Let It Go Butterfly

Date:  Aug 23, 2015

One day, Blue Blue, my blue eye cat, was caught playing with “something” in his paws and mouth.

When you get close to see it, it was a bright green caterpillar, may be drop from the leaves in one of the pot in our balcony garden.

My wife thus place teh caterpillar into a plastic container.  Of course, we place some leaves and water in it.

Few days later, the green caterpillar ate quite some leaves before turning itself into a pupa.

Another few days later… which is today.

Jay suddenly shouted and say “Mommy, mommy, the butterfly has come out…."

And there you go, the butterfly that we saved from Blue Blue’s paw.

As it is just came out from the pupa, the butterfly is learning how to flap its wings.

It is actually quite a nice butterfly.  Very pretty.

She still flapping the wings.  And she is ready to fly.

So, we have decided to “let it go”.

So that the butterfly can find a new home in our herbs garden downstairs.

We let Kay Kay do it.  So, Kay Kay will let the butterfly go, and let her has her freedom.

She was a bit scare in the beginning, but as soon as she flapped a few times of her wings, she flew off.

Bye bye butterfly.

Of course, I did not waste this opportunity for Jay Jay to learn his Chinese Composition.

So, I quickly draw out my iPad and ask him and the brother to think about the Butterfly event, and write a small passage of it.

So, the journey from home to Millenia Walk is only 15-20 minutes. 

As you can see, this is what he comes up with.  Not too bad.

I recon that this will give him may be 5/10.  So, thru out the day, we discuss about the whole event.

Instead of “my cat”, I asked him to think, where is the cat?  Where he (the cat) finds the caterpillar?

Instead of “let it go”, how he fly away?

What about the conclusion, any thoughts he wanted to write down?

During lunch time, we talked about it.

After he took his Taekwondo grading, we talked about it.

While going from Millenia Walk to the Turf City, before the drawing class, we have another 20 minutes or so, for him to work on it.

And this is the revised version.  

Much longer version.

He knows learned the important thing of “describing”.

Describe our cat is naughty.

Describe where our cat found the caterpillar.

Describe why the cat is naughty?  See the caterpillar, wanted to bite it.

Describe the how he tell mommy about it.

Describe how the butterfly is scare and don’t want to fly out.

Tell who is the one brought the butterfly downstairs.

Describe how he touch the butterfly and make it fly away.

Describe what was his feeling?  Happy.

Describe why?  Because he let the butterfly regain his freedom.

This is a very short event.  But writing it down involves constant thinking and asking questions about the 6 “Ws”.

Who?

Why?

When?

Where?

What?

How?

And after we have done with the Chinese composition, I will let him speak out from his mind in English.  Again, asking him to “describe”.

He won’t learn it straight away. 

But I am sure, thru the training, and exercising, he is more confident and grabs the concepts of writing.

Writing is about describing.

Writing is about asking the 6 “Ws”.

Why I love to read the Hardy Boys Junior Files for them every night.

That is because these Hardy Boys books focus in asking the 6 Ws to solve crime.

Hardy Boys: http://miniliew.blogspot.ch/2015/07/hardy-boys.html

And I show him a way how to use technology, the Dragon Dictation to quickly jot down the chinese sentence thru speaking.

First you learn how to pronounce things correctly.  Second, you quickly write down the Chinese senates.  For words you don’t know, as long as you can read, you can use the Han Yu Pin Yin to find the words.  In P3 Chinese composition, they are allow to use the dictionary.  Be it hard copy or electronic.

Hopefully, thru these methods, I can help my boy to improve his writing in both Chinese and English.  Yeah, Dragon Dictation can change the languages to English or Mandarin.

Quite cool.

Dragon Dictation:  http://miniliew.blogspot.ch/2015/08/learning-chinese-composition.html

And lastly, you notice that the brother Kay Kay is sitting besides.  Do it in front of the siblings so that he or she can be inspired and wanting to follow his brother.  :)

加油吧！My sons, if you guys can make it for your Chinese, don’t forget about the efforts your daddy put in to teach you guys.  :)

Learning Chinese - Composition 作文

Date:  Aug 13, 2015

Today, I am going to share with you something which I think really really cool.

“Houston… We have a problem."

