Typing - 4years 2months old

Zo Ee at 4years 2months old. (4th July 2012)

I saw Zo Ee typing this on my notebook; under the brainpop topic SUNBURN.... since she could write, typing is a much slower process for her, thus I hardly see her typing.

A sunburn happens when the skin turns red. Because of the sun's rays.

I know that the sun is hot , so you should not look straight at the sun.

Why should you protect

Another Poem - 4years 2months old

Zo Ee at 4years 2months old. (30th June 2012)

Zo Ee's new poem.... this time, she brought me her notepad together with markers, telling to help her pen down her poem. I helped her out and she was telling me which colour marker I should used etc. She even spell the word flub for me, saying it's the sound of the bubbles......

Seems like I have a little poet at home. ; )

Zo Ee's latest poem - 4years 2months old

Zo Ee at 4years 2months old. (25th June 2012)

I Shine In the Sky With the Moon

When Children See me

I take a bow

because I am white like a Cloud.

Hint: IT IS A Lion!

Folding & cutting skill - 4years 1months old

Zo Ee at 4years 1month old. (6th June 2012)


Zo Ee's cutting and folding skill. (self-taught)

Mummy suggested to Zo Ee to add colour to her creativity.

Zo Ee's Poem - 4years 1month old

Zo Ee at 4years 1months old. (20th May 2012)

Re-typing Zo Ee's poem here:

The Cat Sat on a Maat.
And then, a Pan fell off.
the Pan fell oFF a dog!
A bat fell oFF a Chiangsos!
Something fell off a thing.
Oh no! MO! Oh!Help! Help! Help! HElp!
HElP!

Ow!!!

Ouch!

Ow! Ow! Ow!

Ow! Ow!

Ow! Ow! Ow!

Ouch!

Treasure Map - 4years 1month old

Zo Ee at 4years 1month old. ( 18th May 2012 )


Zo Ee's Treasure Map

Creativity - 4years old

Zo Ee at 4years old.

Drawings;rabbit,rat and bat - 4years 6days old

Zo Ee at 4years 6days old. (17th April 2012)

 Too much of fairies books lately, thus her flying rabbit and flying rat.

Life Portrait -Mr Bean - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (9th april 2012 )

 

Life portrait of Zo Ee's new love - Mr. Bean

Cutting Skills - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (10th April 2012)


Zo Ee saw this on a book and wanted to make one herself. Since that's the library book, we couldn't cut it out so I drew one for her on a separate sheet of paper. Zo Ee was all excited and offered to cut it out. When it's done, it doesn't look like a 3 years old cutting effort at all(almost 4 actually). I must admit that she has graduated from her self-learning cutting school.I'm impressed with her fine motor skill.


Finished Dice.

Drawings/Writing/Creativity - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (9th April 2012)

I can see Zo Ee's huge improvement in her drawing skill and creativity lately, most probably another growing spurt just before she turned 4.

I like her idea of the bird/chick standing on the rock.

"Mummy! I made Buster(toy) a baby quilt. "Instead of using cloth, which she doesn't have, she creatively used some colour papers instead. I am really impressed with her idea and work.
By the way,can you spot the bird robot?

These are the few chinese characters that she is able to write by heart.

I'm very impressed with Zo Ee's handwriting, as she is still 3 years old.

Baking craft:Fish - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (8th April 2012)

It was raining and we couldn't leave the Mall this afternoon. While waiting for the rain to stop, I decided to let Zo Ee tried on this baking craft available there. Of all the designs, Zo Ee decided on a fish which I thought to be rather simple and boring but surprisingly Zo Ee creatively turned it into a lively one. Even the craft person at the shop praised her beautiful work and creativity. DH was impressed too and I think he will not hessitate for her to bake another one in the future. It's not difficult and it's a lot easier than it look, or maybe Zo Ee made it look easy since other kids were really careful and slow with their work while Zo Ee finished hers fastest among all the kids. She was fast in filling up the mold with the colour material provided and she didn't follow the picture sample provided (bottom right). She told me that she wanted to make a colourful fish which she did. We decided to stick the finished rubbery fish on her room's wall with blue tac and she is really happy and proud of her fish.

More Graphing - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (3rd April 2012)

Just my usual strong determination Zo Ee, 2 more graphs from her today. Any improvement on this chart comparing to yesterday Bar Chart? I think she emphasized a lot on the top of each bar, stopping exactly at its value etc.

The second one is weird to me so I asked her why is it square and not round and she explained to me that this is not the usual round "Pie Chart" but a square "Pi -Chart". It's divided into 4 equal parts. Really?

