Our Term 1 Mid-term Break 2013

Only 1 week of break, which is totally not enough :P Most hobby classes are still in full swing.

姐姐 is going to have her Grade 2 RAD ballet exam in April so she spent 3 days training hard, one evening for 2.5 hours and another morning for 3 hours (extra which is usually school hours) and one weekend for 2 hours. Wow, her ballet teacher and principal really fully utilize the children's free time. Even school exam we don't drill like this, maybe due to new exam syllabus and less than 6 months training for the Grade 2 exam this year :P Luckily we manage to squeeze in a 2-days short trip for them.

Another class took up her time during the holiday, her English class did replacement for the missed lesson during school replacement on 16 March.

Iguanas and snakes, yikes!
弟弟 asked me to take his photo with the pets at the courtyard where he and 姐姐 goes for English class.

Other than lessons, we spent some time at the library i-Play when we went to get some BM story books for her NILAM homework. They were happy to play here. 弟弟 spent most of the time trying to build a wooden house. 姐姐 was running around bouncing a ball and knocked once into the wooden house and he was so annoyed about it even though she apologized fervently. Due to the hard work he put in, he asked me to take photos of him and specified the angles too :)

The little wooden house he built. He grabbed most of the diggers there, creating his own "play corner" with his favourite things.

Maybe with the trip and hot weather, 姐姐 did not get enough rest and run up a flu and cough :( To comfort myself, I just think of "小病是福" sigh. Her weight is now 25.5 kg as measured at the clinic (and 弟弟 is 24 kg, my goodness). Instead of syrup medicine, this time she got small pills and she's good in swallowing them.

After art class, we took some time to run around the nearby playground. I have always liked the yellow flowering trees here.

Yellow flowering Angsana trees at the playground

The food at the side are our lunch. Just want to show my favourite noodle soup and 爸爸's favourite pasembur at Batu Lanchang market.

Another visit to Sakae Sushi again :P

Their favourite sushi - tamago maki, fried hotate, potato salad

Salmon Don and Tamago Sushi. 姐姐 showing her incisor finally growing, 弟弟 suddenly sneezed when we took the photo.

The kids eat free set came very late and after several attempts to remind the servers. They didn't even bring them the Sakae froggie cap even after we requested.

Kids eat free set for one, they are just posing with the same set.

After this break, it'll be exams all the way until May, so posting will be limited :P

iPlay Toy Library (Cawangan George Town) Opening Hours

This post serves as reminder to ourselves, as we just went to the iPlay Toy Library in the morning during weekday and found it's not open. During weekdays Wednesdays to Fridays, it is open from 2:00pm to 5:30pm. On weekends it is open from 10:00am to 5:30pm with rest time from 1:00pm to 2:30pm.

iPlay Toy Library (Cawangan George Town) opening hours

姐姐 enjoying herself wearing an apron and asked me to take photo of her jumping in the air. 弟弟 didn't want his photo taken.

姐姐 with playing with pom-pom

Penang Children's Library I-Play renewal

It just so happened we visited I-Play during our 1 year anniversary of joining the library! Since I got the children's membership renewed, might as well borrow some books home. This is the last year 姐姐 can renew her I-Play membership as it's only for children up to 8 years old. She is very sad about it.

So surprised and happy to see Mandarin version of Doraemon comics which is still quite new. Oh well, it is school holidays after all. 弟弟 is reading a book we have at home about emergency vehicles. 爸爸 curi-curi read the Doraemon comics too.

Reading Doraemon comics during school holidays

I-Play at Penang Children's Library

They were playing doctor's with the play clothes at I-Play, Penang Children's Library, Georgetown. Usually weekdays are pretty empty with only a couple of children at most. During weekends there are more children. 姐姐 say her classmate 田心 saw her there but she didn't know and they didn't talk to each other. Too engrossed in her own play as she is running around with 弟弟 :P 弟弟 always like to visit I-Play as it has his fave toy diggers/dumpers.

Saw a notice outside that the library closes at 6pm on weekends... so more time for play. Remember it doesn't open on Monday and Tuesday, only open from Wed to Sun, except public holidays. That's why when we went on a Monday the gates are locked :)

Penang Children's Library

This is how the children spent 2 afternoons, at the Children's Library located Scotland Road. They have an i-Play corner, only i-Play members can go in to play. It costs us RM12 per child for a year's membership. The children enjoy playing there since it's still new to them. Hurray we have a place to go during holidays. Not much of a crowd at all during our visits on weekdays. I also enrolled for family membership for RM5 for borrowing books.

Opening hours are a bit different, they are closed on Monday and Tuesday. Open from Wed to Sun instead in 2 sessions, and we've only been to afternoon session after 2pm.

姐姐 manage to borrow a few Bahasa Malaysia story books for her NILAM holiday homework after playing. 弟弟 also found a few story books, his current fave is about tippers. I heard from other moms that we need to scour rack by rack to find the books we might be interested in.





后记: During the 2nd visit, a mom at i-Play asked about 姐姐's school and how she is coping. Well, 姐姐 has been very happy at her school and there isn't much homework, only at the most 2 or 3 subjects a day (a few pages only). However that mom seem like still wondering about her own decision to let her child go to Sekolah Kebangsaan - some convent girls' school. I'm not the indecisive type, from long time ago already know that my children have to go to Chinese school, no matter how much homework or stress there is. Where would our children learn Mandarin, Chinese culture, discipline?

The mom says, worried that sending her child to Chinese school and too much school work will stress out her child. And since she is from Chinese school, she feel that her English is not good and want her child to learn English from Kebangsaan school. Sorry, but I wanna laugh... hahaha.... I told her, it depends on how you educate your child, I forgot to tell her learning is through experience, exposure and education. I'm thinking, rather than speak broken English at home, better speak mother tongue. Broken English is really hard to correct especially the child has been learning that since young. Everyone is entitled to make their own choices.