Want to play chess, grandchildren?

Hi grandchildren. One of my Blogger Tips and Tricks reader asked for a widget to embed into his blog to enable visitors to play chess (International Chess, not Chinese Chess (Xian Qi). I found one and thought I would like to embed it into this blog to test. But perhaps it is good for you guys to try your little hands at playing chess too:

Curious George for my grandchildren

My attention was drawn to Curious George (Curious George is a series of popular children's books written by Hans Augusto Rey and Margret Rey featuring a curious monkey named George, who is brought from his home in Africa by "The Man with The Yellow Hat" to live with him in a big city)

Here is a video as an introduction:

CURIOUS GEORGE Meets the Press

and I think tomorrow I will start go hunting for Curious George at the Amazing Amazon

Gong Xi Fa Cai hand gesture

Hi grandchildren,

Learned something today - Gong Xi Fa Cai (Wish you prosperity) hand gesture. It seems the proper hand gesture is to place the left hand above right fisted hand, like how these Pakatan Rakyat good politicians are doing:

Correct Gongxi Fa Cai hand gesture

The thing not to do is like this so called 1Malaysia Prime Minister and his cohorts, right hand over left fisted hand (bad examples, don't ever follow them, not only their gongxi fa cai hand gestures, their scheming, public money robbing power abusing behavior. If ever you grandchildren have to ever face a bleaker future, it will be because of them:

Improver Chinese New Year hand gesture

Reasons (explanation):

If you aware with Yijing 易经, Book of Change, the old script Shanhai Jing 山海经, usually as Chinese taking lefthand / left side as Qinglong, Left hand -- Green Dragon stands for property, marriage, prosperity, wood will be, the main treasure, marriage, celebrations and so forth ….

Right hand side is White tiger Golden tiger, who would be fierce as a golden god, White tiger stays at Ken-Sheng. This signifies illness, death, access, devices injury and other things, villains that damage health. Intrinsic to the West, gold, slaughter, fierce people, mourning the patient. In delving deeper into the meaning, it can also mean gold and silver, swords, fighting, police, criminal ….

The difference is left hand above right fisted hand is showing that, qinglong above bai hu (white tiger).

Right fisted hand is Bai hu, it stands as struggling, fighting, death, fierce and so on. If you are wise, you can judge Najib gongxifacai was wrong with his hand gesture. In reality his hand greeting gesture is showing you that he is in a struggling period.

So when you wish somebody, or greet someone, putting your hand gesture in the middle of your body, it stands as wishing from the heart.

Source: Najib tak erti budaya Tionghua

Review: Educational game - build circuit light bulb

(This is the first of a series of reviews of educational games suitable for children and family):

Hi grandchildren, I found a great online game for you to play - Build a circuit, light a bulb. Have fun with it, then who knows perhaps your interest in electricity may be lighted up and you may become a future electrical engineer, physicist like your grandpa, etc.

It is very easy to play. Just 2 things needed - move the mouse and click. As you move the mouse, the soldering iron will follow you.

So move the soldering iron (mouse) over to where you would like to add a electricity conducting wire. Click and a piece of wire will be added at that spot.

Not the right shape? No worry. Click again and the shape of the wire will change to another shape. Still not the shape you wanted? Click again and keep clicking until you get what you want. The mouse click is a toggle, toggling between all these options.
verticalhorizontalcurve leftcurve right

The video below will show how to play the game:




I tested the game and it is easy to play. I suspect it is already playable by Lewis who turned 2 this year.

BTW check out these games over at Amazon's amazing online store. When you find something interesting, let grandpa knows and perhaps he may buy it for you for your next birthday:

Toys and Games

Family Games

Autism, hearing impairment, speech therapy, communications

Hearing impairment or deafness is a full or partial decrease in the ability to detect or understand sounds. Autism is an abnormal absorption with the self; marked by communication disorders and short attention span and inability to treat others as people. It is really fortunate that none of my grandchildren suffered from such disabilities. However, one of your cousin is not so fortunate, but it was fortunate it was spotted early and her parent took the trouble to travel great distance to get help for her daughter.

The ability to communicate well with others is crucial for any child's well being and success. Any child that is unfortunate to be smitten by either autism or hearing impairment will have difficulties in communicating with people around them. It is important that they be detected early so that remedial steps be taken.

It is great that now we have the Internet which now have enabled the possibility of online speech and language therapists called Speech Quest who have developed a three steps way for parents to do the following online without leaving their home:

1. complete a questionaire


2. assessment


3. plan activities

Speech Quest is not a charity, but if you have a child and you want to use their service and you respond before 31^st March 2010, they are offering a discount of 20%. Use the coupon code BVT1015.

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