Learn with Cele - cut and paste

 Cut and paste is Cele's favorite craft activity. I taught her how to use scissors a while ago. She was not able to hold the scissors with one hand. Last time, I found she was quiet and I was wondering that she must be doing something messy. It turned out that she's cutting paper alone. She started to master how to use scissors. I have to say that kids scissors are not comfortable to use and not good at cutting papers since it has to be safe for kids to use. 

Today, I found something new. There are pictures with a small part needs to be cut and then paste onto the rest and make a whole picture. I used to cut the small pieces for her and let her paste. Today, she asked to cut the paper by herself. I thought she will need my help. But when she cut it, she understood that she needs to cut along the edge and she's able to cut it with her little scissor. Even though she's not able to cut a clean edge like I do but I feel this is a milestone for her craft skills. Good job!

Home library - 我家图书馆（work in progress还没写完。。。）

 今天有时间整理了家里的儿童书柜，主要是因为宝宝玩小老鼠搬家，把全部的书都堆在了地上。老母亲忙了一个小时才全部整理完毕，也发现了很多宝藏书。老大两岁半，从半岁开始讲故事，大概两年了，居然已经拥有了这么多的书本，英文中文的都有。 从目前拥有的书看，中文书大部分都是以讲道理为主（不算其他语言翻译成中文的书本），英文书故事性更强一些，当然在一个日常说中文的家庭，我们讲英文书也是一边英文一边中文翻译的讲法。

顺便给姐姐和妹妹更新了小书架，方便她们取来读。姐姐最近常常自己读书，很多简单的书读过很多遍了，她大概记得剧情，就会自己一页页看图画，完全还看不懂中英文现在还。有时候会自己给小汽车，小动物们讲故事，最开始自己讲故事第一句话都是“从前啊。。。”哈哈哈，现在都是“某某说”的体系。时常会蹦出一些高级中文词汇，成语啊，感觉是从卡梅拉或者其他书本里面听过的，但是我们并没有专门教，不得不感叹小朋友的学习能力。从故事当中学习语境和意思，比你解释半天要有成果的多，我们常常感叹于她用词的准确。英语方面，我发现反复重复的，有意思的语句，小朋友学习非常快，还喜欢自己重复。pete the cat就有很多这方面的宝藏书：white shoe, four groovy button.还有一些其他的， belly button等等。另一个就是学唱简单的歌曲很有意思。感觉比我们小时候的how are you, fine thank you and you?有趣多了，也更生活化。

Learn with Cele A new week - Let's start learning cloth

There are too many things for a fulltime mom, especially during the holiday season. Always occupied with work, cook, and home clean. Sometimes, giving kids toys or letting them watch tv is not the worst choice but the easiest one to take when you have to take care of kids but already exhausted with work.

Today I continued the home learning with Cele by doing a little craft: get dressed in Winter. I printed out some pictures of kids and clothes and she enjoyed glue them all together. 

"Winter is here. So cold outside. See, children need your help to get dressed. Help them put on sweater, coat, and pants before they get frozen. "

From mommy: I cannot believe we've done this together during a meeting. She's happy and focused on the work until most kids get dressed. The cloth could be smaller which will leave enough room for kids to glue the hat, scarf, sweater, coat, pants,s and shoes on a single kid. 

I feel she started to get the skills to glue. Nice job.

Today I also tried to teach her Phonics. I think it's still early for her while I wanna see whether she got some interest in Phonics. We went through the M&N book together. It's a short story and 3-4 words for each letter. She found it's funny when I make the sound of "M.........mouse", "M........moon"(I make it a long m and follow it with words started with the letter m). So I might play more with her. I also need to watch some video on toddler teaching&learning phonics.

To learn:

Yotube video

home learn Phonics

Learn with Cele - week 3 day 4- colorful sparkling water

 Today, we read the book "Rainbowfish". I actually do not like the story that rainbow fish has to give his scales to other fishes to make them happy. But the pictures are beautiful. 

For the activity, we did "colorful sparkling water" with baking soda, food color, and vinegar. Cele likes it and was excited to see bubbles when poured vinegar over baking soda and food color.

BTW, we set up the Christmas tree together. Holiday season is here.

