OUR LITTLE CORNERS: May 2011

When Kelvin Poofs

Here's our first "Our Little Buddies" post courtesy of my sister Mirasol.
Here's Kelvin at his own Bathroom.

"Kelvin poofs"
Image courtesy of Mirasol!

Heya! Today, will share you some photos taken last week while Milzon, mom and I hit the public market to shop for some school supplies for Milzon and Mirasol. There are so many bargain items here that's why we grabbed the opportunity while most of them are on a big discounts.

Here, you can see the outside view of the public market of Cavite. There are so many stalls here selling some cool items.

Here's one of the sidewalk vendor's stall. Well, yes they are cheap (cheapest than you could ever imagine) but the quality of this goods are not that high and most likely, they will just last for a short period of time.

Woops! Here's some colorful flip flops!

Socks

Milzon was really excited since this was the first time that we shop for school supplies with him.

Milzon with his new Bag!

Bought a pair of tumblers too.

Cheap Office and school supplies. Love the Watercolor case!

Okay, we headed to another shop. We bought 16 notebooks. 8 for Mira and 8 for Milzon. We bought it for as low as Php10.00 each!

Milzon shopping his own things.

Then we went to a Shoe Store. There's mom on the counter area.

And here's Milzon waiting!

Milzon need 2 shoes. One Black Shoes and One Rubber Shoes. He chose the Red and Black Colored rubber shoes here (the one in the middle)

And there you go, Milzon excitingly arranged his stuffs inside his bag. Yay!

Paintastic Friday : Apple

Finally, I was able to post this entry which is supposed to be last Friday. Here's our very first entry for our "Paintastic Friday!!!" portion. So far, I have revealed 3 Portions already; The Cursive Writing 101, Learning the Dolch Word, and the Paintastic Friday!!!
I still have many portions to reveal which includes The Little Buddies, Mad Science, Loving Math, Weekly Tutorial Tips, Drawing of the Day, and the Our Little Corners Comic Strip.
And of course our art project making sessions too!
So for the first entry for our Paintastic Friday, Here's an Apple drawn by Milzon using Microsoft Paint tool.

Missing our Crafts? We will start featuring our new art crafts this coming June. Want to know our First theme? We're making Cosplay! yay!

Honest and Competent Service

It is really sad to think that most of auto repair shop today are not that honest and definitely not reliable enough to give our whole trust. Most of them are simply taking advantage of us especially for someone like me who do not have any idea about Auto repair. I'm not sure if this is a part of a modus operandi or what but they used to charge their customers inappropriately. Most likely, they will give you false results, turning a simple brake problems into a major disaster, leaving the customer no choice but to pay for the bills for the sake of having his or her car fixed.
I've been there so I know how frustrating and irritating it was. And the worst, the problem in your car is not completely resolved and you will end up looking for another auto repair chop and spend your money again for another repair.
So devastating right?
Luckily, there are some who continuously giving an honest and competent service like that Auto Repair Beaverton shop in Oregon. I have heard a lot of good things about their shop and I have read several testimonials stating how satisfied they are in the service being offered by that shop. Well, i just hope we have something like that here.
If you are interested to know more about that shop in Oregon, you can visit their official web page at http://www.chazauto.net. I have heard that they are offering some discounts too! Check them out!

Learning the Dolch Word Part 1

The Dolch Word List is a list of frequently used words compiled by Edward William Dolch, PhD. The list was prepared in 1936. The list was originally published in his book Problems in Reading in 1948. Under the copyright laws in effect during the time of publication, the Dolch word list is out of copyright.
Dolch compiled the list based on children's books of his era. The list contains 220 "service words" that have to be easily recognized in order to achieve reading fluency in English. The compilation excludes nouns, which comprise a separate 95-word list.
Many of the 220 Dolch words can’t be “sounded out” using common sound-to-letter implicit phonics patterns and have to be learned by sight; hence the alternative term, “sight word." Although the list is divided into grades, for native English speakers, all the words in the Dolch should be mastered by the end of 1st grade.
(info source: Wikipedia)
Actually, same thing goes here in my country. The Dolch Word should be memorized by kids before reaching the third grade. I started to teach Milzon the first set of words last week. I decided to teach him 22 words per day.

