DIY Chinese Traditional Lanterns 制作中秋节传统灯笼

The girls' school has a lantern making competition, and being the sporting parents that we are, we decided to join in by making traditional lanterns.

After googling, checking out a friend's father's DIY lanterns photos on FB, buying the materials (i.e. cellophane paper, craft wire), our dining area was turned into a work shop. The hubs and I did the wire shaping, the girls drew and cut out the designs they wanted to stick on the lanterns, and I glued on the cellophane paper. The whole of last weekend was spent on this.







Zara wanted a rabbit shaped lantern, while Zaria who didn't really care had a cuboctahedron shaped lantern just because we had a frame from an old lantern to follow.






I wasn't good at smoothing out the cellophane paper. Sunning it didn't work, and I was told I should blow it with a hot hair dryer after gluing on to smoothen it. Maybe next year.

But at least it's functional!




After all the gluing was done I hung it to dry, the evening sun actually casted a beautiful shadow of the lantern on the ground.


In the night we tried lighting them up, and the girls were pretty happy with the results.




Did we win? The results will be out coming Friday, but it's unlikely that we will as I'd seen the ones submitted by the others, and they were way more creative, or beautifully done than ours. Oh well, at least we did try.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival Everyone!

School Holidays - What A Child Can Do

So the parents' nightmares school holidays have started.

This is what Zaria wrote in her journal yesterday.


So yes, she can do lots of fun things, but of course, mummy has to spoil their holidays by giving them work to do! That's what mummies are for. :P

Comparing Kamdar Brand Uniform Vs Kiko Brand Uniform

Most of you who read my earlier post, this and this maybe interested in this comparison.

Here is my take on Kamdar brand Uniform vs Kiko brand Uniform. Both are lasting. Zara had 2 Kamdar brand pinafores, and 1 Kiko brand pinafore, and her white blouses were all from Koko, all of which she wore for 2 years.

Just to compare the colour of the Pinafores.

From bottom to top. New Kiko band pinafore, Kiko pinafore which is 2 years old, Kamdar brand pinafore which is 2 years old.


The 2 years old Kiko brand pinafore is laid on top of the new Kiko. The colour has faded quite a lot, but it's still blue evenly.


Kamdar brand pinafore on top of 2 year old Kiko brand pinafore. The blue in Kamdar pinafore is still vibrant.


Kamdar brand pinafore on top of new Kiko brand pinafore. The blue from Kamdar brand is still more vibrant.


Kamdar definitely has nicer blur pinafore, and last longer.

How does it fit the girl?

Zaria wearing Zara's 2 year old Kamdar brand pinafore with back zipper (which Zara said it's easier to wear and remove). The shoulder straps of Kamdar brand are thicker, I guess making the child look a bit sloppier if they have small shoulders.


Kiko brand pinafore has slightly smaller shoulder strap, so they fit nicer.


Price wise, Kiko brand pinafore is almost RM15 more expensive than Kamdar. So I guess, if you can make a trip to their shop on Jalan TAR, Kamdar will be a better deal.

(Kiko brand uniform can be bought from Jusco.)

一厢情愿

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you'd probably recalled posts about Zara and her very first boy friend; a boy who's captured her heart for 2 years. Even though on her last year of kindergarten, the boy has already went to Standard 1 and attended another school and they never met again, Zara still thought of him as her boy friend. o.O"

After being in Standard 1 for 1 month +, she came home 1 day declaring she has found another 'boy friend'. When I went to pick her up the following day, she excitedly pointed out the 'boy', R, to me. R sits several rows away from her, is really cute, looks like a goodie-two-shoes, with a radiant smile and deep dimples. Well, if I was her age, I'd probably like the same boy too.

A couple of times when I was there to pick Zara up, after the last bell rang, I saw them running out to the waiting area together Zara chasing after him to the waiting area. o.O"

In the car, she likes to share with me what happened to R and herself, here are some to share.

Zara : "Mom, today I kissed R."
Me : *have to sound like it's not a big deal* "You did?"
Zara : "Ya, I did."
Me : "Where did you kiss him?"
Zara : "Well, I blew him kisses." (and she showed me how she did it, 1st kissing her palm, then blowing the kiss out)
Me : (a bit shocked, but found it funny too) "And what did he do?"
Zara : "He dodged them, like this and like this." (moving her body left and right) And she smiled, like it's no big deal he dodged her kisses. o.O"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zara : "Mom, every day I walked out to the hall with R after school"
Me : "You walked side by side?"
Zara : "Oh, well, he ran really fast, and I just chased after him and keep up with him."
o.O"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Me : "Zara, you said R is your boy friend, does he treat you like his girl friend?"
Zara : "Ya, he does, he walks with me after school." (more like she chased after him) o.O"
Me : "And you are his only girl friend?"
Zara : "No, he has 3 girl friends"
Me : "And you are fine with that?"
Zara : "Ya, I'm fine. Because he's not married yet so it's ok to have so many girl friends." o.O"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And the best one.... yesterday on our way home from school.
Zara : *happily*"Today R talked to me."
Me : "Oh, what did you talk about."
Zara : "I touched him, and then he told me 不要摸我 (Don't touch me)." *laughed*
(Faint! This is 'talk'?)
o.O" o.O" o.O"

But........ I'm amazed at her confidence, and her perserverence, and the way she looks at things light heartedly. Way to go my girl!

