Art + Design + Architecture

Is it important for children to take up art?  What skills will children learn from art? Should we allow our kids to have a free will in doing their art pieces or should we be guiding them along?

Ricco started structured art learning since a young age of 2+.  The only reason I enrolled him in art class then is really to allow him to have something to do while cultivating social skills; playing alongside other children and also to fine tune his motor skills.  There is no expectation for him to perform.  For me, its really another avenue for play.  In class, he is engaged in guided drawing/painting/craft and at home, I allow him to doddle/draw/paint on his own, at his own freewill.  There is no expectation for him to draw a train that looks like train; a car which looks like a car.  Its really the explanation and how he see the art piece that he had created thats important.  I believe this had helped cultivate his interest for drawing/painting and even writing.  He now associate drawing and painting to fun and play.

In the year that Ricco take art lessons, I realised that art greatly helps to improve a young kid's motor skills.  It taps into children's creativity and imagination. It helps children make sense of the world and it is certainly an avenue for kids to bring out their loves; be it dinosaurs or cars.  Having said this, I highly encourage art to be one of the 1st learning ground for children

I was searching for a new class to send Ricco to as he grows out of his current junior art class and there are really no slots suitable for him in the current school at a higher level.  I came across something which caught my attention : art + design + architecture.  I like this concept for I think that art, design and architecture are all really about creativity, spacial awareness and also imagination. 

He attended his 1st lesson today and I find it extremely interesting.  The teacher gave the very young kids a 10mins slide show of different art pieces. explaining to the kids what some art pieces may represent, what the artists' thoughts were at the time of concocting those pieces etc.  This is a good first level introduction to visual and design literacy.  The kids were then asked to use different stencils and paint their own art piece.  There are stencils of dinosaurs, fairies, robot, flowers etc.  Be it overlap, side-by-side, above one another, the kids are given the freewill to design their own piece while discussing with the instructor. 

Ricco came up with the below after a long 2 hours painting and discussing.  He refused to use any other stencils other than dinosaur.  His only request throughout the entire session is to paint 1 more dinosaur.  He asked for 1 more again after 1 more is drawn.  He ended up with 15 dinosaurs (so he says).  He entitled his painting : Dinosaur Land.  And the explanation behind this painting : moving dinosaurs running towards the left... in dinosaur land.

Art Piece entitled : Dinosaur Land

He is so happy and takes so much pride in this painting that he simply refused to leave it in school for it to dry up to bring home the next week.  I ended up carrying this painting (right side up) throughout dinner and shopping the entire evening!

Phonics for Kids

Is phonics all important?  When should we start our kids on phonics?  How should we start?  Should we be investing in classes or cards that costs up to hundreds?  When will my kid learn how to place words together and start reading?

I have some experience to share now that my son is turning 4.

Phonics is very important due to the simple reason that words are made up and sounded through phonics.  Once a child knows the sound of the alphabets, placing them together and sounding a word should be easy.  I started Ricco with 'zoophonics' class whereby he learnt the sound of the 26 alphabets via a connection between action, animals and sound.  This methodology of teaching phonics works especially well on very young kids as they are still at the exploratory stage of learning.  Parents might not be able to know how kids at very young ages learn best.  Are they 'active' learners (learning through actions), 'sight' learners (learning through seeing), or auditory learners (learning through sounds)?  This methodology combines all 3 and works on kids memory and association. eg : 1 action is associated with each alphabet and animals.  Children are fast learners and before you even know it, they are able to sound the 26 alphabets. 

Attending class is a headstart but this must be accompanied with consistent home learning and individual teaching.  This acts as a reinforcement to what they learnt in school.  Yes, this means parents and kids alike, need to practice and practice at home.  There is really no need to invest in flashcards that costs hundreds of dollars.  A home made set is good enough. 

I recycled old name cards and used crayons to simply write the alphabets.  I try to go through these alphabets on a daily basis.  It takes nothing more than 3minutes.

alphabets

Once the child is able to sound the alphabets, the next step is really about placing the alphabets together and getting them to read it as a word. As in "c", "a", "t" forms cat.  I am currently at this stage of piecing together words ending with "at" as in "cat", "fat", "bat", "hat", "mat", "pat", "rat", "sat".  This is working well and I am happy with progress.

