Ning's Birthday Celebration - In School

Last Wednesday, 8th Jul, was Ning's 4th birthday. And we had a celebration for her in school as well as at home over the weekend.

Last year, she was crazy about Snow White and insisted on having a Snow White's cake. This year, it's Sleeping Beauty.

For her school, we got her a really huge cake and the two classes of Nursery celebrated for her. As usual, our birthday girl insisted on wearing her tiara to school to show that its her 'special day' that day.

Zhi got into the fun as well. And amazingly, while I was busy distributing out the cake, he managed to feed himself with a piece of cake.

Tick Tack Tock - How the Tiger Loses its Stripes

Last Sunday, we went to watch the drama by Tick Tack & Tock: How the Tiger Loses its Stripes.

Getting them ready to leave the house was a challenge. Particularly dressing up Miss Vainpot. She insisted on wearing a knitted cardigan over her dress, put on her accessories like ring, bracelet and necklace and not to mention choosing her socks and shoes (not that she's got a lot of choice for shoes).

Because 'monkey see and monkey do', Zhi insisted on wearing Thomas & Friends cap while acting up like a doctor by bringing along the ice-cream stick that the PD uses to check his throat.

Ok, back to the main topic. Basically Tick Tack & Tock are the three actors in this drama and they're going to share the story of how this Tiger Snigger loses his stripes while playing in the mud (the mud covered his stripes and made him looked different).

It was Zhi's first exposure to drama/play since it was written that the drama is suitable for children above the age of 2. We wanted to see how he reacts to shows because in the next half year, there're definitely a lot of kids' play coming up by the various theatre groups. We would like to bring him along if he's 'tame' enough to sit still and appreciate. Too bad, he was too distracted and was jumping around. Until his sister volunteered to participate in one of the acts that he finally look up at the stage. And thats when he started screaming,"jie-jie... jie jie.." Like Ning was some super big star.

Nevertheless, we did have some fun time after the show at 'Colours by the Bay' playing hide-and-seek with us and some other interested kids.

The funny part of this entire thing was Zhi pointing at the Merlion and shouted,'Dinosaur!'. And keep insisting even though WF told him is a Merlion.

Music Wonderland - Giant & the Clown

Besides trying out simple playing at the keyboard, the kids attending this music class do a lot of singing and dancing.

The music philosophy for Yamaha is that they want to make learning music an enjoyable experience and they believe kids at this age should appreciate music through rhythm and hearing.

This video is a segment where she and the rest danced to the song 'The Giant & the Clown'. The giant's footsteps are identified as heavy and low pitch while the clown's steps are identified as fast paced and high pitch.



Giant & the Clown

Music Wonderland - Three Blind Mice

Another segment where she played the 'Three Blind Mice' song plus some exaggerated actions from her.



Three Blind Mice

Music Wonderland Graduation

Since January this year, Ning had been attending Yamaha's Music Wonderland classes. And last Thurs marks the end of this course where she'll progress to the Junior Music course.

There was a mini graduation performance in the class and both parents (usually only one parent is allowed to accompany the child for lesson) and siblings are invited to witness their graduation.

Receiving her certificate from Teacher Ms Maria Goh

She was all excited that we're going to film her and she promised to 'put up a good show' for Papa & Mama. Here's one of the segment we took, "Madam Marika's Favourite Things". The video is a bit blur, because I had to compress it, otherwise the file size is way too big.



Music Wonderland.mov

We took quite a few videos and I'll put a few selected ones up soon.

International Week

Its was 'International Week" in Ning's school (Schoolhouse by the Bay) over the week. And during the entire week, they learned to make sushi (Japan), tasted roti prata (India), know about Kiwi the fruit and animal (New Zealand) etc.

And to mark the end of this fun week, on the last day which is Friday, all the children will dressed up in clothes that depicts the different cultures and taste all kinds of cultural food (contributed and prepared by parents) in the international fair.

So I dressed her up in a Japanese costume which we got it from Japan when we went for hols in 2007. It was way too big for her when I got the smallest size avalaible at that time. Now 2 years later, it fit her perfectly for this event. And to add jest, I tied a ribbon and drew a red dot to add more Japanese flavour (in case some people cannot identify what nationality is she depicting). End up, some staff called her 'Japanese fighter girl'.

She told me she enjoyed the fair and food. And keep hounding me that she wants to make sushi again. So its not surprise her birthday party will be a 'Princess in Japan' theme...

Opera in the Park

Last Saturday, the Singapore Lyric Opera (SLO) held a performance at the Botanic Gardens. Like the SSO performance we went the previous month, it too was a crowded sight.

We didn't have any plans for the evening, so we decided to brave the cloudy skies and foreseeable full carpark to watch the performance. Somehow the kids love going there, lazing on the grass and running about.



After the performance, we actually played a game of hide-and-see, hiding behind the trees and bushes. Zhi tried to join in as well and we thought he looked really funny covering his eyes and counting. I wonder if he really understands what we were playing.