Homeschool: Periscope

Today's science lesson was on the periscope.

We didn't get to make our own periscope, but played a bit with whatever mirrors we could find from an underused cosmetic bag. Still worked (somewhat) :-)

Shows: Les Misérables (II)

Since they first viewed the Les Misérables' 25th Anniversary concert DVD, the kiddos have been learning some of the songs on their own, with the help of Youtube. 

They started with "Castle in the Cloud"and later moving on to the season's favourite: "Do you hear the people sing?", which forms part of their performance repertoire and top-pick sing-a-long during car rides.

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Here's a video of an impromptu "rehearsal" video before bedtime:

(apologies for the blurred out faces — am trying to preserve a measure of their privacy online for security reasons)

Tractors: Baby see, Baby do

We restrict and monitor our kiddos' Youtube viewing. They are not allowed to watch videos without a parent or authorised adult present — the many different video links readily accessible means they could start with something "harmless" and land up in a very different place.

While the elder two like watching cartoons, selected music videos, toy unboxing and demonstrations, Baby only wants to watch videos of aeroplanes, rubbish trucks and, of course, his beloved tractors.

Usually he'll bring a toy tractor or two along for the viewing and get toy tractor to imitate whatever the Youtube super heroes are doing. 

Sometimes toy tractor gets to practice what it learnt with Baby's wooden blocks. Quite a lot of heavy lifting involved!

Garden: Waking up my Garden

Another coffee compost post.

We were passing by dr. Cafe Coffee in Ara Damansara, when the bunting in the window caught our eye. It said "Wake up your garden", with an offer to take a free bag of its coffee compost.

Not one to pass up anything "free", I asked Boy to go in to request for his bag of coffee compost.

Tada!

Growing Up: Par-Tee Time

The boys celebrated their 6th and 3rd birthday, respectively, today with a fun miniature golf party at Mini Putt, Citta Mall.

Our amazing golf-bag cake!

Decor was basically DIY, with a golf ball/tartan theme,
although the mini-golf ambiance definitely helped

Food items were named according to theme too,
e.g. doughnuts = hole-in one; blue jelly = watering hole;
fishballs = golf balls; sandwiches = sand-wedges;
drinks = watering hole; pasta = in the rough;
chicken drummets = club heads; tea = tea off

  

 
It was a great time for us to spend with family and friends. I like activities where parents and children can participate together, and miniature golf was a big hit with all ages.

Garden: Coffee grounds

Stopped by a Starbucks yesterday and popped in to ask if they had any used coffee grounds to spare for composting.

Without question, the staff promptly opened the tray under their espresso machine and filling a whole paper bag full with the used grounds. Thank you Starbucks for your recycling and waste reduction policy!

So this morning, we gave our entire garden and our compost area a good dose of coffee grounds.

Why coffee?
According to this article:

• Worms love them, so it's useful for attracting and breeding worms, which speeds up the composting process
• It's a good soil conditioner and a good "green" nitrogen source

Point to note:

• Coffee's acidity is removed during the brewing process, so it's essentially neutral
• We should limit the coffee grounds to no more than 25% of the volume of the compost heap

Garden: One Saturday Morning ...

Baby and I were enjoying some time in the garden.

When suddenly ... something dropped down onto the lawn!

A little myna hatchling!
Poor fella didn't last long before breathing its last :-(