All About Your Child

Alright, I did my post on Keatkeat’s very first experience with English Spelling. Its time for his Chinese Spelling drama! *laugh*

This was what he got for his VERY FIRST Chinese Spelling *huge laugh*:

I was impressed with his result because WE DID NOT KNOW THERE WAS CHINESE SPELLING!!! Hey, without learning from home, he got 2 correct!! That’s awesome! *laugh*

Growing up in a COMPLETELY English-speaking family was really hard for me. It affected my results for my Chinese language badly. My father speaks English, Cantonese and Melayu. My mother speaks English, Cantonese and Hainanese.

So I am expecting the same for Keatkeat. Because of my poor Chinese, and I had embarrassed myself globally with this post, I am not having any expectation from Keatkeat that he will excel in this language either. That is why I can ‘celebrate‘ such results.

How come we did not know there was Chinese Spelling?

Well, the teacher gave out this sheet of paper. Told the children to write the Chinese Words and the Hanyu Pinyin 3 times each.

Allan and I thought this was just another Chinese homework. We completely missed out the word “Ting Xie”, which is Spelling for Chinese.

Keatkeat came back sulking with that 2/10 score.

1 day BEFORE the next Ting Xie, Keatkeat’s Chinese teacher called me up and said these “Your boy is very attentive in class. Whenever I ask the class to read aloud, he would too. If he does not understand anything, he would ask as well. But errrr…. may I know why did he do so badly for his Ting Xie?”

I laughed so loud. I think I scared the teacher a little! *huge laugh* I explained that it was our error and it will not happen again. I asked if my boy needs to learn both the Chinese Words and the Hanyu Pinyin, she said “No, we will just test him on the Hanyu Pinyin.”

2nd Ting Xie:

Yippee! So much better. Then I saw Chinese words. And Keatkeat was unhappy that he could not write the Chinese Characters correctly. (Teacher circled no. 10 “didi”)

As I had mentioned in the English spelling post, Keatkeat, being a perfectionist, he does not like to see crosses and now, he does not like to see circles on his book either. He was upset and so was I.

Why does he need to write the Chinese characters when its not tested on? Worse,  if he gets it wrong, he needs to do correction like the 2nd picture for his First Ting Xie (scroll all the way up to the top of the post). For correction, he needs to write both the Hanyu Pinyin and the Chinese characters 3 times!

Allan spoke with the Chinese teacher. This time she said a different thing, “We will test them on Hanyu Pinyin just for the first 3 months. Thereafter, it will be Hanyu Pinyin and Chinese characters. So we want them to Try writing both now, to get used to it.”

*Faint*

So every week becomes 30 spelling words to learn!!!! 10 English words. 10 Chinese characters. 10 Hanyu Pinyin!

Keatkeat does not like to do correction. Oh well, who does?! *eyes rolled* So now, though the teacher still gives points for correct Hanyu Pinyin with wrong Chinese characters, my boy does not want to get the Chinese characters wrong either, so that he can skip doing correction.

*sigh*

3rd Ting Xie:

He got it all correct for Hanyu Pinyin, but was still penalised for the wrong Chinese Characters. *sigh*

Keatkeat was unhappy again.

But you know what?! I am sooooooo proud of him. Someone who has no interest in Chinese at all can make such amazing effort in pushing himself…. *Kudos*

So now, Keatkeat is working hard for his Ting Xie because English Spelling has become a breeze for him! Whoo-hoo! *wink*

Jiayou Keatkeat!!! I know you can master learning both Hanyu Pinyin and Chinese Characters BEFORE the 3months ‘probation’ period. *Grin*

Cos after 3 months, the scores will be affected, if he gets the Chinese Characters wrong and THAT is the last thing he wants…..

Children are one third of our population
and all of our future.
~Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health, 1981

I am not sure if its Measles, Mumps or Rubella. Remember my niece, Z.Y. was sick on Sunday? Two days later, red itchy rashes came out on her tummy and her back. My Chinese + Cantonese-speaking MIL could not tell me what it was in English, obviously. I ended up guessing what it was. But after Googling for a while, I realised it was neither of the 3.

