Aircraft Pictures by Airliners.net

Dornier 228-212 Aircraft Pictures by Airliners.net

Boeing 737-8BG Aircraft Pictures Airliners.net

Mango airlines, a local carrier in south africa, coming in on finals in April 2008 at JNB airport. Picture was taken against an enormous black thunder cloud hanging next to the airport, hence this background.

Fairy tales I have enjoyed

I love reading fairy tales as a child. I can still remember that the first Fairy Tale book I bought for myself was "Beauty and the Beast" and it cost me RM10.00 then. Most of the books I have read were borrowed from the municipal library in Melaka. I discovered a website, "A Library for the World's Children" that carries many of the books I have read.

I hope my children will have as much fun reading them online:

Stories from Hans Christian Andersen

The Aesop for children

The Arabian nights

Sleeping beauty

Alice's adventures in Wonderland

William Tell told again

The story of the three little pigs

Cinderella

Grimm's Fairy stories

Little red riding hood

The "How?", "Why?" and "What?"

"Ask questions!". I remember being very afraid of teachers who became frustrated with me when I am not able to ask questions on the subjects being taught. I just don't know what "?" that is out there for me to ask.

So, before I ask my children questions, like, what they would like to be when they grow up, let me open their eyes to all the possibilities available.

Dictionary Of Occupational Titles are listed in alphabetical order or type with job description.

How Products Are Made explains and details the manufacturing process of a wide variety of products, from daily household items to complicated electronic equipment and heavy machinery.

Where can they go to for opportunities of their interest?

Now at least they have an idea of what kind of questions they can ask to attain their goals.

School subjects? Sustaining the interest.

Calvin's into Science. He enjoys the lessons in school and he has asked me to find websites related to Chemistry for this blog.

OK, Calvin. Mummy will go all out to find anything related to subjects taught in school to help you learn.

SCIENCE
The Biology Place by Pearson provides:

1) Lots of activities,
2) Animations and interactive questions to connect laboratory procedures to biological principles.
3) A-Z collection of over 1000 biological terms and definitions

Science explained on Blobs

STUDY AID
You can create and study, millions of flashcards on Flashcards Exchange. You will have to pay a fee to print or download them.

You can find over 6,500 websites links on ThinkQuest. These are created by students around the world who have participated in competition they organised.

Art
Craft Material Glossary
Drawing Glossary

IT
Computer and Internet Technology Definitions and Quick Reference

Internet Glossary

Singapore Air

Best Aviation Pictures

Calvin, you have to thank Uncle Hoosen for this.

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ZenXin Organic Park

Being there done that: Visit to the Dragon Fruit Farm at ZenXin Organic Park located at Kluang, Johor. It was a fellowship trip organised by Sungai Long Buddhist Society.










Here are some facts about Dragon Fruit.

Love me? Love my rituals!

"A place for everything and everything in it's place". That is a house rule that kept my house neat and tidy.

When my children were younger, I used to throw their toys in the dustbin when they did not return them where they took them out from. Of course, prior to that I have warned them that I would do just that should I find any lying around the house after play.

I gave them LOTS OF HINTS about the fate of their toys though. That will lure them to check the dustbin in the hall to see if there are any toys to save. When they are older and realized the trick I have been up to, they became complacent. They know that Mummy is not a wasteful person and will not allow good toys to be discarded. So, I hit on Plan B. I gave away a collection of mini cars from Hot Wheels stored in a car shaped container. Poor Calvin but that works, alright!

I believe that being tidy is a good habit to cultivate and I hope that they will display the same mindfulness when they play in their friends' home. I am sure that this will be a nature that their better halves will one day appreciate.

I also keep a basket in their room for misplaced items, like loose pieces of toy that they have missed keeping; that will be lost forever if I were to put them in the dustbin. That way if there are any missing parts from toys they are currently playing with, they can always look into the basket to make them whole again. I always remind them that there is no value to any incomplete set of toys.

I feel that my children should be responsible for storing their own stuff. Once you start picking up after them or doing things that they should be doing themselves, they will become untidy and will always be asking you where this or that stuff is without trying to locate it. The worst thing is that they will not be initiative in getting things done.

I picked this idea from my mother. Whenever her children asked her for anything, "It's in my pocket!", is her answer. I hate hearing that as a kid but I could not resist using that phrase now and then with mine.

