Happy Chinese New Year

We'll be away for 1 week to celebrate CNY with our loved ones, here wishing my readers blessed Chinese New Year, have a fruitful and meaningful time with your loved ones, drive safely...

"Sing nien kuai le, sen ti jian kang, wan se ru yi, gong xi gong xi"

Yummy breakfast

Here is a simple breakfast recipe for the family....

I prepard this in one of the Saturday morning...

1) Toasted bread with butter
2) Fried egg with button mushrooms
3) Sweetened peach (from a can)
4) Slices of tomatoes

It's quite easy and simple, cut the button mushrooms into thin slices, beat 4/5 eggs depending on number of servings, add in some milk or cheese (per your liking), some soya sauce.. heat the wok and pour in oil.... fry the egg + ingredients in it as normal.....the rest just cut and serve... we ate with a glass of milk voila... a delicious breakfast indeed

Emily's version without the mushroom wor...

Bean awards

We bought a new book for our story telling time since we have finished with the 2nd book and yesterday lesson was about being cheerful and kind. The book suggest an activity at the end of each story, I improvised the activity to add on more elements. We are supposed to have a jar and some beans, over the week a bean will be placed in the jar whenever a child complains or acted grumpy when asked to help somebody. We are supposed to count number of beans collected (if any) at the end of the week and share our learning...

This is what I did.... since I wanted the kids to learn to appreciate one another and say more positive and good words (they complain about each other all the time!!), I divided the container into 3 compartments - one for "complain - :(", one for "angry :(" and the last one for "say good words :)", one each for Emily and Michelle. Michelle helped me in the preparation... since they already started to say good words last night (not very sincere though cause the motive is to earn the beans only), anyhow I awarded them a bean each this morning...

The girls are excited over it and over lunch today both of them were contemplating to complain about each other, when I asked them "are you complaining??", they immediately responded "ar... nolah and showed their cheeky look". So far it works wonderfully...

We'll see the results at the end of the week....

The containers...one for Michelle and one for Emily..




My container - hold by the judge, that's me...he he he

Tips for parents

While preparing Michelle for Primary 1, I talked with a few experienced parents and as a result accumulate a few practical and important tips, I found it very helpful and here sharing with you all out there..

Tip 1: Adjusting your child time..
Most primary 1 schoolers will have to attend class in the afternoon... shift your child's time and habit like cutting on her afternoon naps and letting her wake up later in the morning... Michelle is still adapting and most of the days dozed off by 9.30pm... she still wakes up quite early 7.30 - 8.00am because from Tues-Thur still have to send mei mei to school :(

Tip 2: Extra panty and tissue papers
Ha ha... just in case they did the big business in school, it can be messy lor.. and don't expect that they'll know how to wipe and wash their butt butt clean.. So I told Michelle, just in case things turned out messy, just discard the panty, change a new one and remind her to wash her hands..

Tip 3: Get phone numbers of other parents..
This is a MUST... to double confirm homework and other important information that your child may overlooked, trust me no matter how alert your child could be.. they are really blurred..... because when you questioned them they will showed you the "???/poor thing" face and everything also "don't know". Just this morning I have to locate her classmate to confirm some homework...

Tip 4: Labeled their stuffs
For RM5-RM10.. you can get nice beautiful stickers with their names printed on them and have it pasted on all their stuffs...

Tip 5: Remind them to clear their drawers at the end of the day
Most schools implement class sharing systems... anything left in the drawer will most probably vanished the next day.....

Tip 6: Buy your child a very striking bag... so that you could traced him/her among other kids.... they looked exactly the same and all girls carried pinky bags... go for flourescent green or red, you'll never regret it eventhough it may looks "unique":D

I'll write more as the time goes by.... Primary schooling is very different from pre-schooling.....

Awakening..

2 weeks into lecturing..... the result... a hoarse voice. Guess not used to hours of talking and talking... Hmm need to boil bird nest to soothen my voice.

What I enjoyed most are Mondays and Fridays... days off where I got to spend more time with the girls. We did a lot of random things together... like making envelopes, washing the car, cooked porridge, gardening....

You know I've not been bathing the girls for quite some time, when I bathed them lately I realized how fast they've grown up, how tall they are and the towels are too small for them when I wrapped them up. I take time to smell them too...

Lately I noticed that Michelle is a bit temperamental and Emily has became a TV addict!! and she is crazy over rings nowadays. Staying at home has also opened up my eyes on the way they spent time at home (no discipline leh) and see the "real picture" of both of the girls (they really know how to negotiate and reason nowadays.

Last night we learnt about having patience and I know I will need a lot of it from now on....

Teaching a child...

Teaching your own child can be quite challenging, I heard numerous comments from parents that they find it so difficult to teach their child be it in their studies , driving a car, playing the piano…. “You can’t teach your own child, you’ll be very frustrated, they will take advantage of you, you can’t save a tuition teacher’s fees etc”

The reason of me changing job is to have more time to coach the children at home, so yesterday I had the opportunity to revise class lessons with Michelle. I realized of all the subjects, Bahasa Malaysia (the Malay language) is definitely not a favourite subject for her. Mainly due to us also, we find it so odd to be speaking Bahasa at home so her vocab is quite limited.

