"THE GAME OF LIFE" FOR A FAMILY GAME NIGHT

Last week I bought "The Game of Life", a rather famous board game, simply because I discovered that it was on sale. At first, I was not really keen on trying to play this game since the game set I bought was in French (the French version of this game is named as "Destins" - Le jeu de la Vie). Obviously I do not have enough confidence in my French, not alone the fact that the French level of my hubbie and Mew is even lower than mine. But well, Mew was asking me all the time to take the game out for a try. I guessed she got familiar with board games at the daycare. And I also remembered reading a lot of articles about the great benefits of family game nights for the children. So I decided to give it a shot: organize a family game afternoon (instead of night, too late for Mew) after having read and understood the How-to-play instructions.


It turned out great! We did enjoy the game - an exciting journey through life - very much. Mew caught up with us parents rather quickly in following the game rules. In fact we did not really care for the statements in each cell on the game board. I was in charge of translating the game and acted as the banker too. The most interesting detail of this game is that a lucky player when jumping onto a certain cell might exchange his low salary for a higher salary of another player. Mew was very excited with this option and she indeed exchanged twice her salary with her Daddy, lol. And all of us aimed at ending up at the Millionaire's Mansion rather than the Retirement Home. However, I have to admit that the simple object of The Game of Life that is to get through life and retire the richest sends a distorted moral message to children about the meaning of life success!

Since Mew's French knowledge was still too limited to read the game, our focus was to help her strengthen her counting skills, learn patience through waiting for turns and indirectly teach her about the benefits of pursuing a university path rather than entering the workforce immediately without any higher education. In the first game play, Mew chose without a second for thinking the option of launching herself into the labour market so that she could earn money right away rather than spending more time at the university. Although we tried to explain to her that a university diploma in most of the cases would lead to a higher salary, she apparently did not really understand the advantages of a university career. Her decision was quite consistent with her current attitude to studies: she was lack of interest in studying and she was also very impatient. However, after the first game play, with the result that Mew was the loser with the least money in pocket whereas we both with our university diplomas earned a lot of money, Mew saw the problem more clearly and she was totally convinced that a university education was a must to help her become a rich person. Just a note here: we understand completely that there are many paths to a successful life and career and a university degree is merely one of these paths. However, we also believe that with a university diploma, a person will normally have more choice and more chance to be successful in his professional life and thus we want to encourage Mew to pursue her study to the highest attainable level.

To confirm that a university choice is usually a better decision, this afternoon we played the game again. Learning from her own experience, Mew chose a university path while her Daddy this time changed his decision and chose to go to work instead. The result of the game: Mew won and became a retired woman with the most money at the end of life whereas her Daddy had only about one third as much money as Mew (Note: her Daddy was really unlucky in this game despite the fact his salary was among the highest and was also the most stable: he lost a lot of money along the way for payment of taxes, fees, and damages. Life is full of surprises, hein?). But, the most important thing we got from this evening game: a fun family activity and an affirmation to the benefit of a university career for our little daughter.

RAISE A TRILINGUAL KID, WHY NOT?

"Parents" magazine issue of Arpil 2009 had an article about raising a bilingual kid. According to Nancy Rhodes, director of foreign-language education at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington D.C., "Between birth and puberty, children can learn multiple languages and echo accents easily". More specifically, "Learning early on that an object can be described in more than one way (house, maison, casa), promotes flexibility in thinking and overal creativity", says Karen MacGilvray, director of education at Language Stars, a children's language program based in Chicago.

Inspired by these professional affirmations, as also obliged by our current situation, off we go, aiming at raising Mew as a trilingual kid in the future.

First, during her Xmas vacation, Mew spent 33 one-hour sessions in an intensive private tutoring course to learn formally her mother tongue. Before, she can speak and understand our own language without any big problem, except for her pronunciation of some tone marks. Her vocabulary is not as big as other kids at her same age at home, but it does not matter much as long as she can express fluently in her own words. Sometimes she does need some help from us parents to find an equivalent word in our language from an English word that she has known well its definition and/or meaning. We were really amazed at the result of her intensive course: she could now read a lot of written words by herself (well, she still need occasional reminders about the difference between tone marks however). If we continue to strengthen her mother language spelling and reading skills on a daily basis, I bet her level would improve greatly in no time. Another fruit of this intensive course is that her writing appears to look much nicer and neater than other kids here.

