NLB’s Video Library

Exams are over and the school holidays are almost upon us! Which means I am once again trying to keep half a step ahead of boredom and mischief among the Pilgrim brood.

Thankfully, there are few places more trustworthy than our neighbourhood library. I’ve raved about Singapore’s library system and its treasures elsewhere on this blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that besides the books (which already offer rich pickings), NLB also carries DVDs.

I’m not sure how they determine what titles to offer – you won’t find Hollywood blockbusters or primetime TV series – but there are award-winning documentaries, instructional videos, educational CD-ROMs and the occasional classic movie.

This week Pilgrim Dad and I borrowed and watched To Kill A Mockingbird, the 1962 film adaptation of the book, that won Gregory Peck an Academy award for Best Actor. And for the kids, we’ve found the Popular Mechanics for Kids and Bill Nye the Science Guy series delightful.

I can imagine few better uses for my tax dollar!

Ice, ice baby

In the midst of this impossibly hot weather, I’ve been trying to think of things to do with the kids that don’t involve us (well, me really) getting too sticky and sweaty.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before but ICE is such a great, low-cost, boredom buster. Today we spent a good hour outside doing icey things, which worked so well in this nasty heat. And you can always teach some science on the sidelines – freezing, melting, surface tension, adhesion, cohesion, hydrophilia, hydrophobia blah blah blah.

But it’s really too hot to get into the science. So on to the activities -

• Ice-racing – Give each kid a piece of ice and get them to blow it across a table. The first person to blow his ice off the opposite end wins. It helps to wet the table thoroughly to minimise friction. One variation we also tried is to use drinking straws to focus our blowing more precisely.
• Ice carrom/hockey – Kids are to use their fingers to flick their ice cube carrom-style into a goal (I just used my hands in a V formation). They can also use straws, spoons or some other item as a stick or bat.
• Ice fishing – Fill a basin with water and throw in some items that sink like marbles, coins or paper clips. Cover the surface with ice, the more ice the more challenging. Give each kid a spoon and they are to fish out as many items as they can. If you mix items you can give more difficult ones more points. To increase squeal factor, instead of spoons they are to use only their index and middle fingers (like chopsticks). If you have a bigger basin, you can also try bigger items which the kids must fish out use their feet.
• Ice bags – Fill a small Ziploc with ice cubes and seal. Practice throwing and catching, and take cool break in between!

Stay cool!

More Fun and Frugal Birthday Cakes

It turns out the most popular post on Pilgrim Parent at the moment is
Birthday Cakes for the Fun-Loving and Frugal

So here are more cakes, created since that last post. All are made from Betty Crocker cake mix, and the icings are either butter or whipped cream based.

Porthos’ 6th birthday cake – an aircraft carrier with Lego figures and models made by Porthos himself.

Milo powder and nuggets simulate soil and rocks in this military-inspired, sugar-saturated creation for Athos’ 7th birthday.

Aramis’ 3rd birthday cake is a train featuring chocolate-chip cookie wheels, windows made of Loacker biscuits, and Kit Kat tracks.


Athos is begining to outgrow cutesy cakes so we had some difficulty brainstorming for his 8th birthday. Since he likes Lego so much, we decided on a Lego block cake. I’m a little embarrassed to say most people had difficulty recognising it

Make sure to check out these other cake posts too!
Birthday Cakes for the Fun-Loving and Frugal
The Smoke-Emitting Prehistoric Cake
The A380 @ Camel Diaries

Water shooters for toddlers

It has been blistering hot in Singapore so water play is the activity of first resort in the Pilgrim family these days.

It’s not always convenient to go to a pool, so here’s a fun alternative, especially if you have younger kids. Buy a spray bottle from any household goods store, fill it up with water, and let the kids at it! The cheapest bottles go for under $2, and the more expensive ones have different nozzle settings.