Last semester, Jay has score very well in his Chinese MCQ (Multiple Choice).  He knows a lot of words.  Thanks to the Flash Cards that I made for him, and the daily reading and listening of text book exercise.

But, his scored a band-2 grade in overall, because his Chinese composition has dragged his overall score down.  Chinese composition has quite a weightage in overall marks.

Let me see, how can I improve his Chinese composition?

After having some careful thoughts… I have decided to do this.  To make use of technology to help him to achieve higher scores in Chinese composition.

1.  The Technology - iPad.  

Why not.  It is an excellent tool for learning.

2.  The App - Dragon Dictation.  

Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application.  Means, whatever you speak, it will write them down.  And yes, you can set the language to CHINA CHINESE.  Why do I need this app?  Very simple.  It will help his Oral reading.  It will train his pronunciation.  How each Chinese word is being pronounced.  If he pronounce something not so accurately, Dragon Dictation will write down garbage as closely sound as what he has read out.  It is actually quite cool that it help improve his Oral reading too.

Using this app is the faster way to write down your thoughts without using a pen.  Chinese composition is about looking at a few pictures, and writing down thoughts and form a story.  If your thoughts are not organised, then, you will not have a story line, and you will fail to get higher marks.  

It is about getting higher marks.  And the more you practise, the more you read, the more you use it, these phrases will automatically imprinted in your brain. So, I need a way to quickly jot down the thoughts.  And make him understand where you can use conversation Chinese in Chinese composition writing.  Slowly introduce a few good phrases and good sentences, hopefully he will remember next time.  It will benefit him eventually.

 

 

3.  Let’s do an example.  This is a simple 3 pictures composition.  It talks about a boy which is “Me”, feel hungry during the recess time, so, I bought a bowl of “hot” noodle soup.  While walking towards the table carefully, a boy (Tom) has run passed me, and I drop that bowl of soup all over my body.  The soup was hot and it has burnt me, so I sat down on the ground and cry.  Tom did not help me, and he ran away.  What happen later, is up to your imagination.  May be a teacher have seen the whole incident, and he stopped Tom, and scolded him.  The teacher wanted Tom to apologise to me, and Tom knows his wrong doing, and he promised he will never want to run in the canteen any more.

As simple as that.

4.  So, I let my son try it first.  By reading it to the iPad, the Dragon Dictation actually write down what he reads.

I must say, as long as you read it loud and clear, the dictation was done 95% correctly.

 

5.  Let’s check out what he has come up with.

Just look at that.  I almost want to faint.  hahaha, this is exactly how Jay Jay speak.  So, he speak this way, and therefore his composition is also the same as how he speak.  This is what I called conversation composition. hahahaha

6.  So, I spent time, to analyse what we saw from the pictures.  The first thing I corrected him is, the title gave the hint that it is me (I) who was knocked over by some one.  Not Xiao Ming (小明).  And he wrote so long without any clear pointers where the story going.  There is no summary paragraph.  There is no indication that the boy has done wrong and apologise.

7.  Together, we analyse further the pictures and we come up with this new paragraph.  He has learned new words too.

8.  Let’s try another example.

Don’t waste food.

9.  This is what he has written down.   Which is much shorter, and again, this is how he usually speak in conversation.  Hahahahaha

10.  Again, we do a passage together.

11.  Sometimes, there is also sample answer you can refer to.  This is the 8 points model answer.

And this is the high mark sample answer.

I can see immediate improvement.  And he start using proper writing grammar for Chinese.

So what is left is how to translate this thought into writing, and if you don’t know the words and you are able to say it, then, you can use the electronic dictionary to learn how to write those words.

Let’s see how he score in couple of weeks time.  

Learn Chinese Compositions

Date:  May 4, 2015

“May the 4th be with you!"

Last week, I posted a very interesting method of learning Chinese.

Last week article.  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/04/date-apr-26-2015-i-would-love-that-my.html

This week, I wanted to tell you why it is useful.  It was meant for Oral test and reading.  

But today I find that it is useful for doing Chinese Composition Writings too.

Students are allowed to bring electronic dictionary into the class to take the Chinese paper 1.  Which is Chinese Composition writing.

If you don’t know how to write the words or phrases, don’t worry, simply type the Han Yu Pin Yin will do.

