Isaac Low world youngest drummer

Ah, here comes more talent and world record beaters from my grandchildren - this time in the field of music. Here is the world youngest drummer - Isaac Low:

Lincoln Chew first birthday party

Happy Birthday Lincoln Chew

Some photos from Lincoln Chew's first birthday party:

Lincoln with the Chew family

Lincoln with the Chen family and me attempting to smile for the camera. Uncle partially hidden

Lincoln with the Chen family and me managing to put on a passable smile but unfortunately Lincoln turned his face away from the camera

Lewis the first to enjoy the birthday cake. In fact, he even plucked a cherry from the birthday cake before the candles were blown out and the cake cut

Lincoln really enjoying the birthday cake and licking the plate

The indispensable - birthday presents, with mine the "most prominent", environmentally friendly self-made "present wrapper"

Environmentally friendly cost effective present wrapping paper

I felt there is no point wasting money on wrapping paper which will eventually be torn and added to the landfill. The idea of writing "something" came from Lincoln's aunt. Come to think of it, instead of writing "Happy Birthday Lincoln" on a piece of paper and sticking it on the paper, perhaps it will be even more environmentally friendly if the "Happy Birthday Lincoln" had been written directly on the white box itself. I think I will add that either Envirocard or Environmentally friendly presents

My "beautiful" calligraphy

And here is a video showing Lincoln's present - vocal card reader. Even if that do not qualify as an Environmentally friendly presents, at least that is a good children enrichment product

Kakak Samen birthday

Yesterday was Kakak Samen's birthday which was celebrated with a birthday cake together with Lewis and Lincoln:

Kakak Samen and Lewis enjoying the birthday cake

Kakak Samen, Lewis and Lincoln

Teaching your baby to read

AN INTRODUCTION TO TEACHING YOUR BABY TO READ

Like thousands of other parents all over the world, your initial impression may be one of skepticism. But what many don't realize is to teach babies to read successfully is not only possible, it is highly likely - in fact, teaching your baby reading is much faster earlier in life than later, as her cognitive development is strongest in her first three years of life!

If you've never encountered babies reading before, you probably have doubts about whether this is something you'd like to do with your baby. So to help you with your making your decision to go on the exciting adventure of teaching your child to read, we're here to give you some answers to the most basic questions you might have.

Question: CAN BABIES REALLY LEARN TO READ?
Answer: YES, babies most certainly can!

If the idea of babies reading seems far-fetched to you, check out the Baby Reading Videos page, where you can see videos of babies reading, most of them at the age of 12 months. Among them is a video of Felicity, the daughter of BrillKids founder KL, showing her reading words at the tender age of one.

Q: WHY SHOULD I TEACH MY BABY TO READ?
A: Children who learn to read in their first few years of life experience long-term gains in reading ability as well as other spheres of life.

If you think babies are too young to learn to read, or can see no conceivable reason for teaching a baby to read, you might be interested in the article Why Teach Reading Early? Also, because teaching your baby reading is one of the best ways to enable your child to begin learning independently, we encourage parents to start to teach reading at such a crucial stage in baby development.

Giving your baby reading opportunities stimulates your child's brain, helping to develop the proper neural circuitry for reading. If you teach reading to your baby, you improve her chances in excelling later in life.


Q: SHOULDN'T I TEACH THE ALPHABET FIRST?
Babies can learn to read whole words without knowing the letters of the alphabet. However, children need to learn phonics in order to progress to phonetic reading (sounding out words).

Some people think it's harmful for children to learn to read whole words. We believe that it is beneficial to learn to read as young as possible, and that so long as children learn phonics before they start school, they will be fluent readers. For more on this debate, go to Whole Language Vs Phonics.

Q: BUT WHAT IF MY BABY DOESN'T ENJOY HIS READING LESSONS?
A: Stop his reading lessons for the meantime, and take them up again when he is more receptive.

Step back, and look at what you're doing. The cardinal rule of teaching babies is to keep it fun. The point of teaching is not to achieve certain targets, but rather to give your baby the opportunity to learn to read at the age when it is easiest for her to do so.