Regarding her English proficiency, we are pleased at her current level. I agree that the best way to introduce a child to a foreign language (English for Mew) is through immersion - no translation. Her only one year at the daycare with Karen, Kristina and a multi-ethnic group of friends created a miracle to her English fluency. Of course, we do not and have never expected that she could speak English naturally as a native speaker. But at least she now feels at ease to communicate with others in English. She also loves to watch movies in English without any translation or subtitles and can easily understand almost all of the contents. Every night, Robert Munsch's stories read by the author himself bring her to a sound sleep. Her Daddy also prefers reading English stories for her when asked and for a lot of times they chose to read the Bible!!!


Now finally it comes to the official learning language at her school: French. The problem is that Mew still has a lot of difficulties in exposing herself to French, mainly due to the ironic fact that her resistance to learning French against her confidence in her English remains too strong. Contrary to her one year at the daycare where she had no common language with her classmates and teachers and consequently she was obliged to adapt herself to the new environment and gradually got caught up with English language development, at her current French school she could find some buddies who are bilingual. Since they can both speak English, Mew opted to communicate with either her French teachers or her bilingual friends in English rather than trying to learn French. As a consequence of her knowing English, her French improves sluggishly despite the fact that every Tuesday she is offered a small group tutoring in French at school. We have to admit that we are also not really interested in speaking with her in French at home, simply because our French is not as good as our English. I am scared whenever she brings home some French story books from the library and asks me to read them for her. There are a lot of new words that I am too lazy to look them up in the dictionary. Though, I always try to get as many French books as possible to add to her library so that she can have available resources once she starts enjoying French and mastering it. We have just decided to invite a private tutor who is an English-speaking undergraduate with a minor in French to spend 3 forty-five minutes sessions per week with her. Mew seems to get along easily with this tutor and we do hope that she will be able to learn the language via playing and interacting with someone being fluent in both English and French.

LES POÈMES SONT SI BELLES...

Last night during my search for ideas to create a secret letter dedicated to Mew as required by her French teacher, I found a very nice site full of inspirational images and music and touching poems written in French: http://www.chezmaya.com/puces.htm. I felt in love immediately with one of these beautiful poems written by Kriss de Niort:D’une mère à sa fille...

Je n’ai jamais entendu tes prières
Ni regardé les dessins dont tu étais si fière.
Toute la journée au bureau, à la lessive, au fourneau,
Tenir la maison était un lourd fardeau.

Le soir, je te bordais, vite fait, t’embrassais
Et partais me coucher, fourbue, harassée
Tu aurais aimé que je reste là, près de toi
Et que dans tes boucles, je pose mes doigts.

Tu aurais aimé que je te lise une histoire,
Mais ton beau livre n’est jamais sorti de l’armoire.
Je n’ai pas su goûter ces instants précieux
Où nous aurions pu avoir tant de bonheur nous deux.

Tu as grandi là, à côté de moi,
Jour après jour, mois après mois.
Je n’ai vu tous ces changements
Qu’à la taille de tes vêtements.

Chaque fois que tu voulais me parler,
Je disais :"Je n’ai pas le temps, demain !"
Mais maintenant, tu t’en es allée
Et mes jours sont devenus vides et sans fin.

Les années sont passées aujourd’hui, j’ai du temps
Mais il est trop tard, tu n’est plus là maintenant
Ta chambre vide attend mes petits enfants
Et le livre d’histoires est sorti, à présent.

Pendant mes longues siestes, je ferme les yeux
Et j’essaie de refaire le chemin en arrière :
Je t’imagine, jouant, criant, récitant des prières ;
Je te presse contre moi, remets de l’ordre dans tes cheveux…

Puis je me réveille, seule dans cette maison
Devenue désormais une tombe, une prison.
Tu es partie, sans un mot, sans dire où tu allais
Je n’entends plus ton rire, ni le bruit de tes pas dans l’allée.

Si tu savais combien j’ai de peine
Tu reviendrais pour que je te dise : « Je t’aime ».
Ma fille, toi dont je suis si fière,
J’ai honte de n’avoir point su être une mère.

