My New Toy

Finally got my new camera as Xmas gift.   We had settled for Sony N2 because of value of money. For the same price, sony is offering 10 mega pixels while Canon only 6 megapixels.  We have got a free pouch, a free screen protector, 1Gb memory card , a mini tripod, 20% of print at fotokem lifelong and 120 free prints at fotokem. So it’s good bargain for the price they advertise and with all these bundle in (maybe can get better offer at Sg Wang…but too lazy to travel down town)

With the old camera, I didn’t really explore all the function, merely use it very basic function. Now the new one is with more function and it’s time to really play with it.

Cookies

First time baking cookies and the kids help…. not bad the result.

Quality Of Pre-school Teachers In Malaysia

Pre-schools are blooming everywhere at each corner of the housing area in Malaysia. Sometimes at one housing area, there are as many as 5 pre-schools all near by to each other just a block away or next to each other. Simply because there is a demand and the business is lucrative.

With the booming of these pre-schoolsdoesn’t mean that their teachers are all qualify in early childhood education. In Australia, to be a pre-school teacher, one needs a 4 years bachelor degree with Hon. But its a sad and petetite case in Malaysia, resources are hard to get. Though the early education is a lucrative business but the teachers are not highly paid. It’s just not any glam job that attracts young people to venture in. The demand of teachers is always higher than supply and hence almost every tom dick and harry can apply a job to be a pre-school teacher as long as they posses a SPM (equvailent to O-level) cert.

Flip through to the classification site of the newspaper , especially Chinese newspaper, almost all year round , there is advertisement on vacancy for pre-school teachers. The overturn of teacher in each pre-school is high. No doubt there are genuine qualified pre-school teachers that hold at least a diploma in early childhood education or up till master degree but these teachers are very rare and hard to get by.

What make up of all these vacancy then? Housewife that they kids had grown and they fill that they need to have job to pass time and are usually in their 40s to 50s that has been lost touch with working culture for many years and some might not even speak accurate mandarin and english.  Their true interest often might not be of the passion with working with kids, but a job that give some pocket money and kill time. They think what they know is enough and barely had the open mind to accept new teaching method and change and more often do not have the passion to do the job wholeheartely. They often think that teaching pre-school for 1/2 day is the most easy and relaxing job.

Another group of people that fills in the vacancy is students that are waiting for their public exam results (O-level or A-level) Very fresh school leavers without knowledge in child development and once their result is out and being accepted into higher learning instituition, they will leave their teaching job. These group of people again treat pre-school teaching job as a pass time activitity and a part time job that brings in income while they waiting for their results.  Some of these students are even given job as class teacher instead of assistant teacher. (No doubt they could have the love for kids in order to choose this feel , but they are lack of the understanding in early childhood education and child development in order to help the child to develop)

What happen to the poor children that has developed trust and accustomed to the teacher when the teacher decided to leave after they get offer in higher learning institution? The child have to go through the whole process of getting adapt to a new teacher where the new teacher basically knew nothing about them and it takes time to build the trust with the child.

Another group of people that fills in the vacancy is uni grad that treat pre-school teaching job as stepping stone. They say “sayonara” to the school once they found a better highly paid job in another field.

Non of these three categories are expert or even have a very basic knowledge of child developmentbut yet they are given such important job to bring up the next generation of our country. How many of these pre-school teachers have actually heard about John Dewey, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, Vygotsky, Plato or Rousseau, Froebel and even bothered to find out. And not many pre-school teachers are motivated enough to read up books on child development and child psychology. (Reading is not a habit of most Malaysian) and certainly not many pre-school teachers are motivated to go for any courses or seminars during the school holidays…even going back to in-house training also many teachers complaint.  They treat teacher as a job and most do not do it with passion.

Early childhood education is as important as university education. We are bringing up the future leaders in our country and it starts from young.  If university’s need a professor qualification to lecture, the pre-school as well need better quality teachers. Teachers that which are not only having a love for children, but also have the basic foundation in carrying out the job and have understanding in child development.

