I'm a full-time mummy

Ever since I started kindergarten at 6 years old, I have been attending public schools (main language is Bahasa Malaysia) and during my earlier years, I mixed around with a lot of Malay friends and even spoke Bahasa with my elder brother at home (he also attends public schools), even to this day. So Bahasa Malaysia used to be my main language other than Cantonese and later on English (brushed up more when I met my hubby then boyfriend through snail mails, I had to practise and brush up my English as he doesn't speak Cantonese) Anyway, I think it is fun to be able to practise back and sharing what I know with those of you who are interested.

And so, here goes our next lesson: I'm Lost...

For those of you who are more often on Facebook, you can also find the tutorials on my Facebook fan page. I have created a "Let's Learn Bahasa & Cantonese!" album to store the phrases. Enjoy learning!

 ** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I have been sharing some of my favorite angpow pieces on an angpow collectors group in Facebook and some members have been telling me to continue sharing my memorable stories and so I thought, why not write it down, that way, our kiddos can read about it when they grow up next time, eh?

For those of you who are not familiar or never heard of the words 'Angpow' (also known as 'ang pau', 'ang pao', 'angpau'), here is a quick definition:

Angpow = Red Packet (filled with cash inside) given during festivals

So for today's angpow story, it comes from this piece of lovely angpow:

Take a look at the picture of the man playing the big drum on the bottom left part of the angpow. I remembered one of my earliest encounter with lion dance troop at very close up (like 2-3 feet away) was during my school holiday time at my late mum's hometown.

During CNY, there will be a group of lion dance troop that will go from house to house to perform. They will do all the dance in front of each house's altar (my late popo was a Buddhist) and plucking and peeling the lettuce or orange and then taking away the angpow.

It was during the peeling process that was so thrilling as the lion dance was lying down still and quiet (with drums sound softly tapping behind mimicking your surprise heartbeat). I remembered few occassions where my cousins and I would be touching the lion dance costume and the head and was curious and excited at the same time.

One time, my cousins and I even tried to play the drum using tin can but was told by someone not to ever do that as there was a belief that whoever other than those in the lion dance troop who play the drums wrongly, is kinda like mocking the spirit of the lion or whatever (can't remember) and can even incur wrath and bring death to your ownself. I can't recall clearly what other details on this but needless to say, we stopped drumming for fear of dying and incurring the wrath of whatever/whoever...

 ** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

As a stay-at home mum of 3 kiddos under 7 years old, I try my best to incorporate learning lessons in our daily life. Sometimes when our oldest kiddo is on kindy holiday, I would still take an hour or so in the morning to teach him something, phonics or writing exercise or reading few chapters of children's bible stories to kiddos, drawing activities, some Maths exercises or just let kiddos play with puzzles or toys in our study room.

Last week, we went to this pet shop in a nearby mall after our dinner. While looking at one of the aquarium tanks, our 6 year old boy nudged and said to me 'Mummy, this fish looks like the Japan flag'. I looked at the fish he pointed at...

I thought to myself 'Uhmmm... these are just normal white and red gold fishes? What does he mean by Japan flag? What is he talking about?!' I paused, took a deep breath and tried to keep my mind clear and tried to understand just what does our 6 year old boy meant.

I looked at the those fishes swimming again and then the realization hit me.

Japan flag.

I looked at the fishes again and mentally switched back to the visual of the flag of Japan country on my mind. Wow! He is right! I'm excited and very impressed! Then I tried to think back where did he learned that from? And I remembered weeks and weeks ago during one of our playing plus learning time in our study room, I went through the world map on the wall in our study room and chose some easy to identify and remember country flags to teach him such as Japan, and our very own country Malaysia, and I even went to explain to him the flags of Australia, England and New Zealand and why they kinda look similar. Then I got him to play a fun and short game where I will say out the country name and he had to quickly point out the country's flag to me.

Just that one time incident of playing and subsconsciouly teaching and learning moment and he remembered it until now.

Wow! I'm still amazed!

I'm just happy to know that such a simple fun activity could leave such an impact to a child.

Nothing is impossible when it comes to learning through playing!

 ** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.