Scuba Divers Keep The Ocean Clean!

The graduating class had a book project. Each of the student wrote a short story, they then planned the plot and made sketches and coloured them (paint & colour pencils / crayon). They also planned the layout of the illustrations with some aide from their teacher. The school printed the booklets and sold them at $120 for a set of all twelve books (class of 12 students) or $14 per booklet. The sales proceeds are donated to the Children's Cancer Society.

Coming from children, the stories are of whimsical tales, toys, animals, seasons, travels, and aspiring vocations.

Book Exchange Corner (NLB's Project Earth)

 The book exchange corner at United Square is more fanciful than the one at our library. 

They've dressed up the corner to look like a pirate ship complete with treasure chests as benches. 

The collection there is small but we've found a book each. Kiki insists that I put our own books there for an exchange, but I've already put a dozens of my books at our library, it doesn't have to be the same book corner as long as it's all NLB's book corner isn't it? Anyway, to pacify that girl, I will bring a few old books and donate them to the book corner at United Square next week.

Words

 The stack of new words got thicker. Now there are the Hanyu's AEIOUs kind of alphabets (and BPMFDTNL for Bo Po Mo Fo kind of stuff).

The consolation is that she seems to be enjoying her Chinese classes more.

 I grabbed the extra note pads that are lying around and made use of the squares.

 These are from her childcare's Chinese book

We try to move away from referring to the pictures for clues. 

So after reading the book a few times, 

we turn to read the summary page to train and recognise the words if possible.

While commuting, she reads a manageable book.(for now, it's only English books)

My Love Will Find You

Secret Code

When we first read the book about Brailles, Kiki told me that those dots are found on lift's buttons.
When we were in the loo, she spotted Brailles on the baby-seat and asked if that one that looks like "7" is letter "L". I said I do not know but we can go home and check since we still have the book with us. (Actually, can check from the mobile but I prefer to do it the slower way if it helps to give a richer learning process). So anyway, we checked, it is not "L", in fact, it is not found!
(there's no alphabet that looks like a dotted 7)

We deciphered this, it reads- "(Capital) You are my best friend (period)"

So now, back to that L and 7 that didn't make any sense.
I thought Hummmmmmm maybe the thing is inverted. Because when you fold it up, the reader may have to read the braille inverted. So I deciphered it that way. But it still didn't work.

Big HUMMMMM........... Oh I know! Maybe it is in Japanese! Because there is Japanese Text (Right???!!)
So I decipher it thinking they would spell it in Japanese.

So I looked up "Close after use" and "Please close after use"and thought that I could form "Shiyo-go Ni Tojiru" or "Shiyo-go Ni Tojite Kudasai"

But still it didn't make sense!

HUMMMMMMMM. Maybe they have a different version of Braille for Japanese!

Of course they did!
But still it didn't make sense!

 HUMMMMMMMM. Maybe IT IS INVERTED! (oh meanwhile i had turned it over a few times)
and INDEED IT IS INVERTED!
BUT STILL IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!!    

So I googled on the versions of Braille for Japanese. Turned out there are Braille for Japanese Characters (not just verbalization but strokes).

So..... I gave up. But now I know!

What an adventure. And I now know that Combi is of Japanese origin! No wonder I had used THREE of their prams/strollers. I still have two old ones which I can't bear to throw away.

If I were a secret corporation, I would use Braille in a foreign language to embed it onto CONSUMER products to filter my message through (to reach my agents). They must have done that the pre-internet days. Secret corporations I mean. 

Speech & Drama

Sometimes, the Drama class teacher let them doodle on used paper.
The dog looks reptilian hybrid.

I wished the teacher will do these exercises in class rather than letting them bring the worksheet home, because I hardly ever get her to do any writing.... but I will put in more effort this year.

As a fringe benefit, I now know what a Bugle is.

Library Books

 I try to engage Colin in reading, so I borrowed two books in Construction theme and my plan worked =)
He was attentive and engaging although he was keener to turn the pages instead of listening to my reading.

But I know that Colin's mind was processing the story although he hasn't learned the context.

For instance, he asked me abruptly-- "What is Rainy Day?" when I was reading one of the pages (paragraph below). -- "Exacting work earns extra pay. Save it for a rainy day."
I explained - Rainy day means a period of time when something unexpected crops up and you may need extra money to use, so when you have the chance to work extra and save extra, you gotta save the money for rainy day.

Colin: "But the money will get wet on a rainy day!" 

=) Indeed.

 A "Baby-ish" book.

 

These are for early readers, suitable for Kiki to read on her own.
I explained to Kiki that this "Max" is not "Max and Ruby, that Max" (Cartoon).
She says - "I know, 同音字不同" (She learned this useful phrase from her Chinese teacher, so every time something sounds the same but has a different meaning, she will say it's 同音字不同)
I explained that in this case, it is  同音字也同 but 不同Characters. I think that's a muddled explanation....So I explained that there are many people with the same names. Same sounding, same spelling, same name but different persons.

The library created lot's of space at the Junior's corner.
Nice of them.

All in four boards

Among the exercises she had done in school, I like this best.
The kids were asked to do "picture story writing", that is to draw a story board, and compose a story. (their teacher would write whatever the student narrates)

The title given was - "Be Kind to Animals"

So Kiki's story goes like this -- Once upon a time, there was a girl walking on the street. (that girl has a smile)

 She saw a cat with only one ear.
(sad. empathy)

 She brought the cat to the animal shelter. The vet gave him a fake ear.
(how nice! the cat has a prosthetic ear!)

And then they went home.
(how nice! the girl adopts the mutilated cat!)

A story with two nice twists. Haha.