Milan 10

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Animal-shaped furniture by French designers iBride.
Below is Martin the Mule - a writing desk in the form of a life-sized mule.



Owen the sheep table and Scotty the lamb stool.



Joe the bear shelf

Milan 9

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Like this indoor garden.

Milan 8

Just have time to do a little post.
Then we will head to the HK Polytechnic, iza will have rehearsal there.
She's having a violin performance (group) tonight.
Hope everything is fine!
She is nasty these few days. She refused to rehearse in the last violin lesson ... Yesterday, she used scissors to cut her classmate's artwork and tools, and intended to cut the other's trousers ... and, kicked her teacher ... she loved her teacher but just couldn't help doing so ...
Headache ... monster iza ...

MINUS INFINITY

" Is your love (to me) minus infinite, mama? " iza asked.

" Can you tell me what means by ... minus ... infinite ... love ... ?" I wondered.

" It is a PRIME love. It is FIRST.

SMALL number comes first, just like ONE. It always comes before TWO ...

And, negative numbers are smaller than ONE.

Among ALL negative numbers, minus infinity is the SMALLEST.

Therefore, minus infinite love is of the HIGHEST LOVE!"

iza indulged into her world of funny logics.

Wish we can all have this capacity of " minus infinite " love!

Happy Mother's Day!

SWIM

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Iza is not good at gross motor and fine motor coordination. Therefore, we have her attending swimming class since 4Y3M.
Quite unexpected, iza is being selected to a special training program (last for 6 months) in this February. The coach only picked 4 children in age 5-6 with shown potential. I'm uncertain that iza is the one. The coach might mix up names of children!? When she swims, she cannot coordinate her arms, legs and breathes ...
After 2 months training, iza can swim in all 4 styles though in her own funny way!
The coach once told me that iza has feeling in Backstroke. I never think that swimming is about feeling...

Milan 7

Milan 6

I don't have much time to organize the pictures ( there're still 2 sets of pictures taken in Shanghai and Beijing just before the Europe trip ), and I hope to maintain a daily post (if possible) on weekdays. Therefore, I select a few or just one each time and avoid those should be grouped together... If the situation continues, I may come up as Milan 100 / London 100 :)

Milan 5

Tokoyo Fibre Senseware in Milan o9

I love the BREATHAIR by Kashiwa Sato.

It is a set of large 3D blocks that can be combined like puzzle pieces.

More here.

Milan 4

Milan 3

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WEIRD

Can't sleep. Just jump up and write.

ROMANTIC

This Tuesday.

" Mama, I have a [romantic] afternoon in the school! " iza told me when we walked home.

" Oh!? How is it? "

" I have a daydream ... then fell into sleep ... suddenly I woke up and rushed into the classroom before my violin teacher entered the room ... haha ... at the last possible moment ... " iza explained enthusiastically.

" ... ooo ... we normally do not use [romantic] in such a way ... we use to describe ........ " I don't have a clue to explain what is [romantic] to her, no matter in a way that she can understand, or just telling somebody in words how it feels when he/she never have such experience before ... I resist to relate this to prince and princess, it limits the meaning of [romantic]. But, I'm really amazed by her association of experience in the way of building up her vocabularies :)

The next day, I tried to elaborate more on this ...

" iza, we use [romantic] to describe when we feel sweet and good ... "

" Just like in Chinese classic moral stories and Chinese three word classic poetry idiom?" iza asked.

I couldn't hold my laughter ... oh ... there're more confusions ... If base on my definition, her daydream and Chinese stories are very [romantic]!!! When I'm still thinking ...

" Is pikachu the pocket monster [romantic]? "

" Is Superman and Gundam [romantic]? "

" Mama, how about Mathematics ? " iza continued to drag on...

My first impression is of course NOT, but before the word "NO" came out my mouth, I realized that they could be very [romantic]! I'm confused ... !!!!

I just leave the matter and let her to find out later. She will know ...

HOT CHOCOLATE

In london, uncle Danny (my brother) had iza to buy some hot drinks to Auntie Wendy and mama on our way to Legoland.

Guided by Uncle Danny, iza managed to go to the counter alone and asked for

" Hot Chocolate, please! Take away! "

However, she couldn't resist to turn her head over to Uncle Danny and said,

" Why hot? Hot chocolate melts! "

Next time, when anyone asks for hot chocolate, just put your chocolate bar in pocket and sit on it. You will have HOT chocolate :)

I love HOT chocolate!

Milan 2

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Milan 1

The Furniture Fair

6

Yesterday was iza's birthday.
She's now 6!

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We've been to London and Milan for the last 10 days. I thought I could manage to write something during the trip, however it's too rushed ... and tired ...

Lots of materials to organize ...

LITTLE ACTRESS

She's comical.
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RUN

STRAW INSTRUMENT

Iza's kindergarten teacher tries to introduce children with some simple science experiments, hoping that parents and children would find it simple to explore in our daily life. After 2-3 weeks exploration in school, children are asked to work out something with parents at home and present their experiment at school.

Iza decided to make a straw instrument with 50 straws.
Eventually, we've made an instrument of
7 x [ d r m f s l t ] + 1 x d´ = 49 + 1
We used transparent straws for all [d]s, white straws for other notes.
Visually, iza learnt multiples of 7.


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We've developed other forms...
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Iza was so keen on inventing something ...
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On the way of experimentation, papa ziggy had found some interesting videos on the web for making straw instruments ... It's not only inspiring to iza and also to myself. You may search under
www.youtube.com
on topics:

- straw instrument
- straw oboe
- vegetable instrument (Broccoli ocarina - Mary Had A Little Lamb)
- Hydraulophone
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This is another interesting site :
www.sciencetoymaker.org

Under "QUICK AND EASY" - Snake Chamber's duck call, we can find videos on:
- Build a Reed Instrument out of a Drinking Straw Part 1
- Make a Reed Instrument from a Drinking Straw Part 2
It is an instructional video starts with an introduction about how the author got interested in reed instruments when he was living in Bangladesh, country in South Asia. This is a great project to make with groups of kids. It only takes a straw and scissors; a hole punch--and earplugs--are optional. He makes the case that even our vocal chords act like reed instruments: rushing air causes them to vibrate and create sound.
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The process

We've been to Shanghai together with iza over the weekends.
And, I'm leaving for Beijing tomorrow for 2 days.
Compact schedules...

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Enchanted Shadow (HK)

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An interesting school project : a straw instrument.

Will share more after the trip.

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DINOSAUR THEME PARK

A theme park in Changzhou, total 5.5 hr car drive to and from shanghai!

Iza was very upset because it was raining the whole day... all thrill rides closed.
More photos to come.

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In the last set of photos, we were in Camper - a shoe store.

Iza was not fiitting new clothes,

but

taking off what she's wearing,

in the public,

not in fitting area!

She's "liberal"...

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