Day 7 Challenge Task: Creating a Task List- This is what I can do to help out at home

Day 7 Challenge Task: Creating a Task List 

The children have been helping out at home most of the time, but I wanted to create a list for them to give them recognition for what their effort. 

This is the end product we came out with. 

Job Scope: Day 7 of the end of year holidays, I finally sat all the children down and I made them identify the things they can do to help out. Well, I helped to type them down into this chart. The children came out with this list. Certain tasks are repeated because they felt that all of them can contribute. 

 Deployment: Then, they had to identify who is the best person to do the job.

Reorganizing the Chart: Finally, I have to teach them to re-organise the chart so that it becomes very clear who has to do what. 

This is the end product.

If you noticed, the chart initially had the words " Weekly Task List" on it. However, I eventually replaced it with "This is what I can do to help out at home".  It is important for the children to see it as their duty to help out and they are helping out because they want to, not because they are asked to. To me, the difference is very important. It's the attitude and mentality.

Also, I will give them a sticker to recognize their effort each day. The kids can't wait to help out now. Start getting your child to identify how they can help around the house.

Day 3 Challenge Task: Christmas Family Tree

Day 3 Challenge Task: Christmas Family Tree

Presenting our very own, special Christmas Family Tree. Natalie was really the project manager for this. She conceptualized the idea, collected the materials and under her guidance, we managed to put it together. It was a super challenging task but the Christmas Family Tree is simply amazing.

 Let's start with us collecting the materials.


We used the pine cones that we picked up from Bishan Park.

The rest of the materials were simply some twigs and some dried long plants (which we do not know the name) and 2 ping pong balls. 

We painted the pine cone and ping pong ball silver.

We used twigs and made a star out of it. We painted it gold. 

Our star at the top of the Christmas Family tree. 

We made a little round Candy Cane and a reindeer out of the long plant that we found. 

We bought these from Daiso. We wanted to use the beads for making snowflakes using ice cream sticks, but we decided not to.

Back to the most important part of our Christmas Family Tree - representing our family members. We printed photographs of the 3 generations in our family. And suddenly, Natalie has another fantastic idea.

Give each family member a cartoon body. So so so cute.. I totally love this idea!

 Emmanuel insisted on giving himself a skeleton body. All the drawings of our family members with the except of Emmanuel's were done 100% by Natalie. Natalie refuse to draw a skeleton for Emmanuel because she felt it was inappropriate for the family tree. In the end, I had to help Emmanuel draw his skeleton body. 

Finally, we spent a whole day putting the Christmas Family tree together. It wasn't easy getting everything to stick to the wall. Yes, we really spent a whole afternoon just putting it up.

At the end of our 3 days effort, we finally created our very own Christmas Family Tree. The 3 very proud children insisted on taking a picture with their wonderful piece of art work. 

Taking a closer look.

By the way, Faith stood still for about 5 mins so that Natalie can draw her body as what she was wearing exactly.  

Natalie and her siblings

Natalie: "Mummy doesn't need a body as she looks good enough in the picture." Haha... Natalie says it's too difficult to cut out the shape of my hair, so she decided to leave me alone.. Yeah!

Mummy and Daddy

Grandparents

 Finally, we ended our day 3 challenge task of the Christmas Family Tree. I really think that this task is very meaningful, for Christmas, we give thanks that Christ the Saviour was born and for everything we have- our family.

 

Hama Beads Craft

Hama Beads Craft 

On some days, you may just want to engage your kids while you sit back and relax. So this is one of the activities you can get your kids to do... Hama beads..

Generally, they can be left alone to do the Hama Beads on their own. You purchase the template for certain designs such as flower, bear, dog or princess for the younger kids so that they can work on them independently. For the older kids, I simply gave her a square template and she is free to create anything she wants. 

This activity really trains the child's patience and at the same time, creativity and hand eye coordination. 

Natalie working on her cupcake.

Emmanuel working on his Darth Vader from a square template.

There it is.. the Mask of Darth Vader.

Other designs that the children have made.

Using 2 heart shapes to create a butterfly. 

Finally, I gave them some space on a wall and this is the picture they created. So the kids are free to create more Hama Beads designs to be added onto this wall..