Here are some ideas:

• watering plants, leaves, flowers
• spraying into tubs and basins
• aiming at specified targets (we sometimes draw a bull’s eye on our blackboard)
• shooting at each other – this works especially well if you have, as the Pilgrim family does, kids of varied ages. The older ones will always win in an all-out water gun fight, so spray bottles level the playing field enormously. Be forewarned that older boys might consider this extremely uncool! Athos was most dismissive at first, but eventually deigned to join in and had fun.
• add different food colourings to each spray bottle and let them spray paint on a large piece of mahjong paper or the bathroom wall
• if it’s a sunny day, challenge them to make a rainbow. Porthos managed to do it without any guidance and was utterly thrilled (not surprising given his history with rainbows). The spray should be the kind that shoots out a mist of water rather than a jet, and you should stand with your back facing the sun.

The spray bottles are a useful tool for sand play as well – if you are building sandcastles on a hot day, spray the built structures occasionally to keep them wet and intact.

Don’t be surprised if the kids find other interesting ways to use the spray bottles. Athos started giving Porthos a “haircut”, spraying water like an old pro barber!

Have fun!

Want to prevent myopia? Head outdoors.

I’ve done a couple of posts on the apparent health benefits of exposure to nature

• Overcoming the Nature Deficit Disorder
• More on the Nature Deficit Disorder

In case you missed it, Australian researchers have just completed a study that concludes that exposure to sunlight is a major factor in the incidence of myopia.

Comparing six and seven-year-old Chinese children in Singapore and Australia, they found that 30 percent of the Singaporeans were myopic, against just 1.3 percent of the Australians. The differentiating factor was the amount of time spent outdoors – 30 minutes for the Singaporeans versus two hours for the Australians.

“What we would suggest,” said the researchers, “is that what’s happened in east Asia is that they have got the balance totally out of kilter.”

What an indictment.

You can read more here:
Red Sports – Spending time outdoors in the sun stops myopia
AFP via Yahoo News – Sunlight can help children avoid myopia

TED: Mathemagician and Underwater Astonishments

I’ve mentioned TED before – Technology Entertainment Design, a conference that takes place every year in California, bringing together some of the most fascinating people and ideas into a potent brew.

Its organisers have made videos of the talks available for free viewing and I highly recommend exploring the site for a stimulating exploration of new ideas, practices and technologies.

Here are two of TED’s most-watched videos that I think kids might enjoy. An ovation to a mathematical mind, and the wonders of God’s creation.

Top-Secret Message? Try Lemon Juice.

Athos saw this in a magazine and had to try it. The effect was quite nifty so I thought I would share it here.

Ours isn’t much of a lemon juice kitchen so we had to go out and get some. I squeezed the juice out, strained out the pulp and seeds, gave the kids some brushes, and let them have a go at writing and drawing whatever they wanted.

The tricky bit is getting used to the idea of drawing without seeing anything. The natural response is to keep adding more juice, just in case, creating a very wet piece of work.

In any case, the result is wholly invisible. Let it dry, and if you want you can even get the kids to write over the paper to enhance the “secret message” effect.

When you’re ready to reveal the message, pop the paper into the oven for a few minutes, or run a hot iron over it. The juice will brown and become visible.

King of my castle

“Can I watch a video, Mommy?”

That’s like a temptation-in-the-wilderness question for me. Saying “yes” is ridiculously easy, and guarantees me at least 30 to 60 minutes of household peace and quiet to do whatever I need to do without interruption. But I can’t shake off the feeling that it’s the second-best option, and where possible, I try to have standby alternatives for the kids.

So when the question came yesterday, I had to fight off the urge to say “yes” (a nap would have been so delicious…), and instead activated one of the simplest and most low-cost activities – building castles and fortresses with the household bedding and bedlinen. I remember doing this myself when I was a kid, and if you give the kids lots of raw materials to work with, they’ll enjoy it too.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Do this on or just before a bedlinen laundry day. That way you won’t get stressed if the kids trample and sweat all over the sheets.

Dedicated clothes pegs

2. Buy and set aside clothes pegs (both big and small) just for this activity. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if your normal laundry pegs mysteriously disappear over time. The ones on the left are about $2 a pack from NTUC Fairprice, and have rounded edges which make them safer for kids.

3. Besides just sheets and blankets, let the kids use pillows, bolsters, cushions and even mattresses if they can manage them. You’ll be amazed at the ideas they’ll come up with. (Athos absolutely insisted on having a drawbridge….)

4. Make sure the children are old enough for this activity – some possible risks are suffocation under a pile of blankets, or clipping sheets to unstable furniture (e.g. lamps) that might topple over. If you aren’t sure, be on hand to supervise.

Here is Porthos peeking out of the castle we built yesterday, out of four mattresses and three blankets. Whee!

Pilgrim castle

Green Wonders at Hort Park

A few weeks back, we went to Hort Park off Alexandra Road.

This is one of Singapore’s newest parks, and quite unlike the others. The idea is for it to be a “gardening lifestyle hub” that “bring[s] together gardening-related recreational, educational, research and retail activities under one roof in a park setting.”

To be honest, I wasn’t too excited when I first saw it. It felt like a gardening showroom, and was more about marketing landscaping companies than giving us room to run around and explore nature.

But as we walked further in,

Pilgrim Discovery: Storyline Online

Please stop everything you’re doing and go over to Storyline Online. It came up in one of my feeds today and after reading a few of the raves, I had to go over and check it out for myself.

Utterly delightful.

The concept is similar to Tumblebooks (another website which I raved about in an earlier post) – children’s books read aloud online. But in the case of Storyline Online, the reading is done by established screen actors like Sean Astin and Elijah Wood (from the “Lord of the Rings” movies), Bradley Whitford (“The West Wing”), Jane Kaczmarek (“Malcolm in the Middle”), and even Al Gore.

Nothing like being read to, and I was completely captivated.

The stories comes with suggested activities and a downloadable activity guide, and some also have reader’s theatre versions.

Please check it out. It’s just wonderful.

Free Ben & Jerry’s Ice-Cream!

The Pilgrim family is mad-keen on ice-cream. So I had to share this flyer which a friend sent me – free Ben and Jerry’s on Tuesday 29th April! It’s only at selected outlets so do read the flyer for details.

Ben and Jerry’s has a special place in my heart. I went to college in the US. It was my first time living overseas, and the first weeks were a mixture of wide-eyed wonder and deep homesickness. My roommate K was also a little homesick one night and we both went out to the nearest convenience store and bought two tubs of Ben & Jerry’s. It was the first time I’d ever heard of it. I can’t remember what flavour she chose but how could I resist a name like “New York Superfudge Chunk”! The ice-cream was amazing, and together with the fellowship, made me feel a whole lot better.

Pilgrim Discovery: The Animal Resort!

A couple of weekends back, Pilgrim Dad was in an adventurous mood so we piled the family into the truck and headed north with no destination in mind – really!

We found ourselves in the Seletar area, and flipping open the street directory, our curiosity was piqued by a box marked “The Animal Resort”. So we drove over and – lo and behold! – found hidden treasure.

The Animal Resort, located at Seletar West Farmway 5, is a mini-hub of pet services. You can buy, board, groom and train your pet there, and also find most of what you’d need to care for Fluffy.

But what was most charming for us was

Freecycled Home For the Froglets

I joined the Singapore Freecycle Network a few months back. It’s basically a community that aims to connect people with things to give away, with people who want those things. It’s been fun (and heartening) to read the regular mailers describing things that people are giving away.

Anyhow, Athos has Show and Tell next week and he’s decided to bring the froglets to school. Rather than spend money on something I only needed temporarily, I thought I’d see if the Freecycle Network would have anything to offer. So here is the request I put up:

Tadpoles –> Froglets

Our tadpoles are growing! (Click here to read about how we found our amphibious friends.) Apart from one who has died – we’re still not sure how but we found him floating lifeless one morning – the rest appear to be doing well. They’ve been quite a talking point when people drop by!

I told Porthos that both his grandfathers would be reading this, and asked what he would like to say. Here is his little lecture, captured verbatim:

“We got those tadpoles from Sentosa. They are very good. The tadpoles swim with their tail. They eat goldfish food. And now they are growing into frogs. The tadpoles grow from back legs to front legs.”

