Hooked on books? Visit Hook On Books!

Have you been to a place that stirs up those buried interest, passion and dreams and you leave the place feeling so happy and alive? 

The Foong Family visited 童言童语 (Hook On Books) a few weeks back and it is one of those places. It was especially so for Mama Esther (me!) who used to be a Chinese Teacher.

Personally, I find Chinese Language a very beautiful and Creative language. Think about it, which language's written characters were originated from how the object or scenario looks like? And how a portion of the character can tell you its material or the pronounciation? Just the word "carry" can be expressed in different degree in Chinese: 拿、提、扛、背、带、载、搬、抱、拎、抬！

Sadly, the Foong kids' level of Chinese language is not that great. Lack of exposure and environment to speak and limited time to practise (we only have our evenings as a dual income family) could be reasons (but cannot be convenient excuses).

Creating interest is important. With interest comes motivation and learning will be a joy. :) Saw this place on my NIE lecturer's Facebook and off we went!

What welcomed us at first sight are those big 卡通体 words! 童言童语！I felt as though I was in Taiwan!

“这是属于你的华文华语小天地…”

Before you enter, this beautiful board gives you the instruction how you can enjoy this space.

At Hook On Books, other than purchasing books and stationeries, you can also go to a little corner to take a read. The books here are donated by public and quite a big collection of different genres.

From top left: books for sale, starioneries and traditional games, surprise bags and recommended reads.

Even the toilet is nicely done with a soundtrack of birds chirping playing in the background.

If you thought that this is just a book shop, you are so wrong! You can handmake notebooks, cards and dried flower bouquets at a very reasonable price. :)

Notebooks

There are two sizes that you can opt for: 

A5 for $8.50

A4 for $9.90-10.90

You can choose the papers for the cover and inner pages. I especially like the inner pages: single lines, Chinese squares or calendar. 

The shop was very generous with the materials provided. Dried flowers, little wooden decorations and animal templates that the ladies cut out themselves!

A special mention of the ladies at the shop! They were patient and spoke very pleasantly. Nathan and Phoebe had a fun time just decorating and drawing!

Here are their beautiful end products that the ladies have bound together using strings and little brunches!

We were in the shop for a good 1.5hrs and we ended the session with a yummilicious fruit juice!

Here's the details of the shop! Don't say I bo-Jio! :)

Language game: Smack the Alphabets!

Last Friday we went to Phoebe's school for "Sharing and Learning" and we learnt a language game that we wanna share with all the parents!

Smack the alphabet!

Things to make:

(1) Alphabet Tiles with Velcro backing

(2) Individual Gloves

 

Phoebe's hand is small so we traced and cut out her palm from foam paper for thickness and added a piece of felt cloth so the Velcro can stick onto the palm.

How to play:

1) Lay the alphabet tiles facing down

 

2) Players take turns to smack a tile

 

3) based on the letter stuck on the glove, say a word starting with the letter (e.g. D- dog)

 

 

*You can increase the difficulty by setting criteria for each player. Phoebe could say any word starting with the letter but for Nathan, he has to say a word with at least two syllabi.

*You can also add in time limit (like 10seconds). If the player was not able to say the word before the time is up, he/she will not get to keep the tile.

4) Player with the most tiles wins!

Last night, after all the tiles had been picked up, we added one more task for Nathan. He had to make 3 words with the tiles he collected. 

 

 

Easy easy but lotsa fun! 🤗🤗

You could even start with arranging the alphabets and sing the ABC song before starting. 

Go try it out and share with us how we can create more ways to use this set of materials! :)

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Mother's Day DIY necklace!

I thought this is an improvement! 

I looked back at my posts on instag (@estherlaoshi) and blog and realised I am always super last minute when it comes to DIY/Craft for festivals and ended up readers and friends won't be in time to try their hands on the ideas. See see see! This time I am a bit earlier! *clap clap clap*

So what's up this round?

We are making these little pendants for necklaces!!

 

 

Things we need:

(1) Shrinking Paper

(You can purchase A4 sized ones at $1.50 per sheet from Overjoyed.)

You can see which Colour or shade you like. I personally think white, translucent and transparent are the easiest to work with.