Or am I so touched by the words of a mother losing her daughter, Sylvie:

Merci d’avoir accepté le voyage
Car d’entre toutes ces femmes
C’est moi que tu as choisie
Pour faire un passage à la vie
And Bianka's poem "Je te regarderai grandir..." speaks for all the mothers like me:Je te regarderai grandir
Entre tes pleurs et tes sourires
Je te regarderai vieillir
En te guidant vers l'avenir.

Et je te montrerai la vie
Ses joies ses peines et ses couleurs
Je serai toujours ton amie
Fidèle témoin de tes bonheurs.

Car tu es mon enfant
Celui que j'ai tant désiré
Celui que toujours j'aimerai
Que toujours j'aimerai.

Ensemble nous marcherons loin
Vers le plus doux des lendemains
Et nous irons main dans la main
Cueillir les fleurs de ton destin
Car tu es mon enfant
Celle que toujours j'aimerai
Que toujours j'aimerai.

Et quand plus tard, tu partiras
Quand tu auras trouvé ta voie
Je serai triste mais tu sauras
Que je suis toujours là pour toi
Car tu es mon enfant.

Tu es mon enfant
Celui que j'ai tant désiré
Celui que toujours j'aimerai
Que toujours j'aimerai !

I was therefore motivated to create my own poem in French for Mew. In fact, her teacher requests us parents to write a letter to our child as a special activity during the month of Love in order to express why our child is so special in our eyes, why she brightens up our days and why she makes us smile. The teacher will then read this unique letter to our child in front of her class.

I have to say that my French writing is still very limited and this poem is my great effort to not only put the words into the appropriate phrases but also make them rhyme. Hope that Mew will appreciate my poem once her French is improved significantly. But more importantly, we hope Mew will feel and understand thoroughly our beyond-the-end-of-life love to her and only her.

BOOKS, BOOKS AND BOOKS - AT SUPER CHEAP PRICES

Annually around May, the Friends of Montreal libraries organize a book sale to the public. As stated in their website, the sale’s objectives are to extend the useful life of these books, help spread the joy of reading, and allow Montréal citizens to develop their personal libraries, at a minimum price. Amounts collected at this sale will be reinvested in the funding of animation activities in Montréal public libraries.

The bulk of the books and magazines on sale come from Montréal public libraries. Most documents on sale are in French, but they usually showcase between 12,000 and 15,000 English books. They may also have foreign language books, and a few audio tapes, CDs, CD-ROMs, and DVDs.

This year 2010, the sale will last from 1 to 9 May, 1pm-7pm, at Aréna Etienne-Desmarteau, 3430 Bellechasse Street (two blocks East of St. Michel Blvd.). You can find thousands of used books, magazines, etc. here at amazingly cheap prices:

• $1.00: Adult’s books, comic books, and if applicable, CDs, CD-ROMs, and DVDs.
• $0.50: Children’s books, and audio tapes.
• $0.25: Journals and magazines.

I really fall in love with this annual book sale and definitely mark down my calendar for a bike ride there to scoop the good books for Mew at the first day of sale. If you live on Montreal island, it is really worth visiting this book sale.

Here is their 2010 book sale poster:

KIDS' GROWTH AND BMI CHART

Today a website introduced in "Parents" magazine issue of March 2009 attracted my attention. It is www.mypyramid.gov/preschoolers, USDA's site for parents of 2-to-5-year-olds (Of course you can also browse the master site for more age segments including yours).

The site offers a customized MyPyramid Plan for your preschooler and I then immediately made one for Mew:


I am also curious to know about her healthy growth such as her BMI, her height as compared with those of other kids at her age. So I digged out more links at this page.

I used BMI Percentile Calculator for Child and Teen (Metric version). This calculator provides BMI and the corresponding BMI-for-age percentile on a CDC BMI-for-age growth chart for children and teens aged 2 through 19 years old (For more individual charts on boys' and girls' standard measurement, visit CDC Growth Charts). They also guide you how to measure accurately your kid's height and weight at home. The result showed that Mew is perfectly healthy: "Based on the height and weight entered, the BMI is 16.3 , placing the BMI-for-age at the 75th percentile for girls aged 5 years 10 months. This child has a healthy weight."


