Sarah, the lil' reader!

My little Princess is a reader! And I'm glad that she loves reading. Even when she was a little toddler, she expressed interest in reading. Now, being 4 year old (almost), she has already started reading. She recognises most words that are introduced in the books. Currently, she uses the Peter and Jane series books as her readers in class. They have not started any REAL readers as yet.

Peter and Jane series introduces words through repetition of the sight words. Some key words are used ever-so-frequently that children who are exposed to the book recognises these words and read them so confidently after much repetition.

Some children learns to read through pictures. They see a picture and they verbalise the picture with words that they know, not necessarily "reading" the words.

Well, what method works? Different methods work best for different kids. For me, I believe learning phonics sounds is very effective. The children will learn the different sounds of each letter. REAL kids introduces the phonics sounds of the alphabet through Jolly Phonics. Well, as for high frequency words... words that are being used frequently but not necessarily can be introduced phonetically, I do recommend using Peter and Jane and something alike. Hahaha! Currently, Sarah's my guinea pig!

I didnt know her kindi uses Peter and Jane until I send my girl over there. It started just last week, ie about 6-7 weeks since she started school, that I realised that she IS reading Peter and Jane. She came back one day and went to her book shelf. She took a few Peter and Jane book, ie 1a, 1b and 2a. I was just observing her as she did all that herself. And she started "reading" on her own.

When she has gained enough confidence, Sarah told me she wanted to read in front of me. After reading book 1a, she later took 1b on her own and tried to read. I think she did it pretty well. I then decided to "test" her and point words randomly for her to read. Earlier, I closed the pictures to test if she relies totally on the pictures to read. Hehehe. This mummy ar... Anyway, this is another of her great milestones. She is now learning to read and she is enjoying every moment of it. Every evening when we come home from work/daycare, she would go to her room, get some of her books and read while I do my cooking. Way to go, girl. Am really proud of you! :)

Here's a video of little Sarah reading Peter & Jane... and also, mummy's "random test". kekeke. My apology that the video + audio don't seem to be in sync.

1 week after the BBW...

... that was literally 1 week after the Big Bad Wolf sales and some story-telling times with my lil princess!

Sarah : Mummy mummy... i tell you something (she came to whisper in my ear)... allinthewestwing!

Mummy : Huh? Again?!

Sarah : allinthewestwing

(I had to ask her 3x to understand what she meant! hehehe!)

Mummy : Oh... All in the west wing!

Sarah : The clock said it! :)

Well, guess what? Last night, she asked me to read her the same story... not too sure how many times i've read to her already... :) I'm fine with reading to her the story books (again) at night, but at times, my body's just so tired after a long day at work. But anyway, last night was another "cute" night spent with my lil princess.

And so, mummy here flipped open the first page of Beauty & the Beast... and started yawning.

Sarah : Mummy, read!!!

Mummy : (yawn!!!)

Sarah : Once upon a time... Mummy, read!!!

Mummy : Oh, you remembered! OK... Once upon a time...

Sarah : Mummy, I don't want "and then... and then... and then..." OK? Not nice!

Mummy : OK OK... Once upon a time...

Mummy here started reading the story, and after the first page, I paused and closed my eyes. She didn't see my closed-eyes and said "tringgg!" instead. Hahaha! That was the exact sound effect from the CD when the page is to be turned. I just had to carry on. Her "tringgg!" just woke me up! :)

And then, there was one part in the story when Belle came to look for her father in the castle.

Mummy : .... Belle said, "Papa, we've got to let you out of here!"

Sarah : There! Not here!

I looked at the words again... it was "there", and not "here". That really amazed me! She could remember some parts of the story word for word! And I also noticed her mimicking the movement of my lips as I read to her the story.

Another milestone for Sarah in her reading development! God bless her!

Sarah's Masterpieces (at 3+ yrs)

These are some of her drawings which were drawn in the month of September. She loves drawing, I must say. She spends most of her time drawing princesses and she progresses each day and always amazes mummy & daddy with pleasant surprises of her masterpieces. (wah... such tongue twisting statement! hehehe!)

When I asked her why wont she draw other pictures like cat, house, car, flowers, etc... she replied that she only knows how to draw girls & princesses and she doesn't know how to draw any other things! That's my lil princess! :)

Read previous post about Sarah's drawing.

