Craft: Daniel in the lion’s den (Dan 6)

First day of holiday! Let’s make the kids work for my Sunday School Project.

All you need:

1. Glue stick

2. Colouring papers

3. Toilet rolls

4. Crayons or colour pencils

5. Scissors

6. Black marker or Googly eyes

7. Finger paint

Instructions:

1. Cut two semi circles front and back and cut another two rectangles to make four legs for the lion

2. Colour the toilet roll using finger paint (see how much fun the kids have)

3. While the rolls dry, draw simple tiger shape face

4. Cutout from coloured papers

5. Decorate with colour pencils, put Googly eyes

6. Paste face on roll

Have fun!

Craft: Three Kings look for Jesus (Matthew 2:1)

The wise men or the three kings were the group of distinguished foreigners who visited Jesus after his birth, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. To share this story during our toddler Sunday school, I’ve prepared the following craft.

All you need:

1. Glue stick

2. Colouring papers

3. Star stickers

4. Crayons or colour pencils for decoration

Instructions:

1. Prepare 3 different type of triangles, 3 circles and 3 crowns (I did these using a combination of stencils and my son helped with the drawing of crowns)

2. Paste the triangles, circles followed by the crowns. (A good type to teach shapes)

See how much the kids enjoyed this activity in class today.

Story of Moses from birth to his calling

With the National holiday, I was behind my preparation for this week's Sunday school craft. After much googling, I end up making one to support the 3 chapters of Exodus. Hopefully the mothers who accompanied the toddlers can use this as a guide to review the stories of Exodus with their babies and at the same time, these preschoolers could learn about sequencing.

Here's the copy free for your usage:

Shangri-la Sentosa is most relaxing staycation for me

It is the 52nd National Day in Singapore! Typically families seize the opportunity to take a break from the mundane life of managing a school boy in Singapore. Yes! Away from the worries on whether has he done his schoolwork …

Halloween in my office

In the morning, I was discussing with my husband on what I should wear with the public theme this Halloween in my office. The elder one overheard our conversation and decide to follow me to my office since he’s on school holiday.

Being cautious, I prepped him that I have a team meeting with my boss once we get in. He was told to be as well behaved as possible and that he’s not allowed in our meeting room. Samuel who has no concept of work and meeting nods his head and shoot off to play the lego. (Lucky for me, the innovation team left behind their lego typically used for modelling.)

20 minutes in the meeting, there was a loud thud on the glass panel of the room. We looked out and everyone burst out laughing. Samuel was doing a sign pointing at his bum while mouthing silently ‘poo poo!’. I then noticed a Skype message from my colleague. ‘Your son wants to poo poo, come out now!’ 

There I was in my Halloween politician outfit running out of the meeting room to fetch him to the loo. And then the responsible me ran back to the meeting room again to catch the rest of the weekly team meeting. Obviously no chance in cleaning Samuel up, I made a mental note to wash him thoroughly that night.

The rest of the day went smoothly with Samuel happily joining us in the monthly birthday celebration and Halloween photo shoot. He was snacking through the day and had a fantastic time watching Netflix in the office. I heard they tried to convince him to watch classics like back to the future but he preferred scoopy doo.  He also had a blast seeing how the innovation guys blended up banana, ice cream and milk. Hopefully they taught him the science behind it too. Really ought to count my blessing for having such a nice family oriented office!

Salt Painting

Successfully ran the craft class for toddlers’ Sunday school with this simple craft work.

All you need:

1. Salt

2. Colouring or Water colours

3. Brushes or droppers

4. Dark art papers

5. Glue, normal emulsion type or glitter ones to more colours

Instructions:

1. Print an outline on the dark paper. (Optional: easier for younger kids to trace than draw from scratch)

2. Trace the candle with glue. Keep the glue thick so more salt would stick.

3. Sprinkle the salt on the glue.

4. Prepare the coloured water for painting. (Use drops of food colouring for a small plate of water)

5. Drop the colour onto the salt and watch how it spreads!

My kids are opposite of each other

My children is so different! Kor Kor is soft spoken while meimei is boisterous. No wonder they say your next kid could be the complete opposite! I wondered what happens if you have the 3rd kid?

