Homework, homework and more homework?

Sounds familiar? Not for darling son KW.

The only homework darling son KW brought home when he was in Grade 1 last term was reading. Two to three books per week. Learning new words, forming sentences, and towards the end of the term, summary writing. Darling son's reading improved tremendously. He went from not being able to read a simple book, to reading chapter books in a year! He needed help from us for writing though. As for Math, there was very little practice, after a concept was taught. No Math homework at all. I guess the problem was that the teacher with him, who was suppose to teach both English and Math, was a trained Language teacher?

Now that he is in Grade 2, things are somewhat different.

Reading and writing are two things they must do everyday. He has to write in his Home Journal every day, except Wednesday. He is allowed to borrow three library books instead of two. Writing is still a struggle for him. No wonder parents were "warned" by his home teacher of spelling tests. Although I am happy that he gets to practice writing everyday, it is a real struggle for me in getting him to do it diligently. He will always throw the question back at me and ask me what he should write. I have been telling him to write whatever he wants. Today, I got tired of answering his question and said "I don't like to write in my Home Journal because I don't know what to write.".

As for Math, he is taken out of his home class to join other students from other classes. His Math teacher, a young and humorous lady, sent out a note to parents on her very first day with the kids, informing us of timed test every Friday. Last week, darling son brought home a sample test paper. Ok, there were a total of 100 simple questions, addition within 20. The kids were supposed to complete the test in 10 minutes. When asked if he managed to complete the test in school, he told me he did three-quarters of it within the given time. Not too bad, given it was his first.

Today, he came home with a Student Math Journal. I was really surprised. This is the first time I see Math homework! He was required to do the first two pages of exercises ... Number sequence (hundreds and thousands), and money addition. He did it without me nagging at him.

Diligence in doing work is inversely proportional to the age of the teacher? Hmmm ...

Wholemeal Cookies

Saw this recipe on Happy Home Baking's Blog ... Wholemeal flour is used, and I thought it is a healthier way of baking cookies than just using plain flour. These cookies were not too sweet, very crunchy, and the wholemeal flour gave the cookies a very unique flavor!

100g Butter, soften

80g Caster Sugar

1 Egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

100g Plain Flour

150g Wholemeal Flour

1/4 tsp Baking Powder

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Cream butter and sugar.
• Beat in egg and gradually add vanilla. Mix well.
• Sift flour and baking powder over. Add wholemeal flour.
• Fold in gently.
• Mix and gather to form a dough. The dough will be soft.
• Shape into a round flat disc and wrap in cling wrap.
• Chill in fridge for 30 minutes.
• Between sheets of paper or plastic, roll the dough to 5mm thick.
• Cut out shapes using cookie cutters.
• Chill the cut out dough in the fridge for a while before baking them : It prevents the dough from spreading too much during baking.
• Dip the cookie cutters into flour to prevent the cut out dough from sticking to the cutter.
• Bake 15 - 20 minutes.

I hope the kids will like these cookies when they come home from school later ... it will be darling son KW's snacks for school tomorrow!

My Family 3

Darling son YW had nose bleed on Sunday morning. He woke up at 3.40am and cried, as he thought he had mucus flowing out of his nose, nonstop. Although it stopped bleeding after a while, it came back again in the morning, when he woke up at 830am. He had to lie in bed for another half an hour before we allowed him to get off his bed.

Although it was a lovely Sunday morning, we just stayed at home, due to his nose bleed. By afternoon, having coped up in the house for many hours, he started getting grumpy. We brought them cycling around the neighbourhood in the evening, and he was happy.

This morning, he woke up in good spirits.

I guess he felt better with no more nose bleed. And it's Monday, a school day. He just loves school. As he got up early, he sat at his table, and draw this picture "for Papa and Mama". I asked him why he used a different colour for the flowers ... "Because Mama likes flowers, so I add some flowers for you!" .... oh, so sweet of him ... and the drawing brightens my Monday morning!

The Lego Boy

Ever since we brought the boys to LegoLand, they fell in love with Lego. They love playing with their creator building set, and they love surfing the Lego website.

The elder boy started drawing "lego pictures" with his ruler (instead of using freehand), while the little boy asked his gor gor to cut his fringe, so that he would look like the "lego man"! They did it behind my back and when I saw the uneven fringe, I had to trim it to very short! No wonder they ran away when I came back from the laundry room the other day!

And right now, the Lego Craze is not over ... they are putting up their wishlist for birthdays and Christmas, and are trying very hard to save more money, so that they can buy more lego sets!

Bento Lunch for School

The weather has been acting strange lately. It is now the start of Autumn. It is suppose to be cool, at a high of 23C. However, the temperature has been reaching the high twenties, like 27C every day since school started. Darling son KW doesn't quite like his lunch to be steaming hot. Hence, I discard the thermal jar and put together a bento for him instead.

Rice sprinkled with furikake, blanched broccoli florets, and baked soy chicken wings. I removed the bones from the wings after baking the wings.

The boy cleaned out the lunch box during lunch, and Mom washed the empty lunch box with a smile on her face =)

I Love School!

"I love school!".

"I'm exhausted".

The above sumed up how darling son YW felt for the first two days of school. School started on 1 September. He is now officially, a Kindergarten boy. He can finally be like gor gor: carry his own bag, lunch bag, and attend school, instead of walking back home with me after sending gor gor off to school.

The most exciting part for darling son YW is that he is placed in the same classroom as his gor gor last year! He also gets the same teacher, Mrs M, and some of his gor gor's friends are now his classmates! These friends are first graders, as YW is placed in a Kindergarten/Grade 1 combined class. He is indeed, very happy, to see some familiar faces on the first day of school. The familiar classroom helps in easing his worries of being in a classroom filled with many unfamiliar faces, and being alone.

"School is boring."

"I wish I could stay at home."

Darling son KW, a second grader this new term, however, is not too keen about school. His many friends last year are separated from him this term. In addition, there is homework every day, Home Journal Writing. Well, I guess he will eventually get to make new friends, and slowly (though painfully for me and him), get used to Home Journal Writing every day of the week.

With the boys out of the house, I get more time to do my own stuff ... exercising, reading a book without any interruptions, baking and cooking without having to hurry. Yeah!

Happy Doggies!

My kids love these Horlicks Doggies Cookies. When we were back on the island called The Little Red Dot, I used to make them quite frequently. However, Horlicks is not easily available in the woods. I requested my mom to send a packet of Horlicks over, and made these cookies during the last week of summer vacation. Gosh, within a day, they were gone!

The cookies I made in the woods looked no where like the ones in the first photograph. There was no Cocoa Crunch for the ears, and I ran out of mini-chocolate chips. Just had to make do with whatever I could get from the supermarket. They looked a little different ...

13 tbsp, 180g Butter

1/2 cup, 80g Horlicks

1 3/4 cup, 200g Flour

3.5 tbsp, 25g Corn Flour

25g Milk Powder (I omit this)

Chocolate Rice For the eyes

Mini Chocolate Chips For the nose

Cocoa Crunch For the eyes

• Preheat oven to 14oC.
• Cream butter and horlicks.
• Add flour, corn flour, milk powder.
• Mix well to form a dough.
• Chill the dough in the fridge if the dough is too soft to handle.
• Divide the dough into balls of 10g each.
• Bake approximately 25 minutes, or till done.

What do you say?

Woof woof?

Oink oink?

Squeak squeak?

I say ... Munch! Yummy!