School And Others

It's the 3rd week of school, so far, everybody is doing fine.

Lucky for me, there is another child, who lives nearby attending the same kindergarten as Zaria, so we have arranged to carpool, taking turns to either send or pick up the children.

And there are 2 other children across the street attending the same primary school as Zara, so again, we arranged to carpool.

I only have to make a trip to the kindergarten daily, and 3 trips a week to the primary school.

I'd also signed Zara up for extra curicular activities in school. Her Saturdays will be full. Starting the day at 8:30am to 4pm, Arts & Craft, Han Yu Pin Yin, Gymrama and Maths one after another. I only insisted she took Han Yu Pin Yin, the rest, it was her choice. And because the fee is cheap, I told her she can just join in, and if any time she found it stressing, she can drop off.

Last Saturday was the first time she went through a jam packed day, and when I asked her if things were ok at the end of the day, she said it was, and all the classes were fun. Which is a good sign. I think the mommy couldn't take the stress from driving as much as she did. I was going to the school 3 times that day, to bring her to the next class and pay fee for that class etc. TIRED!

Just more than 2 weeks in school, she seems to have improved in Chinese. At least now, I can give her full instructinos in Chinese, and she can 'translate' the instruction back to me in English (I made her do it just to gauge her understanding). But she herself admitted she couldn't do it the other way (translate English instructions to Chinese), not yet anyway.

As for Zaria, she's doing fine in kindergarten without her jiejie, and she's rather proud to be in 5 year old class now, holding her big homework pouch to school, and then back home. She's started having homework, and so far, she only threw tantrum once, preferring to spend time on iPad instead of getting her homework done. One threat that I will send her back to 4yr old class, and she quickly picked up the pen, and did her homework (albeit sobbing).

I'd also started her on Yamaha JMC. She's enjoying her class very much, she thinks her teacher is better than Zara's (she follows me to Zara's class sometimes), and always boasts about it. If you have children attending JMC, you'll realise the first song they teach the children is the Happy Fingers song, and the children are supposed to stick each of their fingers out, thumb, pointer, middle, index and pinky. Here is what Zaria said about finger number 4 (ring man), "Finger number 4 is so stupid and stubborn, don't know how to stand up."



These girls, they keep me busy, they keep me entertained.

上学记

It's back to school.. after a month's off.
Zara to Standard One in a Chinese school and Zaria back to her kindergarten alone.







♥Zara♥
We went to school for orientation last Friday, to pay for her fees, collect her text books (from government) as well as to buy her work books.
The headmaster then had a communication session with the parents, while the kids got familiarised with the teachers.
The school is not too huge in size, there are 320 children in Standard One, out of which 80 are Malays (and our goverment is still in denial, not building enough Chinese schools).
She's in a class with 38 others.
The amount of books she has is A LOT, so we had to get her a huge trolley bag (those of you with Trunkie, you can consider using that too. :P).
After orientation, I asked her, "So how? Are you ready for Standard 1?"
Zara replied, "I don't think I'm ready yet."
I asked her again, "Then how?"
She replied, "Well, I don't think I can go back to kindergarten, so I'll just have to handle."
Big girl in deed.
(And no, her school doesn't have the horrendous toilet mentioned here, they have squatting toilets which are pretty clean)
She doesn't know anyone in her class, although some close friends of hers are in other classes (Standard 1 and 2); but this girl is sociable and she makes friends easily. I'm more worried about her Chinese than her ability to mix around.
1st day of school, she's fine, even started swapping snacks with a friend she just got to know during recess. :)

♥Zaria♥
Seing how much there is to Standard 1 (the big bag, the books, the coaching that Daddy is giving Zara on her BM), she said, "I don't want to go to Standard 1, I want to be four years old forever!" o.O"

Asked if she wanted to go back to school, she said, "Go to school go to school, how many times more do I have to go to school? I like holidays more!" o.O"

But no fuss for her when she went to school, happy to meet her BFFs.

♥Daddy♥
Worried.
He only realised on the day of the orientation that there is no more English maths nor science, and Zara will be doing both subjects in Chinese.
How is Zara going to know the English terminologies? When all Chinese in China are trying to learn English, here we are sending our kids to learn Chinese.
These are his comments.
Do we have any alternatives? Malay school? Private school? But still these subjects are taught in Malay.
International school? Can we afford it?

♥Me♥
Tired and Worried.
I have 1 attending school in morning, and another in the afternoon.
And a lot of people think working from home means you have all the time in the world to do all these chauffering, or homework coaching etc etc. As if.
Anyway, I'm doing some car pooling with neighbours.
I'm not trying to be kiasu, but the pressure is there; and because Chinese is not a language she's comfortable with, am worried if she's going to be held back due to the language.

Anyway, we shall see.