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Going Out!

Jammin’ the arty way at Museo

May 28, 2013

Over the Vesak Day weekend, the kids and I were invited to Museo, a new boutique restaurant at Sentosa Cove’s Quayside Isle. The swanky fine dining restuarant, with its seamlessly integrated bar concept and painting studio, is by the same people behind Arteastiq Boutique Tea House at Mandarin Gallery, known for their luxury high tea and social painting.

We were invited for an art jamming session in the afternoon, as well as to have tea on the house. Problem is, the only jamming I know involves either music or traffic. What exactly is art jamming?

The concept of art jamming is pretty new in Singapore. Art jamming – which is about being in a relaxing and conducive studio environment and taking time out from the busyness life to a place of creativity and self-expression through art making – is beginning to be quite a hit here.

And here at Museo, it’s impossible NOT to relax. The stunning view from the restaurant overlooking the tranquil quayside and marina area provided the perfect backdrop to chill, with a capital C. And CHILL, we did.

Add to that, a comfy, luxurious daybed to sprawl and people-watch, funky acid jazz playing in the background, and their extensive selection of Specialty Tea Sets, I almost forgot we were there to paint!

Before the kids and I art-jammed, we decided to try their Mezzanine Set ($39) that comes highly recommended by all the people I know who’s been there. Museo does a twist on conventional fine dining by serving food in a cup, and the Mezzanine Set allows you to customise 4 out of 12 entrées to your liking.

It was hard to make a decision because all the food sounded so delicious just by reading their names on the menu. I loved it that all the items on the menu were named after famous artwork by great artists. In the end, I ordered The Great Wave (tuna tataki), Picasso’s Blues (deep fried prawns flavoured with lavender), Smile of Mona Lisa (deep fried camembert cheese served with cranberry sauce), and Joys of Life (smoked roast pork belly served with hot sauce), and a French Rose tea set. Fatherkao went with a smoked salmon salad and a cup of cappuccino for himself.

My favourite has got to be the deep fried prawns with the most delicious and fragrant lavender flavoured dip. Ben loved it too and devoured almost all the prawns, leaving me and fatherkao to try only one each.

Being a meat lover, Becks, my little girl, loved the crackling roast pork belly best. She didn’t have it with the hot sauce; she loved the cranberry dip so much that she licked it clean with every bite of the pork. The deep fried cheese was great but it was a pity I had to eat it without the cranberry dip, thanks to her.

The tuna tataki was freshness in a glass, dressed just right, but quite forgettable, really. The smoked salmon came wrapped in asparagus and was dressed lightly with a generous serving of microgreens. The honey mustard dressing was sweet and I must say, pretty refreshing.

When it was time to get down to art jamming, we were given two canvases, a set of paintbrushes and an iPad to choose any picture we would like to paint. The folks at Museo will print the picture for you in a jiffy, and you can head on to the social painting space and spend as long as you like there and let your creativity explode on canvas.

We started with one canvas first and my grand plan was to paint a picture of the sunset with the kids. Hurhurhur. I haven’t the slightest artistic vein in me, so I wasn’t sure if I would end up drawing an egg yolk instead. My plan was to draw it out and palette the paint first, then have the kids take turn to hold the brush with my guidance. Very ambitious, I know.

Halfway through my sketching, the kids got restless waiting for so long (I am not Picasso huh, deal with it, kids!) and started to monkey around as usual. When we finally started painting, they were upset that they had to wait for their turn and started their usual “hey-when-is-it-my-turn-why-am-I-waiting” bickering with me and each other. When they sat on my lap, they started to ruin the canvas by adding colours not meant for the picture and basically going abstract on me.

Now, I can get pretty task-oriented. Upon seeing my masterpiece go down the drain, getting upset was quite an understatement.

So I decided to let them to go free expression on the second canvas, and that kept them laughing and happy for a long while.

Until they couldn’t agree on what colour to paint their canvas. Becks had decided to paint it almost black, and Ben obviously got quite distraught that his portion got swallowed up in darkness.

That was when I decided, heck my masterpiece. I gave my canvas up to Ben who finally stopped sulking, and watched the two of them go impressionist, then surreal, then abstract, all in one sitting.

I’m glad that towards the end, they had some fun finally. They got very, very dirty, and very, very messy but it didn’t matter. They painted their masterpieces without their mother breathing down their necks. And I was honestly quite happy I didn’t have to wait for the canvases, probably layered thirty times over, to dry, or to bring them back (you have to pay an additional $20 if you want to per canvas).

Now that was our art jamming experience.

Methinks art jamming is excellent for parent-child bonding but probably more suitable for older children who are able to follow instructions, appreciate art, and WANT TO paint something decent on the canvas.

More details:

Museo is located at Quayside Isle (Next to W Hotel), 31 Ocean Way, #01-22, Sentosa Cove, Singapore 098375.
You can get a free canvas for art jamming if you spend a minimum of $20 in your dining bill. Connect with them on their Facebook page for updates and specials.

Disclosure: We were invited to an art jamming session at Museo. We were given a complimentary drink and a passport with F&B discounts. All opinions and text here are Motherkao’s own.

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Learning fun! Reviews

Learning fun at Gymnademics – a mid term update

May 23, 2013

We’ve been attending Gymnademics for half a term now, and Nat has never been happier. At 15 months, my littlest baby is starting to babble a lot, and responding to routines. He looks forward to the fun to be had in his Pre-Fellow class every week, and I too, look forward to Friday evenings to join him in his learning, and sharing some special ‘Nat and Mama’ moments – just me and him, without the older kids.

Saying ‘cheese’ before class

After attending just five lessons, I watched how quickly Nat catches on to things taught by routine and repetition. For one, he is able to respond to the ‘Welcome Song‘ by raising his hand and pointing to himself when we sing, “Nathanael, Nathanael, are you here?” He’s also learned the actions for the ‘Hip Hip Hooray’ part in the goodbye song, and which parts of his body to touch when we sing solfège – do (we touch our knees), re (we touch our tummies), mi (we touch our heads) – and I must say I’m pretty impressed at how much my boy absorbs and the speed he’s learning things.

The goodbye song goes, ‘Hey hey hey, we learned something new today. Hip hip hooray, we learned something new today’ and here’s Nat jumping for the ‘hip hip hooray’.

This little one has also indicated quite clearly what activities he enjoys and what he doesn’t fancy. He loves sitting on my lap to look at the flashcards Teacher Selene shows in class. Since we started, we’ve learned a whole range of really cool stuff, from food types and food preparation methods to science concepts like magnetism and gravity. We’ve also looked at flashcards of birds of prey and all kinds of butterflies and moths. The last lesson, we met the Queen Alexandra Birdwing, the largest butterfly in the world. Bet you found that impressive, eh? Ok, I have to admit, I was impressed myself. I didn’t know that I didn’t know until I attended Gymnademics!

So this is the largest butterfly in the world…

Other activities that he loves? Balancing on a beam (and doing it very well!), the ‘Mystery box’, watching Teacher Selene teach him the actions to a new song, and oh yes, the water break!

Balancing on the beam

Learning actions to a new song!

Mystery Box – a secret revealed! (The activities are usually theme-related.)

Nat finds his bottle and gets his well-deserved water break

So what does he not fancy? Swinging on the trapeze. He hears the music leading to the activity and starts clinging on to me and shaking his head vigorously. He’s not even willing to hi-five the trapeze bar when it’s his turn. I don’t get this part, actually. For someone who has no sense of fear at the playground, I can’t believe that I’m seeing an intensely petrified face even before he swings.

Spot the koala!

We’re going to have work on that one for the remaining weeks of the term. The reason why swinging on a trapeze is included in every lesson is because hanging from a bar increases a child’s lung capacity, which in turns allows the child to take in more oxygen, and more oxygen to the brain is always good for a child who’s constantly learning. Swinging from a bar also strengthens his grip, which is a necessary motor skill, especially for writing later on. See those children on monkey bars? These are going to be smart kids, I tell you.

Let’s hope by the end of the term, my little koala can become a confident little gibbon.

Disclosure: Nat and I were invited to attend the Pre-Fellow Class at Gymnademics for review purposes. I shared previously about our experience in a review here. All opinions in this post are Motherkao’s own.

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Homelearning fun Learning fun!

Fff-fwah! We’re learning some f-words!

May 20, 2013

This month is the month of F-words. We’re exploring things that begin with the letter F!

Homelearning: Tracing F and making Faces

We did our usual tracers from our Hands On Homeschooling curriculum, and traced the uppercase and lowercase F with our fingers and pencil. I used the pictures for words beginning with the letter F from Homeschool Creations.