Drawing & Colouring Activities for Sarah

Sarah loves drawing and colouring. I can't tell yet if she likes one thing more than the other. However, I can see that at the moment, she enjoys all these activities and especially when she has someone accompanies her to do it. Whenever she's with us (daddy/mummy), she will give us a paper and a pencil and ask us to draw this and that... and of course, the ever-famous request is that we draw "Princess" for her.

These are some of her drawings:

This is a drawing of her family and friends... very tall people, ya?! :)

Cute eye-lashes... and ribbons on the necks too! :)

She uses round objects to trace as "faces".

She did this activity together with her cousins, Reanne & Ivan.

Doing things together can be one of the most effective ways of learning & it's not boring too!

She drew this on 23rd June, 2011.

And the very next day, she drew this. Looks like her princess' clothes have upgraded from plain to checkered patterns on them! Lovely! :)

These are some of her colourings:

When I came back from work, it caught me by surprise and I was totally amazed when I saw this piece of art - coloured by my (then) 32 months old girl!

She coloured the car beautifully and all within the lines. Great job, Sarah!

These are some of her other art work:

Check out the "make-up" that she puts on her barbie doll pic! :)

She's also learning to write her "name".

Can you see the "S", "A" and "R" somewhere on the paper? Hehe... :)

That's a picture of "Samson" from the Bible. A very colourful man indeed! Hehehe....

After story-telling by Uncle Joshua, the kids were given a colouring sheet of Samson each (hand-drawn by Aunty MJ :))

More new words for little Sarah

"You bathe first, so you can oi-oi with me...."

"I found my blanket already!"

"Tomorrow I wear skirt ar?"

"Tomorrow I can....(blablabla)!"

"Later you read to me, OK?!"

"Mummy, it's time to sleep already.... I off light ar?"

She's now using lots of "tomorrow", "later", "first" words... and she really seemed to use the words quite correctly too! I'm so proud of my little girl's ability to remember and use quite a large number of words and also form correct sentences at this stage.

Way to go, gal!

Ms Chatterbox

She sometimes bosses around with meaningful sentences... be it a request, a reply to a question or just a statement she makes very frequently.

Sentences she makes (which I can recall right now) include:

1. You cannot sit here! Dirty!

2. You cannot eat so many! Take one only!
- Oh yes, she loves making the "you can... you cannot..." sentences which makes her qualify to be a bossy lil gal :)

3. I want one only. Not too much!

4. Mummy, you take one. Sarah take sooooooooooooo many!

5. Mummy, see.... Can balance! (She said this while playing with her blocks)

6. Mummy, play with me!

7. Mummy, throw the ball to me!

8. Mummy, you see.... So messy already!

9. Don't open first ar?! Wait for me...

10. I don't want small-small one. I want big one!


She talks a lot and I really find it cute of her to say things that now really make sense! Her vocabulary of words increases with time. And now, she uses prepositions like the words "to", "with" and "for" accurately.

Sometimes I cant believe how time flies and that my once little baby has grown to be a talkative little toddler! And I know soon, I will have strings of "Y" questions to answer!

Sarah loves playing puzzle... (at Month 29)

Sarah enjoys playing puzzles. Recently I bought her a 48-pieces puzzle and she managed to finish it within an hour! Yep, without distractions that is!


As always, I gave her an assignment before my bath. So, I brought out a new puzzle for her (to occupy her) and took out half of it for her to fix... Lo and behold after my bath, I realised that she toppled everything over and so, she had to fix all 48-pieces!


I guessed I under-estimated her ability... She managed to fix the whole puzzle. I did help her here and there but she finished 80% on her own. I'm really proud of her!

The process....

Pix 1: Sarah's look of achievement! Can you see that in her face? :)

After that, we wanted to take the picture of all her collections.

She has some smaller puzzles which she started playing when she was about 22 months old and I did noticed that she loves playing and fixing puzzles even when she was so little! Therefore I took the liberty to buy her puzzles every now and then, from easy to difficult and she seemed to enjoy every process of it.

She's definitely "picture-smart"! :)

p/s - however, after all that's been said... we kept away her latest puzzle piece. You know why? She started getting lazy and doesnt want to fix the puzzle after messing them! Sigh... she's probably bored of it already, after playing with it 3x...

