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?

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.

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.

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.

Fraction - 3years 7months old

Zo Ee at 3years 7months old. (24th November 2011)

We made some jelly with round moulds. Zo Ee decided that we'll share one. So cut it into half; half for her and half for me. Immediately, I finished mine. Zo Ee further divided her half into four equal portion while telling me, "Mum! Do you want another 1/8 of my jelly? You can have one if you want." Then she counted, 1,2,3,4. I overheard her saying, "four 1/8 equal to half."

Crazy Multiplication-3years 7months old

Zo Ee at 3years 7months old. (13th November 2011)

We just arrived two hours ago after being away for 10nights. When I saw the magnetic numbers pack in New Delhi (none in Goa), immediately I grabbed it for Zo Ee. Zo Ee has been excited and I didn't allow her to open it until we reached home. And when we reached home just now, the first thing she wanted to do was to open this magnetic numbers pack. While DH and I were busy unpacking, Zo Ee showed us these...

She actually used a calculator to calculate the answers. But I still find it cool that she has such idea and went beyond the normal times table she has seen thus far. Also I like that she has written down the equal sign and number two when she ran out of those pieces.

Drawing Fractions - 3years 6months old

Zo Ee at 3years 6months old. (7th November 2011)

Crossing over Puzzle - 3years 6months old

Zo Ee at 3years 6months old. (29th October 2011)

A classic math problem about a man trying to get a goat, a cabbage, and a wolf across a river. There is only space for the man and one other thing in the boat. If the wolf and the goat are left together, the wolf will eat the goat, if the cabbage and goat are alone, the goat will eat the cabbage. How does he get all three across the river?

A friend posted this online and was surprised as to how her two children solve it differently. S0 I was curious whether Zo Ee will understand such puzzle and somehow she managed to get the answer correctly. I think it's a combination of luck with some reasoning skill but I still and won't believe that she could solve it since she is only 3years 6months old. Initially, she couldn't reason anything out by just listening to the question. So I drew it out for her. She was able to see it clearer with the drawing. Immediately she said Goat should cross first. I'm not sure why, maybe it was luck. Next was to bring the cabbage over. Followed by the wolf later. That's when I interfered, reminding her that that will not be possible as the goat will eat the cabbage while the man went back to get the wolf. They shouldn't be left alone together. She paused to think and before finally telling me that the man should bring the goat back across the river. Dropped the goat so that he can bring the wolf across and finally back to get the goat again. She got it and was proudly telling DH the answer.

More Fraction - 3years 6months old

Zo Ee at 3years 6months old. (21st October 2011)

I thought this was cool, Zo Ee told me at breakfast today that 2/8 is equal to 1/4. She knew her simple fractions, about a year ago but mainly has to do with our pizza eating, like 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, 1/3,1/5. Today is something new.

Since she brought this up, I asked her whether she would like to do some fraction exercise and she was more than happy to agreed. Unfortunately, these were the only 2 pages we found in her workbook. She seems to understand the concept and needn't need any help at all.

Beach Party - 3years 6 months old.

Zo Ee at 3years 6 months old. (16th October 2011)

Attended a birthday party at Beach Cafe of Park Hyatt Goa Resort today. It's the Park Hyatt GM's daughter first birthday. This is our 2nd time attending party there. It's one of the best resort in Goa, and was named the best Resort in Asia 2 or 3 years back. Zo Ee had a nice time playing with the kids at their beach. I've never attended such a luxury birthday parties in my life and here, at 3, Zo Ee's already attended two such parties. Here is the picture of her, in her swim wear.... having a break and some snack. I didn't expect her to show off her maths skill in the party. While having her snacks, she spotted some medium size pebbles on the tables. She arranged them into groups of 3 and started counting 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, etc. One of Zo Ee's friend Mummy introduced Zo Ee to another Mummy, "She is Zo Ee. She is a very very very smart girl. She is very smart. " Look at the way she described Zo Ee although she has no idea that Zo Ee can read and do maths and crazy over science and facts.

Another thing that surprised me was that Zo Ee actually asked Zac (birthday's girl brother) whether can she play inside his plastic pool. Initially, both DH and I were very sure that Zo Ee wanted to play inside the children plastic pool by the beach, but had been standing there observing and not joining in. We actually asked her to try to play inside it, but she remained silent and watching instead. Until one moment, we heard her asking, "Zac, May I play inside your plastic pool, please?" When Zac said Yes, immediately Zo Ee stepped into it.