Waiting for a day that our education ministry will impose a standard on pre-school teacher’s qualification. It’s still a long way to go to be in par with developed countries like Australia.

Each time I go for a school hunt, I asked about the teacher’s qualification, preferably a cert shown to me and also the turn over rate of the teacher. The management or principle have to be good enough to retain and motivate it resource, if the teachers are motivated, they will be more dedicate to their job. It’s off parent’s own discreetion when come to choosing a pre-school for their kids and also to look into the teacher’s qualification.

Festive In The Air…..

Taking the opportunity and cyberspace here to wish everyone a BERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Will be back to Subang to celebrate with my in-laws. (My parents are away for holiday and wont be back until 26th Dec)

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy Winter Solstice 冬至快乐!

Happy Winter Solstice to everyone!!

Since today is such an important day in the Chinese calender, I’ll be cooking something less ordinary tonight. Not a feast…. but will take more time for preparation, like making popiah (preparing the fillings take quite some time) , frying nyonya noodle and fried chicken and not to miss out the glutiounus rice ball.  Taking an extra effort on this day to prepare a meal is because it’s just once a year affair and I want my kids to understand that it’s an important day in a chinese culture.

Most family would have rolled the glutionous rice ball a night before, but I didn’t do so because I’m not preparing it for prayer ( prayer to the ancestor)  early this morning and also hubby wont be eating it until he got back from work later… if I make it too early, it will become sticky and soggy.

During my childhood day, I have never got a chance to be involved in the activity of rolling the ball. My mum didn’t practice that at home. Since both my paternal and maternal grandparents staying quite near by to us, it’s just a phone call away and we already get yummy food to eat. So all I knew was TO EAT!! We would have feasty lunch at maternal grandma house and later dinner at paternal grandparents place.  To me it’s just another special and important day which there would be ample of good food and also glutinous rice ball.

Last year was the first time I try my hand on make the balls, mainly because I want to instill this cultural awareness in my kids. Suffice to say I have nil knowledge on that. Prior to that I didn’t even know the existent of glutinous rice flour and where to get it but I was ambitious enough to want to make glutinous rice ball with fillings in it. During the process, I made endless SOS calls to my mum and at the end it still end up a failure and mess.

This year I have learned from my past experience.

 Occupy the kids with some “work” while I was busy in the kitchen. Caught this pic when I check on them later.

 JS helped me to roll the balls

 WH also wanted to help

 Playing with left over dough.

 The glutinous rice ball ready to be cooked. The big white ones with peanut fillings.  I didn’t make it according to the tradition/restriction of 6 big white balls and 6 big red balls, all make in fun filled sizes and colours.

 Put the balls into boiling water. Once the balls started floating on the water surface, scooped it out and then soak the ball in ice cold water. (mum said that by doing so, the ball will have a better texture (QQ taste))

 This is the rock sugar for the sweetened soup. It’s called “Pin Tong” in cantonese. Some would prefer to use Gula Melaka and some Cantonese will prepared red date soup based.

 Boiling the sweetened liquid using the above sugar and Pandan leaf.

Ready to be served. When hubby comes home, I just need to heat up the sweetened liquid and then put in the glutinous rice ball.

 A savoury version that my neighbour brought over. The liquid is actually chicken soup. The Hakkas usually prepare savoury glutinous rice ball while the hokkien and cantonese the sweet version.

Xmas Craft

Some Xmas crafts that JS had done yesterday.  It doesn’t really look like a small girl’s work, because I’m the one who prepared the materials and drew the outline. All that she does was to cut and paste and decorate with my supervision and some suggestion when nessesary.  The fun thing to her is to get to work and at the same time having mummy spending time with her.

 Paper plate angel.

  Toilet paper roll angel.

  Xmas tree made of gloss paper and recycle cardboard

 Proud with her work

Source of craft ideas from here and here

Suppose to make more crafts so that each of the family member will get something on Xmas day, and also need to make another birthday card for SIL 2, unfortunately I haven’t really got the time today. Hopefully tomorrow morning we can do another batch before we head home for the holiday.