 

Shrinking paper feels like transparency paper (people my time would know) and will shrink near 40% after putting it in the oven. 

(2) Pencil for sketching

(3) Black permanent marker for outlining 

(4) Permanent Colour markers or Colour pencils for filling in the colours

(5) necklace accessories / string 

 

(6) hole puncher

(7) oven toaster

 

Step 1:

Tell your child about Mother's Day and other than showing appreciation to mothers, we can also use this day to appreciate motherly figures in our live.

Step 2: Show the pictures of end-product from this post to your child so he or she can visualise better.

 

Step 3: Draw and Design!

If you are using the translucent or translucent shrinking sheets, you may wish to let your child draw on white paper first THEN tape the corners of the shrinking sheet and let him or her trace the finished drawing.

For me, I let the kiddo draw straight onto the white shrinking sheets. The pencil mark will be quite faint so some guidance will be needed. 

 

 

Step 4: Colour!

This is kinda tricky.. because the surface of the shrinking sheets are so smooth, the ink from the water Colour is quite wet and smudges when in contact with the black outline. If you use Colour pencils, you will need to use quite some strength and effort to get the Colour on. Don't worry about the Colour pencil mark being really light! When the sheet shrinks, the Colour darkens (like concentrated!) 

Do advise your child to use the lighter shades for the markers, as the colours really darken by quite a bit.

 

Step 5: Cut out the shapes

Do not trim it near to the outline. Keep a general shape and leave at least 2-3mm away from the outline.

Step 6: PUNCH HOLE at places you want to put the loop or string or chain

You must punch at this point because once you bake/heat up the shrinking sheet, the plastic/acrylic piece goes as thick as 1.5mm and is way to hard to punch! U may end up having to find a drill!!!!

In the picture below, Phoebe wanted the two girls to hold hand so I punched the holes in their palm.

 

Step 7: Warm the oven to 120degree celcius and place the artwork onto the flat tray and into the oven.

Do not use the grill tray! Upon heating, the shrinking sheet will curl up before opening up and becoming flat. You won't want the piece to drop through the gaps!

Note: Low heat and wait patiently is better... Nathan's aeroplane went it at too high a temp and ended up almost melting.. in my attempt to take it out, it got stuck a little and it went out of shape... :(

Step 8: FLATTEN IT!

Standby a thick book beside your oven. Once you take the piece out, put on the table and immediately put the book on the soft warm plastic so it will be nicely flattened. This is a very important step and you must do it FAST.

Once the plastic cools, you cannot change the shape anymore...

Step 9: Put the rings/string/chain on!

YOU ARE DONE! :)

 

Nathan and Phoebe worked on a A5 size shrinking sheet and these are the end product. Shrunk quite a bit eh! Try not to draw pictures with small details.. after shrinking, they just look like a blot of black..

Something easy this time round! You can also make smaller pieces and glue them onto earring studs or string them to become dangling earrings. Any beads and craft shop should sell these raw materials. 

Enjoy creating! :)

Simple DIY Christmas Cards (if phoebe can, so can you!)

Hahaha.. Yan Can Cook, So Can You! 

Did I just revealed my age? If you know this line, you are also not that young. :)))

Anyway, we were preparing some simple cards with the kiddos for their teachers this Christmas!

 

Don't worry, it is fast and simple and yet nice and sincere. Hahaha, 我讲到完！

All you need is:

(1) a palate (or just a plastic plate also ok)

(2) cotton buds (Q-Tip if you talk like Ang moh)

(3) paint

(4) card stock

(5) markers or Colour pencils

 

I did one first so that the children can have a visual guide / example.

We started with discussing the colours of the tree, trunk, star and the ornaments. We also talked about the shapes. Triangle, square and star!

This is to deepen the understanding of the process and the details. So I suggest you don't skip it. It will actually reduce some hiccups. :)

 

For phoebe, she is a little young, so I drew the shapes for her.

She has to first dot on the lines then fill in the space with more dots. :))

 

Last step for her would be to put the red and pink dots at where the "holes" or empty areas are.

 

Nathan wrote the words and designed the card himself.

 

 

Simple right? Hope this is in time for you!

Here is a variation you wanna consider. :)

 

 

 

We paired the cards with some wafer rolls!