30 May 2014 - Parent's Day

Today is the last school day for 1st half of the year.  At the same time, it's also Parent's Day where parents are invited to the school with their children.  Students has been practicing over the past few weeks to perform on stage for their parents.  I took a photo of her before she went up on stage.

Jerlene's class performance on stage is to sing a song <>.

After that, Jerlene was also involved in an Act <> where she is a narrator.

When all the performance ended, the students brought their parents around the school to participate in various activities setup by older students.  One of Jerlene's classmate tag along with us because his parents did not come.  So I sort of like babysitting two children and followed them around the school for 2-3 hours.

One of the most popular activities is the bouncing castle.

There were other stations such as "The Amazing Maze" and "The Temple of Doom".  The games were actually educational and Jerlene tried her best to complete the exercises.

There was one station in the Library where a few laptops were setup with the game "What's the Saying?", which is a pretty popular game in mobile phone recently.

The day's programme ended at 3pm.

28 May 2014 - Jerlene's Progress Report

In two days time, it will be mid year school holiday.  Jerlene brought back her Report Book today for my signature.  Looking at it, she seems to be doing quite well.

At the very least, her marks are well above the school's average.

Keep up the good work, Jerlene!  *Thumbs Up*

24 May 2014 - Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

We were at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve today at about 5pm.  This is the first time Javier come to this place.  Jerlene came here once when she was 1+ year old (see here) but she could not remember a thing.  As usual, the first thing they did here was to get the map of this place.

We started exploring the area just outside of the reserve entrance.  Here, we saw a Hornbill hiding in a tree.  Jerlene, who brought along a binoculars, was busy looking for interesting stuff around.

Then we saw a monitor lizard resting on a wooden floating platform in the pond.

As we entered the park, we came to a wooden bridge that links to the other side of the river.  Sad to say, the water is pretty polluted.  We can see emptied bottles, plastic bags and other rubbish floating in the water.  I do not recall such scenes when we were here previously.  Hopefully the relevant authority can do something about it.

After we crossed over to the other side of the river, we came to large water catchment area where we saw those migratory birds.

These are the Grey and Purple Herons, which are among the largest bird in Singapore.  Every now and then, we can also see fishes jumping out of the water.  My guess is that these fishes are trying to feed on those insects that were flying just above the water.

As we walked deeper into the reserve, we began to get "attacked" by swamps of mosquitoes.  So we decided to quickly turn back and explore the other parts of the reserve.  Near the entrance, there is a mangrove boardwalk, which is the shortest route (about 500m) in the reserve.  Throughout the boardwalk, we saw many unique flora, as seen below.

We also saw many fauna such as mudskipper, tree climbing crabs and waders along the way.

Before we left the place, Jerlene and Javier took a photo shot of their "trademark" jump on the boardwalk.

This trip was pretty enjoyable except for the "mosquitoes attack".

10 May 2014 - What happen when a lazy person eat mango?

Below is what a mango looks like when a person is too lazy to go to the kitchen, get a knife and cut it.  I did not know you can actually eat a mango the same way as you eat a banana. Haha........

It's not me nor the kids, so guess who did it?!!??  :-P

5 May 2014 - Spelling Bee

Jerlene received a sticker gift from school for being a Spelling Bee.  Her form teacher awards this "title" to students who managed to get full marks for 5 consecutive spelling tests.  So far, Jerlene had done well in her spelling and I did not even have to coach her.  Every time when I asked her about her spelling test, she will reply:"I know already!".  It seems like the teacher in her student care will revise the spelling with them prior to the test.

Actually, not only for her spelling test, Jerlene did quite well for her weekly 听写 as well.  At the moment, 听写 only expects students to write in 汉语拼音.  However, if a student can write in both 汉语拼音 and actual chinese characters, he/she will be awarded bonus points.  In order to earn those bonus points, Jerlene spent extra effort to learn the actual chinese characters.  So far, she has been getting all those bonuses.  I did not demand such results from her but she seems to have her own pride for doing well.

Jerlene, I am so proud of you but I hope you do not get too stressed up in your schoolwork.  As I've always said, just do your best.  Well done!

3 May 2014 - D'Cuisines at SIA Group Sports Club

Mother's Day is still one week away but our family had an early celebration to avoid the crowd on the actual day.  I had booked a private room at D'Cuisines restaurant in SIA Group Sports Club.  I chose this place because I find it unique as it serves both Chinese and Indian food.  However when we started to make our order, we were told that Indian food will not be served today because there was an Indian wedding going on in the function room and the chef is busy preparing food for the wedding.  So we proceed to order the usual Chinese cuisines.  Feedback on the food from my family members were generally very positive.  Jerlene and Javier especially loved the sweet and sour fish.

The above photo was taken just before we left the Sports Club.  We will come back again to try out the Indian food.  :-)

1 May 2014 - Upper Pierce Reservoir

On this Labour Day afternoon, we decided to spend some outdoor time with the kids at Upper Pierce Reservoir.  The weather and scenery were great, with clear calm water projecting superb reflection of the sky and trees.

We climbed down a slope to get nearer to the water.  At some point, the slope is pretty steep so I had to carry them one by one down slowly.

As we reached the bottom of the slope, Jerlene and Javier were in a really good mood and started dancing.  Though it's tiring, we all had a great time.

While returning to the carpark, we saw mimosa all over the ground.  The kids were amazed as they saw its leaves started to fold once touched.  From that point onward, the two of them went all around to touch each and every mimosa they saw.  Haha........