Writing opportunities for your child

Writing is a means of communication. As soon as your child is able to write words, encourage your child to use a pencil or crayon to write or draw. It could be as simple as writing Mummy, Daddy and drawing pictures or writing the names of everyone in the family. Writing is a means of expression. It is a way for children to express their inner feelings and wishes.

DD wrote her first letter to Santa tonight while Mom wondered what she wanted from Santa. Glad to see she can write sentences now. Had to tell her to add the silent 'e' in come and remind her that Santa begins with a capital S and also the 'ea' in please. Was a good writing exercise for her, after the 23 cards she made for her friends and teachers at school for Christmas. Unfortunately didnt remember to keep a copy of it.

Thought her first card to Santa was very precious and want to keep it in my memory bank as long as possible.

It reads...(Sorry about the handwriting)...
Come Santa come,
Santa please come,
Santa I want present
From DD

Barbie,
Gold Crown (the crown must be her size) she specified and not for Barbie.
Below she has written to Mom and Dad (Does that mean Mom and Dad have to do the job???)

Learning Music

Here's some good news I would cherish all my life. Hence thought of adding it to my blog.

DD won her first trophy in violin (1st Prize) at Talent Time 2011. This is an annual event in the school's 3 branches. Children are categorized according to their level. There were about 12-14 children in Beginner level and she was amongst the youngest, i think, at 4 years. (This was her 3rd Violin Performance, first two were only talent sharing, more of exposure on stage within the music school).

She was soo excited with the trophy she didnt want to leave it for one moment, and also displayed it on the table in the restaurant later which we finally pursuaded to put away (coz others could take it). Thanks to my parents for the timely gift of the lovely dress bought from India.

Still a long way to go. Mummy is very happy and proud of her and hopes she loves her musical journey all the way.

Here is the video of her performance at Talent Time 2011

Rhu's violin performance video

Some snaps before leaving home and some during the prize distribution...

Mother's Day card

A mother's heart can only be filled with unimaginable joy when two little eyes are fixed on a piece of paper, while a little hand works hard while the head is bent down until the smile of satifaction spreads on her face. All because she wants to make her mummy happy on 'Happy Mother's Day'. Look at all the hearts she has made for her Mummy and Mummy hopes she knew that this 'ever strict' mom loves her so very very much.

Art for art's sake

Do you shop around for the best of drawing sheets and art paper for your little ones to express his/her art? Sometimes children can choose the wildest of places to sketch their hearts out.
My daughter has not only been tearing pages from notebooks to draw, besides regular drawing sheets, she loves drawing on all sorts of places and items around the house. Sometimes its the back of a visiting card, and sometimes also on her sister's hand.
Here Rhu drew on an airsick bag, probably we had kept on one of our journeys for our 'puky' little girls. Its a drawing of her little baby sister and herself. True, medium doesnt matter when art is on your mind.

Handwriting practice

DD loves drawing and making cards for everybody. Don't be surprised if you are greeted with a post-it note with some scribble on it saying, "its a card for you" when you meet her. We made good use of this practice the other day by helping her improve her writing skills and draw while she enjoyed the same activity.
Here is the picture of the card she made. The glamorous Aunty is Shina Aunty with her two children, one a newborn. They came to our house for a playdate. Behind the card were everyone's names. Everyone got their respective stickers. There were high heel stickers for Aunty,  sunglasses for the boy and princess items for the girls.

handwriting practice

If you haven't broken your neck already trying to read what she has written, here are some pointers on how writing skills can be improved without having to break your neck trying to make them sit and write the same old alphabets:

1) Use writing as more of a fun activity for writing on cards.
2) Make loads of lists. List out the name of the people in your family, the name of her dolls/cars, his/her favourite list of things colours etc.

3) The numbers of your mobile phone.

4) Pretend play of taking orders of your breakfast/lunch/dinner.

5) Writing the body parts and sticking them on a human body chart.

6) Writing the name of his/her school etc.

Speaking of handwriting, I feel it is very important for parents to stress on correct formation of letters right from the beginning so that they dont fall into a habit of writing the letters the wrong way. A same letter can be written in various ways to form the same letter by putting the later strokes first and the starting stroke in the end. This can be a problem in the later years when you get into a habit of writing it the other way round. Hence, it is important to sit with your child while she practices her writing and not leave it on her to finish the work and just see the end product.

Until they get into the keyboard world, you can encourage them to write as much as they can. A blank page of a handwriting book sounds as much boring to me now as much it was when I was my child's age. I was always inspired by my parents' and grandparents' handwritings as a child. I loved watching the beautiful formation of letters when a postcard from my grandparents came home.

Enjoy writing with him/her. Let her see how you write. And let her fall in love with her own handwriting.

Nicknames

My daughters' nicknames are Rhu and Jia. Rhu told me that she had mentioned to her transport lady teacher that her nickname is 'Sol'. I was surprised and asked her why she said her nickname was 'Sol' since her nickname was 'Rhu'. She insisted "No, my nickname is 'Sol'". I again said, "No Rhu, your nickname is Rhu."

Who told you your nickname is 'Sol'? "You", she said. That is when it struck me, I had mentioned once that her nickname meant 'Soul'. Lol

Jia means heart in Hindi. Rhu means soul.

Immediately I took out my sketch pens and drew a heart shape and wrote her little sister's name on it "Jia". Inside the heart, I made another heart shape and wrote "Rhu" on it. She then said, "No, Mummy its all wrong. I am the big one, I will be the big heart, Jia will be the small heart (or soul)".

How would you explain 'soul' to a 4 year old?

Search

For your inner self...
For what makes you smile...
For what brings the twinkle in your eye...
For what you can give to the world...
For what you will be blessed with when you were not searching at all. 

The seed to Papercrafting!

Bits of Paper, Bits of Paper, Lying on my bed...
Yesterday my four year old daughter asked for scissors and reached for her pastel colours. I thought to myself this is going to be another cutting and scribbling exercise, like any other afternoon. And I will have to endure another no sleep afternoon. But to my surprise the cutting and scribbling suddenly turned out to be a work of mixed media. She had decided to place the cut pieces together based on her own imagination and created a cute dog. Was really surprised with the work of art. It could very well grow into the art of papercrafting. Thus bringing alive how children can see patterns even in random objects and create works of art even when there are no specific instructions. And often we as parents over do our instructions. Are you guilty of asking your child to fill the boxes, or colour within the lines. Help your child go beyond boundaries and let her colour the grass red and the sky orange. You will be amazed what young minds are capable of when they are left to explore on their own a myriad of shapeless new shapes and images...