Here's our first 22 words
"a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make"
Now here's what we did, i let Milzon be familiarized with the words first and then I told him the meanings and uses of each words. And then we headed on our Flash Card reading session. Yup! Made my own flash cards for him. This will measure if he really knows the word.

Shuffle the flash cards and let him read the word repeatedly. Tell him to familiarized the spelling too.
Now let's check Milzon's Reading skill on our first Dolch Word tutorial

Cool! Now let's check if he can spell those words correctly. Let your kids spell the words in random order.

As you can see, Milzon got 2 mistakes. He misspelled "down" to "donw" and "Little" to "Lette". Anyway, i think he did great! Now for the 2 mistakes, here's the technique, simply include the two misspelled words on your next spelling quiz. Also, always make some recaps before you start with another set of words.

My View Upon RH Bill and Infertility

Okay, it seems that the topic about the RH Bill becomes hotter and hotter everyday. For those who are not yet familiar with this bill, lemme give you a short info about it. The bill aims to guarantee universal access to methods and information on birth control and maternal care. Right now, there is an ongoing national debate about it, separating those who support and those you oppose the said bill. It turns out to be highly controversial between experts, academics, religious and major political institution.

Personally, i am really not in favor with this bill. I know that the use of contraceptives has many advantages. It prevents someone from acquiring Sexually transmitted disease and more. But the fact that they are encouraging everybody to promote birth growth is something not right. The bill somehow support abortion too which is why i opposed this bill that bad.
Just imagine those couples who are trying their best just to have a baby! It actually reminds me of my Uncle. He and his wife tried their best just to have a baby. Her wife had miscarriage twice already and until now, they still don't have a baby that's why they are trying all the possible ways. They even went to Obando several times every year. Obando, Bulacan is a province here in the Philippines where couples from different provinces gathered and do the so-called fertility dance, hoping that Patron Saint Clare will blessed them. I know that it is a hopeless and desperate act from them but we just can't blame these people especially if they are really determined to have a baby.
His wife visited her OB several times already and as far as i know, they have tried different Assisted Reproductive Technology procedures already except for the IVF or In Vitro Fertilization since they want the best infertility doctor to do it for them.
Well yes, we should be very grateful that modern technology made it even more possible for those couples to have a baby. But then of course, even we are referring to either surgical or non surgical operation, we should not take the risk that easy. We should be very observant or better yet ask for expert's advices before undergoing any procedure. Make sure that you will be dealing with well trusted and professional doctors to ensure your health.
If you want to know more about this Infertility treatment procedures, you can visit Stony Point Surgery Center at Richmond Virginia and and contact one of their professional Obstetrics and Gynecology on the field, Dr Lucidi.
Well, that's all i can say for now! Will keep you updated about this ongoing national debate and please wish my Uncle and his wife to have a baby soon..

Cursive Writing 101 : Cursive Letter "A"

Hi Guys! Welcome to our first Cursive Writing 101! Here, I'll teach Milzon how to write Cursive letters in preparation for his upcoming School year.

See that Mini Table? I made it myself last year, you can check how to make Drafting Table here (Part 1, Part 2). We started with Letter "A"

Cool! Not Bad! Great Job Milzon! Woohoo!
By the way, we will hit the mall later this afternoon and we're going to buy some school supplies and uniforms for both Milzon and Mirasol. Will buzz more about this soon.
Have a great day and Happy Blogging

Threat to Your Lawn

You don't need Sunflowers to gather sun rays for you or a bunch Pea Shooters to protect your lawn and yourself from those brain eating zombies! There are no brain-eaters at all! Your lawn is not being threatened by this fictional gaming characters. In reality, the major threats for your lawn are those stupid pest that destroy each and every plant in your landscape, those unwanted grass that grows everywhere that ruins your garden and those sticky and slimy, hard-to-remove weeds in your lawn.

Well, that will leave you no choice but to remove them yourself or hiring an expert to do it for you. Lawn should be maintained in a regular basis and that is something really hard to accomplish if you are a busy man who do not have enough time for such matters. It is practical indeed to get lawn care services like that Md Lawn Care in Hagerstown Maryland. They sure know what to do and they can definitely finish the job in no time.
That means, hiring lawn care services will help you to save your time and will keep you away from that very stressing job. Not to mention the amount of money that you can save knowing that most of the companies especially the Md Lawn Care offer cheap and affordable services for you while maintaining a high quality result at the same time. You do not have to borrow or buy the equipments like the rototiller, mower and more from your neighbor since they already have it!
So if you are looking for a lawn service in Hagerstown Maryland, experts from Md Lawn Care services are the best people you can hire. Not to mention their high quality services and affordable service packages. Check their site to see more information about their company and also the list of services that they offer.
That's all for now guys! See yah!