Learn with Cele - Week 2 day 5 - mix the colors

 I got inspiration from the book "mouse paint". I got multiple different colors in bottles and let Cele mixing them together and watch the change of colors.

It's her first time playing with a "pour water" activity. She likes to pour water into bowls but not quite good at pour water into bottles with a narrow opening. She had a lot of fun and got brown color water at the end.

Learn with Cele - Week 2 day 4 - colorful dought

 I don't home school Cele with Montessori methods but I like the idea that kids could play with different things that are used in daily life. I feel my kids have much more interest in them other than toys.

Today I customized the activity. We set up the IKEA kid's bookshelf together. Cele likes to do things by herself since we always tell her to learn to be independent. She helped me put the little wood piece into holes and tight up screws with the provided little tool. She uses the bookshelf as a bed for her kolas. Here's the photo she took. lol

Afternoon, she's not in good mood. So I prepared one of her favorite activities - playing dough. I let her choose colors and she picked yellow for her and green for me. I made up two dough balls and helped her rolled them flat. She made some small round cookies and pretend to bake it with the baking pan. 

                                         

Learn with Cele - Week 2 Day 3 - mouse paint

 We read "mouse paint" today.

Learn with Cele Week 2 Day 2 - color waterfall

 Today, we sang the color song together. I heard her sang the "picking apples" song alone which surprised me. I thought she has forgotten it. She has a good memory.

I didn't read the "freight train" book today. Instead, we read two books at the storytime before nap: "going to the sea park" and "Danny and the dinosaur". She's able to understand part of the story without explaining in Chinese. I started to ask her simple questions in English and she's able to answer correctly. She's into dinosaur stories recently. I asked her to search for the letter "o" and letter "a" on the books and she's able to finish it line by line. 

After the nap, I set up a painting activity for her with just two colors. I gave her a brush as well as a sprinkling bottle.  She enjoys to spray waters over color and watch the color being washed out. She tried to use both ends of the brush to draw lines, dots. And at last, started to draw with her fingers, whole hands. To make it messier, she pours the paint color all onto the paper. 

Learn with Cele Week 2 Day 1 - Coloring the world

It's a brand new week. I decided to switch to the week 2 learning plan "color". I tried to borrow "apple" books from the library but it cannot arrive on time. So I decided to switch to the next topic and it's a little boring for Cele to learn the same "ten apples up on top" book for two weeks.

This morning, I read the book "freight train" with Cele. She likes it a lot. 

We built a freight train with magnetic blocks. She also added a second floor for animals to sit. 

I customized a color activity to build a yard with small creatures using construction paper. I cut small pieces of flowers, butterflies, caterpillars with different colors. I gave her a green paper to pretend as yard. She likes to glue. Guess what's her favorite creature? Yeah, definitely, caterpillars. Caterpillars love to eat and will turn into beautiful flowers. She likes it a lot and shows it to grand parents. 

PS:

We changed to daylight saving on Sunday. Cele's daily schedule is affected by the change. She didn't want to go nap this noon and keeps playing and asking for stories. I told her two books and more short stories. I asked her to sleep but she's too excited to sleep. I wasn't patient enough to calm her down but just ask her to sleep since I have a meeting at 1. I feel not good. It's easier to lost patience and be tough. I should learn to talk to her, listen to her, and speak with more respect. 

Learn with Cele - Week 1 "apples" - Day 3 "apple" stamping

 

Things I learned today is less is better, less expect less stress.

I was excited for today's painting: drawing a spider net for Halloween and apple stamping. 

She's okay with paint with apples but it's not her preferred way to paint. I prepared many colors and taped a spider net and a house for her to play. But, the reality is that she likes to draw worms, dots but doesn't like filling colors. At her age, she's still not got the idea of filling colors. She doesn't like the red color today and doesn't let me put red on her brush. She turned a little mad when I added red to her brush. But I didn't pay too much attention to her mood at the beginning. or in another way to say is that I did so many preparations which drove me to expect more on her, painting a good-looking picture. I found out she's quiet and not happy after I tell her not to throw color on mommy's cloth.  I talked to her and tell her why not to do that. She understood but still not happy. I can feel that throwing color at me is the way that she expressed her unhappiness on something else. Might be she doesn't like me painting with red, might be she doesn't like to color the net, might be she doesn't like to way that red and green colors mixed together, might be that she feels stressed when I drew faster and more than her. 