Overtime, I realised I have to use different set of parenting on them and that is challenging. It’s harder when Kor Kor is so soft spoken too, which is the opposite of me.  I have to reflect if I’m being too tough on him every moment but yet one part of me says he is a boy, you have to toughen him up. When I yell at him for not doing his spelling, he ends up drawing me a card with lots of hearts in it to tell me how much he loves me. That makes me feel extremely guilty.  But for meimei, she is too spirited to even be bothered by anything which means screaming is just a waste of time. 

Kor Kor shines away from limelight and Meimei craves attention. Kor Kor is fussy and doesn’t eat much but Meimei will attempt to even eat up the table until you stopped her.  For one kid, you need to encourage and motivate him to try different things and for the other, you need to stop her from being overly adventurous.Two weeks ago, we were at the zoo. Both kids insisted on bringing their scooters although it’s not allowed in the zoo. At the exit, my heart almost came to a stop when she scoot off without a care. When I thought she’s going to hit the wall (obviously I am about to sprint off to save her life), she braked with one feet as if she’s been doing this for a long time! She caught a lot of attention scootering at 21 months. Tourists took photo of her as if she was one of the zoo animals. I did not even know she could scoot! Kor Kor didn’t scoot until he was at least 3 – he is more the intellectual type since he likes reading while meimei is too athletic for a girl. 

Talk about gender differences, please let them complement and balance out! 

Positive Customer Experience

Samuel came down with flu. Could be even viral, I’m not certain but he threw out and is in another of his breathless asthmatic moment. Even after the meds and inhaler, he was still wheezy. I wanted him to rest early, hoping he would be better next day. 

Off he went to wash up but end up getting locked from inside the bathroom. And this is one of those locks which cannot be accessed from outside. I was in the master room when I heard my mum yelling for help. Obviously she was panicky. She tried to unscrew the knob and was tugging and pulling at the door. It didn’t help because Samuel got even more freaked out in the bathroom.

Suddenly I thought about Yoga and positive customer experience. Yes, weird I know. Using my most soothing voice, I asked him to calm down and take a deep breath through the nose while exhaling through the mouth with a loud ‘aaahh’. (what I learnt at Yoga). Five breathing exercises later, I asked him if he could try to turn the knob to the left to open the door. He struggled and then told me he is not sure which is left. We breathed in and exhale together again. Then I asked him if he remember which hand he used for writing. (He is a leftie.) He tried and I pulled the door as he turned and the door opens. A teary Samuel stood there. 

The funny thing is the same thing happens to me earlier the week. (See where the genes are inherited from?) After a crazy day of back-to-back meetings, I returned to my desk and suddenly blank out, forgetting my computer password. A few attempts later, I got locked out. It was after office hours and the IT guy has left for the day. Needless to say, I was in frenzy. I thought about what I could do without my work computer for next few hours and even the next day. Fortunately, the HP Helpdesk came to my rescue. Using a script (obvious because he was monotone), he told me he is there to help and will be there to unlock me if I can give it a few attempts to try to recall my password. Each time I got the password wrong, he responded with “Mdm, I am with you and I am here to help. I know you feel terrible now but I want you to know you need not worry, we will get into your computer soon together.” Magically, the password came to me after 3 attempts and I got it. That is how important a positive customer experience is be it in work or life. 😉

A coin for another

An interesting convo I have with my cunning son, Samuel Lu yesterday morning. 
Samuel: Mummy! Can you give me a coin for my Darth Vader bank (yes he is a Star Wars fan!) 

Me: No, I don’t see the reason why I should give you a coin.

Samuel: How about for sleeping alone by myself yesterday? 

We: Yes! That is a big achievement (We are so afraid that he would try to sneak back to our bed) 

Me: Here’s a coin.

Samuel: I want the $1 coin.

Me: Okay, why not.

Samuel: Can I have another to push the coin into it.

Me: Good try! The answer is no. 

Frantic Dad

Hubby called me up at work.

Hubby: Samuel is creating chaos at home. Can I drop him off at your workplace?

Me: No. It’s 1st day back at work; I need to catch up on my emails.

Hubby: But he’s making these spiderwebs in the living room and driving everyone crazy. How about just an hour?

Me. No. You should hang out with him.

Hubby: I’m hiding in the bathroom now. He’s trying to make me help him create the spiders. What about if I drop him off just for lunch?

Me: No. The answer is still no. 🙂