Boeing 737-7H4 Aircraft

New livery fresh from the paint shop from Airliners.net.

Inspiring creativity

I came across the term "single line drawing" from an email I received from my friend today. I think it is a good style of drawing to introduce my children to as it may spur their creativity to do art differently.

Single line drawing can be as simple as this or...



as complex as this.



More of such drawings can be viewed from YouTube or from "Real Pen Work - Self Instructor in Penmanship", where they can also learn the techniques.

Be inspired.

Nostradamus? Who wants to know?

Calvin is interested to know who is Nostradamus after watching a Discovery Channel trailer about him.

There are many videos posted about Nostradamus on YouTube but most of them seem to have hidden agendas in their messages that can be misleading. These videos posted by zerosum2012 are extracted from The History Channel.







These should interest Calvin.

1) Who Nostradamus is through Wikipedia
2) What "The Prophecies of Nostradamus" is like.
3) What urbanlegends.about has to say of the interpretations made to his predictions that may have been circulating as hoaxes via emails.
4) What TV critic from New York Post, Linda Staci, said about The History Channel findings.

Look, Callie. LookyBook!

KiroKiro recommended LookyBook after reading that I am luring my children to read through eBooks.

LookyBook may not be for adults but if you enjoy looking at pictures, take a peek and be impressed by the colours and ideas. Callie should enjoy this and I hope she can find some inspirations there for her creativity. Following are some pictures she has taken of her drawings.






Great job, girl. And thank you, KiroKiro.

Motivating my children to learn.

I am always looking for ways to motivate my children in whatever they have an interest in. Possibly, this is because I lack confidence in myself as I was brought up to believe that girls are supposed to grow up, get married and stay home to look after the kids.

My mother would be more willing to spend on educating the males in the family than her female offspring. Whenever I made a request that she did not agree with, her favourite response would be, "If you do not have such a big head, don't wear such a big hat". That was very discouraging, a feeling that I do not want my children to grow up with.

That is why I will do my best to introduce my children learning methods that will help them in improving their skills, thereby, build up their confidence. And most importantly I will teach them to believe in themselves. Here is a little rhyme I taught them when they were younger.

Yes, you can children!

Yes, I can
Yes, I can
I can do better
I feel good, I feel great
I can do better

Daddy is proud
Mummy is happy
As she shows my work around
Everyone's amazed
Everyone's proud
I can do better.

In Mandarin. Maybe you can help me edit it:

Wo zen xin
Wo zen nen
I ken din nen zhou tou
Hen kai xin, hen pan
Wo nen zhou tou
Pa Pa kwong rong
Ma Ma kou xin
Pa wo pen xi chuan
Hou ron you
Zhi tou wo zhen nen

I created it when I told them how I picked up dancing when I was younger through "Accelerated Learning".

Callie's into TV shows on baking

Callie often missed watching Anna Olson on "Sugar" because the rest of us want to watch something else on TV.

I love it when my children enjoy educational programme like this. So, I am at it again. This time encouraging Callie to learn to bake.

I cannot find a video clip of Anna Olson on Sugar but found her recipes from the show.

Callie enjoys eating chocolate so she should like watching Nigella Lawson baking ChocoPots.



And since all of us love eating cheesecake, here is Nigella's working on her "no bake" cheesecake.



There are more of Nigella's style of baking posted on YouTube she can browse and some basics about baking she can pick up from Food Network.

And here is a cost saving tip for her. Instead of buying one more ingredient for the recipe she is working on, she can consider finding substitutes already in the kitchen.

I can't wait to taste whatever she will one day be baking.

Did I take a long time sourcing all this information? No, most of them were posted by Pauleen on Yahoo! Answers.

Boeing Aircraft Pictures

Boeing 747-412 Aircraft

From Airliners.net: SIA on finals at the old Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong.


Boeing 747-428 Aircraft

Everything about Sony PlayStation

Can I get Calvin moving with household chores with these?

List of PlayStation 1 Games from Wikipedia

List of PlayStation 2 Games from Wikipedia

Information on PlayStation 2 Games

Free Playstation 3 Magazine - Reviews for gamers.

Absolute Playstation, a community of PS gamers

CHECK WITH MUMMY FIRST before you Download free playstation games

Mariposa? Sweep the floor first.

How you do you get your children to perform household chores? With Callie it is easy. I just asked her what she wants posted on this blog. So, with Mariposa, I managed to get her to sweep the floor. Thank you, Callie.



