and butter cream. She invited me to see the demonstration and I joined in for awhile cause I got to rush to another place. After seeing the demonstration, I learnt quite a number of skills on how to decorate cupcakes such as using toothpick to hold the decorations onto the cupcake and to mix alcohol with gold dusting to make the gold colour richer when applied to the gum paste. It was an eye opener because I never see such demonstration before and I learnt some skills. Plus it was free, that's why I thought to blog it down. Then I got interested in such demonstrations as such called up the store to check if anymore of such demonstration. Then one of the store personnel said that I have to call during office hours to their main office to check for these demonstrations.

Motivated to work hard

Last week, my husband and I brought my elder Son, Peter to shop for groceries. Once or twice a week for we will shop for our groceries as such we will buy quite a number of things per trip. During this trip, we bought pears, Milo, pumpkins, milk, luncheon meat, button mushrooms and some other things that I can't remembered.

While we were shopping halfway, Peter asked me a question that actually expecting him to ask. He asked "Wow we need to buy so many things ya?". My respond to him was yes, we needed to buy. And I took this opportunity to educate him that all these things need money to buy. Money from working hard. I told him that for now he needs to work hard by studying or any other responsibilities that were given to him.

Actually I learnt to take this trip as an opportunity through my husband. Cause he actually saw what his family was going through (the need to meet basic needs such as paying of bills) that motivated him to study hard, scoring all the As in order to find a good job and earn money for his future family. This is really a strong motivation from within and not because of outside stressors which can be easily fade away when circumstances changes. Thought it was just a simple shopping trip that night but I think it rang a bell in Peter that he needs to be responsible by working hard.

Gardenia Tour

Yesterday, I went to a Gardenia Tour at 224 Pandan Loop Singapore 128411. It was organised by a school committee about 25 people participated in. When we reached the factory, we were brought to a room. There was a presenter presenting to us on the company background, different types of Gardenia bread, how their bread were baked and transported to the shops. 

Then the presenter brought us to a bridge that allowed us to see the bread making process from a bird eye view. I believed that this was to make sure that we do not go near the bread for hygiene purpose and disruption of their work process. 

After seeing the bread making process, we were served with refreshments made out of different types of bread with fillings like tuna, cheese and butter. They were all so delicious and we were also encouraged to packet back the leftover as they had prepared a generous amount of refreshments for us. They also gave us mineral water to drink. 

While having our refreshments, the presenter gave each of us a goodies bag that contained two different flavours of cream rolls. My son likes their cream roll very much. It was about time to go home and before we boarded the bus, we were given an opportunity to buy their breads at wholesaler price. We bought a California Raisin Loaf and Super Fine and Soft Wholemeal Bread.

Through this tour, I am able to know that Gardenia produces lots of different type of bread. This encouraged me to try out more varieties of their bread. I could understand how their bread being baked. This tour all in all was a meaningful, fun and knowledgable one. 

Emergency Prepareness Day

Today morning, I went for an Emergency Prepareness Event organised by SG Secure at Fengshan Market. It was a great event to educate the community on how to stay alert, united, strong when emergency. The community got the chance to learn many useful skills such as how to bandage wound, CPR, extinguish a fire and react to a terror attack. 

Though I can only stay for awhile due to other commitments. My son and I managed to catch one of the highlights which is a live demonstration of a terror attack. We learnt that we will need to use these 3 things when it happened. Which are Run, Hide and Tell. Run away from the terror. Hide away from the terror. Then tell the police what happened. With these simple steps, I believed that we can stay calm and stay life from getting harm. 

Peter also got the chance to take pictures with the police vehicles. And we also participated the photo booth that allowed Peter to wear police uniform to take photos and had nicely bordered printed photos instantly. I believed that my son had lots of fun and knowledge after this event. As such do recommend all to bring your family down for such an event. 

DIY Learning Materials

I felt that by doing my own learning materials were quite fun and engaging for Peter. Recently I did a numbers chart for him to learn. Using green construction paper to make the background comfortable to look at. I drew margins to guide me to write neatly. I used different coloured markers to write the content in order to make it interesting. After writing, I laminated the paper for him to use white board markers to practise on them then we were be able to clean it off for the next practise. Another benefit of laminating was to protect the paper.

The learning material was engaging because Peter was learning about numbers at the moment. As such I am able to design the learning materials according to his needs. By placing it somewhere that he was able to see it frequently, I realised that he was taking initiative to learn independently by taking the makers to practise on it or by just standing in front of it to read and see the words. 

After placing it for a few weeks, I realised that he was able to recognise them better. Even though spelling the numbers was not easy for Peter but I think with suitable learning materials he is encouraged to learn at his own pace until he succeeds. 

The National Steps Challenge Season 2

On 3 December Saturday as I was walking pass my housing block notice board, I noticed a flyer about The National Steps Challenge Season 2. Then I thought to myself whether I should join or not cause I dislike wearing a watch and already had a routine to jog twice weekly which I thought was quite enough. However, under my husband influence, I decided to join. 

The National Steps Challenge Season 2 Flyer

On the next day, my husband and I arrived at Kampong Chai Chee Community Club at about 9am which is about 30 minutes before the official opening hours to participate the roadshow and to get a free steps tracker. To my surprise there were like 50 people queueing in front of us and each person can collect up to 3 steps trackers. As such by the time we collected our stesp tracker was about 3 and a half hours at around 12.30pm. 

Upon registered as a participant at the roadshow for The National Steps Challenge and received my steps tracker. I downloaded the "Healthy 365" application to sync with the steps tracker. This application helps us to record informations such as number of steps performed daily and number of points earn to redeem prizes. 

My Steps Tracker

Since participating, I manage to hit their target of 10,000 steps daily by just doing household chores (6,000 steps) and additional stepping exercises for about 30mins to hit the remaining 4,000 steps. Since participating I felt that I am more motivated to carry out mandate household chores and exercise as I am able to redeem useful prizes such as NTUC vouchers that I can use it to buy groceries. Plus my husband and friend are also participating as such we challenge and encourage one another along the way which makes it fun to join. I really encourage you and your loves one to join this challenge if you have the chance to do it.