The page also offers you the results on a Growth Chart (H120, W23.5):

Phew, so even I am not good at cooking (and honestly I hate cooking), Mew still achieves and maintains a healthy weight. I hope that she will continue this positive trend until she can take care of her own cooking needs. It remains a long way though...

P.S. I think it may be also a good idea to include here a link to a standard BMI calculator for adults so that we parents can check our healthy weight too

HOMEMADE VALENTINES CARDS

This year my daughter attends a French school and due to the language barrier that seems to be rather high for her to overcome within just a few months, she has not yet made friends with anyone at school. Consequently we did not share any Valentines Day cards with her classmates. However, we created really cute homemade V-Day cards last year for all of her friends at the daycare and also for her wonderful teachers, Karen and Kristina. Belows are the pictures of our works of art (honestly, I have to admit that I made all of them myself but my daughter helped me with the ideas such as which cards given to whom, lol).

This one is made for Karen who loves Hello Kitty. Mew wrote her name at the bottom edge but some letters were in wrong order and there was an extra A there. Here is the card covers with a ribbon knot:

Openning up and inside it is a Hello Kitty family coloured by Mew:


This one is for Kristina. As we had not yet found out her loved character, we opted for a Hello Kitty theme too. Mew drew a princess with a lot of floating balloons outside the card. And this time she wrote her name perfectly:


Inside Mew coloured a Hello Kitty with a flower in hand:


And now comes a bunch of our homemade cards. We made a total of 15 cards by heart-shaped PVC foams. We decorated the cards with lucky stars folded by transparent gift paper, hearts, cut-outs, various kinds of stickers. Each card is a unique work of art. Then we punched a hole at the top of the heart and stringed a tiny ribbon through. In order to indicate which card was made for whom, we also stringed a heart-shaped paper on which Mew wrote the name of the recipient and her name (the sender). My husband had to put all the cards carefully in a big shoe box to carry to the daycare on that morning.



This one is specially made for Raymond, Mew's best friend at the daycare. It is the most special one because we folded a crane from transparent gift paper (it was hard to fold neatly this model because the paper is not really suitable for making craft). We also glued the most lucky stars to this card with the most beautiful and meaningful stickers. The tiny cut-outs along the edge of the heart were Cupids, apples, leaves, snowflakes, tiara/crowns, candles, bears, sun, tulips, etc. that we made from our Fiskar punch set:




Here are other 12 cards:




Now a closer look at each of them:

AND A PERSONALIZED STORYBOOK

Thanks to the Disney Magic Online Storybook Maker that we could create a wonderful personalized storybook for our kid:

A PERSONALIZED NAME POEM

I proudly made this poem for my daughter in 2007:

YOUR OLD STUFFS WITH NEW CREATIVE FUNCTIONS

(Extract from www.realsimple.com)

1. Rubber bands give little fingers a better grip on a chilly or slippery glass.

2. Warehouse your or your kid's shoes in an empty wine-bottle carton wrapped in pretty paper.

3. Stick a sparkler in Play-Doh, then light it up. The container protects hands from flying sparks, preventing burns. (Courtesy of reader Peggy Gilchrist of Zanesville, Ohio)

4. Give Easter eggs a year-round use (and save on resealable bags) by filling them with snacks like crackers or Cheerios.

5. A paint chip strip makes a dandy place card: Cut off a length of two colors, then fold.

6. Stop searching high and low for hair clips and elastics: Store them tidily on an empty toilet paper tube.


7. A clever way to keep straight whose drink is whose: Mark each glass with removable window decals. (Courtesy of reader Linda Winterhoff of Williamsburg, Virginia)


8. Use a Post-It pad to clean a keyboard. Run the sticky side between the keys to collect crumbs and bits of lint.

9. Use newspaper to deodorize food containers. Stuff a balled-up piece of newspaper into a lunch box or thermos, seal it, and let sit overnight.

10. Use newspaper to create a home for slushy snow boots. During the winter, keep a pile of newspaper near the entryway. When your little snowmen and -women come home, they can toss their winter wear onto the newspaper instead of creating puddles on the floor.

11. Use olive oil to unstick a zipper. Using a Q-tip, apply a drop to lubricate the teeth. (Avoid touching the fabric.) The zipper should move up and down freely.

