Make Origami Stars Craze

At the moment, we're into the Make Origami Stars Craze in our house. It all started because my girl wanted to buy some origami stars at her school fun fair but she was disappointed because someone took the last batch.

So, mummy said, don't worry, we'll make our own origami stars.

We found this video on How to make Origami Stars very easy to follow.

We could fold our very own origami stars after just watching the video once through. Its really very simple to make mini origami stars.

Next, we went out and bought strips of origami stars papers. We bought them at Jusco stationary department. They cost us about RM3.90 each. I like the plain coloured ones. It has the words "love" and little hearts printed in gold at the end of the strip so when you fold your origami stars, the stars would glitter with little gold heart shapes plus have the words "love" in shiny gold letters on it.

Then we bought some more rolls of origami stars papers. We bought them at Popular Bookstore. They cost us RM3.30 per roll. The strips and rolls comes with instructions. I prefer to look at the video. Its much easier to follow.



And finally, we made our very own origami stars in various colours. They look like sweet candy or tiny chocolate nuggets. The Origami Stars papers comes in many designs and some of them glitter and shine. However, if you make plain ones, you can also get the kids to decorate them with their own stickers.

The stars are pictured in two separate batches here because they belong to two different kids who can't stop fighting over who gets how many stars and in what colour!

Now, I can reward the kids with "real stars" when they complete their lessons or the assignments I give them.

The kids love to collect stuff. They love collecting these origami stars. We can also put them in glass jars, decorate the jars with lace and ribbon and give them away as Christmas Presents. This makes a nice craft project for the coming school holidays and it doubles up as nice christmas gifts too so you don't have to go shopping for Christmas presents.

Over Confident

I've always maintained that the level of English in my girl's Chinese school is pathetic. So for her year end exams, I didn't bother to help her with any English revision.

I had passed on my views about the English level to her inadvertently by making comments such as.... "You know all these. The English is too easy." etc etc.

As a result, she began to take the same view. When I asked her whether she had checked her English test paper, she said "No, Its too boring."

She checked her Science paper 5 times! She was happy to discover a mistake she made in the Malay paper when she checked. However, she did not bother to check her English paper.

Consequently, she did well in her Chinese and Malay papers and relatively poorer in her English paper.

Whoops! Looks like mummy better hold her tongue and teach her girl some proper English before her English level deteriorates. :P

However, quick to jump upon an opportunity to teach values, I reminded her that this is what can happen if someone becomes over confident and lazy. Even if we are very good at something, we must remain modest and not become over confident or boastful. That is the moral lesson for the day. ;)

There is a fine line to draw for everything. I try to teach her to be confident and proud of her own achievements but at the same time she must also me taught about the values of remaining humble and modest in her accomplishments.

Fun Fair at School

Recently my girl had a fun fair day at school. She asked us for some money to buy coupons to be used for buying food and playing games on that day. Each coupon book cost RM10. Hubby was very reluctant to give her the RM10. I persuaded him otherwise because I said "Pity lah, all her friends would be playing and she would feel left out."

So eventually we gave her RM10 which is the minimum for one book of coupons. Some of her friends bought up to 10 books of coupons! Some 5, some 2 and some 1 like us but everyone bought a book at least. The fun fair was only for an hour at the start of the day before regular lessons. RM10 for only an hour? Hmmm..... Parents of the older kids had to contribute further in the form of providing food for sale as well as second hand books, stationaries and toys. Very smart way for the school to collect funds.

Since we had gotten her the coupons, I decided to give her a lesson in the value of money and economics. "Don't use it all at one place. Spread it out. And please, please take care of it!" Then remembering how she simply loves to keep things I had to remind her "Remember not to keep your coupons because they become worthless after today. They are just pieces of paper after today and you can't use them anymore ok?"

At the end of the day, I asked her how she spent her RM10.

And this was what she said......

"Oh mummy! So precious! I dropped my coupons in the fish water and I couldn't use it anymore!

Mummy, I saw one person buying a magic wand. I wanted very much to buy it too. I went all around searching for it but I couldn't find it! Then it was almost time! I saw some people fishing. So I went to fish too! (RM1). So wasted mummy! I accidentally dropped my coupons in the water. (RM5!) Then I bought 1 nugget (RM1) and 1 hotdog (RM1).

I didn't know what else to do. There were some older kids playing a basketball game and they were cheering loudly. I don't think the big kids would like me there, so I didn't play. I didn't know what else to do, so I bought a kit kat (RM1). But I didn't know how to open it. I pressed and pressed till it got all sticky and not very nice.

Then teacher said who has any coupons left can go and finish it. I wanted to buy some origami stars but my friend bought the last. They poured all for her and there was none left for me. She gave me one star. So I went to fish for another fish (RM1)..................."

And so .... thats how she ended up with two fishes swimming in a plastic bag which she carried home with an excited look on her face. (I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I saw the fishes). Her little brother was very excited to see the fishes because he had been talking about a pet fish for a long time. She gave one fish to her brother and they named their fishes "Goldie" and "Barney". We placed the fish in a big plastic container and gave the fish some defrosted green peas to eat till we had time to go and buy some fish food. When I told hubby at work about it, he said "Hah????!!!! Are the fish alive?" Hahaha.

Unfortunately Goldie died the next day. We got 2 more little fishes to accompany the lonely one left behind and thats how we now have 3 pet fishes in the house!

As for my girl, she still kept on thinking about her lost RM5 coupons over the next few days. "I could have bought more fishes mummy!" she said.