Most likely, one of the methods of learning to read will appeal to your child and naturally become integrated into your daily routine. When that happens, the learning process will be fun and effortless, as well as a great chance for parent-child bonding.

Ancestors - grandma great-grandma great-grandpa

Hi grandchildren. Here are some photos of your ancestors, your late grandma, great-grandma and great-grandpa, great-great-grandpa plus your grandpa and siblings, meaning your grand-aunties and grand-uncles. Hover your mouse over the photos to get a tool-tip which describe the photos:







And here is your handsome grandpa graduation photo many moons ago:

New better Malaysia for you?

Hi Grandchildren,

A sentence from this blog post RAKYAT LAWAN ISA: A DIRECT ACCOUNT OF THE AUG 1 BRUTALITY inspired this post. Hassan Karim, apparently is another grandpa like your grandpa, for he said:

"Jika esok lusa aku mati, anak cucuku yang dapat membaca tulisan ini akan menyedari bahawa ayah atau datuk mereka pernah berada di atas jalanraya menuntut ISA dimansuhkan"

which translate to "If tomorrow I die, my children and grandchildren who read this writing will realize how their father or grandpa was on the road to demand that ISA (Internal Security Act) be abolished."

Well, your grandpa was there too and you can read about it at Anti-ISA rally at Masjid Jamek. When you grow up, you will understand what exactly is this ISA and why your grandpa have to support those who are battling for a better and fairer Malaysia for the ISA enables the current M

Your grandpa was also at the long march for justice. However, the big one that probably had the biggest impact the 12^th Malaysia General Election was the huge BERSIH rally for clean and fair election.

Let us hope that the combined efforts of concerned Malaysians at bringing badly needed changes and reforms will eventually lead to a better Malaysia for all of you.

Another grateful blogger wrote about your grandpa

Hi Lewis, Lincoln and Isaac,

Your grandpa is happy today. Why? Another grateful blogger wrote about your grandpa - Eu amo Peter. It is in Portuguese. Ah my grandchildren, time to learn another foreign language? Never mind. Wait till you grow up. Fortunately for us, we have online translators like Babelfish or Google Translate. Read the English translation at I ♥ Peter

Now for a small Portuguese lesson. The Portuguese word for tea is chá. Sounds familiar? Yes, same as Chinese. I learned this from a Portuguese professor when I was a student in Belgium almost 40 years ago.

Want more grandfather stories? Well this kind Portuguese professor gave your grandpa a piece of Camembert cheese just like the one in the photo below:

Photo of Camembert cheese courtesy of Wikipedia

And you know what your silly grandpa did? He ate the whole piece, including the white mouldy "skin"!!!! The Portuguese professor told me that I was supposed to throw away the white mouldy "skin" and only eat the inside yellow cheese proper! Thank God your grandpa is still alive today!!!

Mama Papa Disco Dancing

Hi Grandchildren,

Want to see your mama/papa/auntie or uncle dancing to disco music? Here they are:

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Baby sign language

Specialized sign language is sometimes used to communicate with infants and toddlers. While infants and toddlers have a desire to communicate their needs and wishes, they lack the ability to do so clearly because the production of speech lags behind cognitive ability in the first months and years of life.[citation needed] Proponents of baby sign language say that this gap between desire to communicate and ability often leads to frustration and tantrums.[citation needed] Hand-eye coordination develops sooner than acquisition of verbal skills, allowing infants to learn simple signs for common words such as "eat", "sleep", "more", "hug", "play", "cookie", "teddy bear", before they are able to produce understandable speech.[1]

Proponents say that teaching sign language to infants improves communication skills between the child, parent, and other caregivers.[2] Infants also quickly learn to match an item with a certain gesture, thus communicating what they are truly thinking, feeling, and needing.[3]
Proponents say learning sign language promotes the development of language skills and reinforces language skills already developed.[4] It increases the speed of spatial reasoning development as well as increasing early literacy skills.[5] Babies who communicate through signs are much happier than babies or infants who do not.[6] They are less likely to throw tantrums and in some cases develop a higher IQ.[7] Giving children the power to communicate their wants and needs can help them develop self-esteem, social-emotional skills and an ability to communicate effectively. Proponents say it teaches infants how to start as well as engage in a conversation.[8] Proponents say it creates feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.[9]

Source: Wikipedia: Sign language in infants and toddlers

Baby sign language in infant and toddlers according to Wikipedia

Is Lewis Chew the world youngest pianist?