Sarah loves to read...

Sarah likes reading a lot! I thank God for that because I dont remember doing that a lot in front of her. I know kids learn from observing but I hardly had time to do any reading.... LOL! Actually that's just a lame excuse... I don't really read and that's something I have to inculcate myself. However, I do remember when I was a kid, I used to like reading (err... or perhaps looking at pictures!). When my dad got me books, I was super duper happy and would read the same books over and over again. Some of my favourite story books were "Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs" and "Snow White & Rose Red". My dad bought lots of Peter & Jane Ladybird books too and my sis, bro and self actually had tonnes of books to read... (hmm... I wonder why I did not continue that reading habit... :-/) I also loved the picture dictionary that I had and would read it a million times!

Recently, I went to a book store and was browsing through some books. As I was looking through some children books, I was reminded of the times when I was a little kid. So, I send myself back to memory lane and thought what book would my little Sarah enjoy if I were her.

So, I got her this.....

And this is how it looks like in the inside... there are about 40+ pages and I find it very educational, ie to expose Sarah to many different things that she can find in various places.

She thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. There were nights when she asked me to read her the book. So I would turn to some pages and tell her a made-up story based on the pictures on the book. Of course, it was also an interaction time I had with my little girl during reading time. It was really fun.

I also got her another book which is a 16-in-1 fairy tale book. Simple and short stories which she also enjoyed reading it on her own and sometimes with mummy or daddy reading to her the stories inside it. Hope these 2 books would last her awhile... hehehe...

Here's a pix of Sarah reading her story book.... Looked like she was really into it, ya? :)

Below pix show the naughty look of Sarah posing with her books.

I happened to ask her last night... "Girl, why you keep reading the same book? How about the others?" I pointed to her other books in the bookshelf. Without looking at me and while reading her now-favourite-book, she replied, "Read already lor... Read finish already lor." LOL! I was amazed with her reply. To her, she has completed reading all her other books, and now, her next aim is to complete reading the latest addition of her own little library.

Keep it up, Sarah!

During my first semester of my ECE course, one of the subject was "Basic in Language Arts". It was a reminder or maybe best said as an eye-opener to me about the importance of literacy in children's development. My lecturer emphasized on the importance of inculcating the reading habit even when our children are young babies. One of the best way is having bedtime story routine with the child.

I must admit that I have not started doing so until recently. As parents (busy and tired parents), we sometimes forget to do this very important thing before we go to bed. So, if you have not already done it, start now! :)

Read previous post on Sarah's first reading activity.

Drawing the Family... (at Month 23+)

Another interesting thing that took place in Sarah's drawing ventures was to represent our family members with colours!

This was also another incident that took place right before my eyes and I was thrilled to see how the whole process went. We were in our bedroom and I gave her some crayons and papers for her to scribble. And just for the sake of asking :p, I asked her to draw "Sarah", and then I asked her to draw "Mummy", and then "Daddy". For each member, she used different colours to draw lines. And then of course, I repeatedly asked her to draw "Sarah", "Mummy" and "Daddy". One thing that struck me was she took the same colour each time to draw each one of us!

Orange represents "Sarah" and another shade of orange represents "Mummy".

Purple represents "Daddy".

Another 2 very very distinct characters are "Pek-Pek" - blue; and "Pek Niang" - pink.

As for others... I'm just sorry to say that perhaps Mummy's enthusiasm bore Sarah at that time.

I kept asking her to draw this and that repeatedly until she decided to stop drawing and play other things. :p

Few weeks later, I decided to "test" Sarah again on the colour representation. And guess what? She picked the same colour to colour each one of us. I'm seriously amazed with what she did. She's really seeing different people in different colours and that really made me want to study further about this child's development... the colour representation of people. Interesting, isnt it?

[+video] Draw-A-Person... (at Month 26+)

"... eye.... eye.... nose.... mouth.... hand.... hand.... leg.... leg..." As she draws, she says these words as well. I couldn't help noticing her actions and found her literally drawing pictures of a human being. Not one, but many of them! She would say she draws "people". But sometimes, if you ask her what she is drawing, she would say "dinosaur" or "autobots"! :)

I took this video about 2 weeks ago. Enjoy.....!

And these are the products of her drawings!

