Wednesday, 25 June 2014

8 Ways to teach your kids English (without them knowing it!)

When I was teaching, the most common question parents asked me was, "What can I do to help my child improve in English comprehension and compositions? "Read the more stories," I would reply, ignoring their doubtful looks. "At least 30 minutes every day!" Perhaps they were expecting me to suggest buying more assessment books. ***After homeschooling two preschoolers, I've become convinced that this is more true than I ever imagined. I have struggled to teach "good phrases" to primary school children, who memorised them and inserted them into their compositions. But I never expected my 3-year-old...

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Pink cucumbers, pink guava and pink juice - Who says we can't play with food?

We love red dragonfruit. The only problem is, it turns everything pink. EVERYTHING. Even the toilet bowl. (Ok, you didn't need to know that!) The moment you peel it, the pink juice oozes out generously, so we put it to good use and dyed all our other food pink. Soon, we had lots of pink cucumbers and pink guava. We even added some dragonfruit cubes to our coconut water so we could pretend we were having some funky drink. (We normally don't drink sodas or any sweetened liquids!) Which proves that kids should play with their food - if it makes them finish it faster! ...

Wednesday, 11 June 2014

DIY Toys: Marble Run

It's really satisfying to make toys and games out of stuff we were going to throw away. It was pretty simple and quick, and we started playing with it almost immediately. We made two holes at the top so two could play at the same time. It was originally intended for marbles, but we found that casuarina cones (picked up from Bishan Park) were lighter and slower, so we could actually watch them make their way down the marble run! Materials needed: Cardboard box (Mine was from an iHerb delivery!)  Toilet roll  Glue  Scissors and penknife Paint Marbles or Casuarina cones  Instructions: Cut...