Lewis Chew is just one and a half year old and here he is playing the piano with "style", so is Lewis Chew the youngest pianist in the world?

Yes you can swim standing up

Here is Lewis Chew to prove to you that one can swim standing up and still have plenty of fun:

Gestures develope infant speech and vocalbularies

Researchers who studied the influence of gestures on infant speech found that infants of parents who uses gestures while talking with their babies have larger vocabularies at four-and-a-half years and are thus better prepared for school. So parents if you want your children to do better in school do use gestures while talking with your children, my grandchildren.

Source: BBC News (Health)

Chinese New Year Lion Tiger Dance

Hi grandchildren,

I hope all of you had enjoyed this Chinese New Year 2009 family gathering where we had nice food, lion dance and probably the first ever tiger dance all to the beat of an improvised drum:

Lion Dance Videos

Ah Lewis, I saw you carrying another improvised drum - a tin can, in this video:

World First Tiger Dance

Ah Isaac, I wished you were older so you can enjoy this world's first - tiger dance!!!

Lewis Chew training hard his drumming

And here is Lewis practicing drumming.

Isaac has eczema

I used to suffer from allergic rhinitis and probably still does. Such allergies are related to eczema and Isaac's mother unfortunately does suffer from occasional suffered eczema attacks. Unfortunately this has passed on to Isaac. Here is a photo of Isaac taken a few months ago and if you examine the photo closely you will see those red rashes on his face:

Lewis and Lincoln Chew - youngest Facebook member?

I am glad to find out that Lewis Chew and Lincoln Chew have joined Facebook making them the one of the youngest if not the youngest Facebook member in the world.

Today I received an email alerting to a new social network called Acobay. It is a social network like Facebook but different in that it is based on Stuff such as cameras. Since I have been using Canon Powershot digital cameras, I have added my feedback on Canon Powershot A570.

One thing I found out is that Acobay has provision for adding a Wishlist. If you see something you fancy for your coming birthday, for example, you can add that product to your wishlist and let your family and friends know about it. That may solve my problem with presents or gifts.

Baby safety products for grandchildren

Hi grandchildren, particularly Lewis,

I am glad to see that your parents have installed a baby gate at the staircase to the upstairs in your lovely home. However, you now have a cousin and probably more to come. Looks like I am going to see more Baby Gates in the near future for while all of you are still toddlers, it is important to have baby gates at the staircase as when young, you may not know how to safely go up and down the staircase.



Child safety is important, but there are more things to consider other than just baby gates. For example, there may be sharp knives in the kitchen cabinets. I hope your parents will also install some cabinet locks at the appropriate places as the last thing we want you all to do is to play with sharp knives before you know how to handle it safely.

What other baby safety should your parents consider. It is good that your parents has now replaced the plastic feeding bottles with glass feeding bottles for plastic feeding bottles can leach harmful substances into your milk. Hope your parents will also surf the Internet for more safety tips, then, God willing, your grandpa will see all of you graduate from universities and eventually get married.

Chinese New Year Dragon Tiger Dance

The grandchildren, cousins, brothers, aunts and uncles had a fun time this Chinese New Year celebrated with a very good lunch accompanied by dragon dance cum "tiger dance", first of its kind? Here are the dragon and tiger:



Here is the video of the dragon dances accompanied by traditional drum beat on an improvised drum:



Here is the video of the "tiger dance":

Lincoln Chew at few hours old

Here is Lincoln Chew at a few hours old: