All About Your Child

How to Make Simple Chinese Hong Bao Lantern
Ok, its the time of the year again to show the Simple Chinese Hong Bao Lantern, which my boy made this year.

Recall the Simple Chinese Hong Bao Lantern for 2011 and the Complicated Chinese Hong Bao Lantern in 2010.

Response for Simple Chinese Hong Bao Lantern was better than the complicated one, so this year, I shall continue to post another simplified Hong Bao Chinese Lantern-making steps.

Things you need for this Simple Chinese Hong Bao Lantern:

1. 5 pieces of Long Hong Baos
2. Stapler
3. 1 Piece Chinese New Year Decorative Ornament
4. 1 Red String

Step 1: You would need to seal up all the Long Hong Baos.

Step 2 : Place the Hong Bao Vertically and Fold the Hong Bao into half, but ONLY PRESSING THE TWO CORNERS.

Step 3: Place the Hong Bao Horizontally and Fold the Hong Bao into Half, but ONLY PRESSING THE TWO CORNERS.

Step 4: Fold the 4 Corners of the Hong Bao shown below, based on the ‘folded markings’ made in Steps 2 and 3. Repeat Steps 2, 3 and 4 for All 5 Hong Baos.

Step 5: Staple 2 Hong Baos together as shown below. Stapler as close to the folding line as possible.

Step 6: Staple All 5 Hong Baos together. Stapling as close to the folding line as possible.

Step 7: You would need to bend the structure a little when stapling the 5th Hong Bao.

Step 8: Now staple the Bottom of the structure in the same way as the above steps. You would need to bend the middle part of the Hong Baos a little before you could staple the bottom part of the structure with ease.

Step 9: Join the Corners of Each Hong Bao by stapling them together as shown in the photos below.

Step 10: Repeat Step 9 for 4 Hong Baos.

Step 11: Before you staple the 5th Hong Bao, Fold the red string to form a loop and tie a knot to join the two ends of the red string together. Staple the red string to one of the corners, in the way whereby the knot would act as a stopper to prevent the red string from sliding out of the stapler bullet when the lantern is hung.

Step 12: Now after the red string is stapled, you can now join the 5th Hong Bao’s corners together by stapling them.

Step 13: Staple the Corners of the Bottom of the Lantern in the same way as the Top part of the Lantern. However, Before stapling the Last Hong Bao’s Corners, staple the Chinese Decorative Ornament onto one corner first. Once that is done, you can now join the Last Hong Bao’s corners together by stapling them.

Ta-Da!
And its ready to be hung on your ceiling or wall!
Well Done Keatkeat! *clap clap clap*

And there you have it, my boy’s Simple Chinese New Year Hong Bao Lantern for 2012. Have Fun With Your Child! *smile*

How to Make Simple Chinese Hong Bao Lantern

How To Create a Sound Bomb
My boys were so excited to teach how to create a sound bomb after they learned it in one of the school holiday classes I signed them up for. So I thought, I might as well film it down. *wink*

If only Keatkeat could prevent doing all his bad habits, like the retarded action (mentioned in this post “Does Your Child have these Bad Habits“), frequent blinking, twitching of his body…, this video would have been flawless. Oh well, it IS Keatkeat at his most natural self, what more can I say. *eyes rolled*

Here’s what Keatkeat said:

“Today I am going to teach you how to make a sound bomb. First, you just need a pencil and a paper. First, you fold the paper into half, just like a paper aeroplane. But it is not a paper aeroplane.

Then after that, you must do this. You must fold one side first and after that, next, you just need to fold it half. Corners to corners. (Mumble mumble) Yup! And its done.

But before we finish it, we must use a pencil and to poke it. You must let the hole be very big or else you can’t make a bomb. The bigger the better. And after that, you do this. Put two fingers here, like this, and put the triangle there. The smaller the triangle is the better. But it is not too small.

Whenever you do this, you must make sure you see a heart-shape, like this. And now… the sound bomb is like this.

Thank you.”

Binbin and Keatkeat had slightly different understanding of how the sound bomb is created. So here’s Binbin’s version:-

Binbin was so nervous, his English sentence structure was in a mess! *laugh*

Here’s what Binbin said:

“Today I’m going to teach you about a bomb sound with make with paper. And remember to only fold one line up here not both lines. Then you fold half again like this.

Then you push this down with two fingers like this, then you just smack it DOWN!

Thank you and Bye Bye for now.”

Both were trying to correct each other after the video was taken, but I told them, “Its not how you do it, its that you have succeeded in doing it. Both sound bombs worked didn’t? That’s all that matters.”
*wink*

How To Create a Sound Bomb

How to Make Ice-Cream with Your Child
As mentioned in Keatkeat’s 8th birthday post, his future uncle-in-law and my sis brought my boys to an ice-cream workshop as a birthday gift for my elder son.

According to my sis, the kids and the adults were in separate rooms. While the kids had fun making ice-cream in one room, the organiser was busy promoting products to the adults in another room. My sis had the perfect excuse to stop the hard selling advancement of the promoters, “They are my nephews. I am not their parent.” And the promoter left my sis alone.

Only after the kids have finished slurping their ice-cream, were the adults allowed to join the children.

At the end of it, each received a “I am a Little Ice Cream Chef” certificate with the ice-cream recipe printed at the back.

Keatkeat: “Thank you Ah Yi and Big Big Gor Gor for the Ice Cream Workshop Birthday Present.”
How to Make Ice-Cream with Your Child

Keatkeat: “This is my portrait. It is made from plasticine. I did it in school during Art lesson. My shoes are brown because I like brown shoes, but my real shoes are not brown. Handicraft for kids

I am eating a lollipop not a leaf! My whole class said I was eating a leaf and I was unhappy. In the beginning I did not have the lollipop, but one of my leg was too fat, so I took some green plasticine from the fat leg and use it as a lollipop. So it became my green apple lollipop.

My nose is big. I think I have a big nose because I sneeze too much.”

*laugh*

Yup! That is what my boys called my sis, “Ah Yee.”

I am afraid that this would be the last time they would be celebrating her birthday at midnight. Their Ah Yee will be tying the knot with her beau in December this year. It is my family tradition to celebrate when the clock strikes 12. But after this year, I doubt she would be coming back to this house at 12 midnight just to cut the cake. *shrugged*

Ah Yee: “I am not so much of a ‘cake person’ and after eating so many different types of cakes over the years, I have no idea what to choose for this year.” After much thoughts, she continued: “Ah! I want cupcakes!”

So we set off to search for her cupcakes with her, but the bakery failed to get her order out in time for the celebration and so she changed to muffins! Not any muffins, but the famous Delicious Muffins from Oven Marvel. How Special! *Grin*

*Check out the review of the muffins in my personal blog.

After a night sleep with a tummy full of muffins, we headed to Jumbo Seafood Restaurant, Singapore Indoor Stadium branch, which gave another round of commendable service, comparable to that of the Jumbo Seafood Restaurant branch at Demsey Hill.

The kids did something special for Ah Yee this year, with lots of help from their Mummy, to avoid getting pricked at the ends.

 Happy Birthday Ah Yee!