Learning Chinese in A Non-Chinese Speaking Environment

Both husband and I can't speak our ancestral language. Somehow it stopped at two generation above us. Got to do with some historical background, as I have repeated that many times to total strangers.

Then, after so many years in Singapore, we still couldn't. Not that we're not learning at all. But I guess the will is not strong enough yet to master the language. I know... Shame on us.

However! After much deliberation, we decided that our two kids shall return to the light. They shall learn Chinese. *shaking in fear* We braces ourselves to the fact that their grades will be pulled down by this subject. The benefit outweighs this fact as what we've seen. 

So, now my eldest is P3. We do struggle with it. And dear daughter has lovingly told me that of course she can't do well because mommy can't teach her at home. Oh well... But, I think, I hope, I can fairly say that she is on the surviving side. She got higher Chinese, and in school she got into the best Chinese class.

This post is not to gloat. But I do hope to share our journey with families in similar situation. 

We started Chinese lesson for her from 18 months plus (!) This kiasu-ness is because I think language exposure is best to be started as early as possible. I chose one of the best language school in town. 

[Verdict] At this age, we don't have to go to the best. Go to the most fun. Consider the fact whether the school allows the use of non-Chinese language in teaching. Pure 100% Chinese only scared my kid.

The trauma is such that we keep it on hold until she was in nursery (4 years old). That time, thankfully, we got a great recommendation for a Chinese tutor from her kindergarten. Our son has started his lesson with the same tutor too, at around the same age

[Verdict] Private tutors are great at supporting a specific area that we need to enhance. Parents need to closely monitor because they are not running based on any firm lesson plan. Make use of the flexibility well by specifying clearly what you want. Share with them the school exam dates and school works progress (both, good and bad). Lastly, monitor so that the kid is not doing homework or writing work at lesson time. It will be much more effective to use the time to converse, to learn new thing, to fix mistakes.

Our younger son started Berries at 3 years old mark. This is the youngest age Berries accepted. Daughter started from 5 years old there, after the kindergarten fed back that she still doesn't speak enough Chinese.

[Verdict] Comparing son and daughter, true enough, he can recognize character and listen to the language fairly better. Before P1, Berries is seemingly all play. The kids go home happily clutching a little toy or artwork or food related to the lesson.

How about home then?

Be prepared to help them. At the very least, the effort both supporting the kids morally, and showing them the "there's a will, there's a way".

I am a great fan of Pleco, available for both Apple and Android. The OCR is great. That's the first add-on I purchased. Moving on, I ended up buying the whole bundle. The handwriting recognition and flash card are excellent too. You don't need other apps once you have this, I think.

Before Pleco, I used Besta electronic dictionary to painstakingly translating word by word of her Chinese reading. After she entered P1, I realized that the pinyin tone is slightly different for a few words. Fret not, Pleco pinyin tone is so far matched the Primary textbook.

Armed with electronic dictionary and Google Translate (better to translate lengthy text efficiently), I still help the kids with their homework, miraculously. Lucky, Chinese grammar is quite simple.

Other than that, we also invested in a lot of Chinese books. A bit heart breaking to see the books are seldom touched. But at least when the mood strikes, the environment is ready. After some times, seems like both kids are slowly warming up to Chinese.

Kid no 2 is lucky. I have no 1 as guinea pig. So after observing her weak point in primary, now I started the younger one on comprehension earlier. It forced him to read Chinese slowly but surely. Otherwise, the jump from P2 to P3 curriculum is too wide. Seems like from character recognition they need to jump to composition.

Well, can't say much beyond P3. So I need to end this here. Good luck :)

Mrs. Chan agar agar

Twice a year, I crack my brain for a good birthday cake for our two kids.

Below is what I got recently:

The pic is not doing it justice. But I hope you got the thrill of seeing cute agar2 or jelly. It's yummy too.

Mr and Mrs Chan have lots of design to choose from, with reasonable price. 

A minor disadvantage is that I always buy a small cake so that we can poke the candles on. Too weak hearted to damage the sleek shiny surface of the jelly.

Monopoly Zapped

My dearest soul-mate loves games. From snake and ladders to oh-so-complicated computer games, he loves it all. 

Our kids had their first brush with monopoly from the tender age of around 2 plus.

So now, we have an array of board games. From domino to Robinson Crusoe. There's an online board game shop with good service in Singapore, but maybe that's for a later post.

This post is dedicated for Monopoly Zapped, our newest family member. It has reduced kids to tears, as well as elevated them to a whooping joy.

What's that? It's a combination of normal monopoly and iPad/iPhone.

How?

1. Instead of chance or community cards, you'll get to do games, auction, etc on the iPad/iPhone. No more messy or bent cards.

2. Instead of fussing with paper money, each player hold a card which we tap onto iPad/iPhone to charge/collect money. No more calculating everything with the kids arguing in the background. A much welcome relief. But, I wonder how if the card gets damaged. Hope it won't happen so soon.

3. The possibility is limitless. For example, for chance, the player might be required to spin the arrow via device. Something that requires another board on normal monopoly. And the games played allows more player to compete, or even all players. 

4. It allows auction of property. Adding an interesting concept to the game. 

5. Dices and houses are still physical. Not sure whether this is a plus or minus.

All in all, we're very happy with it. 

iPad

Hmmm... I forgot that I haven't wrote anything about iPad.

Anyway, here it is. 

I thought iPad is simply a larger scale iPhone. But, a few days after playing with it, no... I was wrong.

Below are some iPad features and apps that I adores:

1. The larger screen allows us to watch with others. This makes the experience so much more enjoyable. Laughing together amplifies the joy. If course, we can go the extra mile, use Apple TV.

2. Apps in iPad usually pack more functions. You can get things done easier there compared to iPhone. Kids, without doubt, have more and better games. 

3. QuickOffice. I have tried many free apps that allows us to edit MSOffice on iPad. So far, QuickOffice is the most suitable for me. User interface is simple and intuitive, we can upload and download from google docs, etc. Beware  though, documents that are originally created in QuickOffice cannot be edited via normal MSOffice on PC. In a way, it's a one way compatibility. But if the doc is originally created in MSOffice, you can go to and fro. Other two downsides are formulas and data size in a sheet. Only simple formulas are accepted. And, I tried on data 12 columns wide for 1000 rows. It went haywired, failed to save and auto close. Oh... And there is no charting function. Though it seems like lots of downside, it is a good apps. Very useful for mommying. 

4. AXS on mobile... Or something like that. This apps allows us to pay bills by internet banking, just like normal AXS machine. Receipt will be sent to our emails. Plus side, it keeps track of our payment history, easy to check whether we've missed anything.

5. Paper by 53. If you're an occasional doodlers like me, this app is cool. Very easy to use. It is not like other apps which offers many tools combination and sizes. Papers offers a very simple concept. But it is amazing of what we can do, and lots of great artist did, on it.

So there you go, perfunctory acknowledgement of good stuff.

Apple TV

I always try to catch snippets of time to read a jolly rom-com or to watch comedy... Even for 10 mins, it works wonder for me.

A few months back, I was on The Nanny rerun on my iPhone (yay YouTube).

Hubby took a pity on me and my little screen and he bought me an iPad.

Since then, the children have also been enjoying My Little Pony on iPad. Two little bodies were huddled together in front of the VUT (Very Useful Thing).

So... Dear Hubby, bless him, bought us and Apple TV.

Before purchase, I was sceptical. Why pay for something which in essence only allowing the TV to access internet? But he assured me that it will be worth every cent.

So, as I have marveled at iPad, I continued to a greater height of respect for Apple product. (In fact, since this discovery, I have been reading Steve Jobs biography. Very much intrigued on how his mind works, what's the background behind good invention).

As a product, it gave us a wide spectrum of joy. Watch movie, share photos, share videos, karaoke, ... Even the kids had fun using iPad/iPhone camera in one room, and watching what's happening through the TV. 

One thing that I salut most is Apple ability to design a somewhat modular joyful devices that works together, as well as solo. And that, at a price that is acceptable. Based on experience that our iPhone 3G is still working fine until now, I put my hope high that Apple product is also long lasting. 

Sadly, this post is not sponsored by Apple. It's purely my opinion in supporting a good product, of a man who leaves this world with a bang. 

Kreo vs Lego

We have a 5 years old Lego boy at home. Seriously faithfully addicted to Lego. Helped us a lot in buying Christmas and brithday and whatsnot presents. 

So, when GroupOn has an offer on Kreo, we bought a box for him. Kreo is compatible with Lego, or so they claimed. We have not checked this though.

When opening the box, he was wide eyed with wonder. All sorts of new joints and shapes to explore. Kreo really has a lot of brick type variety. I know that Lego also do have not-joking breath of design, but Lego's beginner box contained standard types mostly. We bought the 700+ pcs of Kreo bucket, but I saw parts that I've never seen before. 

Then, boy boy proceeded to copy one of the vehicle on the bucket. Only then we realized the lack of manual. I do believe to encourage creativity in children, no need to rely on manual. So we goes on.

So I guided him. Carefully opening a little packet, keeping my finger crossed that Kreo packed everything we need for a creation on the packet. After staring at it for quite some times, my engineer self decided that they are not that kind. Each figurine parts were packed in a little plastic, thankfully. Seems like other parts were bagged randomly.

Opening and searching everything. 

Found there's at least one missing part. On the pic, there are two of a kind of brick. But we only got one.

Broken hearted, dear son stopped playing. Now, the Daddy is the one putting up the puzzle, where must go where. Good luck, Hubby. Do us proud.

One more thing, Kreo joints are more loosely connected than Lego. Plus side is that it doesn't require much strength or tricks to prise open. However, it causes the creation to fall apart easily.

All in all, I do think it is a good product. Workmanship is ok, though Lego's finer. You can still see some tiny sharp points on the Kreo bricks. But the marketing strategy needs a lot of work. Though written for age 4+ on the bucket, I seriously don't think that a four year old can take joy in it independently. Serious adult help is needed.

Well, though I don't think so, could also be that my son is the one 'slow'. We are also spoilt rotten by Lego fantastic no word needed manual. With the almighty manual, son have managed to set up everything by himself (written age 11+ on packets). Please share some comments/tricks if you have one. How to make use of that bucket sitting lonesome at home?

Seriously Addictive - Rainbow Loom

Not sure whether it's the color, or the feel of a well manufactured product. Within hours of owning it? Son (yes, 5 years old boy), daughter, and I were addicted to it.

As an avid crafter and a nerd, I really love that it creates beautiful wearable product, while also challenges the grey cells. 

If you chained rubber bands to make skipping rope when you were small, imagine making it with much nicer bands.  And... Million more ways to braid/weave it to make nicer chain. Even, charms like Christmas tree, the yellow minions, flowers, whatsnots are possible. 

Check it out (don't judge the product by the website, please go on... Check out the video, a patented device surely deserves to be admired)

http://www.rainbowloom.com/instruction.html

Or, if you're you-tubers, just search there. There're much more videos to enjoy.

Pssst... If you're considering, I bought it from Spotlight @ Plaza Singapura for around SGD 30. It's the loom, plus picker, a bag of bands plus c-clips enough for 24 bracelets. Price is a bit steep, but I think of it as a well-deserved reward for a brilliant idea.

As usual, this is NOT a paid post for advertisement. I do not receive anything from Spotlight or Rainbow Loom for this post. Strictly to share and support good product.

P.S. If you know any good cheaper place to get the rubber bands, please do leave comments. I think I'll need to stock up soon. So many ideas to try out!