Mid-Autumn Festival

We rushed home on Wed night to give the boys a chance to get downstairs to carry the lanterns - to celebrate mid-autumn festival in a traditional way. Kimi followed us as we needed to get some candles from Peggy on that night.

At ah gu's house, the kids are getting ready for the night



The garden was filled with children - Punggol is populated with young parents so this is not surprising.





The children were looking at the candles that have been placed along the pavement in the park. We spent quite some time trying to replace new candles in a windy night.





We bumped into our neighbours on our way back home - near 9pm. They have just started with their lantern tour! Least we told ourselves that it's only till Ethan turns 9 then maybe they won't enjoy the lantern trip.. so it's going to be another 5 to 6 years for us to continue with this tradition!

Books Spree

Today we spent the whole afternoon at Popular Central (Bras Basah Complex) with the intention to expose Caden and Ethan to more books (they have a very comprehensive range compared to the one near our place). Popular is currently having a Children's Day promotion and are giving quite good discounts on some of the books that we are keen in.

Here's what we got:

Robin books - we picked level 2 (200-300 words recognition), which I thought Caden might be able to handle, but had second thoughts when I read it myself at home this evening. (5 for $17.50, usual price @$4.50 each)


Kindergarten assessment books - priced at almost 50% off the original price, can't resist and bought all (@7.90 each, usual price $14.15 each)


I always like EPH series so took another 2 books of English since Caden has been working on Maths and Chinese lately (although Caden is in K1, I usually buy K2 books, also in case we can't finish them by the time he turns K2)- no discount, at $4.30 and $4.90 each


These are the ones I like alot too - Left brain, Right Brain activity books in Chinese which is a way that I can expose Caden to Chinese in an interesting manner. I bought the left brain for 5 years old some time back and he enjoyed it. So we bought the 6 years and 7 years old series - $6.50 each, usual price $8.55 each.


The boys favorite section in the bookshop is the Ben10 comic and coloring books. We bought 3 books in total and were given 20% on them. Ethan was so happy to own his first Ben10 comic book and went round asking us to read to him throughout the whole day.

While I admit that I like to shop, and this is the best way to spend money (on kids' education) rather than bo-bo things like my clothes, shoes and necklaces (in any case, we don't shop for mummy's stuff on weekends).

To the Zoo!!

It has been a long time since we last went to the zoo. We had planned a trip to the zoo yesterday and thankfully, the weather was fairly good to us. It has been raining heavily in the last few days during mornings and we thought that we might have to cancel the zoo trip should the pattern continues.

We started the day with a Roti Prata breakfast (children's fav) and proceed to the zoo thereafter. We reached there almost 1015am and decided to skip the animal show (which was scheduled to start at 1030am) and loiter around the treetop trail and watch the feeding sessions

Many otters were wide awake and displaying proudly to the visitors


We went on to the Splash Safari earlier, knowing that it will be very difficult to get seats if you reach there 15mins before the show.


After the sea animals show, we decided to hit towards wild africa section to catch a glimpse of lions, zebras, giraffe, rhinos, giant tortoise, leopards, cheetahs, ostrich, chimpanzee and more. The boys were taught of these animals and Caden had started to relate what he learnt in school to these real ones.





We went on to the Animal and Friends theatre and decided to take a break there - it was quite tiring for us to walk around the park for more than half an hour with the 2 boys.


After the show, the boys had the chance to get up close and personal with the star performers. Ethan was very courageous and went on from dog to dog and started to pat them without any fear, despite some of them are bigger in size than him. Caden was more cautious and kept a distance while attempting to touch them whenever he felt that it was safe for him to do so.







And off they hit to the Waterpark - also one of their favorite section in the zoo.








After lunch at KFC - we proceed futher to watch Orang Utans where there was a feeding session and the Utans started to display some amusing acts to get their rewards.



Along our way out to the exit, Ethan kept asking to see the elephants, and it happened to be about 20mins before the Elephant show, so we decided to find seats around the theatre (it was hot and we could only get unsheltered seats). Since this was the first time that we watched a performance put ups by elephants, the whole show turned out to be quite educational.



Ethan was obviously tired cos he didn't get his nap and it was nearly 4pm. We quickly went on to search for Caden's long-awaited white tiger and spent some time there before calling it a day.


The boys didn't want the day to end (it was already 4.30pm) and it was the longest day we ever spent in the zoo. I had to tell them that we are going for Ben and Jerrys ice-cream outside the zoo to get them leave the place asap. And that night, we all slept earlier than usual as we were all so exhausted from the day trip..

I don't think I will initiate another zoo trip till probably in the month of December.

The boys

They just got a NERF gun each, after much anticipation ~ almost 2 months. Caden and Ethan has to both collect 8 stars each on their reward charts to redeem the NERF guns. Caden has longed gotten all the stars that he needs but we told him that he can't get his gun as he needs to wait for his brother to finish collecting the required number of stars so that both of them can play together. The way to do it quickly is to contribute his stars (those that he got beyond the row of 8) to Ethan as suggested by me. Caden was open to the idea and displayed his generosity and offered his stars to Ethan each time he got them.

This sat, we decided to release their rewards - in consideration that the school holidays are starting this week and Caden has been diligent in his homework in the past weeks. We have started mandatory homework programme for Caden before the Aussie trip but we have a more rigid routine since 2 months ago. I will assign a few pages of homework to Caden each night and stamp the date in the assessment book so that he knows what needs to be done on the following day after school. Typically, I won't assign any homework to him on days he is attending enrichment classes - Tues and Thurs cos we needed him to take his afternoon nap.

Some days, he will call me during my lunch time and ask why he couldn't find any date stamps on his books. It's quite comforting to know that he is now so used with the routine that he will check in with me if he cannot find his assignment. On days when he totally missed out doing his homework, he will look very guilty by the time we returned home from work and confessed to us that he played whole day without doing. But will obediently go inside the room to complete the assigned pages at night, knowing that I will not be happy but able to redeem this mistake if he completes the work on the same day.

Hopefully, he continues to keep up with this momentum and let the routine integrate as part and parcel of his school days so that he will not have too much resistance when his primary years kick off in 2 years time.

Ethan on the other hand, gets fairly mortivated whenever he sees his brother seated down and will also take his books and start writing. I am hoping to set a disciplined environment for the boys while they are still young.

My mother-in-law used to speak to my ah lou in the past if we are exerting too much pressure on Caden whenever I punished him really hard upon knowing that he did not do the homework in the past.. She's of the opinion that Caden is still quite young and should not be forced to work assessment books on a daily basis. And the fact that we have signed him up for phonics and abacus seems too heavy for him to manage. But as the time passed, she's now beginning to see the sense of his responsibility on the assignments that were expected out of him and was quite praiseful with his attitude (that he will check his books everyday and he truly felt terrified when the night falls and homework still gets undone!!). When she saw that Caden's Chinese results from his Kindergarten progress card do not show any much improvement, she took some efforts to find out chinese enrichment classes for Caden and urge us to sign him up!

I think I agree with my friend that we still need our kids to have their childhood so that's why we are also trying to let them play hard on weekends when all the homework gets done!