Linking Addition with Multiplication - 3years 5months old

Zo Ee at 3years 5months old. (9th October 2011)

These 2 weeks, Zo Ee surprised me by trying to link addition sums with multiplication sums. A few of her examples that I could recall is

2 + 2 = 4 , 2x2 = 4
so 2+2 = 2x2

3 + 3 = 6, 3x2 = 6
so there are the same,
meaning 3 + 3 = 3 x 2

5 + 5 = 10 and 2 x 5 = 10
so 5+ 5 = 2 x 5

5 + 5 + 5+5 +5 = 25 and 5x5 = 25
so 5 + 5 + 5+5 +5 = 5x5

Brainpop Jr - 3years 4months old

Zo Ee at 3years 4months old. (10th September 2011)

I heard a lot about Brainpop website for months now and have been reluctant to allow Zo Ee to explore it just yet until recently. Even recently, Mummy introduced her to it with the idea that it will keep her occupied for certain period during our recent trip to Hampi while in the long 8 hours day journey. No doubts, Zo Ee immediately fell in love with it.

Since we didn't sign in as a member, Zo Ee finished 80% of the video clips in the 5 days trial. If it was not due to Mummy restriction, kicking her away from the PC, she easily finished everything within that trial period. From the moment she awakened, immediately she wanted to watch brainpop. Mummy limited her watching to one hour each session and as many sessions as she likes provided she gets some break in between. She diligently going through the clips in a systematical order; she wanted to watch each clips in each topics before moving on to another without missing any. She finished Science, Health, Social Studies, Maths, Arts and Technology and partial of the Reading & Writing. A few clips she watched twice, mostly once for all the rest. There are a few more clips that she needs to cover but am very amazed as how systematically she watches and explore Brainpop Jr. (K- Grade3) Mummy has yet to introduce Brainpop (Grade 4 -Grade 12) to her and foreseeing that Zo Ee will definitely enjoyed it better than Brainpop Jr but Mummy didn't want her to skip (Mummy knows that she will definitely do) instead has a clearer understanding of those basic concepts first although she has been reading facts books at much higher level, even into the adult level for sometime now. Mummy especially like Brainpop Jr.'s explanation on each new concepts or words. We will sign her up to Brainpop UK when she is bored with Brainpop Jr. since all Commonwealth countries are following UK syllabus mainly. I foreseeing that this will happen very soon because once she understood and absorb all information , she will not want to watch them again. That's pretty her nature since young. She may want to watch them after a year a part or so but definitely not in the next few months.

Word problems - 3years 3months old

Zo Ee at 3years 3months old. (10th August 2011)

While bathing Zo Ee just now, I pop out this question out of the blue; "If Mummy give s you 2 candies, then another 2 for Mummy and 2 for Daddy. How many candies are there?" Immediately, she replied 6. " How about 3 candies for you, 3 for Mummy and 3 for Daddy? How many candies are there now?" Zo Ee replied 9. Cool. I have never thought that she is able to do

2x2 Sudoku - 3years 2months old

Zo Ee at 3years 2months old. (20th June 2011)

I'm glad that Zo Ee is playing Sudoku again after stopping for a month or so. Each time after a break, I realized that she will come back strong and with better understand of each skill. As like today, Zo Ee is able to complete each Sudoku puzzle faster and thus playing a few in a go rather than one puzzle in a day or two as before. It always makes me think that she has matured in those short period. : ) Sometimes she looks puzzled or confused over a new skill or maths problem when being first being introduced but surprisingly knowing them inside out a few weeks later without anyone explaining or any further discussion. I don't know how but she just seems to get them after a short break! Maybe some self-learning works inside her little head during those break.

Minutes Prior to this video, she has already done 4 Sudoku puzzles by herself, so all together she has completed 7 today.

Maths & Science update - 3years 2months old

Zo Ee at 3years 2months old. (13/June/2011)

Maths Update

Starting from this week, Zo Ee will be in school for 3 1/2hours daily. And this is what she brought back from school today. She wrote another equation 1+1 =2. Yes. that's my little one, has been obsessed with maths equations lately. Obviously, she has been writing lots of simple equations daily.

