Honey4Boyz

Brandon was really looking forward to the recent school holiday so he could draw as much as he wanted to. He drew for hours every day. No interruption from class or school.  I bought him a set of Sharpie pens and he started to use colours, next watercolour and so on. He started drawing ships since early this year, but only have time in between school to do so. I also tried to distract him to draw other things, but he's too fascinated with different types of ships. I used to be concerned whether my boys are spending their time productively during the school holidays. I kinda like to plan something so they will learn and not be idle or - we often hear this - 'bored'. But, over the years, I observe how some local homeschooled kids excel under self-directed learning rather than structured-based learning . So when Brandon shows an interest in ships, we let him lead the learning, whether he wanna do arts, music, history or science. We didn't send him to any class to

Posting by Xian Jin That's me, the 3rd player on the left row! It was my first time participating in a chess team event, and I was very excited. My team and I represented our school in the 33rd Astro Merdeka Rapid Open Team Chess Championship on 17 and 18 August. Each team must have four players.  I was surprised at the number of participants, at least 400 people from different age groups. Before the match, I was very nervous about making mistakes in the competition. I had to read the rules from time to time because I have trouble remembering them. What's different in this competition was that we initiated the participation on our own. We formed our own team and handled all the procedures by ourselves.  At first, there was some misunderstanding over the procedures but at last we agreed and were happy with our playing positions.  There were nine rounds altogether. After the first match, we lost. But we didn't give up hope. The next round, our team leader won.

We played tour guides during the recent Raya holidays. Normally we would rather stay put in KL as it's usually deserted during the holiday. In our group, there're 13 people and one toddler. Perhaps it coincided with a long school break, so people could travel on different days, that's why we're spared from long traffic jam. So far so good..... until we reached Ipoh.  All hotels, big or small, were fully booked. Coffee shops were crazily crowded with people sitting as well as standing and waiting by the side of the tables. There's barely space to walk. A popular 2-storey dim sum restaurant was so packed until the customers have to wait on the roadside. The restaurants actually allowed people to stand around, crowding the places making them unbearably stuffy and hot. It's quite an experience for us and our visitors; we've never seen anything like this though we visit Ipoh so often. We heard that people started coming in at 6.30am as soon as the shops

We're trying to instil the love of bird-watching in our kids. Daddy is discovering the joy of watching birds in the evenings, and identifying them with the kids. Many times, the kids started out with Daddy to watch the birds, but always managed detouring to the park to play football. We're not 'pro' yet, but we've some wonderful surprises in our bird-watching walkabout in our neighbourhood. So, it's really easy, and we do not have to even venture far, our country is blessed with so many species, right at our doorstep. This is the easiest to spot - Oriental Magpie Robin and the most melodious bird in our neighbourhood. It sings in the early morning and in the evenings. That's why, they're also the target of unscrupulous people in the neighbourhood to catch and cage them. Black-naped Oriole - they usually fly in pairs (can you spot the other half?) We see a lot of the Yellow-vented Bulbul in our backyard these days, and the Robins as well.