Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

How quickly the school holidays have flown by. Funny how much busier I am during the school holidays with the kids at home then when they are away at school. I love having them around but I also love my solitude, my me time. With school holidays and school days alternating, I get the best of both worlds.

We didn't go anywhere during the school holidays but we still have our fun nevertheless despite dad being still in hospital and all that. We did some crafts as usual, which I will post up in due time. However, I thought I better post this Christmas Craft up otherwise, I will probably only post it up next Christmas!

The following Christmas Standup Cards Craft are storebought. I'm getting lazy in my old age. :P They are lovely and very easy to do. It comes in a package with the card, and ready precut stick on little square foams in various colours and pretty, sparkly heart shaped, star shaped and flower shaped coloured stick on glass (which resemble jewels). The instructions are extremely simple. Just peel out and paste according to a colour chart, something like a colour by number chart, in this case it is paste by number. Very simple and nice to do.

The kids, who never seem to marvel me with their innocent and simple minds asked... "Wow! Mummy, where did you get those jewels? They must be very expensive."

 Here's one by the girl. Mr Santa Claus himself, with candy canes and presents and snow. :)

 And here's a Christmas tree by the boy, with pressents and snow and Christmas baubles on the tree.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011 to everyone.

Kids are naturally creative

I believe that all kids are naturally creative. I guess it is the curiousity they have about the world around them that drives them into this creative mode. My kids love to cut, paste, fold and colour. It is amazing what they can come up with, with just a pencil, colour pencils, coloured paper, glue and scissors. They are so imaginative.

That is why I always have these items in ready stock. We have a "craft cupboard" where the kids can get just about anything they like for art and crafting. We keep recycled ribbons and gift wrappers, plastic or see through papers from hampers, construction papers, crayons, glitter glue, paints and anything else we can save for art.

"We can save this for art, mummy" the kids would often say. We don't send them for any art classes because we lack the resources of time and money. However, our "craft cupboard" makes up for that. When I have more time, I will post up some pictures of the stuff the kids came up with this holidays, all by themselves.

Our very own personalised School Holiday Program

We have our own school holiday program at home. The kids love it when I draw up a time table about what we are going to do. Sometimes we make up the time table together. For this holidays, after the first two weeks of free play, we set up our time table.

With dad in hospital, most Sundays and whenever hubby can take time off from work, I would go sit with dad at hospital while hubby watch the kids. I still have plenty of time with them during weekdays. We are trying to get some work done now so that they won't be overwhelmed when school starts. We try to spread out our learning so that it is easier on the kids. However since it is the school holidays, we have factored in a lot of playtime.

The kids love it when I add "exercise" into our time table. This means a game of badminton or kicking the ball around or riding the bicycle or scooter. We also do arts and crafts which they love. When it is time to do "work", they scramble to do it because they want to collect stars. Every page of work done gets a star. Mummy is very generous with stars. Stars can be exchanged for mummy's time ....to play anything with them. This is great motivation for them. Sometimes mummy uses computer aided learning to make learning more fun. Sometimes they are encouraged to write stories while mummy edits. The girl loves this. She is now writing Chapter 5 of her "book" She is both the author and illustrator for her book. :)

School holidays is also a time for music in the form of daily piano practise because when school starts we can't keep up the pace of daily practise. Since it is on the "time-table" and they get lots of praise from mummy and teacher and with daily practise their confidence and play improves further motivating them so they do not complain about piano practise... much. ;)

This school holidays their daddy thought them how to play the chinese chess. They are at the moment mad about the game. Just one flash of the game set will get them out of their beds in a jiffy on any morning.

We will probably not be going anywhere with their grandpa in hospital. At most, a day trip. However, during the weekends they still get to go to the movies with daddy while mummy visits grandpa in hospital. They get to eat out with daddy. Daddy thought them a new game (chinese chess) and during the weekdays mummy makes sure they have exercise, art, play, music, and a little work thrown in plus they have free time to do whatever they like. They usually choose to read or play a board game. I would say it is not a bad holiday so far.

Only, mummy is very very busy and have no time to blog. ;)