Day 5 Challenge Task: Texture Rubbing at the Park

Day 5 Challenge Task: Texture Rubbing at the Park

It's day 5 of the holiday and I decided to keep the challenge task simple because the kids are still busy with their Christmas Family Tree challenge. So I decided to take them to the nearby park, give them some pieces of paper and I got them to simply observe the different texture that can be found at the park. 

Left side rubbing belongs to Natalie, top right row belongs to Faith and bottom right belongs to Emmanuel. 

I allowed them to go explore on their own. But somehow, they decided to stick together and complete the task together. It's so sweet so see the older kids looking after the younger one and teaching her what to shade. 

 They were excited to find that even the "bench" has a unique surface to it.

It's not just about finding the surface to shade on, where you choose to shade is also important. Emmanuel found out that when he shades at certain area, the texture doesn't appear that nicely.

Emmanuel's shading. 

Faith's shading

Natalie's Shading

It's really fun just seeing them explore individually and then calling out to each other when they find something interesting. They ran around alot observing the ground, the tree trunk, the playground and their surrounding and they discovered that the place is so much more interesting.. 

Day 2 Challenge Task : List 10 things that are attractive in the theme park

Day 2 Challenge Task : List 10 things that are attractive in the theme park

It's a playdate at the Universal Studio Singapore theme park today. Yes, Natalie and Emmanuel were given a challenge task. I strongly believe that learning can take place anytime, anywhere.  Having visited the theme park several times, they never seem to be bored of it. So, I wanted to find out why and what really attracts them. So the challenge task today is for them to list 10 specific things that attracts them and they have to explain each of them. 

So the both of them came out with the following: 

1) Experience of the different rides

The experience that the different rides top on their list of what attracts them. 

Natalie:

" I like theme parks because there are a wide variety of rides- ranging from boat rides to merry-go-around to roller coasters to the 3D transformers ride to the 4D shrek show. So many different rides to choose from. All in one place."

 2) Cute merchandise

Emmanuel: 

"I like to go to the theme park because there are so many toys from the cartoons. For example, the fluffy unicorn. 'It's so fluffy!' My favourite is the fart gun( i didn't take a picture of them. But apparently, it gives out a stinky smell) . The fart gun is sold here. They cannot be found at other toy shops. There are so many 'toy shops' here. It's so fun."

3) The decorations and atmosphere is always different.

Natalie: 

"The decorations in the theme park is always so attractive as it changes regularly. For example, they change from the Horror Night for the Halloween to the Christmas decoration now. So every time we come, the atmosphere is very different. I just can't wait to come to the snowy christmas at USS in December. "

4) Music

Natalie: 

" The music is what attracts me also. I love the grand sounding music that they play at the entrance. It is as though I am entering a different world."

5) Meeting different characters and taking pictures with them. 

Emmanuel: 

" I like meeting different characters and being able to take pictures with them. It's so cool. But sometimes, I'm scared to take pictures with them. Like the soldiers at the Mummy area. They are so scary. But I like to look at their costume."

6) Colours

Natalie: 

" It's very very colourful at the theme park. So, it's really attractive to young children. We love colours because they make everything so pretty."

7)The different shows

Natalie: 

"The stunt show at the Water world is so nice. The performers can really perform very well and it's not everyday and everywhere that you can watch this kind of high risk show. So I like it very much. I also like the elmo growing up show where we can sing and dance with them."

8) Experiencing the different worlds

Natalie: 

" At the theme park, we can visit the different worlds. For example, there is 'Far Far Away', ' Jurassic Park' and 'The Mummy'. So we can visit different 'places' at the theme park. Also, there are places where boys will like and places where girls will like. So people can visit the world that they like." 

9) There are so many things to see.

Natalie: 

" Every time I take the rides or walk around, I see different things. There are so many things to see around me. "

10) It's very big and spacious, can run around. 

Emmanuel: 

" I like the theme park because it's so big and spacious. I can run around and play with different things. I like to run, run, run. run until I am super tired."

So with these observations from Emmanuel and Natalie, I think they completed their challenge task quite well. At least they were observing and learning something while having lots of fun at the same time... Learning can take place anytime, anywhere.