Others

Cleaning liquid: vinegar plus fruit peels. 

Post cny. Don’t throw away the mandarine orange peels after eating the yummy juicy flesh. 🙂

Make household cleaning liquid using white vinegar & the fruit peels (wash clean). Got the idea from this website: http://heidistjohn.com/homemaking/organization/homemade-all-purpose-citrus-spray

 
 Use a glass jar (prevent corrosion from vinegar). Add the fruit peels into the jar followed by the vinegar. 
   

Do not fill to the brim to allow space for the air to be collected during reaction. Otherwise, Mrs Eio think the jar cover will “pop”! 

   
Cover the jar & let it sit for couple of days. (Don’t think need weeks before we can use). 

 
See photo for result on second day. There’s nice smell of the Orange peels. No more vinegar smell. Wonderful. Label the jar to know when the liquid was made. 

  
Use it! 

Food

Post cny: cooling drinks to bring down the heat!

Finally, Chinese New Year (CNY) is over. After eating so much Cny goodies & sleeping late at night, it’s time to have some time to “cool” down. 

Mrs Eio brewed (on separate occasions): 

1) barley with melon strips drinks &

薏米、冬瓜条。

2) luo han guo, xia ku cao, chrysenthemum & gan cao drinks 

罗汉果、夏枯草、菊花、甘草。

Rinse the ingredients & put them in the rice cooker. Add water & switch on the rice cooker.

Eio kids drank them without complaining about the taste etc. So it’s truly worth trying. 

  
 
Using rice cooker saves Mrs Eio the hassle of having to check the stove. Her rice cooker has the auto function to “keep warm” after boiling the herbs for some time. 

   
 
When it’s about time to serve the drinks, simply add rock sugar to taste will do. 

Enjoy…

Education, Kids/Children

EtutorStar Reading Pen 易笔通

Mrs Eio bought Etutorstar reading pen last Nov/dec school holiday from a promoter at Popular bookstore. There’s a couple of reasons why Mrs Eio decided to buy this pen (not cheap) : 

1) Since Mrs Eio has never send Em for any CL enrichment class, she thought it’ll be good to get this gadget to read to Em while she read to Eliz. 

2) something to get the kids occupied during the dec holiday.

3) this pen can read “好朋友”. The magazine that Em has to purchase when he’s in primary school. However, the content of the magazine has to be downloaded from the website into the pen for it to be able to read it. 

4) this pen encourages independent learning & self-learning. 

5) there’s other functions in this reading pen (Eg. Voice recording function) which can be useful for Em. 

6) Mrs Eio’s mouth can rest a bit more from reading to the kids. Lol. 
  

One may purchase the books at a discounted price if you buy the reading pen. 
  

There are books more suitable for preschool level & another set of books for primary level. 

  
  

So far, the pen is pretty sensitive in terms of reading the words that it’s pointing to.  

  

Em learning to pronounce the words after the reading pen.
  

Eliz also enjoys using it. Frankly speaking, Mrs Eio think this reading pen is more suitable for students from Kindergartento primary  level & above. Em can maximise the usage of this pen but Eliz needs more guidance in using the pen. 

  

Em’s reading using the reading pen while I read with Eliz. 
 

Mrs Eio decided to share this post only after she has reap all benefits from this pen for the amount ($) she spent. The kids are still using the reading pen. Em will ask for permission to use it so its viewed as a privilege to use the reading pen. After all, people need to increase their exposure to the language if they want to learn it well. 

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.etutorstar.com