I'm a full-time mummy

I have previously written on teaching our 4 year old girl to write number 2. My methods in explaining to her how we should write number 2 was by explaining to her as we draw the number 2:

'Climb up a bit, oh no, we're falling! Go inside! Phewww... okay come outside!'

2 weeks from that day, I casually told our girl to write number 2 on the whiteboard and it was not like number 2 at all. Despite going through the 'Climb up a bit, oh no, we're falling! Go inside! Phewww... okay come outside!' method, her number 2 is just crooked to one side. No matter how I straightened her right hand as she writes her number 2 it just turns out wrongly.

I was running out of idea and she was getting frustrated and started whining that her writing is not perfect and this idea came to my mind. I tore out a small strip of used paper, took my red marker pen and drew a half heart shape on the paper.

Then I placed the strip of paper on the whiteboard and told our 4 year girl to draw the reflection image of the heart.... so that she can help mummy complete the heart shape. She likes the idea after seeing my sample heart shape and tried it herself.

Lots and lots of practise, gentle coaxing, reassurances and praises later, she got it! Some of her number 2s are still not as perfect as you would expect a number 2 to look like but hey, she's just 4 years old! It's beautiful to me and we are both thrilled at our results! Sometimes you just gotta tweak and be more creative if the current method doesn't work.

I shared some pictures above in an FB group I joined recently and one mum shared with me that there's some really old number rhymes she used to learn and upon googling around, I found it! Turns out I'm not the wonky one to come up with the half heart thingy to write number 2! Here it goes in case you are interested:

0 - Around to my left to find my hero, back to the top, I've made a zero

 1 - A downward stroke, My that's fun. Now I've made the number one.

2 - Half a heart says, "I love you." A line. Now I've made the number two.

3 - Around the tree, Around the tree, Now I've made the number three

4 - Down and across and down once more. Now I've made the number four

5 - The hat. The back. The belly. It's a five. Watch out, it might come alive

6 - Bend down low to pick up sticks. Now I've made the number six

7 - Across the sky and down from heaven. Now I've made the number seven

8 - Make an "S" and close the gate. Now I've made the number eight

 9 - Make an oval and a line. Now I've made the number nine

10 - One egg laid by a hen. Now I've made the number ten

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It has been almost 7 years since I left my job in the IT world to be a stay-at-home-mum. With our 3 kiddos growing up fast, how can parents like me adapt and try to keep up with the ever changing world of modern technology? How do we make use of modern technologies to parent our children and at the same educate and learn as we journey into the world of parenthood?

As parents, I absolutely believe there is no way we can avoid and shun our lives from technology and modern devices. It intertwined with almost every aspect of our lives and I feel that the best way is to embrace these technologies but still keep them to a moderate level and being there with our kiddos as we grow along together.

So in what ways do I use modern technology in educating our kiddos?

I think it is a fun and interactive method to educate our kiddos using tablets provided we get the age-appropriate type of applications to work with such as apps that teach young children on phonics, alphabets, puzzle games and more.

I am also picky and inclined towards reviewing apps that are beneficial and useful to our family. I sat together with our kiddos as we go through the apps, explaining to them how to play the apps and being there with them as well. It was amazing to see our little ones with the twinkle in their eyes as they discover and learn new things, such a precious magical sight! It's like making magic together with them, everyday!

Other than that, I also use our tablet to read news to our kiddos before their bedtime as it is so convenient to just turned it on quickly, browsed for interesting articles and read to them and once done, turned it off and time for bed! Anyway, I believe that knowledge is key and never harm anyone if we read up more and know more. And since I am reading out loud to our kiddos, I hope they can learn to listen the proper pronunciation apart from learning about things around them.

I also use my computer to gather resources such as worksheets and printables for our kiddos to practice on. I search tons and tons of websites online when I need to find more info along with YouTube videos to show to our kiddos how things work and looks like. For this, I'm very grateful to own a reliable Windows computer with the fast processing power of Intel processors.

Since I rely heavily on tablet and computer in my parenting life, it is awesome to be able to make use of Acer Switch, which is a 2-in-1 device to help me along as I educate and parent our kiddos on top of keeping myself updated with the technology today.

In the coming posts, I will be talking more on how we can reap the positive impact from using these modern technologies like Windows 10 and Intel in our daily lives. In the meantime, you can learn more at: http://www.makemagic.my 

Make magic. Every day.

#makemagiceveryday

** 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 cutting down on doing product reviews ever since our 3rd kiddo came along in end of Sept 2013. I do still accept review pitches but only when time permits and if it is something that I can see it being useful and beneficial to our family. Also, as busy as I am with 3 kiddos, home cooking, taking care of hubby's administration site of the business and swamped up with managing my FB page and blog, I just can't say no to reviewing good books! Reading is my passion and coupled with books that are of parenting, children, family or religion or educational genre, all the more I gotta say yes!

Title: Little Paper Crate: Crafting Stories 
Publisher: MPH Group Publishing Sdn Bhd (Aug 31, 2015)
ISBN: 9789674153021
Paperback: 66 pages

Description from the product page:

"The Little Paper Crate book is a home-grown project dedicated to children with a penchant for creating. It features various chapters with activities and materials parents can easily obtain, and each project has been tried, tested and enjoyed by children of different ages. The aim of this craft book is for kids to make an imaginative mess through creativity, and we hope this book will kick-start an inspiring, artful adventure! Happy crafting!"
I'm glad I get to review this book! The first thing that caught my attention was the first project in the book! Foosball table using shoebox! I don't have some of the materials listed in the book (single hole puncher, cloth pegs) so I had to improvise from there with whatever materials I have on hand. I used my double hole puncher and colored ice cream sticks instead.

The book's layout is simple and easy to understand. Materials and tools required are neatly arranged for you to refer to. I would prefer if there are suggestions of alternatives for materials / tools in case you don't have the ones shown in the book. That would be nice hehehe... Also I'm a stickler for books with step-by-step tutorials, it would be awesome if there is close-up shots of the major steps taken to DIY the projects in this book. Picture below is the outcome of my DIY project.

I explained to our girls how to play this game but being both under 4, they can't really understand the rules of it so I ended up just telling them to hold on to the chopsticks, to adjust left and right, and 'kick' the ball front or back. At least still can teach them about directions (left, right, front, back)

One other thing that I can suggest for the improvements of this book is to add in some teaching and learning moments from the projects made. For example, by doing this project, children get to learn about the science of it or how things work and being applied to real-life scenarios and stuff.

I appreciate that the projects are separated by different categories in the book: games, fun with nature, party favorites and gifts by kiddos. The last category is interesting as it doubles up as a DIY project that the kiddos can make and give away as presents!

In summary, a fun book that you can count on to DIY something awesome with your kiddos!

The book is available at all major bookstores such as MPHOnline.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

** 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.