Office is closed for Year End! Yippie....



Office Closed for Year End Holidays!

Is your office closed for the year end holidays?  Mine is! Since about a decade back, I had always have the priviledge of working in an office where this time of the year, the office is closed!  Though I remembered there were years where we need to take leave for this (as in compulsory to take leave), this is certainly a most welcomed break!  This is a real time to rest, take a break, rejuvenate and heading back to the office in the new year, all energetic and full of drive. 

Personally, I love going on holidays.  This said, to avoid the crowd, I am perfectly fine with staying in town!  There are tons of actitivities which I can do.  Just a matter of planning for it.  I will already be happy to spend some time with my son at the bookshop and head for a good meal afterwhich.  And I don't mind doing this day in day out for couple of days.  Totally relaxing :)

So what do I like to do during year end holidays?  Here's some suggestions on what you can do too!

1) Take a holiday out of town! Visit some exotic places and immerse in their culture for a week or so
2) Take a driving holiday to Malaysia.  Plan for a fruit garden trip; go garden hoping and savouring the many different fruits that topical Malaysia have to offer
3) Take a yoga retreat holiday in renowned Thailand or explore further to India.
4) Take short break in 1 of the newly opened resorts in Sentosa.  Check out the newly opened resorts world hotels. Head to the beach for a good tan in the day followed by a relaxing dinner by the beach or inside the resort inside.  Take the relatively new, revamped tram rides around the island, hop on and off to visit the places of interes.  Otherwise, take a leisure walk around your hotel vacinity and simply relax...
5) Catch up with friends over coffee/tea or head to one of the many Hi-Tea buffets Singapore had to offer and engage in a day of catching uo, chit chatting and updating
6) Head for long relaxing body message inclusive of scrubs and baths. 
7) Pamper your nails.  Book an appoint for a manicure and pedicure
8) Hang out with your kids - anywhere they fancy! east coast park? gogobambini? bigsplash? universal studio? bookshops? followed by a nice happy meal? yummy!
9) Exercise day! Yes, work it out.  A gym session followed by a swim?  or gather some friends for wind surfing or blading?  Or go for a run in the park?
10) Immerse in your hobby!  Be in bookscraping, blogging, tennis or what have you... plan to totally immerse in your hobby for the day!

Reading - Introducing the world to kids

Do you always want to cultivate your child's love for books? for reading?  Are you wondering what you should do, when you should start?  How you should go about doing it? 

Put on your memory recall and try to recall how you  had cultivated your love for reading.  Or vice versa, give some thoughts to why you not like to read.  I love reading and my earliest memories were primary one textbooks which introduced words like "Hand" (followed by picture of a hand), eyes (followed by picture of a big blue eye); early memories of lying on the bed reading Enid Blyton's books of pixies, goblins and fairies; memories of having one hand dipped inside a packet of chips and the other flipping the pages of a super interesting books; memories of 'book chasing' till well past midnight just to read how the story turns out. All very nice and heart warming memories! And the journey with books begin as I progress to teenage fiction; business, self help, diets, parenting and the list goes on...

As you think about how to cultivate the love for reading, you may wonder :

1) when and how should your start to read to your child?
2) what kind of books should you start with? you definitely do not want to kill his/her interest by reading boring books...
4) Should you start teaching phonics?
5) Should you read and point to words at the same time? to cultivate learning by sight?
6) Should you allow him/her to learn on his own pace?

I started reading to my son when he was as young as 6months old.  Prior to this, it had really been about talking and singing with/to him.  When he was able to play with books, I started reading to him with books.  In another word - Story Telling. I chose books which are simple and interesting to read. Feel and Touch books are defnitely a good bet for reading to very young kids.  They are able to captivate children's interest. With touch and feel books, children feel like they are 'playing'! They get to feel different textures, to touch different objects.  A very good bet!  However, I thought that whats most important in story telling is about parent's ability to make characters in books come to life! Parents should try to mimic the voices of characters eg : the BIG BAD WOLF (emphasize and slow down when reading these words). The BIG BAD WOLF says "Little Pig Little Pig can I come in?". This can be done in a low deep voice . Children are curious by nature. Which child can resist the "BIG BAD WOLF" who sounds sooo reeeeaaaaal?  and what about Lightening Mcqueen who says "vrooom vroooom (add this in yourself to create effect even if this does not appear in the book!) catch me if you can!".  You create the 'fun' element in reading in this manner.  You make the story fun and you make it feel like 'play'!  Naturally, most kids will be captivated.  And before you even know it, they want more and more and more! Just like you wanting more TV series, HK serials :)