For example “Zhi Dao” is ”知道“.

Even they are not sure about the correct Han Yu Pin Yin, they can simply type “zd”, which is the first alphabet for Zhi and the first alphabet of Dao.  And then, you just scroll to the words you want. 

But how does the kid know how to read the words they wanted to write?  So that they can key in the Han Yu Pin Yin?

Unfortunately, there is no easy way.  You have to READ MORE and LEARN MORE.

The more you read, the more that you will learn and use the Chinese words.  If you seldom read, then, you will definitely don’t know how to search and write.

I started to use this Oral test assessment book.

Inside has 15 passages.  This is one of them.

Next, I start to read the story books.  

I would say these story books has about 75% of the vacabs that Jay knows how to read.  There are 25% still he does not know how to pronounce.

So, what I did is to record down my voice reading the story.

Then, every morning or day, I will ask him to listen to the recording and eyes look at the passage.  Read it inside his mind, not reading out loud.  

The more he read the books, the more he will hear my voice.  It is also a very familiar voice.  So, it felt natural for him to read the story book this way.

It is kind of like an audiobook.  :)  Here is the sample of my voice.  hahahaha

So, the more he read, the more he understand the usage of the the Chinese words and sentences.

The more he read, the more he will remember.

Usually, takes about 5-7 days to read one passage or a story.

There will be a lot of words he had not seen before.

But because he is reading it, he remember it subconsciously.

Because he remember how it was pronounce, he is able to tell what is the Han Yu Pin Yin.

Because he has seen the words before, when he key the Han Yu Pin Yin, he is able to select the correct words and learn how to write them.

So far the result has been good.

Lastly, I want to share with you this passage.  Telling why we need to teach our kids to read.

Don’t worry, it not only apply to Mommy, also apply to Daddy.

Confident look, confident writing.  May the force be with you.

Recording of Reading Books

Date:  Apr 26, 2015

I would love that my kids are good in their Chinese Mandarin.

That is why you can see that I have been doing a lot a lot of special projects and experiment on Jay Jay.

Previous Posts on Learning Chinese Mandarin….

http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2014/10/learning-chinese.html

http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/01/flash-card-still-best-method.html

http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/04/copy-diary.html

http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/03/learning-chinese-thru-paper-cutting.html

One thing I found it very useful is to make use of the flash card.  The old fashion way.  

Every day, if it is not raining, I would walk about 4KM with him after dinner, and I will bring out the flash cards to ask him to remember the Chinese characters and how to write it.

Jay Jay has changed a new home tutor for his Chinese tuition.  The previous one has to go back to school and work and therefore, cannot have time to teach Jay Jay.

So, I went to Ace Tutor and get him another home tutor.

This home tutor is somewhat unique.  He does not wants Jay to do any assessment book or test paper.  The first few class is just asking him to read the text book.  And the way how he does it, is to record down his own voice and the “correct” pronunciation of reading the text for Jay and he asked Jay to listen to it every day.

So, after 2 weeks, I can see that Jay is more comfortable in his text book chinese characters, etc.  

Jay has a Chinese Oral test coming soon.  So, I decided to record some of the exercise passage and ask him to listen and learn the words and how to read passage.

I used this book.

It is actually a recommendation supplementary book from the previous tutor.

It is suitable for P3 and P4.

Inside the book, there are about 15 passage to read.

So, I am asking Jay to first read once the paragraph.  circle the words that he does not know.

And then, write down the Han Yu Pin Yin on those words.

Then, I will read it and record it using his iPhone.

 

Here is the sample audio files.  Click it (via Google Share).

AUDIO FILE IS HERE…  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_2LIa_dWu8scVBJVnNEeE1JTUU/view?usp=sharing

 

I am asking him to listen to this few times a day.  And after a few times of practice, I can see quite a significant improvement on his Chinese speaking and he knows more Chinese words.

And the tutor Mr. Chung is correct.  There is not much grammar for Chinese.  The key thing is to be able to know more Chinese characters and words and know how and where to use them. 

So, I am asking Jay to read more and more paragraph by listening to how I would read it.

I think this method is actually quite good and it builds on the basis that the more you read the more you will get familiar with the text paragraphs and soon or later, you will know how to write it.

