Kids Love Contests and Competitions

My girl is always bugging me to allow her to join those colouring competitions that she sees going on at the mall. So far, we have not managed to register on time for any of it. Bad mommy.

To make up for it, I encouraged her to participate by drawing and sending in an art work for a McDonald's kid's card competition. The card is no longer available now. We used to get lots of free ice-cream and french fries from it but I digress..

The competition was to draw a fun thing she does with her family. She decided to draw two artwork. Little kiasu. Haha. She drew one of us at the beach and another one of us at her birthday party. Of course Ronald McDonald was in those scenes as well since its a McDonald's competition.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the drawing because I forgot to take a picture of it before we submitted it. Anyway, she won a prize and to this day, she has not really used her prize of color pencils, glue, crayons etc that she won. Its so precious to her! Its still in the paper bag we collected them in. Hahaha.

Anyway, recently, my boy's kindy organised a logo drawing competition. Its supposed to be a family teamwork thingy. We drew and coloured it together and won a small little prize. The kids don't really like the prize (its a wooden puzzle) but they certainly love winning!

Here's our 1-Malaysia Logo design competition submission. Its supposed to be a family teamwork competition. So, I drew the words and the flowers (you can tell that its a rush job because they're not very straight since I just drew them free hand and very quickly. It was just after the girl's mid year tests but she insisted on joining so we rushed to do one and submit it within the deadline. We completed it within an hour. We didn't put in much effort but that was fine with the kids. I think just the act of doing it together and the excitement of hoping to win a prize was good enough for them), the girl drew in the Malay boy, Chinese girl and Indian girl and coloured them. The boy coloured the stripes and the Malay boy and finally daddy was roped in to add some glitter to the Malay boy's clothing. Family teamwork! lol.


Do your kids love contests too? Have you taken them to participate in any of those colouring competitions at the malls?

Traditional Card Games for Children

After reading in Little Chumsy's Blog about the Donkey Card game, all the childhood memories of how much fun I had playing with the traditional children's card games like Donkey, Old Maid, Snap and Happy Family came back to me. So I went hunting for them. I couldn't find them in a toy store but I finally found them in a bookstore.

A collection of all 4 of the children's card games cost me under RM5. Imagine that. Under RM5 for hours and hours of fun. It surely beats the PC games and DVDs of today. Its more healthy too. Its great for teaching the little ones that you can't always win. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

My little one always cries whenever he loses in any game and he usually tries to cheat. If there is a game where a dice is required to be rolled, you can be sure, he'll look at the numbers on the dice first before rolling it in such a way, that he will get the number he wants. If its a card game, he will try to peek. He is very innovative at cheating! And a rather sore loser.

I've kept the cards to be given out as rewards for good behaviour. We are still using our rewards stamps and charts for good behaviour and if they have been good, then they get to have a lucky dip for little goodies like this. The kids love it.

P.S. Donkey and Old Maid is actually the same game with different pictures on them. Basically the cards get passed around and you display your pairs whenever you have a matching pair. The only card without a pair is the Old Maid or Donkey card and the last one left still holding that card is called an Old Maid or a Donkey. So if you have a boy, you can get the Donkey card game and if you have a girl, you can get the Old Maid card game instead if you wish to follow specific gender rules. lol.

We tried it out yesterday and guess who is the Old Maid AND the Donkey?

Playing with Fire

The children had been looking forward to Mooncake Festival for a few weeks. The girl was not feeling so well and was off to the doctor in the morning but she kept on asking hopefully. "Can we play lantern tonight?"

So, although it would have probably be more prudent and wiser to allow her to stay home in bed, we went out to play lanterns for over 2 hours! We went to the park and met many other children playing candles and lanterns at the park. The boy even met two of his kindy classmates who called out to him cheerfully.

The kids enjoyed lighting up the dark road with their lanterns. They enjoyed playing with candles although the little one cried at first when he got burned by melting wax. He also cried when his daddy accidentally burned parts of his lantern when lighting it up and he cried when the candle from his lantern went out. lol.

He soon got the hang of it though and it was almost midnight by the time we got home, gobbled up mooncakes and had a quick shower before jumping into bed.

The Kids Love Mooncake

The kids love mooncake. Any sort of flavour will do. They love most of them. When daddy comes home with a box, they will crowd round eagerly to see whats in the box. :)

Especially the little one who loves food. Yesterday he was grumbling about not having his own present. We told him that if he worked hard like his sister and does well in studies and piano etc, then he will be rewarded with his own presents.

He remembered that his sister's piano teacher had given her a set of decorative erasers and remarked "I don't want erasers, I want food!" lol.

Its mooncake festival tomorrow. I can't wait to devour more mooncakes and play candles and lanterns with the kids. Hopefully the weather holds up. Its been raining so much these days.

This year we didn't get the kids any lantern. They're using recycled ones from 2 years ago. Last year we got them new ones and those got burnt but the ones from 2 years ago are still around and look surprisingly new. Of course the kids grumbled and requested for new ones but I think they will forget about it once I take out the candles. :)

Happy Eating Mooncake and playing lanterns to everyone young and old.

His and Hers: Drawing and Coloring

I can see that my 5 year old boy's drawing and coloring is improving. They do look rather (not surprisingly) like his 7 year old sister's. Both of them do not attend any art class. They draw from their imagination through exposure to stories and books etc.

His drawing of the earth, sky and outer space.

The boy drew this at a different time from his sister, in fact, she drew the following picture AFTER he drew the above one. However she has drawn a similar picture before so thats where he must have got the idea from. (Daddy suggested that he put a ring around one of his planets. :))

Her drawing of the earth, sky and outer space

(Quite often she doesn't complete her work because she is a perfectionist and likes to take her time to do her art ....... as well as other things)

I rather like their drawing of the outer space which they drew out of imagination and without copying from anywhere much to my surprise.

His drawing of a bird

Her drawing of birds

(His drawing of a bird look like the ones she drew flying in the sky)

Now that the girl is attending Year One in Primary School, she also learns some art and drawing in school which she likes to replicate at home for example, the one of the bird which I have framed up above.

I bought some colored frames from Ikea for framing up the kids drawings. Framed up pictures of the kids drawings make great decoration for a kid's bedroom or playroom.

His drawing of a family for his homemade "Going to be Mooncake Day" card

Her drawing of a family for her homemade "Father's Day" card.

It can't really be seen here but their drawing of people look rather similar

The only thing that he draws and which she doesn't are................CARS! He loves to draw curvy roads filled with cars having a race. Unfortunately I don't have one of them to post up here.

As for her, she likes to draw castles. Sometimes he draws castles too, which looks like hers but he prefers ..... CARS!