School's over!

School holiday program is over.I'm sure Rhianna will miss her teachers and friends.I know I will miss sending her in the morning,singing in the car and seeing her grinning face in the afternoon.
She always came back with many new words and songs and of course with many interesting art and craft to show off.

Fruit platter from "the wonder of fruits" week.We made a real fruit platter and she is more willing now to try out new fruits no matter how weird they look like.

Her banana tree - notice the monkey? She was saying a rhyme about monkey and banana tree that she learned in a different class.I'm glad to see that she is generalizing more things that she has learned into daily activities

Silly looking penguin from "the antartica" week.She doesn't even know where Malaysia is but she can point to the antartica on the map.

 

The children made all the ornaments on the tree.It looks beautiful and they enjoyed the activity.

She told me that Teacher 'Posh' painted her face.The teacher's name is NOT Posh so I have no idea why she nicknamed her Posh.Maybe the teacher looks posh in Rhianna's eyes?




So we're now officially on school holidays until next year when the new semester starts.I can't wait to see what the new year will bring for her...until then,I have to find ways to keep her busy and entertained for two loooong weeks.

The new boy in class

Rhianna's CI often attracts many attention.It's not uncommon for us to be stopped on the street by curious people asking about the device (type 1).I like this type of curious people as it gives us an opportunity to spread some awareness about the CI.What I don't like is the staring, gawking and whispering kind of people (type 2).We have encountered many of this kind too.

When Rhianna attended the school holiday program I was quite worried of how the children would respond to her blinking ear.It turned out that the 3-4 year olds are quite oblivious to it.They just play with each other and pay no attention to her ear... until the new boy came.

He joined the program a week late and he's a year older than the rest of the group.He has to join the younger group as he speaks English as the second language.Being a 5 year old boy,he is VERY curious about Rhianna's ear.He likes her a lot and I often find them playing together.

One day when I was picking my daughter up,he cornered me and started asking question about the CI..so I thought, aah..he's type 1.

Boy: What is that? (pointing to Rhianna's ear)
Me : That's her CI.It helps her to hear.It's like her ear.
Boy: It has red light.
Me: Yes it does.

When I tried to explain further he interrupted.

Boy: What's the circle on her head?
Me: That's the headpiece.It's part of the CI
Boy: Can a boy wear it too?Does it come in different colours?
        Maybe my mom will get me one?
        Maybe I can get a white colour one?

At this point I was already laughing.Maybe he belongs in a different category altogether.
type 3 - thinks CI is cool and want one for themselves.

Not about her speech or language..

Today's post is not about her language or speech or even her hearing..
I was laughing looking at her baby photos and thinking that it would be fun to put some pictures together to see how much she has improved over the years (in the appearance department)

• She definitely didn't have a neck then.A little bit on the bald side with sumo wrestler proportion.

 

• Still pretty much the same here plus posing for the camera with the wide eyed shocked look

• Some improvement seen here.Her hair finally grew longer and oh..there's the neck!

• Definitely more improvement here.She's having the half smile and naughty twinkle in her eyes.The expression that I come to know so well and it usually means trouble!

• The emergence of cheekiness and naughtiness.Looks continue to improve as she starting to tolerate hair accessories.

• Hair continue to grow longer (If I didn't cut her hair she would have become Rapunzel in flesh and blood.).Still have that shocked look when posing for the camera.

• Trying on different "hairstyles".This is how she'd probably look like if she had curly hair. 

 

• This how she looks like now (minus the curly hair!).She has lost most of her baby fat (which makes me so sad).She's not gaining it back no matter how much I feed her..instead she's growing taller and slimmer.

It's amazing and sad how time flies.She's no longer that chubby little creature that only sleeps on my chest.She's now a preschooler always busy with her 'projects' and pretend play.She doesn't always listen to me anymore as she now has teachers who also teach her about many wonderful things.

BUT..she still thinks that mommy is as pretty as a barbie doll...woohoo!

The ecosystem and the endangered species..

Rhianna has finished one week of holiday camp where the 3 -4 year old got to learn about the ecosystem and the endangered species..When I heard about the theme I wasn't quite sure..can a 3 year old understand this?...many of the adults still don't get it.How else do you explain animal poaching and illegal logging and other stuffs.

But the school made it easy and fun for them.Rhianna came back every day with tons of new words and many pretty crafts to show off.

Learning about the food chain..who eat who...Obviously human eat fish like Rhianna demonstrated here..I wonder if she'll take more fish in her meals now?

They also learn about farm animals and their purposes and also domestic animals.Let's hope that she wont start holding our already tortured and extremely patient cat like that.

Here,she's showing off her new knowledge about panda bear habitat,food and other stuff.She was telling me that panda bear eat bamboo..(with " I cant believe you dont know this" look)

Here is the life cycle of a butterfly (or something like that).They got to see the real catterpilar,coccon and butterfly and scrutinize them under a magnifying glass.I really hope that those creatures survived under the 3 year old hands..yikes.

So it was a really good language experience.She managed to get more new words (much more than I dared hope),learn a couple of new songs,make new friends...most importantly,she absolutely
 enjoyed herself!

Next week's theme : The wonder of fruits