Less is MORE, so much to be grateful for !

It was just like yesterday when school term commenced for another brand new work year 2016, and in a glance the children are now enjoying their 1 week school holidays after Term 1.  Within such a short time, there were several positive outcomes to be grateful for in the midst of several celebration.

Grateful #1 that he adapted well to his new learning environment, classmates, teachers and enjoy every moment of his new learning journey. He seeks social and will always tell me that he wants to have play dates, sleep over party and even envision having his classmates over to his house for his birthday celebration in Sep.

He was feeling with joy when we attended his sister Edusave Award and expresses his desire to have one too for himself from his school recognition at the end of the year.  We remind him if he listens, follows and does things right with teachers, be helpful and kind to friends in school, try his best to improve his weakness, he CAN stand a chance.

Grateful #2 that he is finally buying food by himself at school cafe during recess, another inchstone and significant step to his life skill, one which we had tried encouraging him to do so for past 2-3 years but invain, glad he finally decides to level up.  He now feels empower buying food by himself, choosing and exercising his intake option in this daily school recess routine. Kudos to his teachers for their extra facilitation in support.

Grateful #3 that he is much more aware of Chinese New Year celebration and enjoy the reunion, prayer offering at temple and house visit to relatives' and friends' house to practise his social interaction and communication skill.

Grateful #4 for parents and friends who we have crossed path to mutually support this inclusion and embrace each child for who they are in their learning journey. 

Grateful #5 that he now reads more that before but still reading is not so natural to him compare to watching video being a visual learner.  It is still something that we want him to know and believe that reading really can help him with his vocabulary, improve his grammar and familiarize with sentence structure. With more reading, we also hope to improve his comprehension skill by processing with him so he can make sense of the story/passage. 

Grateful #6 to his teachers for putting focus and neat hand writing as two key area for improvement to his work habits.  He can write pretty neat if he believes that by writing slow and keep a spatial focus in each letter of the sentences written.  These will be his critical success factors to leap frog him to his next lap of learning curve and help improve and maximize his academic results progressively and timely for P6 PSLE 2 years from now. With right support, teaching and training, he will survive, go for it!

Grateful #7 that there has been progress and initiative to provide more social services and emotional support to special community and their caregivers.  Very often, parents are drafted to be child best therapist, teacher, play mate, friend (aka case manager), when we set goals for our child, we do have to place child first their goals before our own and be mindful to always embrace what they can learn best, Sometimes MORE may not necessary yield the best outcome for the child, Recognizing that each child has different abilities and helping them process at a pace that he can manage will be the next best path going forward, less is then become MORE.

Look forward to his work play balance during the one week fun filled holidays and when the next school term start, stay calm and get him ready to engage again.

Winner's Statement:

Good bye 2015..Hello 2016 !

As we approach toward the last few hours of 2015, I may still have time for one last blog post to close the year strong for my little hero.  He had attended another school holiday program, picking up new learning skill on in-line skate.

We were glad that he is now able to stand on his skate, balance himself, skate forward and break fall at the end of 5 day sessions.

Though he enjoyed this new sport but his stamina is letting him down and he got tire faster than most of the other, had to rally with him to keep going.

We also brought him to The Future Of Us exhibition to integrate with the community and saw some amazing vision toward our next SG50 nation building, certainly full of excitement to look forward for many young generations.

We took some photos for our memories...

We kick start our Christmas celebration with a Korea BBQ lunch with close family members....everyone enjoyed the process of cooking their ingredients.

and had Christmas rainbow cake for tea break, thanks to my sister for the sponsor.

Dinner was home cooked food, kudos to my mum...yummy in our tummies....

Before we ended the night with a group photo for another great memories.

Year by year, the kids are growing up fast as the adults age gracefully, still a lot to be merry about seeing their laughter and happy growing up in loving environment.

We were thankful to be able to arrange a play date just before the last day of 2015 with his school mate, Benedict whom our family has crossed path since the EIP days, each of us watching and rejoice as both boys slowly transform from small boy to big boy and slowly and surely a fine young men to be in not too distant future.

It was an afternoon well spent and heart warming seeing the kids smiling and feeling joyful about the time spent together, a strong finish to the year 2015 and a small step towards exploring more such opportunities for the kids to forge friendship and promote social interaction in a natural environment.

Every sunset serves to remind us that with a day end comes another new day and beginning to learn and cherish our living.

Our little hero is excited to return to his school and looking forward to meet his new friends and teachers to kick start another learning journey, he has grown taller and chasing over his mum head.

There was a saying by Lao Tsu that goes like this "When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."  In believing and always faithful, we need to learn how to help him let go at times to see how he may be, who knows, we may uncover some of his hidden talent or passion in life that impact his future transformation. Do not give up as YNWA, even in the midst of difficulties, just walk on any way, we will be by your side and build up many friends along the way to journey ahead together.

Winner's Statement:-

His Maiden Flight For A Great Holiday Experience

The Christmas Tree was set up just before thanksgiving days.  Taken with grandma and cousin Deric.