12. Diffuse the flash on a camera. When you’re taking a close-up, soften the brightness by placing a coffee filter over the flash.

13. Use vinegar to remove stubborn price tags or stickers. Paint them with several coats of vinegar, let the liquid soak in for five minutes, then wipe away the residue.

14. Use baking soda to erase crayon, pencil, ink, and furniture scuffs from painted surfaces. Sprinkle soda on a damp sponge, rub clean, and rinse.

15. Use Ziploc Bags to knead dough. Place dough in a Ziploc bag so your fingers don’t get sticky. Or slip your hand into the bag and wear it like a glove.

16. Use Ziploc Bags to store panty hose. Nude, Tan, Nearly Naked―they look the same out of the package. Tear off the corner of the package listing the brand, size, and color, then slip it into a bag. Store each pair in its own bag to keep hose organized and prevent snags.

17. Use Ziploc Bags to remove chewing gum or candle wax from a tablecloth, a couch, or carpeting. Gently rub gum or wax with a Ziploc bag filled with ice cubes until the substance hardens. Shatter gum with a blunt object, then vacuum up the chips. Carefully peel off frozen wax with a plastic spatula.

A MARVELOUS FREEBIE SITE FOR DISNEY MOVIE FANS

If you want to surprise your kids with a personalized storybook with Disney-movie characters such as Cindrella, Nemo, Goofy, etc. you will find it super cool to print right at home that fully colored book without paying a penny. Thank Disney for offering us parents such a great freebie (and a big thumb up to sittingstill4 on SmartCanuck for sharing it)
Disney Magic Artist Online Storybook Maker

My kid love Disney princess collection and these printable bookmarks are so cute:
Disney Magic Artist Bookmark

Your kids may sometimes need some encouragement and you may get inspired enough to take advantage of this Disney Magic Artist Award Designer to create some ready.

Don't forget to browse this cool site to discover more fun games, create calendars, design greeting cards, colour pictures, and make play-sets with playdolls with lovely Disney characters.


Now, let's ready to enter the wonderland of Disney Magic Artist Online!

FREE NICE GAME SITES FOR KIDS

Chapmans Kids Club: www.kidsclub.ca/english/
Want to enjoy playing some nice (and easy) games while collecting points to redeem for free, yes totally free (without any charge on shipping or handling) cool prizes ranging from magnets, pens, highlighter, aprons, T-shirts, mosaic to lunch bags, toy trucks or big value coupons? You will find nowhere comparable to this freebie website. You, or your kids, can easily earn 600 points per day just for playing games, plus 35 points for logging in, to make it 635 points per day (You need however to find an appropriate moment to log in without earning 35 points first, then playing the games to max at 600 points, logging out and later logging in after the 12.00am but before your first logging in to earn the 35 points). Every month, by answering correctly their quiz, you earn extra 200 points. The answer can find in their free beautiful calendar.

Danino Kid Zone: www.danino.ca/en/kids/
I find the Profession game is rather interesting for kids (and adults) who love word games.






PBS Kids: http://pbskids.org/

A free site offers your kids a lot of fun with hundreds of games categorized by educational topics including reading games, letter games, literacy games, number games, math games, spelling games, vocabulary games, science games and with favourite characters such as Curious George, Clifford, Sesame Street friends, etc.; animated videos, and helps your preschoolers become Readers through playing reading games and enjoying various fun activities with popular cartoon/storybook characters while earning tickets to win prizes. Parents can keep track of their kids' literacty progress too.

Older kids may access another section on the same site: PBS Kids Go!

A BABY'S FIRST-YEAR TALLY

In your kid's first year get ready to tally up:
- 10 inches grown
- 122 hours reading to your newbie
- 156 baths given
- 503 miles strolled with baby
- 1440 hours of sleep lost
- 2460 bottles filled
- 3120 diapers changed
- 61000 smiles flashed by your sweetie

The amount of happiness your baby will give you? Unlimited!
("Parents", August 2009, page 22)

MOMMIES' WISHES

When asked which qualities they'd most like their children to have, moms said it was most important that their kids grow up healthy, happy, secure, caring, confident, and moral. ("Parents" - Octocber 2009, page 78)