MIL just called again today and told us that little W.D. is infected too. So Sunday’s usual gathering is cancelled. The last thing she wants is to get all her grandchildren down with this ______, just one week before Chinese New Year.

2 days ago, Keatkeat’s running nose was at its full run, causing discomfort to his throat as well. It was so disturbing, he vomited. Luckily its not the return visit of his Bronchitis. *phew*.

The good thing was, after that vomit, he was so much better, nose, throat and all. The bad thing was, he vomitted while he was half asleep on a new bedsheet which was changed 15mins ago! *eyes rolled*

In the mist of waking him up, his hands swept onto his vomit, and leaving a trace on the floor as he dreamily walked to the toilet. Instead of smelling the nice fragrant from a freshly washed bedsheet that night, my room smelled like vomit!

Is this the famous Pre Chinese New Year sickness trend? Allan is sick and so am I now, for 2 days already. *shake head* The lucky one, as usual, is Binbin-totally happy with his life of good health. *Smile*

Keatkeat: “Mommy, when I eat 2 pieces of Chicken, I am drinking two scoops of oil.” (Note: its NOT a question. Its a statement)

Me: “Who told you that?”

Keatkeat: “Mrs L. (his teacher). She said chicken is made of oil. So eating two pieces of chicken is drinking two spoonful of oil.”

***Maybe one day, Keatkeat will start having my kind of diet. *Smile*

I wanted to do a video on how to make this Chinese Lantern, but YouTube no longer accepts videos which are more than 10mins long. And making this Chinese Lantern definitely takes more than 10mins.

So please bear with me on this super long pictorial post. I have already leave out many other decorations which could enhanced the outlook further to make this post shorter. *giggle*

The things you need:

• Cardboard 24 pcs
• Hong Bao 30pcs
• “Xuxu” 6 small, 1 big
• Red Ribbon
• Scotch Tape
• Double-Sided Tape
• Scissors
• Stapler
• Ruler
• Pen

The cardboard must be reasonably thick to give shape to the lantern. A good example would be the board behind the Drawing Block used by Primary School children.

Ok, I must make myself clear here: As much as I wish to be professional, I made a huge mistake while doing this lantern. The Hong Bao, which you see at the beginning has a rough surface, hence the scotch tape would not stick!

I was spending half the time Repairing, instead of creating. Thus when I reach my in-laws’ place on Sunday, I changed all the Hong Baos and redo, but I did not snap shots of the initial steps when I used the ‘Lion’ Hong Bao.

So please do not get confused when you see a different Hong Bao design in the middle of the process.

Step 1-3: Using your Hong Bao as a guide, leaving about 5mm-1cm space, draw out a rectangle on your cardboard. Meaning, your cardboard size, must be about 5mm SMALLER on each side as compared to your Hong Bao, so that the cardboard can fit in nicely without risking tearing the Hong Bao.

Step 4 : Cut out the cardboard and now using the cut-out cardboard as a guide to make the other 23pcs. You need total 24 pcs.

Keatkeat helped me to use the cardboard as a guide to draw out the other 23pcs, while I did the cutting.

Hands can be rather painful after cutting for awhile, if your cardboard is as thick as mine. The ones I use is another 2mm thicker than the cardboard behind the Drawing Block.

Step 5-6: Put in the 24 pcs of cardboard into 24 pcs of Hong Bao and seal it. Binbin did great for step 5 and 6.

Step 7: Some Hong Bao are not self-adhesive. Hence you may need to use scotchtape to seal it.

Step 8: Place the Hong Bao with the shorter side next to each other as shown.

Step 9-10: Turn them over and use ScotchTape to hold them together.

Step 11: Repeat step 9-10 by adding one more each time till you have 6 in a row as shown.

Step 12: You should see that all pictures are facing the same direction.

Step 13: Put the above AWAY before you continue the steps below, to prevent confusion.

Step 14: Place the Hong Bao with the shorter side next to each other as shown. This time, the pictures are in opposite direction.

Step 15: Flip one of the Hong Bao as shown.

Step 16: Use Scotch Tape to hold the joints together.

Step 17: Add another Hong Bao on top as shown.

Step 18: Hold down the ‘new’ Hong Bao with Scotch Tape.