Since Zo Ee started multiplication a month ago, she has already mastered 0x,1x,2x,3x,4x, 5x and 10x. I have not tested her on the rest, she knows some, my guessing maybe not perfect yet. She has been liking multiplication a lot especially those that she has memorized effortlessly through songs. She enjoys zooming through the questions easily. She feels great that she is able to complete them faster than addition and subtraction sums. The other day, she was telling us that she was doing multiplication on Daddy's calculator. She was experimenting the calculator with her multiplication knowledge and was thrilled that the calculator could give her correct answers all the time etc. So we started on some simple algebra by showing her one example a day. Then she started working on one a day or every other day. I don't think she has worked more than 10 problems so far and this is what I got. When I asked her to try on this question today, she looked at it and immediately telling me the answer is 2. She wrote the answer down without the need to some drawings to aid her as she usually did on the left page. I was shocked. Initially I doubted her, but after some thoughts, with her characteristics she will never write down any answers she doesn't know. She will either fill in the answers or leave it blanks. So she must have know. But again, I just cannot believe or accept it. How is that possible? She further converted the answer to an equation, 1x2 =2 .

Science Update

I am wondering do your 3 years old kids watch documentary programs? I am still finding this weird and unacceptable that Zo Ee has started liking these programs when she turned 3. I wondered who are their targeted audiences? She used to watch Animal planet when she was 1 -2 years old but she stopped. Then she started liking tv after seeing a volcanic eruption in a hotel's cafe after turned 3 and now is crazy over Discovery Science, Discovery Channel, National geographic and Fox History. She is Crazy over these shows - I didn't know that, How stuffs work? Mega factories. Weapons, and all programs on Discovery Science. She will want to watch one after another. She will not want to leave the house when her favourite program is showing etc. She is just glued to the tv when watching. Maybe this has to do with her strong knowledge in science from her previous readings thus she is able to understand and absorb information/facts from these programs. From our daily conversation,I realized that her knowledge has actually grows in heaps. She was talking about Helium gas, that she needed for her balloon to float up into the air with explanation etc. She was talking about electromagnetic stuffs, SI units and crazy stuffs which I don't think we had read before and I can see that her understanding are very in-depth. Whenever I see that she is learning too fast, I started to worry. It worries me whenever seeing her watching those programs.

enkounter puzzle - 3years 1month

Zo Ee at 3years 1month old (9th June 2011)

As I mentioned earlier, Zo Ee never likes conventional type of puzzles but she enjoys playing with simple 7 pieces tangram and kaleidoscope. So far, she has only solved one tangram puzzle by herself. The rest, we co-play, I'll chip in one or two pieces whenever she gets stuck so that she can proceed and finish each puzzle with pride. Although not 100% of her own effort but it was good enough to boost her confident and interest to keep going for the next one.

Today, I got her a new strategy game enkaunter. Although it was not to be played like the kaleidoscope, nevertheless she put these together in 10minutes. If you notice carefully, she actually misplaced one ziz-zag piece upside down, nevertheless I think it is pretty good effort for her age. She just enjoys the kick of trying to fit all the pieces back into the square holder.

Putting these sample pieces back into the holder.

She completed this in 10 minutes.

Weird Equation? - 3years 1month old

Zo Ee at 3years 1month old. (7/June/2011)

Zo Ee claimed that above is an equation. Initially, Mummy couldn't get it but after Zo Ee's explanation, it does make sense. It is actually 1 + 10 = 11 written in Chinese. Ha! Ha! It just didn't cross Mummy's mind that she will write her equation in Chinese. She never did!

Equations Everywhere! 3years 1month old

Zo Ee at 3years 1month old. (3rd June 2011)

For the past 1 week, Mummy is finding equations everywhere in the house. Zo Ee has been writing her own equations.

Multiplication - 3years 1month old

Zo Ee at 3years 1month old. (23/5/2011)

2 weeks ago, Zo Ee insisted to do these pages, ended up copying the answers from the time table.

A week later, she actually mastered the simplest few; 0x, 1x, 2x and 10x tables.

Zo Ee's own Maze - 3 year 1month old

Zo Ee at 3 year 1month old. (20/5/2011)

Little Zo Ee designing her very own maze!

She was explaining to Mummy that she drew some path on the top right hand, with a starting point on the middle left page. To play, one needs to move those four dark shaded shapes through the maze.