Recommended Books

Can You Hear It?
Author: William Lach
Publisher: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 2006
No. of Pages: 39
Included: Audio CD with 13 Tracks

This Book is highly recommended for parents who are keen to introduce their children to Music and Art. It is suitable for all ages, but young children especially, will find it intriguing as their senses are stimulated when they view the art pieces with the incorporation of appropriate music!

Many parents get their children to learn a musical instrument. However, how can parents guide their children in music appreciation? 'Can You Hear It?' is certainly one of the ways to begin with! Going beyond aural appreciation,this book introduces your child to a world of imagination and visualization! For parents, it is undoubtedly an eye-opener too!

Content:

Helpful descriptions and questions on each page assist parents in guiding their children. Track numbers are clearly indicated on each art piece to aid track selection or search.

The use of key instrument(s) in each piece of music is included in the brief description. For example in one of the pages, there is the use of Kettledrums. Not sure what instrument that is? You need no further research! All the mentioned instruments are included in the book for extra reading with photographs to show your child! And if you wish to know more about each of the Art and Music Masterpieces, the write-up is included on the end pages too!

Keen observation and an eye for details are skills which are important in creations. Activities like 'spot the difference' and 'I spy' are our favourites. We would sometimes compete to see who spots them first. When I came across this series of books, they went straight into my wish list. Not only do they provide similar fun and benefits, the books contain masterpieces that I could introduce and expose my kids to!

Other Titles in this Series:
Can You Find It
Can You Find It Inside?
Can You Find It Outside?
Can You Find It Too?

On being a Mother

Fully immersed in motherhood, I am filled with overwhelming emotions everyday - not to mention juggling with accounts and admin work at the same time. There is so little time left to myself, yet it is so very necessary - to breathe.

Chinese language is extraordinary. The character for 'busy' is written as "忙". The left represents 'heart' and the right represents 'death'. Literally translated, it means "your heart is dead". So motherhood isn't such a bad thing for me after all, since my heart isn't dead - I'm on the other extreme in fact.

Eye Sore No. 2

A nice biscuit bucket, a pity to throw away, but quite an eye sore to have around the house.

Found some unused drawer lining sticker in my storeroom and used it as a base cover. Came across the red, yellow and orange felt flowers and thought they'd look appropriate with the yellow handle. Picked up the checkered ribbon during shopping too, not knowing what to do with it, but looks good enough to cover the roughly cut edges at the bottom.

This is now my handy container for the scrap materials!

Materials from Daiso

And the new everything for S$2 branch has just opened near my place!

Eye Sore No. 1

This is our eye sore No. 1: the CD holders in our TV console. The compartment size makes it rather difficult for us fit in any CD holder, so we have been stuck using the trays. It's been creating scratches on the furniture too.

One fine day, I decided to 'improve' on the trays did some craft work with my daughter.

We use felt on the underside to protect the furniture and use gift-wrapping tapes to cover it. Here is the end result. Now, my husband thinks it is a worse eye sore for him because it looks 'too feminine'!

All materials from Daiso

Bluffed stiches

Rare large boxes that come only with big ticket items you buy - you just refuse to throw away cos the kids love them and you find them useful too. Here's what you can do with the sharp trimmed edges of cardboard boxes - double-side tape it with a ribbon to make it look like you've stitched it!


Click on image to enlarge for clearer view, but do remember to click back instead of closing the window!

More Sketches

The Magnetic Sketch Board is one of my son's favourite. This is how he practices his strokes. It is environmentally friendlier than paper. However, you can't keep works like you do with paper, so I take pictures of them.

Top: Steam Train, aged 4

My Dad just built the fence. It was my son's first time noticing the Cactus that Mom grows in the garden. The millipede looks more like a snake..but it's cute!

Top Right: Cactus by the Fence, aged 4

Acts of Spontaneity

My son loves to draw. He'll draw anything he sees. I love this attitude! When I was younger, I'd say things like 'I can't draw this' or 'I can't draw that', and I'd stop there without even trying.Couldn't recall when I'd stopped giving myself such messages. Perhaps when I was asked by my son to draw his favourite train? Perhaps when I had to show him how to draw something which I'd never drawn before? Perhaps that's the reason why he rarely says 'I can't draw...' ?

Top Left: Ocean, aged 5

Right: His first bird: Flying Bald Eagle, aged 3.

Bougainvillea

When an act is spontaneous and instinctive, the results could be beyond expectations.

Bougainvillea - drawn in 1987 when I was sixteen.

National Day Parade (NDP) 2009

It was a privilege not to be missed! Had the opportunity of watching this year's NDP from my brother-in-law's office. Below: Crowds gathering near The Esplandade.

See, helicopters flying by our window. At eye-level! The kids screamed in delight. Oh, and Parachutes near Singapore Flyer! From our angle, it looked as if they were going to crash into the ferris wheel.

Grand Finale Fireworks - Didn't know what I was thinking - selected photo mode instead of video...

Watching Fireworks at Home

What a treat before National Day! The kids fell asleep in the living room while waiting for it to begin, so we couldn't go downstairs to get a good view. The first year they had fireworks so close to our home, it was New Year countdown and I was already in bed. I thought it was gunfire...and I continued sleeping, while my husband watched alone without waking us up!!

I don't remember ever seeing this type of fireworks - managed to get a clear take. Is it called a Spiral?

Legos

One of the happiest thing that happened this week was to help organize my son's Legos.  No more messy floor and stepping on sharp edges! We sorted the pieces together, from the biggest to tiniest into 6 trays and stacked them on the lower shelf for easy access.

Trays and partitions from Daiso.