On the second day of school she was already introduced to 20 words, some of them were familiar but majority were not. The bahasa was taught in both language (Bahasa vs Mandarin), hubby wanted to test her understanding by covering the Chinese characters, immediately she kept quiet, feeling so sad and wanted to cry… hubby was caught unguarded and seek my advice… (ha ha ha, see how important this mummy is)..

I brought her to my room, asked her concerns and she burst into tears, poor girl. When she got settled down, we confirm her concerns and I reassured her that we all got to learn from zero and mummy will be with her.. by the way that’s the reason of her going to school right??

I tried creative ways to help her to remember, important thing is to understand the meaning… we did a lot of role play and scene creation… in less than ½ hour she managed to remember and understand all the words and me in return learned all the 20 Chinese words lor… win-win situation indeed…

Another year older and wiser...

I celebrated my 3X th Birthday on last Tuesday… MIL bought a small cake, the kids sang birthday song the night before, hubby and I went for a simple dinner and shopping thereafter. Hubby bought me a dress for Christmas cum Birthday gift (that’s the disadvantage when your birthday is close to some other major day, 2 in 1 kind of arrangement) and I bought myself a good walking sport shoes. I pledged to shred some pounds of this year, eat healthily and take delicate care of myself. On another note for the past week, the girls and I have started on a bed exercise regime… This is what we do - sit-ups, cycling on bed, hands and legs stretching, shoulder and neck relaxing, deep breathing and a whole lot of fun time….

Schooling again

Michelle and Emily is coping quite well at school. Emily being in the same kindy has little adjustment to be made except she has to deal with a more stern and straight teacher this year (good for her, she needs that). Michelle is doing fine but we believe she is quite stressed up too because MIL said that yesterday she was sleep walking, walked to her room, MIL brought her to wee wee, she then walked to the living room and start waving and saying “bye-bye”, guessed must be repeating the action at school, then walked to MIL’s room, waved her hand and said “bye-bye” again. This morning I found her sleeping at MIL’s room…. When I questioned, she’s not so sure… ha must be very tired walking here and there the whole night, poor girl… I hope she gets to sleep soundly tonight.

Schooling-mia

Michelle and Emily is coping quite well at school. Emily being in the same kindy has little adjustment to be made except she has to deal with a more stern and straight teacher this year (good for her, she needs that). Michelle is doing fine but we believe she is quite stressed up too because MIL said that On Monday night she was sleep walking, walked to her room, MIL brought her to wee wee, she then walked to the living room and start waving and saying “bye-bye”, guessed must be repeating the action at school, then walked to MIL’s room, waved her hand and said “bye-bye” again. On Tuesday morning I found her sleeping at MIL’s room…. When I questioned, she’s not so sure… ha must be very tired walking here and there the whole night, poor girl… I hope she gets to sleep soundly in the nights to come...

Lecture-mia

We’ve been watching the movie Mamma Mia repeatedly… so we are hot with mias….

Started to teach last Tuesday, so far so good. I’m blessed with a wonderful view, the class that I taught in faces the sea, so a sea-view classroom with layers of mountain as the background. The college that I taught in situated in a high-rise building, 28th floor the second last storey of the entire building. What a nice way to start my new chapter of life.

I’m teaching 4 subjects this semester, 2 papers each for Diploma and Degree program. The class size is small, with only 2 or 3 students per class, so lots of interaction with the students, I also have 2 foreign students this semester, one from Saudi Arabia and the other, Bangladesh.

The current teaching arrangement is very flexible, I get to choose my time and only required to be present during lecture hours in which I packed them into 3 full days, averaging about 6 hours/day. I can choose to prepare the lectures at home or in the staff room during my free time.

Sounds like a pretty good arrangement but of course in terms of the employment package it is incomparable to my previous positions. I’m hoping to get some teaching experience and wait upon God’s leading, besides God is good to prepare a job so fast (the one I’m looking for) and at the same time allows me to cover the general expenses of our household.

So if I sound too naggy in my blogs, please bear with me ya…lecturer mah…. I’m hoping to be a facilitator, facilitating the students in their knowledge acquiring process and not lecturing my way……………

Michelle in Primary 1

Yup, today is Michelle first day at Primary 1... she was a bit anxious and excited the whole morning, so used going to school in the morning and she felt a bit helpless the whole morning. I tried to keep her occupied and experienced my first full day being a SAHM... so far still okay but my patience tank is running a bit low already... he he he.

I dropped her to the hall and waited till the teacher took them to the class, later I heard from my neighbor that Michelle was being put into the same class as our neighbor's daughter as her initial class (1E) was meant to be a "special" class. She's now in a "normal" class... wonder what's that means? Now she's at 1U, U for "ungu" violet in Bahasa....

MIL will be picking her up while I cooked dinner later. I have also promised Emily that I'll bring her to the playground later, she's been nagging me the whole afternoon.

The past few days were spent preparing for lectures this week. So far I'm ready, I hope my students are ready too... :D

I will download Michelle's photo in her school uniform later... as for now, a backdated photo after the "back to school" shopping spree last few weeks..