Learn with Cele - Week 1 "apples" - Day 4: doting the letter A

We paused this week's learning plan yesterday. I wanna give a break to her and play with something else together. 

Today we back to "apples". I printed a big letter A on white papers. She shared one paper which is nice. I showed her the job is to paint dots inside the letter A. She chose the color she likes which is red and painted dots and a line. 

The way that kids did the paint job is extremely different than how the grow-ups do. Looking at the pictures I draw and Cele draw. I feel her paint is much more interesting than mine. Her paint may not follow the rule that paints inside the letter, but it's unique and lovely(the long red worm. Yeah,  she likes to draw worms, lol). I tried my best to hold myself do not tell her exactly what to do or force her to do follow what I did. I'm still learning how to draw with her in a way that encourages her and helps her build confidence. 

Oh, at last, with no doubt, she painted her hands as well. lol

Learn with Cele Week 1 Day 5 - poke apples

Today is Friday. I got time to play with Cele. Sweet.

We sang the "days" song together after breakfast. She's able to pronounce all the names of days and sang together with me. She likes the song, I should plan to add more interesting songs about the weather next time. 

Poking apples is one of the activities I expected the most. I got a small green apple for Cele to play with. She doesn't know how to poke a toothpick into the apple at the beginning. It needs a little pressure to put it in. I taught her several times and she learned. I asked her does the apple look like a hedgehog. She said no. She said the apple looks like a sun. Yeah, that's interesting. I like it. 

Learn with Cele - Day 2 - eating green apples

Today is day 2 of learning with Cele. I stopped by Trader Joe's to get some apples and fresh veggies. We played the game of houses of apples. She learned to count apples one by one and place apples into different apple house. Apples look so yummy that she cannot focus on the game. She picks apples and gives a bite. I told her to finish one first and then eat another one. She said she'd like to eat like a caterpillar who eats fruits in a row. lol

Cele also asked me to invite the papaya and kiwis to the apple houses. She's able to pick papaya when I asked her to pick the biggest fruit. She doesn't like kiwi so she reserves kiwis for her sister. 

I feel this game could be more fun to play at mealtime. Ask her to arrange food for herself, me, and daddy. But she may end up eating all herself. lol

Learn with Cele - Day 1 - apple, "frog" day and "poop" color

Cele is 2 years and 5 months old. I started thinking about how to home educate her. I'd like her to be happy and we both could enjoy the time spent together. I've tried different ways to teach her using flashcards, alphabet books, and storytimes. Teaching a toddler does not like teaching a student who will listen and follow exactly what you said. I learned to respect her thoughts, give her time, and being patient. She likes to mimic what we said and memorized many stories we've told her and speaks using the phrase learned from the book which we do not ask her to learn or remember. Cele learned much faster and smarter than I ever thought. At the same time, I feel that she's sometimes not confident and I'd like to encourage her and gave her positive feedback.

I found some really interesting resources online. I really wanna try out the play-based toddler education ways. Meanwhile, I started to reserve more time to DIY with her. We did our first Halloween box together. She learned glue, cut, and she like Halloween a lot. 

This is the first day of our home learning. We sang the song of days together. Cele named Friday as the day of a frog. She thinks the hand gesture of Friday looks like the foot of a frog. 

Started with learning Apple. I drew an apple tree and placed big apples on it. Cele glued several small apples on the tree as well. We sang the song of "picking apples" together and pretended to pick apples, eating apples from the apple tree we made together.  I read the "Ten apples up on top" halfway through. 

At last, most fun, Cele did finger drawing apples on to different characters' heads (Cele, lion, and dog). Cele likes to draw with fingers much much more than using a brush or other tools. Cele draws a story of worms eating apples. She discovered that mixing green, yellow, and red colors together will make the color of poop(lol).  She made colors all over her hands(what a mess! but lovely). Cele used her colored hands made pictures of "poop" hands.

I used spare time during her nap to get prepared. I drew pictures of a lion, dog, and Cele for the activity of finger drawing. I wrote done the names of days, the song of "picking apples" and draw a big apple tree as well. Use a small plastic box to hold watercolors. Cut apples with red paper. All of that preparation took me 10 minutes.  