Nice piece of art, eh? :)

That's one BIG head with "eyes and mouth". 2 lines sticking out horizontally which represents the "hands" and 2 vertical lines which represents the "legs".

For some drawing, she added the "hair" as well!

This is really so so cool! I really find this interesting! :)

Sarah's bath time = play time

Sarah loves bath time because that's play time for her as well. We call that "water play". Dont underestimate bath times with your little ones because it is during these times that they learn so many things about themselves, ie parts of their body, listening to instructions like "look up!", "wash your neck", "left leg up", "right leg up", "armpit!", "tongue", etc... :p They learn lots about maths & science! If they have cups, they can learn to measure and develop other fine motor skills like scooping water from one cup to another using a spoon... well, Sarah loves that activity a LOT!

Recently, I bought for her the IKEA's stacking cups. I've been wanting to get that or something similar for a long time but at one point of time, I couldn't find them at all. I particularly like the IKEA cups because besides being reasonable in price (only RM6.90/set), they are colourful and each cup has different patterns and number of holes in them. That made water play interesting!

I normally vary the toys so that she will learn different things from time to time. In my in laws place, there are some cups, ducks and frog in there. She likes to squeeze the frog in the water and that made some "glup, glup" sound, and she would smile and tell me, "got sound..." after that, she would take the water-filled frog and squeeze it hard so the water would be released through its mouth. She enjoys doing that and could do that many many times until mummy needs to "force" her out of the bathroom.

Anyhow, I would try my best to make it an enjoyable moment for her whenever I had the chance to bathe her. At times during the weekend, if she behaves well during the day, I will allow her to use the bath tub and extend her bath time so she can play a little bit more... just to reward her! Now that she learns about punishment and reward, this seems to work pretty well for us! :)

[+video] Doe, a deer, a female deer....

Check out our lil singer!
Sorry... this was taken at night in the car... don't mind the video, just enjoy the music! :)
This song is one of our favourites!
And pls forgive me... my pitch lari sikit! Cannot reach the note la.... :p

And recently.... thanks to ah ee, now, Sarah has another favourite - "The Barney song: I love you, you love me"

[+video] Sarah loves fixing puzzle...

One of the activities that keeps Sarah busy while I was busy as well is fixing the puzzle.

[+video] Threading activity

I had the privilege to bring home the thread and beads from school to do my observation with my lil nephew. All the kids at home seemed to enjoy doing threading. It's something new for them and I'm thrilled to watch them do the threading, and for Sarah... at such a young age! It was meant for children aged 3 above to get their fine motor skills "sharpened", but I see Sarah enjoyed this activity a lot, and she's developing pretty well too. Once, when I came home from school, she asked me for the ball-ball (the beads), which I had to apologize to her for not bringing back that night... :)

Do enjoy this video of Sarah doing the threading. If you have toddlers at home, I do encourage you parents to get a hold of threading activity like this. There's a lot of different types of threading activities that you can find in shops that sells educational toys. Go! Try it! It's really fun! And.... don't forget your video camera! :)

[+video] Pencil color turned into... ?

I bought this "pencil color" for RM1/pc from a stationery shop nearby. I got 3 pieces for the 3 angels at home. It's cute & cheap! Hehehe...


Well, when I saw this pencil color, I thought of course that this pencil color is a tool for coloring... a cute tool for coloring, but what do our kids actually think of it? *think think think*

This was what Sarah did to the pencil color at the beginning...



She decided that the pencil color looks better when they're all dismantled... thus she calls it "ball-ball"...



Since Sarah has decided what it should be, mummy respected her decision and made sure that all pencil leads were taken out. She likes the sound that the "ball-ball" make when they are being shaken in an empty container... and bottle too... as shown in the next video!



Actually, this "ball-ball" were imagined as "vegetables" when she plays "masak-masak". She likes to role-play as a chef and cook these balls in her cooking pan. Oh, but too bad that I haven't gotten the chance to record her cooking these balls.

So yes, that's the imagination of our little ones... Thinking out of the box, ya?! :)

[+video] Sarah writing... (at Month 18)

We noticed Sarah has been able to hold a pencil quite correctly the past few weeks. I'm so proud of her. Daddy & I showed her how to hold it and the next thing we knew, she started holding the pencil the corrrect way. Way to go, Sarah!