Holiday engagement has been enriching and encouraging thus far, completed his first school program on laser gun and archery tag, it was his first hands on though and attended 3 out of 4 sessions. Had also met up with one of his school mate for play date, look forward to inviting him to visit our house during the coming Christmas festive season.

He had also completed his swimming introductory course with some friends, it was a great learning experience for parents like me to also acquire some basic knowledge of teaching the child how to survive in water through swimming.  Thumbs up to Michael and the kids for the truely enjoyable sessions and looks forward to seeing all around in not to distant future in the pool again.

For the first time, we decided to fly over to visit my in-law in Tanjung Sepat, We were all excited as this is will be our little hero's maiden flight.  He too was excited and we embrace for anything that may come in his first flight out of home.

We had brought along a earmuffs for him to seek comfort in case the sound is getting too overwhelm into his head for this first time experience.

When we landed as normal as we would hope to expect, we were all smiling and happy that he had made this small little dream come true, flying on a plane with family.  We took a cab from airport and arrive at our destination just in time for lunch.  It has been more than 2 years since I last visited my in-law in Tanjung Sepat, a place rich and well known for its seafood, bah kut teh, coffee just to name a few.

The sun rise and sun set were as captivating being near to the South Western coast of M'sia

Different location have difference feel

Taken this picture with him for some sentiment values, where it was here that we had held our wedding dinner for M'sia friends and relatives.  Sad to hear that it will be demolished soon to give way for re-development, surely this famous land mark the Lover's Bridge will not be the same again than before..

He had a great time playing with his cousins, eat, play and bonding with in-law family.

The next generation have grown up and expanded with 1 additional member in blessing, Jayden who is about coming 2 months old soon

We stayed for 3 nights and travelled to Port Dickson for one night stay at Avillion PD

The room is big and facilities are good

We love the sun, sea and the hospitality of the staffs

The sun set/rise view was another blissful moment.

All of us had a great time too with many photos taken for another sweet memories

We will return PD for more next time with more frequent visit to my in-laws.

I thanked my sister-in-law and nephew for sending us to the airport, and bid them goodbye after a Subway lunch at the airport. It was all thumbs up for my little hero for this short holiday in M'sia.

Winner's Statement:

Another Year Of Progress With Thanks

The school term for 2015 learning had just concluded with the start of year end school holiday today, what A Year ! 

The last term had been an exciting and fruitful one, the family attended The Purple Parade with him.

We managed to catch up with friends and parents within this special community.  It was a movement fill with love and encouragement, another successful event for the 3rd year running and counting on.

His sister just turned 14, another great moment to treasure at each years of celebration with lunch out together.

Whenever I run during weekend, I will always rally with him to join me, to build up his stamina and body muscular system,.another smile for our wefie..

He just started to learn swimming right after his exam, so blessed to have crossed path with the coach and catch up with some parents who join the group session.

One of whom he had been with together during EIP back in 2011 and glad to have taken another recently in 2015 playing table soccer after the swimming lesson, must have been a different ball game altogether as both has grown up taller.  Hopeful both can grow up to be a fine young men overcoming their own challenges and also helping other to over come theirs one day.

It is also a time of appreciating his teachers and thanking them for their hard work, support and encouragement to my little hero,  Though we parents believe more can be done by the teachers but there is also a limit as to how much each teacher can expend and do more with every child having different needs. There were several hidden agenda unfold during natural classroom/school setting as social demand increases, we were glad that teachers were able to take prompt actions to mitigate and redirected the children to calm down and remain cool and safe in most occasions, it will always be work in progress.   We have to keep our faith with the SPED Team because it must have not been easy task for them.  We will have to go with the flow to teach whenever opportunity arises and shared from our end with an open mind and mutual trust in reducing our effort to breed success for the child. On the academic front, we were happy for him though he had not achieved much as we wish for but he had all improved his results vs semester 1.  His gym evakuation and step aerobic program too had improved even more.  We shall continue to re-learn, practise and work even harder for improvement.  We are proud of him having Path this far towards his Light.  Look forward to new learning journey coming 2016.  Life is all about choice making, making hard choices...but we are glad he get a chance to progress and we shall never look back but continue to expend even more effort and energy to help him to level up.

He is more mindful as he grows to seek recognition too, he starts to feel sad not being recognize, we create a family recognition and told, him that we recognize him for his improvement, but if he wants the school recognition, then he has to work hard with good thinking to help his teachers and friends be happy and learn together.  He is more social seeking these days, generally friendly and cherishes his classmates very much and whenever something happen to them, he will like to help but will end up making thing worst.  Many repeat role play and reinforcement work in progress at home on the dos and don'ts.  School and classroom environment is still the best training ground for such hidden agenda in the social context, we have to keep our faith with the SPED Team.    

With advise from teacher sharing in last IEP, we are structuring him to start reading more story books online to improve his vocab and comprehension skills(5Ws and 1H), though he still prefer watching more than reading.

We had registered him for two school enrichment programs duriing his year end holidays, and also looking forward to visiting his grandparents in Malaysia cum 4 nights holiday in early Dec, we are all excited for him being his first flight experience on board a plane.  Stay tune for next blog update then, wishing all a wonderful and adventurous holidays ahead.


Winner's Statement: