How to guide children in Mandarin homework if you don't even know one word in Mandarin

Guiding my child in his Mandarin homework is like…..

Luckily I have Pleco, the Chinese dictionary in my Android. I’m so much in love with this app. It is so easy to use. All Julian has to do if he wants to know the meaning of certain Mandarin character, is just to draw them on the screen.

I could say it is 99% accurate as it can identify the character you are drawing even if you the ugliest handwriting in the world (ok, that’s a bit too much). But still, I think it’s a great app, as you pick the correct character at the bottom of the app and out came the definition in English.

And, for some reason, the app can’t recognize your handwriting, you can use the OCR feature. Using your phone’s camera and a yellow box as your guide, point it at the character and the app will try to detect the strokes of the character and you’ll get the translation in pinyin (pinyin is roman spelling of the chinese phrase).

Type out the pinyin phrases and you'll get the definition.

But depending on the app alone is not enough. So, for non-mandarin speaker, it’s better to send children to a mandarin tuition class or on a one-to-one tuition.

Julian previous tuition teacher advice to;

* Expose children to a Mandarin-speaking environment

* If you let your children watch cartoon on television, let them watch once in a while, cartoon in Mandarin audio (at astro channel).

* As parent, I think it’s a good thing to learn with them. Try to learn a few easy Mandarin phrases; such as good morning or how‘s your day at school like; and try to communicate with them at home.

After all, we want the best for our children.

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Squeeze Your Stress Away

I’m a full time mom doing part time home-based gift business and occasionally doing artwork for my homemade gift or artwork for church.

Stress is inevitable whether you are a student, working mom or housewife. One sure way I go through my stressful days is by crocheting (apart from praying). The repetitive action of crochet distracts me from whatever issues I had at the moment.

Nowadays, it seems everybody is stressed out.

A more easy quick way is to use a stress ball. The act of squeezing and stretching stress ball somehow ease you. You can also use these stress ball for your kids as well.
Find out how to make one here.

Have fun!

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Homemade Remedy for Cough

I had these terrible itchy cough that won't stop these few days. It would get worse during the night. I hate eating medicine especially cough syrup. I would feel sleepy the whole day. Even if I consume the non-drowsy cough syrup, for some reason, I would finish one bottle of medicine and still cough like crazy.

I saw these homemade remedy for coughing on the internet and thought I give it a try. 

Basically you just mix slices of lemon into the honey.  So you will be only needing these two ingredients;  1 lemon and a cup of honey. 

Place lemon slice in a glass jar or a mason jar and pour honey until the jar is full. Leave overnight in the refrigerator and take one spoonful when required. Or even you can take it by mixing with warm water.

I got to say I found out that my cough will subside during the day. You have to consume this homemade remedy for about 2-3 days for it to show effects.

I did give this homemade cough syrup to my 6 yo. He was having this dry nonstop cough when we had a month long haze right here in Penang. We would come home one day and by evening he would have this really bad cough. Went out to the pharmacy and buy the most expensive honey I could find (it was raw honey and it was imported from somewhere...) and get home. I give my son a spoonful of honey mix with a few drops of lemon and by midnight the cough's gone.  

So I think this homemade remedy works. But consume with caution. Honey is not suitable for babies below 1 year old.

Enough of my rantings! Try it yourself! 

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Dinner Planner

Materials and Tools

* decorative paper

* Ink-Jet magnet paper

* metal ruler

* scissor

* craft knife

* self healing cutting mat

* spray adhesive

* glue stick

* computer  

* ink-jet printer

Instructions

1. Create heading

Cut a sheet of patterned paper to 81/2" × 11" ( 22 cm x 28 cm) and, using a computer, print the title. You can add decorative or geometric design and print the title inside the design. Set aside.

2. Create weekly table

Create a table by using a computer with the days of the week along the lefhand column and the headings (Main Dish, Side Dish, Vegetable and Dessert) along the top row. Each table cell is about 4 cm x 3 cm. 

3. Cut paper strips
Cut 4 strips of 4 cm x 22 cm strips of colored-paper.

4. Cut magnet paper

Cut a piece of ink-jet magnet paper to 18 cm x 22cm.

5. Mount paper strips
Apply spray adhesives to one side of the colored strips on step 3. Mount this strips vertically, side by side, onto the black side of the magnet sheet.

6. Cut first set of narrow paper strips
Cut three 22cm x 6mm strips fo polka-dot paper or any patterned paper you like.

7. Cut second set of narrow paper strips
Trim six 18cm x 8mm strips of striped paper of any paper patterned you like.

8. Mount magnet to paper

Apply spray adhesives to the back of the magnetic section prepared in step 5 to the paper with the weekly table in step 2.

9. Mount horizontal strips
Using a glue stick, mount the six striped paper strips (in step 7) horizontally across the four colored strips.

10. Mount vertical strips

Using a glue stick, mount the paper strips from step 6 vertically and at regular intervals.

11. Cut paper base

Cut a piece of pink-patterned paper to 24 cm x 30 cm.

12. Mount table and title to base paper
Position and mount with spray adhesives the weekly table and the title, centered on the pink-patterned paper on step 11.

13. Print dish magnets
Using a computer and printer, design and print 19mm x 4cm cell box on ink-jet magnetic paper a selection of menu choices. Cut out each dish magnet and place it on chart as desired. 

There you go! Now you have a meal organizer that makes planning a week's worth of dinners a piece of cake.

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Life Hack for Sweaty Underarms

Every Sunday when I go to Church service I always make sure that I wear  dark shirt or dress. Church service can sometime go for 4 hours as we have a lot of activities. This month we are having practices for Christmas celebration so it’s going to be a lot of sweating involved.

I sweat a lot that’s why I used a lot of anti-perspiration deodorant. Recently there’s a lot of scare going on about deodorant that caused cancer in later life. Although there is no real evidence but I might just go slow on this entire chemical. So I decided to go free and used less of deodorant…but I still do sweat. So I had to pick the type of fabric and color I used on a hot afternoon day.

There’s a lot of hack on the internet on to prevent embarrassment of sweat stains. Life hacks are my favorite tips and trick to save on my pinterest.

And I found this…use an ultra-thin pantyliner on your sleeve to absorb sweat. But make sure that it sticks well to your sleeve. Once I used a cheap pantyliner and on the way to Church I noticed something bulky down my arm (I was wearing a long sleeve shirt). Upon checking it was pantyliner sticking comfortably down my sleeve. So make sure it does stick to the sleeve.

And if you are wearing short sleeved shirt, cut the pantyliner in half before applying them.

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