My First Tutorial Session with Jessica and Jennifer

As a part of the new Our Little Corners, I told you in one of my previous entry that we will be introducing new friends here. They will join us in our tutorial and art making projects. I am currently tutoring kids so i grabbed that opportunity to invite them here in our blog as well. So sooner or later, these new kids will also share their own crafts with us. Exciting right?
Actually, i was thinking of building my own tutorial mini-school, encouraging other kids to join us. I wish i can make that dream possible someday. Well, right now, let me focus first on my tutorial job.
I will introduce 2 kids today! They are my niece., Jennifer and Jessica. They are siblings and the lovely daughters of my cousin. We just started our tutorial session yesterday. I just can't teach them at the same time since they are both in different Grades. Jennifer will turn Grade 5 this coming school year while Jessica will be in Kindergarten.

Jessica went first. Since this is our first day, there is nothing much to discuss with. We just made some recaps. I tested her if she can recite the alphabet smoothly and yes she did! However, it seems that she was able to recite the alphabet smoothly because she memorized it from the song because after showing her the Alphabet flash Cards in random order, she can hardly define a letter. The only letters she can recognized prior to our lesson are the first five letters of the Alphabet which is the A, B, C, D. and E. Well, that means we have to start again from scratch.
She don't know how to write those letters too so that makes it even more challenging. Well, i taught her first on how to write each letters in Lower and Uppercase, one by one.
So I simply wrote the correct way of writing Letter "A" and "a" on the first row of her paper. And then I let her follow the pattern until the very last row of her notebook.

Writing the letters repeatedly will make it easier for her to be familiarized with the Alphabet. We did the same process to letters "B" to "K". I decided not to teach her the entire alphabet that day to avoid any confusion. I let her be familiarized with the first 11 letters first and then we will just add 3 to 4 more letters each day until we reach the letter "Z". So far, everything turned well between me and Jessica yesterday. It's quite hard but then , she managed to memorized the letters A-K before we ended up our session. Not bad at all. Let see how much Jessica will improve on the next few days of our tutorial. Wish me luck!

After Jessica, is her sister's turn! I have nothing much to say to Jennifer. She did well on her lessons and there's nothing more to complain.

Jennifer is now in Grade 5 so I already expected it this way. Oh did you know that i served as his Tutor when she was just in preschool! And guess what, she is now an honor student, earning high grades on each subject consistently. God! I am so proud! Keep it up Jeng-Jeng (her nickname).
Well, we just did some recaps. We focused more on Mathematics. We discussed everything about writing numbers in their standard, expanded and exponential form. We also took a short time discussing the Roman Numerals.

See more of Jennifer and Jessica Soon!

Miramagia, Mirasol's New game!

Isn't cute? My siter Mirasol is getting so crazy over this new browser game called "Miramagia". Yes! Mira is so addicted to it not just because they are both sharing the same name but also because of it's amazing features and cute graphics. Actually, i tried it myself too though my level as of this moment is not as high as Mirasol but i told her that i can outweigh her in no time since i am the one using the PC most of the time! LOL! Gosh! I think i just challenged not only her but myself as well. It's just pretty hard to resist this game especially if you are aiming to earn more experience to increase your level.

Anyway, Miramagia is considered as browsergames kostenlos (German Term for Free Browsergames) and is offered at http://www.best-browsergame.de. As what the site's name suggests, the site has a huge data base of the best free browser games online. Well, the good thing about the browser games is that you do not have to download any files just to play them. We all know how risky each downloads are especially if you landed on a wrong site.
So back to MiraMagia, here's a few glimpse about their gameplay and cute little avatars and settings.

There are four playable classes here: Mage, Shaman, Sorcerer and the Druid. The avatar may change based on your gender.

Now check the cute graphical presentation of your world. You will be guided by your cute Ginni all through out the game. He's the one that will give you the tasks that you have to accomplish and your goals that you have to finish.

There is also a trading system here. There are non-playable characters on the set in which you can trade items. You have money here and that is the only way for you to buy items like foods, seeds , armor and weapons.