2020/09/14 尿不湿party

今天，小姐妹两个穿着尿不湿一起在赛丽的床上蹦蹦跳跳，可爱急了。奶奶去拿手机拍照，结果小姐俩就不跳了，真是可惜没有拍到这个欢乐的景象。

下午妈妈带着姐姐妹妹一起玩，妹妹喜欢跟着姐姐，看到姐姐玩什么都想去破坏一下。破话了人家的磁力片滑梯，结果姐姐生气就把妹妹推倒了墙上，哎，妹妹一下就大哭了起来。

晚上给妹妹涂了药，睡觉少许安稳了点，半夜三点突然醒了，很兴奋的在爸爸妈妈中间玩了许久。

洛杉矶 － 钓鱼

一个钓鱼重度患者

在洛杉矶生活了几年，渐渐的爱上的钓鱼。这里钓鱼的方式与国内钓淡水鱼截然不同，后者更多的是锻炼心态，消磨时光，而前者确实一项竞技运动，如果你有过出海钓鱼的经验，一定会感同身受的。

最开始的时候，我们都去海滩上surf fishing，并不总有收获，实话实说的话，基本每次只有两三条，还是收成好的时候。不知什么时候开始，就像小岳岳说相声开了窍一样，开始次次能够收获颇丰。钓鱼的技巧，我说不上来，纯粹是一种喜爱的心情，找地点，买渔具的事情，总是交给老公，跟我比起来，他显得专业多了。但我总认为，钓鱼这件事情上，运气是一种相当重要的软实力。

初夏花园游

周六一家人一起开车去了 Descanso Gardons. 因为疫情的关系，园区需要提前预约才可以进入，早晨的门票都丁光了，只能定了10:30的。

https://www.descansogardens.org/

带着姐姐和妹妹，形成被安排的很简单，进门就是很美丽的rose garden。周末了出来遛娃的人很多，虽然大家都带着口罩没法全身心的感受自然的清新，但是出来散散，身处在橡树，花朵和远山中，一切还是很美好的。

Play sand: I like destroy castle, I like sitting in Mommy's arms

Such great weather! We brought Cele and Lisa to Point Dume. Yes, this is the second beach trip this year so far. 

Cele loves the beach and birds. We brought a new set of sand toys. Cele enjoyed putting sand in the barrel and watched her little ship floating. Fei built a sandcastle for her and she destroyed in seconds. She loves destroy things I and Fei built. Silly girl.

This is Lisa's first sit on the beach. We brought two large blankets and let her lay on it. She's a little overwhelmed. She preferred to sit and surrounded by my arms. Secured and playful. Recently she loves solid food a lot. Every time, we sit at the table and start a meal, she is excited and cannot wait to have her food.

2020 First trip to Leo Carrillo

2020年，疫情的关系，全家人已经很久没有去海滩玩了，上两次开车去malibu和ventura都铩羽而归，海滩全部关门。这次做好了功课，在网站上查到了leo carrilo 海滩公园沙滩开门了，而且部分停车场也开门，开心极了。全家一起出门，因为听说不能在沙滩上晒太阳，所以没有带毯子和伞。

丽萨是第一次真正意义上去海滩，前几次都是在婴儿车里，睡觉睡觉，什么也没有看到，姐姐倒是去了很多次了。第一次看到海滩的丽萨，显得有点呆呆的，也很开心，我背着她，踢踢海水踩踩沙子，她也开心的晃动着小脚丫。

背着出来很开心

好奇看海的丽萨

赛丽也很久没去玩沙子了，之前的她最喜欢堆沙子，还有捡各种沙子中稀奇古怪的东西。赛丽胆子小，有些害怕海浪，怯怯的不敢过去踩海水，我们带着她一起下去，她很开心的踩起来。一会浪来了，海水达到她快膝盖高了，吓得忙说“快跑啊”。海滩上的潮退的很低，露出了滩涂和砂石，爸爸带着赛丽去翻石头找航洋小生物，小螃蟹，寄居蟹统统都翻了出来。爸爸把小螃蟹逮到沙滩上给宝宝们看，小螃蟹舞动着两个小钳子，示威着，赛丽跟爸爸说“爸爸爸爸不要抓小螃蟹了。”

奶奶和赛丽踩水

爸爸展示寄居蟹

小脚丫挖沙坑