冬至 Winter Solstice

Tomorrow 22/12 will be a day for the chinese to celebrate winter solstice 冬至 (dong zhi) (some call it the Chinese Christmas) some chinese call it 元宵节 (yuan xiao)  . It’s the most important event among the 24 seaonal changes/festives in the chinese calender, even more important than the Chinese New Year. (The origin  of 24 seasonal changes (二十四节气) is according to the changes according to the climate/season. They are 立春、雨水、惊蛰、春分、清明、谷雨、立夏、小满、芒种、夏至、小暑、大暑、立秋、处暑、白露、秋分、寒露、霜降、立冬、小雪、大雪、冬至、小寒、大寒) 

The Chinese always say “冬至大过年” (Winter Solstice is greater than the New Year) and I remeber when I was young, my father or the Cantonese always have this joke of “冬至大过年, 老婆大过奶”.

During the day, it’s believe to be the shortest day with the least daylight throughout the year. After this day, longer daylight will be seen. That’s why it also signify a better new start of another year.

During the winter solstice day, it’s common practise for the family to have reunion dinner. Some chinese like Cantonese will have sticky glutinous rice , Hakka will have herbal chicken and other special dish, but all chinese never miss the glutionus rice ball.

The balls are made of glutionous rice flour and using in white and red in colour. And it’s serve with sweetened liquid.

Last year my kids help to roll the balls and they enjoyed it very much…. and tonight I’m going to involve the kids again.

Conversation With A 26th Month Old

Below is a conversation with my 26th month old WH who has just started to show some progress in his speech.

Was praising him for a good job done

“Wah…WH so clever. Who is the clever boy?”

“I ver (clever).  Jie jie not ver (clever)”

“Why you say jie jie not clever?”

“Jie jie noty (naughty)”

“Why?’

“Jie jie scold”

“Jie jie not naughty. Jie jie also love WH. Mummy love who?”

“Mummy love Hanh Hanh”

“What about jie jie?”

“Dont love”

“Why?”

“I don’t know”

When There’s No Internet Access…..

The only good thing when there’s no interent access at home was that I actually spent less time in front of the pc and more time with the kids.

Here are some of the activities we have done among the many others.

 WH doing spooning activity of transferring peanut from one container to another while JS doing some writing work.

 JS’s turn to do spooning activity of transferring peanuts to 2 equal containers.

 Transfering of water from one container to another using sponge

 Transfering of water from one container to another using syringe

 Transferring of sago to 2 equals container.  (it wasn’t easy for WH to do that without spillage). Look at WH carry out the work with full concentration.

WH having his turn with the sponge

 Tranferring of nut with tongs

 Pegging activity.  Seems a easy task for the kids and they cant wait to have their turn, but my presentation to them was that I peg it in a certain colour sequence. I actually want them to observe and copy what I did.  Initially WH just pegged the way he likes, but the following time , he can actually get what I have done earlier.

 Tumbling tower. JS favourite family game. She’s actually quite good at that.

My kids actually treat this activity as fun thing.  After the first day of doing, the next day JS would asked ” mummy, what fun thing we doing today”

I like to observe them when the doing it. It’s fun , kids being kids they really explore around and when they discover something, they become excited. Like WH would say “Cold , mummy” when he touches the water. They were amazed by the sound made by the dropping peanuts and sago when they spoon over to another container and also JS would go “mummy, do this way can get bubbles!”

WH is able to choose the activity he wants to do the next day by going to the place I keep the things. Of course they love the activity involved with water the most.

OK…now have to thing of more activities for them and prepare more materials…

N2 or Exilim

Almost time for our 5 years old sony cybershot 2.0 to retired.  Currently looking in Sony N2 and Casio Exilim but undecided…. canon is good but a little pricey

 

Like the features of sony, but not so much of the shape. 

Exilim card the highest is 7.2 megapixel but nicer shape…..

Yet another decison to be made….