Reading rhymes to children is another way to cultivate their interests for books. Rhymes are easy for children to follow and I love it for its rhythmic tune and nature.  Ricco was 1st engaged in "Thomas the Train" rhythmic touch and feel book at 6months old. It goes "Thomas loves to drive through the countryside. He toots at the cows as he passes by. Harold loves to fly high up in the sky. He loves to see the birds go flying by." Soonest he hear this rhyme, he hymns along and before long, he was able to recite this.  Again, this is fun! its just like singing.

So you see, fun and play is really the common key element here.  Reading must be something fun to do.  Children likes to play with fun stuff! So, make reading fun! Before you know it, your child will be hooked for life!

Kids who loves animals have a higher tendency to love reading.  WHY?  Take a closer look at children's titles the next time you visit the bookshop.  you will notice that most young kids's books are about animals!

Thomas' Rhyme Book

Holiday fun....

School holidays is the time where many parents take time off to bring kids for overseas holidays or to have fun locally.  Many shows are staged at the various shopping arcades including the Dora show at city hall, Hi-5 at marina square and more.  "Walking with Dinosaur" is a sell out, mainly patronised by our young audience.  The Resorts World Singapore stay-over and Universal studio are popular choices amongst parents.

Walking with Dinosaur :
I managed to get class 2 tickets some 1 month back.  By then, seats were already limited.  Though its not directly facing central stage, the view was awesome since all dinosaurs (other than the pteranodon) walked around the entire stage.  This is a narrative show talking about the different dinosaur ages and showing the many dinosaur species.  This definitely include the popular ones like barosauras, stegosaurus, triceratops, t-rex, pteranodon.  The children are exhilerated and captivated by the mere size of the dinosaurs.  The plants, trees and flowers and seeds springing into life was indeed a delightful, colorful sight.  Kissing scenes between parents and baby dinosaurs was heart warming.  Small little dinosaurs running around brought many giggles and laughs.  This said, from the eye of an adult, the roars of the dinosaurs were not thundering as I had imagined it will be, the dinosaurs feel and look live-less. Commentaries was not easy to follow withsome many dinosaur names which I am not familiar with.  Many commented that this is really a kids show.  I would think the same.  But then again, when the kids are happy, the parents are happier.  In this sense, this is a value for money show.




One of the bigger and taller dinosaur in the show - Barosauras



Biggest dinosaur in the show - T-Rex ROAR

Resorts World Sentosa - Festive Hotel
With the opening of the RWS, many parents are eager to bring kids to experience 1st hand hotel fun at the resort world!  Other than being just walking distance to the Universal Studio, the other unique selling points to the the hotel property includes the jointly shared beach pool, the family room with a high child bed, the candy place which costs over 2 million investment dollar, the many f&b joints at the hotel vicinity.  My family had stayed over a night at the Festive Hotel.  Ricco especially love the long corridor passageway where he can race us to and from the room, the beach pool where he spent hours having sand and water play, the high child bed where he learnt to climb up and down many times on the ladder and not to mention, cartoon network channel on TV!  He is sooo hooked that we need to lure him out for dinner! With 3 of us staying in a family room, space area is just nice but there are extra sleep areas.  The sleep area can easily accommodate 5 (with at least 1 child) but with 5, I would presume the activity area is very limited.  Taking into consideration tourists have huge luggages, the activity area will be even more limited. I would thus recommend the room for 3 adults and 1 child as 'just nice'.  I love the big bottle press out shampoo and bath gel - certainly eco-friendly with less small sized PET bottles required to contain these.  I love the selection provided over breakfast buffet; good enough selective and not going overboard.  The balcony provides a good view of the joint beach pool which is ideal for a cuppa.  The nearby amenities certainly add to the good review of the hotel.  This said, 500+ per room night for the family room per night is not too cheap a price to pay for. 



Child High Bed



The Beach Pool

M&M's not only in NYC! The Candy Place