JMM Muar CNY Cookies

I ordered JMM Muar pineapple tarts, medium size bottle, through my group buy host. Now they said they could not fulfil the medium size bottle, can only do small size bottle. My host shared that since December, when orders were placed, she's been waiting for slot for this item. Initially supplier say they still can take, but host updated just now that she received update that they can't produce anymore for this, citing partly due to MCO staff issue.

Ok, I can understand the MCO that probably affects their production but a company with good customer service would offer some form of compensation or thank you in kind like thank you for your support & sorry to disappoint you, we would like to offer you something in return should you decide to remain your order & change to the small size, instead of just plainly put it small or refund no choice. Attitude matters too! It's like they 吊起来卖！

Hopefully next year can go back JB to shop for cny goodies again! People who want to order their cookies in future, just take note that they can reject your order after taking in and return to say later change to a smaller size or refund, no choice...

Learning from the Experts! Part 2 of 3

The second session that I attended at MOE Excel Fest was on "Making Chinese Characters Learning Fun and Enjoyable for Your Child", conducted by Guangyang Primary. The school developed a "汉字笔画操", which was created with lower primary students in mind. During the session, the school demonstrated to parents on how to use our body parts such as our hands and legs to illustrate the basic Chinese strokes.

For example, look at the picture below. Note that the sharing session was conducted in Mandarin, so I'm translating it into English to my best ability, pardon me for any misinterpretation.

1. Putting our hands in-front of us (see the action of 1st boy), it looks like we're surrounding (围) ourselves, so it represents the bigger mouth (大口) surrounding the other strokes within it. 
2. Putting our right arm horizontally in-front of us (see the action of 2nd boy), it represents the stroke "橫".
3. Putting our right arm horizontally and left arm flexed up vertically (see the action of 3rd boy), it represents the word "十".
4. Similar to point 2 as above, so it's the stroke "橫".
5. Punching our right fist out to the front, it represents the stroke "点".

With the above explanation, can you guess which is the word? Well, it's "国".

It was really a very fun learning experience for the parents present at the sharing session as we really learnt quite a number of the basic strokes, and were even asked to invent action for some of the strokes. An example, for my table, we were asked to invent an action for the 部首 "虫", so I did the wriggling worm action to represent it.

It would be quite interesting to teach the basic strokes to our children and have fun learning Chinese! Hence, if the school ever conducts such a sharing session again, do sign up for it! :)

Watch out for the next and last part in my next post...

Credits to be given to the school for the sharing. Any opinion reflected in this post is my own, and not related to the school.

Make Learning Han Yu Pin Yin Fun!

My son (DS) is in Primary 1 this year. One of the most "terrifying" things for parents to teach the child is Spelling and 听写. My husband (DH) and I have been speaking to DS in Mandarin since young, and my mum was a retired teacher who is well versed in Chinese, so we should not have any problem teaching him 听写. Nonetheless, I want him to learn Chinese in a fun way that he would really remember, and not just merely memorise the Han Yu Pin Yin or Chinese words by heart.

I started searching for pictures, and inserted them into boxes in MS Word. After I printed it out, I put the paper in a clear pocket so that my son can write on it using a whiteboard marker, and this can be re-used many times to teach and revise with my son.

Verdict? He enjoys learning in this manner. I'm glad that my efforts and time spent on doing this paid off. :)

Tips: You can use this to teach the child the English words of these pictures too! :)