Dentist Room - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (2nd April 2012)

Two days ago, Zo Ee spent a great 2 hours drawing and drawing nothing but just variation of the scene in a dentist room. Yes. She drew more than 20 such pictures in one sitting. Sharing a few here.

The only one that is different is this one - Wacky Brushing Teeth Machine.

Creativity & Drawings - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (2nd April 2012)

Zo Ee's Monster Face Mask a combination of her Cutting skill plus a little of imagination.

More drawings from the library book, Fire-Engine and Engine Train.

Graphing - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (2nd April 2012)

I've seen Zo Ee doing Tally Mark chart for few months already but Bar Chart and Pie Chart are really something new. I think it all got started after she read a Charting book from the library few weeks ago. Since then, occasionally, I am seeing emerging charts in her drawings. I think the ones she did yesterday were pretty good. I asked her about any charting videos on Brainpop Junior and she did say yes. Since I coudn't recall any, she must have not watch those videos recently or for the past weeks. That's why I'm finding this interesting as I'm seeing her self-correcting and improving on her charting without any feedback or guidance from me or anyone at all. Each time, her graphing improved with more details etc and she has not re-read that book which we had returned many weeks ago and has not watched any related video recently of past 1 month. So, it's all inside her head and memory and she just self-correct and improved after each try. As of yesterday, I think it was her 10-13th charts that I've seen. Pretty obvious that she has been a bit obssessed with graphing since reading that library book, occasionally telling me that she/we need to make a chart of XXX or YYYY for my cooking, her toys, activities etc. And she could read graphs long before this too, most probably from brainpop junior too.

This is the most complete Bar Chart from her, though the missing zero on the number bar. She said its a bar chart of fruits she has eaten; banana, apple, grapes and cherry.

Pie Chart - Ice-cream, flower shape cake and sweets.

Drawings - 3years 11months old.

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (30th March 2012)

We borrowed a drawing book from the library and had a try on the Steam Engine Train.

A closer look at Zo Ee's work. Zo Ee followed the steps shown in the book and this is the closer look of Zo Ee's Steam Engine. How amazing, that simple steps can do wonder in guiding small children to draw.

This remark is solely Zo Ee's idea and work. She even added degrees and percentage in there, plus some naughty remark at the end....Hok! (Crashed sound) and it crash!

28th March 2011

Zo Ee's view of the City. Most probably influenced by being back to Singapore with its many high rise buildings.

Zo Ee's Update - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (22nd March 2012)

Zo Ee has been very interested in helping me doing house chores. One that she has mastered is at folding clothes; neat and proper way. Cutting is her favourite past time too, cutting and cutting many hours daily. As usual, she is more active and very confident and agile in physical movements comparing to kids her age or a year or two elder. She has been pestering me to sign her up for Gymnastic classes which I’m still considering.

Assembled this last week.

Cut out this heart shape with free hand.

I think this is cute too. Zo Ee cut a hole to fit it onto Piglet's head.

Handwritings – Recently, since she has stopped schooling for many months now, I’ve started requesting her to pen a line each day as her handwriting practice but she’s always penning more. This was completed over 3 consecutive days. I’m not particular at the content; it’s all solely her work. Occasionally, she asked to confirm her spellings on a word or two. Usually she is able to notice misspelled and self-correct. Once she has the idea in her head, it doesn’t take her long to write one sentence, usually less than half a minute.

COGNITIVE STUFF:

In merely 2 months, she advanced from not a gamer(not expose to any) to an I-phone Expert gamer on many Adult version games. Scoring mostly “A” for the Edge game up to level 13. (video) From talkative to super talkative girl since back to Singapore. Everything she has a say, a reason too etc. Whenever she wants something, she has them think and plan thoroughly; before suggesting it to us with all her reasons and her plans and precautions to make sure everything will be ok and as planned. She talks non-stop to herself and soft - toys for hours, so pretend play has been back into the house recently. Puzzle solving games are still her favourite, her latest love is Pete’s Spike age 8+ though she loves Rush Hours (bought both recently). Super fast at solving those memory games; matching two similar cards from Brainpop.jr.