We started letting her get exposed to drawing when she was about 12-13 months. Read previous post here. We let her use a pencil at first, but later on got her to use some crayons. Practice makes perfect! Eventually, we gave her a pencil again and found her fine motor skills have improved tremendously.

Here's the video showing Sarah learning to write (draw). She seemed pretty enthusiastic about what she was writing/drawing...

Sarah, the little song leader...

"Yi Chieh Ge Song Zhan Mei...." - her lullaby song since baby! :)

"Jesus Loves Me This I Know..."

"Give Me Oil In My Lamp..."

"We Want To See Jesus Lifted High..."

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star..."

"If You're Happy & You Know It..."

These are some of the songs that we sing to her since she was a little baby. Today, she is able to sing some of these songs on her own (her very own version!) too, like "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" & "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

Let me share with you 2 other cute incidences:
1. Happy Birthday song... Sarah would sing this song every time she sees a candle! She would only sing the 3rd line of course, which is "Happy Birthday to Sa-raaaaahhhhhh!" :)

2. Ask her "What song you want to sing?" She would say, "Na na na na na..." Hehehe... Yes, that's the bridge for the song "Waves of Mercy"! She just loves that part... :)

More updates on Sarah's development.. (at 18+ months)

Sarah's growing very well I would say and praise the Lord for that! However, we do pray that she will tone down being quick-tempered (by nature I believe). Recently, she started yelling as well, if she doesnt get what she wants. Really pray that she will come out of it soon.

Also, she's definitely an attention grabber. As I am typing this in my room, she is giving me all kinds of things so that I would participate with her in some "tasks", often which she is able to do on her own as she explores. This time, because she knows I am on the laptop, she tries getting my attention by all means. Shrewd, eh?!

Her vocabulary has totally increased by the days. She even makes sentences now which are meaningful. One particular (almost) complete sentence that I heard her spoke about a week ago was: "I want put here"


Her "I wants"... and "dont wants" are used with meaning too, for eg:
"I want/don't want water"
"I want/don't want go upstairs"
"I want more"... or "some more"

Updates on Sarah... (at 18 months)

Sarah has been an active little girl, ever since she cried her first cry. She's "fierce" like what my gynae said when he first held her. :)

Well, it's not the violent kind of fierce, but more like the strong-willed, competitive, determine and demanding kind.

At this age (and even way before), Sarah has shown much of this "fierce" character, like snatching things from her cheh-cheh and kor-kor, throwing tantrum when she doesnt get what she wants, "kiasu" in terms of getting attention, and she never gives up easily (well, this, a good trait I must say!). However, apart from being fierce, there is a part of her that is "tame" (for lack of better words).

She likes to look good and beautiful. She likes wearing hat on her head and look at the mirror after that. When I wear her a dress and told her she looks nice, she actually smiles! She's really a darling. During her personal play time at home, she would play on her own (with mummy or daddy beside her) and when she finds something amusing to explore, she would give her full attention to it.

Sarah's vocab has been increasing too. I totally lost count of it. She's been learning to combine words like:

"Don't want" - almost over-used in a day! Oh boy....

"Let's go" - she would say this when we're about to go out after wearing shoes, and sometimes when we're in the car and daddy stops the engine.

"Be careful" - she totally imitates me on this. Whenever daddy drives and brakes suddenly, I will say these words to him. Now, Sarah would say this even before I do! :)

Wo wo wo wo wo wo... KFC!

What does this logo look like? Well, just one look, we all know that it is a KFC logo, right?!

One discovery about Sarah is that she recognizes logo too. A few months ago, i think it was about 4-5 months ago, KFC had one advertisement shown on TV to advertise the new Hot & Spicy. It was about a father & son eating KFC while it was raining, and because it was super spicy (supposedly), the father went out to get some 'shower' from the natural rain (something like tht...). At the end of the ad, KFC had this tune on, "wo wo wo wo wo wo..."

Sarah remembered that tune until today. The interesting thing was whenever she sees KFC logo on the street, she will sing the "wo wo wo..." tune! That made me realised that Sarah remembered the ad on TV and the KFC logo too! I think it was rather interesting! Really smart of her to remember such stuff - something that was shown many months ago and she remembers it till today! :)