Step 19: Filp the ‘new’ Hong Bao to the other side.

Step 20: Tape down the ‘new’ Hong Bao again.

Step 21: Repeat steps 17-20 until you have 6 pieces nicely joined to each other as shown.

Step 22: Bring back what you did in step 12 and put it FACING DOWN. Place what you did in step 21 ON TOP of step 12. Position ONE of the edge of the Hong Bao from step 21 to the JOINING part in step 12 as shown.

Step 23: Stick it down with Scotch Tape.

Step 24-29: Flip the entire ’step 21′ to the other side and stick it down too. Continue to repeat step 22-23.

Step 30: Seal up the final ends to form the shape as shown.

Step 31-33: This is just a repetition of step 14-21 BUT this time, the Hong Bao joins on the LONGER SIDE.

(I’m sorry, I choose not to repeat using photos, or else you can imagine the length of this post! *faint* So just scroll up to see steps 14-21.)

Step 34: To create this, just repeat step 8-11. But again, this time they join on the LONGER SIDE.

Step 35: This should be what you see after completing step 31-33.

Step 36: This is created by repeating steps 22-29, but again, this time, they join on the LONGER SIDE.

Step 37: This is what you should have after completing step 1 to step 36.

SEE HOW UGLY IT WAS!!! I just could not stand the sight of the scotch tape! My perfect lanterns NEVER have scotch tapes seen from the outside! I had to stick scotch tape on the outside just to hold them together. So don’t be careless like what I did, by choosing the wrong Hong Bao.

I TORE EVERTHING UP when I was at my in-laws’ place and changed all the Hong Baos to the smooth surface type (which is the common kind).

Many people in the past have asked how can I secure both sides of the Hong Bao INTERNALLY when they have thick fingers? *giggle* Though I have small fingers, I do not poke my fingers in to paste the scotch tape down when going through step 14 to step 21. See Tips below…..

Step 38 (tip): BEFORE I hold another Hong Bao down, I would stick half the scotch tape at the edge of the Hong Bao, fold the scotch tape down to half…

Step 39 (tip): Pull down the Hong Bao and use a ruler to smooth out the scotch tape on the other Hong Bao.

Step 40: Place the wider one (step 30) ON TOP of the taller one (step 36). String the Red Ribbon through BOTH of them TOGETHER with the Big XuXu at the bottom.

Step 41: This is what you’ll get after completing step 40.

Step: 42: Tie a Knot on the top.

Step 43: Roll the remaining 6 Hong Baos on the longer side. Secure both ends by stapling it.

Step 44: Stick a strip of Double-Sided tape at the back, covering the staplers.

Step 45: Peel the double-sided tape protector. Stick the small XuXu as shown.

Step 46: Stick the ‘roll’ with the small XuXu onto the edges of the top section of the lantern.

And Ta-Daa!

You’ve got yourself a Chinese Lantern that does NOT have a single scotchtape show on the outside! *wink*

Though the steps are long. But it really takes less than an hour for any amateur to complete it. Which is only one-third of the time for me doing up this post!!! *faint*

Ya man! I took 3 hours to do up this post!!! With many “Mommy, can you come.” breaks in-between.

*Pat on my own back*

It was good news one after another since morning. So I was in a happy mood when I went over to my in-laws’ place, only to be splashed with a bowl of cold water when I realised that ZY is still down with fever.

And when this little girl is sick, my oh my, her behaviour can be rather extreme. Not going to go into details, in case she ‘scolds‘ me for embarrassing her. She is one of my faithful readers. *wink*

Its weird, when my dear niece was so sick, yet everyone else in the 4 walls were high spirited. The trios, M.Y. + Keatkeat + Binbin, who are just one year apart from each other had silly fun chasing and teasing the youngest W.D.

My MIL was smiley the whole time today!!! Something quite rare. *giggle*

And me? I had an awesome time fulfilling the old folks’ wish of having another lantern to decorate their house. Last year I made this:

And TODAY, I made this:

If you have the same wish as Blessed mom last year, then do not miss my next post, which I will be showing the steps in making the lantern. *wink*

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.
~John W. Whitehead, The Stealing of America, 1983