Part 2 to 8 of Mariposa.

Free online encyclopedia

My children will find this encyclopedia from HighBeam Research useful for their school projects.

At Encyclopedia.com they can find explanation to words through links to a wide variety of online dictionaries.

Food we love to eat

I came across Cooking with Kai on YouTube. Kai is a Japanese chef who enjoys cooking Asian food. This is one that I love as a kid that I am sure my children will enjoy.



They do not cook Wonton Mee the way they used to with thick chicken broth for gravy. This video reminds me of the time when I was a kid. Each time I had a tooth extracted, my mom would take me out for a bowl of Wonton Mee. Callie loves Wonton Mee just as much. She likes helping me in the kitchen sometimes so she maybe interested to learn how to cook it on her own!



Oyster Sauce Honeyed Chicken is Calvin's favourite. I have discovered that there are many healthy recipes posted at Health Corner. He also likes the Teriyaki Chicken sold at Jaya Jusco. Maybe he will like it enough to learn to cook it with pork ribs himself.



If he does, this is a tip from Mummy. Why waste the broth? Boil more pork ribs in your soup of the day. Once the meat is tender enough remove some to cook the dish.

Where else can my children learn about healthy food and how to cook them? I have that covered at The World's Healthiest Foods.

And why am I so keen about teaching my children to cook? To reduce wastage! They are less likely to throw away food that they have taken so much efforts to cook, right?

Calvin's into Sushi

Calvin's into Sushi. Not just in the eating but cooking it too. I think he got the bug when he attended the Shushi King Workshop organised by Sungai Long Buddhist Society.

Since he has tried making sushi first hand at Shushi King, this is a refresher course for him. I picked this video because the cook is able to roll the sushi without the bamboo sheet.



I like this "HOW TO MAKE SUSHI RICE" video by Sushi Monsters.



If not the sushi, I wonder when we will ever get a chance to eat regular rice cooked by Calvin.

Boeing 767-31A-ER Aircraft

Aarcade games nightmare

My children enjoy playing coin-operated arcade games. Now we can easily find such arcades in shopping complexes. If I allow them to play each time they see one, they may have a nightmare about it.

Books? Find them free online.

I have been collecting links to websites providing free ebooks for a while now and recently discover more from GreenerBusiness. I think it is time to post them here to lure my children to read more often.

Here are a list of links to free eBook websites they have provided:

WOWIO provides Free Ebooks, Comics and Graphic Novels

Internet Archive is a digital library of internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. At their Text Archive I found a link to the Children's Library. I hope my children will discover something interesting for them to read there.

At Manybooks there are thousands of free ebooks, pre-formatted for reading on your PDA - eReader, PDF, Plucker, Doc, iPod Notes, Mobipocket, or zTXT eBooks for your Palm. You can check out the categories of ebooks they have to offer. So now you can even read ebooks off your Cellphone.

Gutenberg has a library of 17000 free ebooks whose copyright has expired in the USA. Check their book listings, or do an advance search for newsletter and articles.

Software for reading eBook to check out recommended by Greener Business:

Dancing Tortoise software for viewing comics.

Comical Sourceforge provides an easy-to-use, featureful GUI comic book viewer, written in C++ using wxWidgets.

FB Reader

Following are more websites to free ebooks that I have discovered.

eBook88 is an educational site where you can read, submit and find free ebook. From their link at eBook Software, you can find eBook Software for Creating, Compiling, Reading and Designing eBooks and eBook Covers.

At Planet eBook they offer free eBooks of classic literature, books and novels. You can even suggest a classic book they should publish.

There is a wide variety of interesting articles at Neatorama. Some of Alex's articles provide links to free ebooks. How would you like to download The Best Figure Drawing Books Ever (For Free) or A Literary Proposal: 50 Reasons Why You Should Marry Me or Prof. Solomon’s Coney Island eBook, World’s First Roller Coaster for some inspiration? You will never know what you will be getting next.

Words Without Borders promote international communication through translation of the world's best writing. There are lots of short stories, poetry and nonfiction essays published worldwide that have been translated into English.

There are over 150000 eBooks at eBookMall. The ebooks there can be downloaded for a fee but if you join their lifetime eBook Club membership, by paying a one time fee of $19.95, you can login and download over 2,500 eBooks, 24 hours a day. There are a few free ebooks available but if you participate in their survey, they will offer you more free ebooks.

