I'm a full-time mummy

I had previously written about how we make use of technologies to parent, educate and learn together as a family and also shared our family's guidelines on technology usage for our children.

As mentioned before, I'm very blessed to own a reliable Windows computer with the fast processing power of Intel processors that does magic in our everyday lives and so for today's post, I will share with you on some of our recommended Windows apps and utilities that we use in our family. Here we go, the list in no particular order:

Microsoft Translator

(** Click icon below to download the app for free)

FYI, Microsoft Translator has joined the Windows 10 family with the release of a new Universal Windows 10 app, and this app will work across all of your Windows 10 devices.  The app delivers text in 50 languages, voice in 18 languages, and picture translation by taking a picture of a sign or document and getting a translation in 19 languages.

I downloaded the free app as I believe it can assist me when I have to guide our kiddos in Chinese activities. Compared to some of the utilities and apps that I have used previously, I feel that Microsoft's Translator is easy to use and the translation and pronunciation is pretty accurate. I tried typing in some sentences in English and the translated sentences in Chinese pinyin are pretty amazing! I love this app!

I also tinkered around the translator app in English to French as well. Very cool! I like that the search history and favourite translations can be found in the handy integrated search bar, compared to some previous apps that I used which does not keep track of my past searches.

News360

(** Click icon below to download the app for free)

My next recommended app is the News360 app which gathers news articles and blog posts from all around the web and, by learning what you enjoy, brings you content that you’ll find interesting and important. This is one of my favourite apps which is on my tablets and smartphones. I read a lot of news and love to share the interesting educational ones especially on my blog Facebook page.

You can create categories for your news articles, for example, I have categories such as Pregnancy, Parenting, Child Health, Lifehacks, local news (pertaining to Malaysia and surrounding countries). I can read the articles on reader or web mode, can save the articles for further reading or choose to share the article out via message, mail, WhatsApp and more.

Fresh Paint

(** Click icon below to download the app for free)

Fresh Paint is a fun and easy to use painting app with the right tools for artists of all ages, it is like the old Paint software that we are used to seeing in our Microsoft computers but has tons of awesome features and very user-friendly. You can choose which painting tools to use, the colours and more.

I let our kiddos have a go at the app once I explained in general where to choose the painting tools and how to change the colours. They have fun drawing and colouring their artwork which you can see below:

Our 6.5-year-old boy is into anything Egypt and mummy so yeah... naturally it would be the first thing he drew using Fresh Paint. He also drew some currency and coins which he learning during his kindy time. Our 4-year-old girl also want to join in the fun and drew a picture of me (on the left) with her (in the middle purple color) and her baby sister (on the right). I was explaining to our kiddos about linea nigra few hours before she drew this but apparently she didn't forget what mummy told her and drew me with my linea nigra.

The cool thing about this app is you can actually colour, blend in and see how the colours mix with each other creating new colour tones. Like making magic with your fingers hahaha! Very cool when you are teaching colour combinations to your kiddos (for example: blue + red = purple).

Fun + learning at the same time, who am I to complain huh?

OneDrive

(** Click icon below to download the app for free)

Another Windows app that makes it to my recommendation list is OneDrive of course! It is the one place for everything in your work and personal life giving you free online storage for all your personal files so that you can get to them from your Windows device, your computer (PC or Mac), and any other devices you use.

I use OneDrive on my smartphone to back up the gazillions pictures which I am constantly snapping of our 3 krakens and hubby and I shared our folders on OneDrive too so we can always browse the files we have shared, I just love the convenience of it!

Epicurious

(** Click icon below to download the app for free)

As a stay-at-home-mum, I cook a lot at home (okay, I don't cook on weekends because those are my resting days but otherwise I do a lot of the cooking alright?) so sometimes I ran out of ideas on what to cook. And there were times when we eat out and I tasted something nice and wanted to replicate the same thing at home. So I turned to one of Windows 10's top free cooking apps, the Epicurious for ideas and inspirations of course!

The recipes are presented in a nice and easy on the eye layout, ingredients clearly written down and there are reviews shared by those who have tried out the recipes. So it is a nifty little app that is useful for cooking mummy like me!

There are other apps and utilities which we use for our family of course but the above 5 are the regularly used ones that can be found on our Acer Switch device, computers and smartphone. I hope my recommendation is useful and helpful to you guys! In the coming posts, I will share with you some recommended games that we have on our computers and tablets that I personally enjoy using with our kiddos. In the meantime, you can learn more at the Make Magic website. 

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 had previously written about how we make use of modern technologies to parent our children and at the same time, 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 of course, being there with our kiddos as we grow along together.

With an Intel® Core™ M processor in our Acer Switch 12 device, it means we get the best of both worlds - a laptop and an ultra-fast tablet useful for our family. I'm very blessed with the magic it does in our everyday lives but as our kiddos grow older and smarter, as parents, we do have to continue to take control and monitor what they do and watch and make sure they don't get too addicted or overly dependent on these modern devices.

So for today's post, I will share with you on our family guidelines on the technology usage for our children.

For our Windows computer, I have added in a Child account since I do let our kiddos use my computer for web browsing and watching educational YouTube videos. Some of the awesome features for this allows me:

- To block certain websites when my child is using the Windows device for browsing

- To enforce control on apps, games and media whether they can download any apps based on the age settings I put in

- To put in control on the screen time whether they can only use my Windows device on certain days (Monday to Sunday) or time range (from what time to what time) and limit of hours' usage on the device

All these awesome measures help us to better monitor our kiddos and yet allowing them to still use our Windows device sensibly.

We also check from time to time certain games that our kiddo loves playing such as Minecraft. My hubby sometimes plays together with our eldest kiddo, going on adventures or free-play mode as we work together to explore and build cool stuff in the game.

I'm amazed with the things that our boy build and also of the things he learned just by playing games like this (survival skills, basic how-to build and hunt knowledge and assembling weapons for defence and hunting and more) Because of his passion in Minecraft, we also load reliable parent-approved video channels/playlists for our boy to watch. These videos are normally game tutorials on how to play the games and review of the games etc. In addition to that, the Acer Switch that we use has a long battery life allowing me & my kiddo’s learning experience to continue longer compared to our other IT devices.

I also have a tasks reward points system for our older 2 kiddos where they get to earn points for accomplishing daily tasks and if their points reached a certain level, they get to redeem certain rewards such as jelly beans for snacks and the ultimate reward which is an hour usage of our tablet or computer.

With all these controls in place, I hope that we will continue to be able to parent our kiddos while we reap the positive impact from using these modern technologies in our daily lives.

In the coming posts, I will share with you some recommended apps and games that we have on our computers and tablets that I personally enjoy using with our kiddos. In the meantime, you can learn more at the Make Magic website. 

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.

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: Merry Christmas

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.