The boys have been quite excited (and so have I!) and have been helping to feed the frogs and maintain the aquarium. I’ll keep this blog updated on their progress. In the meantime, here are some pictures.

Amphibian Adventure

It rained a lot during the March school holidays. Not good for a household full of young, hyperactive, on-the-go lads. They were bouncing off the walls and generally tearing the house apart.

But there was a wonderful silver lining. When the sky cleared, we brought the boys cycling along Sentosa beach (one of the Pilgrim family’s favourite hangouts). And at Tanjong Beach, we discovered that the tree-covered grassy patch next to the carpark had become waterlogged, and was now home to hundreds and hundreds of tadpoles.

Seeing Carbon Dioxide

I stumbled across this simple yet marvellous experiment that demonstrates that carbon dioxide is heavier than air. The science is probably a little too advanced for Athos and Porthos, but the metaphysics is not – that you don’t have to see something to believe it’s there

Rediscovering Singapore

The past few days at work have been extremely challenging, and I have not felt this stressed and anxious in a long time. But there were some wonderful highlights. One of which was the opportunity to bring a group of international visitors on a tour of Singapore.

The tour was organised by Journeys, a Singapore travel agency which does the Original Singapore Walks. I was thrilled when I found out, because I’ve been wanting to do one of their walks for a long time and have never found the time. Journeys is strongly history-based, which means their tours are stuffed with as much information as the knowledge-hungry tourist (and curious local) could possible want.

We started our journey at

National Taps

As part of work this week, I had the very great pleasure of visiting the NEWater Visitor Centre. I hadn’t realised that the facility was open to the general public, and that it has even won tourism awards! The place is open from 9am to 5:30pm daily except Mondays, and admission is free. The tour was truly enlightening, suitable even for very young children (I’d say at least 4-5 years old) and I highly recommend it.

I was telling Athos and Porthos about the visit at bedtime tonight. I explained to them that NEWater was part of Singapore ‘s strategy of Four National Taps to ensure enough water for Singapore well into the future – the other three being imported water, rainwater and desalinated water.

Here’s what they had to say:

Porthos: If there are four National Taps, does that mean there are also four National Pipes?

Pilgrim Mom: Well, yes, I guess so!

Athos: And doesn’t that mean there are also four National Toilets?

PM: [laughs uncontrollably]

Athos: … and four National Poo-Poos and Wee-Wees too!

I wonder what the good people at our Public Utilities Board think about that!

Freecycle!

I encountered the term “freecycle” a few months back but never got round to looking it up. Thanks to Alternative Mom‘s comment on my previous post, I was reminded and went to look it up.

The Freecycle Network began a couple of years back in Arizona, USA and now has 4,221 groups and 4,335,000 members around the world. The idea is basically to connect the people who have things to give away, with people who want those things. I am completely sold on the idea.

And the great news, my friends, is that Singapore has its own Singapore Freecycle Network! An excerpt from its Yahoo Groups webpage:

Whether you’re looking to discard or acquire an item, you’ve come to the right place. Computers, furniture, clothing, magazines – no item is too big or too small. (That said, we request that you keep in mind that this is not intended to be a Christmas wish-list. Asking for LCD TVs, XBox’s, PS3s, etc., is a bit over-the-top.) Since this is a Freecycle list, ALL items must be 100% FREE and not subject to exchange or sale.

As of this writing, it has over 4200 members. I have just signed up as member #4211 – will you consider being #4212?

Join the Singapore Freecycle Network.

Too. Much. Stuff.

After hosting 6 multi-family garage sales, it’s become painfully clear to me that we are living in a consumer society in which we often buy things we don’t really need, or in quantities that we don’t require. (True of the Pilgrim family too, by the way.)

Which is why I was struck by what’s going In The Trenches of Motherhood. This mother of seven is taking one year off buying anything other than essentials, and writes some great posts about (non-)shopping at Target and Ikea. And then today, a friend sent me the link to The Story of Stuff, a compelling (though somewhat long) video about the crisis of our materialist economy. Watch it, if only for the superb graphics.

What will you do about it?