EV's first word

EV has just uttered her first word! It's 猫, or cat in Chinese. Yups, not daddy, or mummy. But cat!!!???!!! Guess it's because she sees too many wild cats around our home.

EV's development at 18 months

EV has reached another milestone – that of 18 months. Below are her achievements:

a. saying favourite words moon, star, ball (she gets extremely excited each time she goes past the basketball court near our home. She goes 'ball ball!')

b. associating spoken words to objects or pictures, eg light, butterfly, bee (once, when she was learning about 'heavy & light' in her Shichida class, she looked up and pointed at the ceiling light when the teacher said 'light')

c. identifying shapes, colours and musical instruments like piano, guitar

d. Recognising & making sounds of objects, eg trumpet (po, po, po), train (chooo...) & aeroplane (wooo....)

At the same time, we are also considering to put EV in a playgroup. One option we were looking at was My World My Montessori, which is just conveniently located opposite my mom's place. It has a three-times weekly playgroup session for toddlers about 18 months but the new intake would take place only in October, so we decided to wait. We were already going to my mom's place three times a week, so this playgroup fit our schedules perfectly.

Books: Pig learn to count

If you are looking for a Chinese book to teach your little one how to count, this book is a good place to start. It features many different farm animals and pets, such as pig, duck, mouse, cat and dog. It tells the story of a mummy pig in search of her lost pigs, and along the way, the other animals join in the search. The numbers are simple, and are based on the types of animals eg two chicken, three pigs and so on. 

Books: Babyberry Pie

Written by Heather Vogel Frederick
Illustrated by Amy Schwartz

This is a delightful book about bathing a baby and putting him to sleep, and how he refuses to stay in the bath. It makes the process look very fun and lighthearted, by describing how to transform baby into a 'babyberry pie' such as putting sugar on his belly button and toes. What I like about this book is the rhythm and rhyme. It is an easy read, and babies and toddlers alike will like the large pictures inside.