It is so nice to see that the game offers a chat system for their online players. This will allow you to communicate to the other players all over the world. Cool right?!

Few of your first tasks are to plant and to harvest your seeds. You are given a free field here to to perform such tasks. As your level goes higher, you will soon face different opponents and monsters on the game. You have to learn different spells and skills in order to perform them effectively and beat your opponents as well.

Interesting right? Your kids will surely love this user-friendly browser game. Come one give it a try!

Introducing Our Little Buddies

Just like what i said, Our Little Corners: Reloaded is packed with so many new features and one of them is our little fellows down here. Today, I am so happy to introduce our little buddies. Remember Andy of Toy Story, the owner of Woody? Actually i see myself in him. I used to play with these pandas when i was a kid but then as i grew up, i started to focus more on some important matters like my school and work. However, i didn't throw them out! Mirasol took care of them but of course, she's not getting any younger anymore so right now, Milzon is the one taking care of them! Gosh! We were able to keep them for more than 16 years. Okay, it was me and my cousin Melvin who named these pandas.

This is my Panda! He is Michael. I named him after one of the characters from Peter Pan. Michael is the eldest buddy among all the four Pandas. Well, He's very Playful, jolly and so childish despite of being the eldest. He's always the center of attraction due to his extreme naughtiness. And oh! He's the only Panda who do not have nose. hehe.

Mikey (May-key) is second to the eldest. He is the complete opposite of Michael. Mikey is quite and prefer to be alone. His not that playful but he's very kind and responsible to his younger brothers. He is very protective and his willing to fight for them if necessary. Mirasol owned Mikey.

Just Like Michael Mike is a Jolly and a very playful Panda. Though he thinks more matured than Michael. Mike is very studious and he's always curious in anything. He loves to discover new things no matter how extreme or harmful it was. Mike and Michael are very close to each other. Cousin Melvin is the owner of Mike.

Kelvin is the cuddliest and youngest among the four Pandas
He's so childish(yes he is) he loves to play with everyone even insects and cockroaches. He loves to get dirt and very polite and kind. Milzon owned Kelvin.

Michael and Mike are bestfriends.
Mirasol and Milzon will take over these pandas and they will make their own stories too. They will also introduce some of the little buddies friends.

Introducing "Our Little Corners : Reloaded"

So how do you find the new look of Our Little Corners? Today, i will tell you what's "Our Little Corners : Reloaded" all about and how does it differs from the previous one.
Well, here are some of the things that you have to expect in our New Little Corners.

More Crafts! Yup! We are all set to do a lot of crafts to share with you guys. Some of the lined-up projects are the improvised Board games, the boxhead people, the superhero inspired art projects and Mirasol's Stich crafts. I will also share some crafts for teenagers or adults like me.
Drawings! Milzon, Mirasol and I will also share our drawings from time to time. I will also create a short comic strip every month! So please watch out for it.

PAINTastic Friday! Paintastic Friday is a new portion here where in Milzon will use the Microsoft Paint Application and will share some of his creative artworks every Friday!

Little Buddies! Before the concept of "Our Little Corners", we once had "Little Buddies" for this blog. Little Buddies are our Panda Stuffed toys namely Michael, Mikey, Mike and Kelvin. I will discuss more about Little Buddies and Friends soon. I will introduce them to you before the end of May.

Reading, Spelling, and More! Just like what i said, I will make this blog more educational so starting June, i will share you all the things that I teach to Milzon from English Reading, Spelling, Math, Science and more! I will also provide some tutorial tips on how to teach your kids effectively. Also, we will have some quizzes to measure Milzon's progress.

Cursive Writing! I am not good in cursive writing but since Milzon will hit Grade 2 this year, i have to teach him in advance and we have to practice how to write Cursive letters properly.

Mad Science! All about science Projects and experiments for kiddies. I got a book here so I'm sure your kids will enjoy this fun learning experience.

More Friends! Aside from Milzon and Mirasol, we will be inviting some of their friends too to join us with our art project making. The more the merrier!

Our Mini Triceratops

Today, we're making a Mini triceratops! Actually i was about to submit this craft to my friend Merryn when she was asking about dino crafts but then i lost all the photos so i failed to submit it.
My camera is not working right now that's why we can't post any art crafts these past few weeks. So i just made a graphical representation below of the step by step procedure on how to make Mini Triceratops.