Jay felt that it is quite useful too.  And he himself also found that it helps in correcting some of his pronunciations too.

MOE’s 学乐 website also have some reading passage.  Which we found it useful too. (Need Flash).

http://xuele.moe.edu.sg/xuele/slot/u107/huanlehuoban/MOE_web/main.html#

Jay & His First Computer Assembled by Himself

Date:  Apr 20, 2015

As a parent, you are in charged of what your child can learn, will learn, would learn.

Opportunity must be given to them when you see they have slight interest in anything.

Remember Steve Jobs?  Remember Bill Gates?  What did their parents gave them when they were young?

If you have not read the book “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell, I suggest you get a copy and read it.

After Jay has attended almost 3 years of Lego Robotics programming class @ Wonders Work at Liang Court, I decided to open up a whole new arena for him this year in P3.

I made him build and make his own computer.  :) 

The other day, I saw this Kano Computer Kit while surfing the web.  It was one of the successful Kickstarter project that aims to teach kids how to program at young age.

It is marketed as “Lego Style” of building computer.

Kids love Lego.  Who doesn’t?  

Lego is easy.

Lego is like read the building instruction manual, and assemble the parts together.

So, for Kano Computer Kit, you have all the parts.

And the aim is to assembled everything together.

Of course, nowadays with Raspberry Pi around, it makes it easy for kids to learn computing.  Real computing.

NOT MICROSOFT WINDOWS.  Real computing.

Following instruction is very easy.  Everything is color coded.  And it is easy to build.

The building manual is 52 pages.  All have big huge diagram and simple English instruction.

I gave the box to Jay.  I told him to pack his school bag before doing it while I take shower.  When I come out from the Shower, he already started building his fist computer.  So, I am guessing it is easy to follow the instruction.

Now everything is done, let’s hook up the wire.  All wires and cables are color coded.  Just follow the instruction, and you know where to hook things up.

Last touch.  Hook the HDMI cable to the monitor.  

Turn on the power.  And the computer is powered.  It even comes with its own speaker.  All the instruction will be read out from this powerful speaker.  Very loud.

And the Kano computer boot up.  This is the first time Jay see so many words that he does not understand.

So, I told him, this is NOT WINDOWS.  This is not Apple MacOS.  This is KANO OS, which is a different OS, and it is derived from LINUX.

Linux lives!  This is what geeky daddy will do to his geeky son.  Exposing him to real computers.

The greeting command line come to alive.  This is Jay’s first encounter of “Command Line”.  hahahaha

Jay is learning how to use the touch pad, and keyboard.

The keyboard is a little bit small for Jay.

It is USB charged.  And bluetooth keyboard.

The USB power adapter.  Of course in red color code.

Green dongle is WiFi dongle.  

When there is WiFi activities, the green dongle will blink blink blink.

The heart of the computer.  A Raspberry Pi (first gen) B+ model.  With the casing.

The color coded cables.  HDMI and Power USB cable.

The key is to build it.

All the components.

How every thing is connected.

How you attach the mini SD card.  That is where the OS is stored.

I really love their easy follow manual.  Jay has no problem following the instructions.

Don’t forget to allow your young son to watch too.  Build up his interest.

Isn’t it great that you are greeted by the computer to tell you “Congratulations!   You made a computer!"

What’s next.  That is why the second book is provided.  To teach kids about how to make simple games using python, Scratch and many more.

Step by step, the kids learned how to connect to Internet.

And Jay now going into the Tutorial sessions to learn how to use everything.  It is a GUI so, it is easy for him to navigate.

Linux!

It comes with the lesson and course to get kid up to speed to tell them what is computer programming.  Jay is learning Snake and Pong now.  They use the most unique method to teach kids about these concepts.  By first learning what can a program do.  Using python.  How to configure or change the parameters.  Soon, next weekend, he will learn how to make Minecraft.  hahaha his own Minecraft.

It is that easy.  And he started to learn how computer come together.

How to print “Hello World!"

From simple to basic.

How computer started from text based game into colourful games we see today.

His favourite section coming up.  

Its fun 2-3 hours time for him to play this.

This is how a geeky daddy trains his geeky son about computer programming.