ACADEMICS:

Still an avid reader as usual; reading 4-5 hours/daily by herself. Most days; 80-90% of her readings are on fact books while the remaining are fiction books. Although we just moved back to Singapore, and has no access to public library for the past 2 years, I found that I couldn’t find her any fact/reference books at the Junior section (age 5-9) anymore. Age 10+ reference section fits her alright now. Since my last update; she has read the SAT Cartoon Vocabulary I and II for the 3rd time and Idiom books for age 9-15 twice. Once she was out reading one in the stroller, and the 2 commuters in the train trying to figured it out whether is she really reading it or merely looking at the pictures. Math: I’m seeing that she is interested in Graphing-made me a few past weeks, money and their value, and using Metric units. When I asked her what is the temperature in a typical tropical country? I was expecting an answer - hot all year round but she said it’s 95 degrees Fahrenheit. When back to Singapore (2 months ago), Dh has been so busy with the move and new job position and has not time to read any Chinese with her since last October. I didn’t want her to forget her Chinese so I’ve bought her a children Mandarin songs karaoke (84 minutes). After watching less than 5x, she remembered all the songs and could read all the 800 characters, even telling DH some similar characters which have different meaning and read differently, comparing those found on this DVD to her previous reading. For the first time, DH is finding her daughter is smart. (?)

CREATIVE OUTPUT:

Zo Ee wrote me another silly poem this month, a better one this time, unfortunately I couldn’t find it any where now. Most probably she has cut it into pieces and throws them away.

According to Zo Ee this is a strange animal with a big snout.

One day, I found this in the living room which I think is cool. Yes. She has been experimenting with folding and cutting. I did show her once many months ago, and she’s trying them out by herself.

Map with many sign- 3years 9months old


An origami aeroplane from Zo Ee, completed with drawings for turbo engine and parts inside the plane.

Zo Ee’s collage – the caterpillar(Zo Ee), Daddy and Mummy the butterflies ( somthing to do with caterpillar life cycle).

I found this the other day, from her ex-school drawing book. – 3years 7months old. The many lines in circle shows fluttering movement of bees.

EMOTIONAL ISSUES:

Winning a game has becoming very important to her.
She is still my funny, loving and happy girl. She is still worrying about dying and didn’t want to grow bigger and older because she didn’t want to die. She worries about others violating the laws or misbehaving and their safety.

SCHOOL UPDATES: Still reluctant to go to school, got extremely upset upon hearing the idea of going to school.

EDGE game and talking - 3years 11months old

Zo Ee at 3years 11months old. (15th March 2012)

Today, I took Zo Ee to the City, using the long MRT train route approximately 45minutes from my place since this is the less crowded route and we'll definitely have seats all the way to the city center. Going - Zo Ee read all the way in the train. She was sitting in the stroller reading a 5th grade book. She was too engrossed about others looking while I just pretend not to see. It was not too bad.

We left the city a little earlier before the mad rush hours (after work), still the train was quite crowded. To keep Zo Ee occupied, I handed her my hp. She played the EDGE game on my handphone (mine is not her favourite like DH iphone ), as it has 2 games which I don't play. Within 5 minutes, many heads were above my phone. I don't think they were interested at the game but they were excited seeing a little girl playing it so well and Zo Ee played all the way to LEVEL 13 or 14 before she gave up.

When Zo Ee spotted an empty seat, she moved over, Looking out of the window; She was talking non-stop to herself for another 15minutes; talking about everything she spotted; including the "dirty river" and pollution etc. The lady sitting next to her heard everything and was smiling at me. Just before she alights, she asked for Zo Ee age, and when I told her that she is going to be 4 next month, She was in shocked while telling Zo Ee, "Wow! you sure can talk very well." She must has expected her to be much much older.

Zo Ee's new bookcase - 3years 10months old

Zo Ee at 3years 10months old. (4th March 2012)

We are still unpacking. Zo Ee's new bookcase just arrived today. It's 222cmx72cm and its almost full. I believe we still have some books somewhere in the house. two of the fully occupied shelves are her encyclopedia and references collection. So in less than 2years (almost 2years) in India, we had bought her so many books and most amazingly, she has read them at least once, mostly twice/thrice or some endless time within this period and my little one is still three. Sometimes, I still cannot comprehend that she has actually read all these books and not forgetting the 1000+ library pre-school reference books that she read before we left for India 2years ago. For the past 1 1/2months back here, she already read 100++ library books. Now you understand why I say that Zo Ee is a reading machine!!!

And we had actually bought her the whole series of Harry Potter Collection (good bargain in India) for her 4th birthday (next month). Yesterday, I bought her two new Idiom books (age 9 -15) and she finished them yesterday itself but at 3am. She is asking me for book 2,3 of each series. Thank goodness that we are back here, with library, we don't have to spend a fortune on books. Here is a photo of her bookcase.