Just in case, the words are little too tough for my children, I have also complied a list of dictionary websites where they can go to for explanations.

The aeroplanes are flying in again...

The aeroplanes are flying in again from Uncle Chris for Calvin's scrapbook, as he calls it.

Cuppy Cake Song. Kid's favourite.

I have Cuppy Cake Song downloaded on my handphone last year and ever since then my children have been playing it whenever they can. As this song is so refreshingly amusing, I took the time to find out more about it.

The song was sang by Amy Castle when she was only 3 years old. Here is a video clip of her performance.



Here is the lyrics which I found posted on Just Some Lyrics

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE CUPCAKE SONG LYRICS
You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum, Pumpy-umpy-umpkin
You're my Sweetie Pie
You're my Cuppycake
Gumdrop, Snoogums-Boogums
You're the Apple of my Eye
And I love you so and I want you to know
That I'll always be right here
And I love to sing sweet songs to you
Because you are so dear

In my search for this lyric, I discovered Moron, another website where my children can do an artist search to find lyrics to song they would love to sing-a-long.

Callie is addicted to Barbie

Callie managed to watch The 12 Dancing Princesses the same day I posted the video clips from YouTube on this blog. Now she is asking for more Barbie shows. Her pick this time is The Island Princess. Do they have it on YouTube too?

Here is Part 1



Here is link to Part 2 to 11.

Can I recycle this or not, Mummy?

Every time Callie comes across something interesting she usually checks with me to see if they can be recycled. This time they are party bags she and her brother received from a birthday party they attended.

The party bags are small and very colourful. They can be cut into triangular stripes and rolled up into beads for making costume jewellery. But since they are made of aluminum sheets, I decided to give them a go to see if they work for preserving my vegetables in the fridge, a tip I read in an email. The size is perfect for my cucumber.



After putting the cucumber in one bag, I enclosed the top by placing the second bag over it.



We ate that cucumber the following week. It worked! So the bags stay in my kitchen for now with the rest I have collected.

I wonder what Callie will be showing me next.

Learn a language? Try it online.

I feel that my children do not read as much as they should. The books in their library are collecting dust. Since they enjoy going on line, maybe I can lure them to it with this posting of online books and dictionary.

Babel Fish Translation allows you to translate a block of text you enter or from a website address you enter.

Free Language is a free online resource community for learning foreign languages, complete with podcasts, blogs, web feeds, links and more. Maybe I can get them to learn Cantonese, their father's dialect.

English

Howjsay is an English Pronouncing Dictionary with Instant Sound.

Your Dictionary also provides pronunciations for the words they explained. It also provides idioms, synonyms and usage examples. The best way to find the meaning for a word is to type in that word after their website address. For an example, to check the meaning of "snap", type in your browser as follows:

http://www.yourdictionary.com/snap

Visual Thesaurus is an online thesaurus and dictionary of over 145000 words that you explore using an interactive map. It's a tool for people who think visually.

The Parts of Speech in English grammar.

Urban Dictionary is a slang dictionary posted and defined by its readers. They may find it useful when they are older.

At Learn-Spanish Calvin can learn how to speak Spanish. Yes, he is interested.

Word Reference is an Online French, Italian and Spanish Dictionary

Learn 3 languages at a go at Dicts.Info. Just pick the language you are interested for the last 2 columns. Also learn the basic words used in every language and check out other dictionaries available.

Bahasa Malaysia

Basic course in Bahasa Malaysia comprising 64 free lessons with link to a Free English-Malay Online Dictionary.

Mandarin

How To Read Chinese free software by Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Meaning of Chinese Proverbs Compiled by Haiwang Yuan on The Knowledge Network Explorer (KNE).

A collection of Chinese stories in English.

All things Japanese are of my interest.
Japanese Dictionary posted on Trussel's Eclecti City. There are many things to read and learn about on this website.

Japanese-online.com Membership is completely free.

Jeffrey Friedl's Japanese Dictionary

Jim Breen's Japanese Page for links to anything related to Japanese.

So, where can they go to for eBooks? I will cover that in my next posting.

12 Dancing Princesses

I stay firm on this. I am not getting Callie the 12 Dancing Princesses Barbie Dolls.

This should keep her happy for a while.



If she stays in my good book, she can watch the rest of The 12 Dancing Princesses video clips posted on YouTube.