Hui's busy day 3 April 2010

Saturday 930am to 11am.

Hui asked dad, "take the block for me" , as it's located at the top shelf. Then, she started to work on the blocks on her own.

 She has chosen all pink for the little girl.

 Next, she looked for scissor and cut a butterfly-shaped card she found on the floor. The other day, she asked what was inside the ribena drink. I passed her the cleaned and dry ribena packet and she cut that up too. After that, she carried a handful of animal toys and hugged them.

Thereafter, she line up the coins in a row. And immediately collected and wrapped them with a note. I asked what she was doing. She said "the cat is coming to take the coins".

 
When she has done, she said "Mama, see see." She slotted the old coins into the coin bank. Subsequently, opened the cover and showed me. She said "see, the coins are inside"



She found En's address book on the side table and asked  "what is this?". So I explained. She said "I want a pencil. And I need to call yi yi. So, I pressed yiyi 's number and passed the handset to her. And a pencil too. She talked on the phone "Hello. Suprise. Happy Birthday. bla bla bla ". After saying goodbye, she put down the phone. Thereon, she scribbled the phone book with a pencil. I asked "what are you writing?". She replied "MRT stations, you know"

She took the beads container, mixing them with her hands. Soon after, she seized a ziplock bag. She transferred the beads to the ziplock bag, one at a time. I guess she realised it's a pretty slow process and she called me. "Mommy, help me pour the beads into the bag". I opened up the ziplock bag wide enough for me to pour the beads over in one shot. She got hold of the bag and poured the beads back to the container, and again back to ziplock bag, without asking any help. A couple of beads dropped but that didn't bother her at all.

Hui shaked the container and the ziplock bag too. 

 She said "I need to make cupcake and go picnic". She got the cake cups and picnic basket.

 Suddenly, she stopped. She looked at me and said "I am hungry". She walked to the fridge and took out the jelly container. She uttered "crocodile snap snap snap" while eating the croc shaped jelly. Satisfied, she went back to work, carefully pouring beads to other cake cups.

 God knows why she smashed the cake cups and scattered beads on the floor. She walked over the beads, announcing 'skating. skating'

She left and came back with some books.

The books that she browsed - Boo and Baa Get Wet , Boo and Baa at Sea, Getting to Know Your Guinea Pig (Children's Pet), Getting to Know Your Rat (Getting to Know Your...)

A while later, she grasped 3 bottles of nail polish & told me to paint her nails. While I brushed the nail, she nagged "Don't paint on the skin" and again.

When it's done, she played with the 3 bottles, turning them into all sort of games. I lost count of the number of games, 3 bottles of nail polish can make. It started with arranging 3 bottles in a row, and gathered all of them up one in one shot.

Then, used 2 bottles to go into a maze (she moved the bottle around like going thru a maze) and hit the 3rd bottle.  And each time, she explained to me how the game is played.

She changed it to using one bottle and hit the others two. Follow by, putting bottles on the floor and made each bottle climbed up the table.

Now, she line them up, in a row and push them down. It goes on and on..etc etc etc etc.

Hui got bored with the bottles and returned to books again, reading them from her memory. She chose Happy I'm a Hippo, Our Skeleton (Science), Fabulous Food Stories: The Incredible Cake . Afterwards,she told dad " I need the highest stool to hang", went to the kitchen and carried one to be put under the bar.

And all these above occurred from 930am - 11am while dad and I cleaned the home. Then, off we go to Dish Deli, lunching and waiting for dad to run errands at Solaris. Family Restaurant 

Hui quietly explored from one thing to another.

This 3.5 hours of observation reminds me of something I read on How Children Learn (Classics in Child Development)

The children is curious. He wants to make sense out of things, find out how things work, gain competence and control over himself and his environment,do what he can see other people doing. He is open, receptive, and perceptive. He does not shut himself off from the strange, confused, complicated world around him. He observes it closely and sharply, tries to take it all in. He is experimental. He does not merely observe the world around him. but tastes it, touches it, hefts it, bends it, breaks it. To find out how reality works, he works on it. He is bold. He is not afraid of making mistakes. And he is patient. He can tolerate an extraordinary amount of uncertainty, confusion, ignorance, and suspense. He does not need to have instance meaning in any new situation, He is willing and able to wait for meaning to come to him. Children also do much of their learning in great bursts of passion and enthusiasm. Children rarely learn on the slow, steady schedules that schools make for them. They are more likely to be insatiably curious for a while about some particular interest, and to read, write, talk and ask questions about it for hours a day and for days on end. Then suddenly they may drop that interest and turn to something completely different, or even for a while seem to have no interests at all. - John Holt.