Zo Ee's new bookcase - 3years 10months old

Zo Ee at 3years 10months old. (4th March 2012)

We are still unpacking. Zo Ee's new bookcase just arrived today. It's 222cmx72cm and its almost full. I believe we still have some books somewhere in the house. two of the fully occupied shelves are her encyclopedia and references collection. So in less than 2years (almost 2years) in India, we had bought her so many books and most amazingly, she has read them at least once, mostly twice/thrice or some endless time within this period and my little one is still three. Sometimes, I still cannot comprehend that she has actually read all these books and not forgetting the 1000+ library pre-school reference books that she read before we left for India 2years ago. For the past 1 1/2months back here, she already read 100++ library books. Now you understand why I say that Zo Ee is a reading machine!!! And we had actually bought her the whole series of Harry Potter Collection (good bargain in India) for her 4th birthday (next month). Yesterday, I bought her two new Idiom books (age 9 -15) and she finished them yesterday itself but at 3am. She is asking me for book 2,3 of each series. Thank goodness that we are back here, with library, we don't have to spend a fortune on books. Here is a photo of her bookcase.

Funny Rhymes - 3years 9months old

Zo Ee at 3years 9months old. (10th February 2012)

Zo Ee is full of FUNNY make up rhymes which I couldn't remember at this moment, these are the latest two:

"If you have some scramble egg, please feed it to your leg."

"Your rumbling tummy is so smelly."

New Book - The Elements -3years 9months old

Zo Ee at 3years 9months old. (9th February 2012)

Went to the biggest bookstore in Singapore and found Zo Ee a new book after an hour of searching, The Elements, The building blocks of the universe by Dan Green Nowadays, it's really hard to find new books to add to Zo Ee's huge encyclopedia collection. Zo Ee and I went through this book and she fell in love immediately and resists to sleep.

Bean Art & craft - 3years 9months old

Zo Ee at 3years 9months old. (4th February 2012)

To Zo Ee to the Singapore Esplanade to participate in the free Bean Art event. We arrived at 12.30noon and there's one on going session which started at 11.30am. We registered for the next available session. Zo Ee impatiently waited till 1.30pm. After a brief introduction of Bean Art with a few artist examples, children were allowed to start their own masterpiece. 6 beans , recycle box, papers and glues(one for paper & another for beans) were supplied to each child. Zo Ee decided to make a ship. It was a 90minutes session but Zo Ee was done in less than an hour; 40minutes after deducting the introduction etc. The above was all her work, I only helped her to squeezed out the glue initially but eventually Zo Ee even refused my help at all.

Comment:

The freeland artist whom I got to know, actually works at many school for art projects around Singapore. Schools actually invite and pay her and her friends to teach art and carried out art projects. This person told me that Zo Ee was actually very good at it and her fine motor skills are extremely good for her age. She even asked me whether Zo Ee likes crafts and did Zo Ee has lots of craft experience. Well actually, Zo Ee is good at cutting and collage skill is very limited to her own exploring at home with junk papers. Since we just came back to Singapore, I took this opportunity to ask her about art classes available for kids. And I ended up showing her Zo Ee's lastest creation of Moby with her recycle toy box which happened to be in my hp. Her immediate reaction was really shocking; "That' s very good. Wow! It's very good." She wanted to know whether it was all her work and where did her get the idea from. I explained to her that it all started with her new toy box. She was cutting it and sometime later, she showed me her finished Moby on the table. Frankly speaking, I was impressed too that's why I gave her the idea to glue it onto a paper so that we could file them. Her remark really strike me that her work is very good.

Prime Numbers - 3years 9months old

Zo Ee at 3years 9months old. (25th January 2012)

For the past 2 weeks, Zo Ee is obsessed with math again; she's been asking loads of math questions and is interested in negative numbers; doing negative subtraction and simple division and money. Today, she showed me 5 and 6 coloured pencils in each hands while telling me, 5 + 6 = 11. Then she handed me those 5 pencils while telling me 5 is a primary number and then handed me 6 pencils while telling me 6 is a secondary number. Ok...I don't think there is any primary number or secondary number. What sheis really trying to tell me is primary = prime numbers and secondary numbers = composite numbers. She is linking from the colour concept ; primary and secondary colours. You mixed two primary colours to get a secondary colour. So the same concept applies to numbers.

Moby - 3years 9months old.

Zo Ee at 3years 9months old. (24th January 2012)

As usual, Zo Ee' is keen on cutting and she had wanted to cut her new toy box. I allowed it since she wouldn't need it anymore. An hour later, she showed me the above Moby (from her memory) which she had cut and arranged on the writing table. Although I know that she is obsessed with Moby ( a robot from brainpop website) but her details work really surprised me. I gave her the idea to glue it onto a paper so that we could file it up.