Negotiation Skills

The other day the kids were fighting over a piece of coloured stone. We had collected this stone from the beach during Chinese New Year. I laughed when I heard them arguing over a stone. The older one looked at me in surprise and asked "Why aren't you scolding us?"

That made me laugh harder. I told them that they are silly to fight over a stone. Brothers and Sisters must love each other. Why fight over a stone? "I can't remember whose stone that is. You both settle it yourself." I told them.

This is how they settled....

Girl: I remember we both had a stone. That orange one is mine.

Boy: No, its mine.

Girl: What about the shell. This shell is mine.

Boy: No, this shell is yours. Oh! Sorry, its a bit ugly and scratched. I accidentally put it in my car bag and accidentally scratched it. This one is yours. We try to remember it so that easier next time lah. This one that is a bit ugly because I accidentally scratched one, is yours.

Girl: This stone is mine.

Boy: Ok. Ok lah. This stone is yours. And remember this shell that is a bit ugly already is yours.

Girl: Ok.

End of Fight. The girl got the stone she wanted and the boy got the shell that he wanted and mummy just sat there laughing.

Sick on Concert Day

His sister had a stomach virus a week before his concert. She was vomitting and had to be given a suppository to stop the vomitting.

Each day I worried that he would get it too. I tried to be careful. I wiped and clean the toilet seat whenever she vomitted into the toilet bowl. I tried to keep them apart. I did not allow them to share food, toys etc.

On his Concert morning, he woke up very early and excited. All morning he asked me "Is it evening yet?" I was happy that he had not gotten his sister's stomach virus or his daddy's and mummy's cold.

Just before lunch, he vomitted all his breakfast in the car while we were coming back from an errand. As Murphy's Law would have it, he kept on vomitting after that. He could not take in any foods, not even any fluids!

By evening, we asked an almost tearful, hungry and boy in pain whether he still wanted to go to his concert. We told him its ok if he didn't. There will be another concert next year. He said he wanted to try.

So we brought him to the venue to try. We brought him there before 5pm. His turn to perform was past 9pm! He was supposed to introduce his act. He walked on stage tearfully. He looked tired. He had not had any food since morning. His stomach was in pain. He felt like vomitting. However, the brave boy, introduced his act with a loud strong voice, drawing good applause.

He went on to dance, play music with his kindy percussion and sing in the choir with his friends till past 10pm. He had been at the concert venue for 6 hours! He had been without food since breakfast which he threw up, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say since supper the night before. Still, when we got home, the poor little one could not go to bed immediately. I had to bathe and wash his gel filled hair at 11pm!

The next day, he continued to vomit and his body rejected all food and fluids. He couldn't even take water without vomitting. We used his sister's suppository (when the paeditrician saw his sister, she had given us his dosage... just in case.... because these things are so contagious). It was no use. He had not had any foods or proper fluids for two whole days.

It was Sunday. Our usual paeditrician was closed. We took him to another, who gave him a jab. Finally by Sunday evening, I was able to give him a few teaspoons of plain white porridge and he slowly started to recover from then.

I am so glad that he is recovered now. I was so worried because he was starting to look so malnurished from 3 days without food. He looked so tired and weak, in pain occassionally and uncomfortable. I was worried about dehydration too.

I was worried whether we were doing the right thing to allow him to go on with the show. He would have been so so disappointed and so we allowed him but we worried throughout the show. Especially when we saw his pale thin face on stage! Thankfully, I think because he wanted so much to perform, he managed to "tahan" his pain and discomfort in order to do so.

Thankfully, he is recovered now and is slowly getting back to normal diet again.

Paper Aeroplanes

My kids love to play paper aeroplanes. All you need is some paper. You can use coloured paper and stickers for decoration if the fancy strikes you but really, all you need is some rough paper.

My kids prefer the coloured paper with the stickers, naturally. As you can see in the picture above, they look very pretty don't you think? Plus they are really fun to play with too. Its more fun to fly paper aeroplanes outdoors where there is a little wind.

We have a little booklet on how to fold paper planes but we also go to the internet to find new free paper plane designs occassionally. Its easy to find paper aeroplane designs over the internet.

We have become quite a bit of a pro in folding paper planes and have a few which we memorized. Even my 5 year old can fold one or two designs on his own without referring to the book now. :)

I like the following site which has many free paper aeroplane designs. I decided to put up his banner because it looks fun and will light up my page.

If you're the type who prefers to watch rather than read, than you can access some of the designs on How to fold paper aeroplanes videos from the Paper Aeroplanes YouTube Channel instead.

I also like the catchy line from the site "LEARN TO FLY" which I will borrow here....

So, are you ready to LEARN TO FLY? Get flying with your kids by learning to make paper aeroplanes today. Its fun. Its easy. It is not time consumming. They will love it!

List of Publishers for Educational Children's Books in Malaysia

I love to shop for books. At the moment, my current "love" is shopping for Educational Children's Books. When shopping for quality children's educational books, I think that the publisher is very important.

Here are some publishers of children's educational books that I know in the order of my favourties. Please note that I did not link to the homepage but rather deeper into the educational books that I shop for which is educational books for Primary School children. I also did not provide the full names but rather the shortened names for the publishers.

1. Oxford Fajar
2. Pearson Longman
3. EPH Publishing
4. PelangiBooks
5. LeeBook
6. Cerdik Publications

If you know of any other good publishers for children's books, please feel free to share by providing the website. Thanks.