We made faces and learned what’s on our face – the eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth. The printables for our cutting and pasting were from one of the pages from the Gymnademics Big Day Out activity booklet. We mixed and matched and glued the different parts of the face to make four really ugly looking faces. Ben and Becks conveniently used these faces as targets for their ball throws. Hur hur hur.

F for Fruits and Food

To learn the names of fruits we love to eat, we matched the names of fruits in a flashcard game. I laid out the pictures and had Ben match the words to each type of fruit. He guessed the words by the beginning sounds of each word mostly. For Becks, she read out what Ben matched after he completed his task. For Nat, we did a gallery walk of sorts and I read each card to him while walking down the row, something we also do at Gymnademics.

I repeated this game for the types of food using flashcards (I bought the Beginner Series flashcards from Wink to Learn). The kids enjoyed the game thoroughly. We also did a food matching exercise with this activity sheet.

The F words in Science

For our science lessons, we explored fruits with one seed and fruits with many seeds; why food is important for our body; the parts of a fish and the different types of fish that we can eat. I got the materials from Hooray Science for Preschoolers published by Pelangi Books from the bookstore for $3.15 per book (there are four in the series). I colour-copied and laminated them to use as big flashcards.

We also learned the parts of a flower from this activity sheet in our Hands On Homeschooling curriculum. I learned something new, for one – that a flower that’s not yet in bloom is called a blossom. Looks like I’m also home teaching myself!

I Feel…

This month, we also learned a big f-word. FEELINGS. Feelings are so important to introduce to children. It’s crucial that they understand how they feel and describe it. I made these feelings flashcards from Kids’ Pages for Small Ages and taught Ben and Becks important feeling words like angry, hungry, tired, worried, sad and happy. Becks was also in drama mood that day we had this lesson, so she provided us with some good entertainment with her acting.

Outdoor learning: F is for freshness everywhere!

For outdoor learning, we headed down to the Farmer’s Market at PasarBella to check out fresh produce and good food.

We even saw a freak there! The kids were very disturbed by the chalked man. They couldn’t stop asking why he wasn’t moving. Guess they were freaked out by the freak!

We also went to The Cajun Kings for the freshest dungeness crab, Manila clams and red prawns we’ve ever tasted. The deliciousness of fresh seafood boil eaten with bare hands and fingers, cavemen style. Ooh la la, finger licking good! Very gratifying!

A very ffff-fulfilling month indeed, learning all about the letter F. Farewell, letter F! We’re moving on to the letter M next month. Why are we skipping letters? More on it the next time!

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Going Out! Motherkao loves...

Make a bus fun?

May 9, 2013

I’ve been bus-sing with the kids every day and getting a lot of stares.

Every day, we walk to the bus stop behind our place to take a public bus. The wait is usually short if we catch it on time; we’d have to wait in the sweltering heat for a good 12 minutes before the next one comes if we don’t. The ride is 15 minutes and the walk to kindy is usually another 8 minutes.

I do this fives times a week, rain or shine, to save money on school bus. I’ve recently started babywearing Nat and bringing him along because the house needs to be cleaned, his lunch needs to be cooked and he can no longer entertain himself while the helper does all that because of his severe separation anxiety. He starts wailing when we leave, and the helper can do nothing except to carry him till I return.

So picture a frazzled mother with a baby in a carrier, a bag on her shoulders, two schoolbags on her arms, holding hands with two children. When I get up the bus, my son taps the EZ link card for me and we struggle to find our balance on a moving vehicle to get a seat – er, no – three seats.

When we get our seats, I’ve to constantly stop the kids from morphing into gibbons.

Then when I look around, I see everyone staring at me. We usually sit at the back where the seats face each other, and I find myself an object of scrutiny by many pairs of eyes.

They look at me. They look at the children. They look at the baby. Then they look at me again.

On rare occasions, some elderly folk would give me a sympathetic smile, but most of the time, everyone just stares at us.

Do you know how impossible it is to get children to sit still and keep quiet for more than 5 minutes? You should have seen the kids on their first few rides – they were too loud, too fidgety and too noisy. They sang ‘Wheels on the Bus’ the whole time, and I could do nothing to contain their excitement.

What’s even more embarrassing: once the bus driver stopped the bus and scolded Ben for kneeling on his seat, instead of sitting down properly.

So here, I have a proposal for the authorities and the bus companies. How about having a little play area for young children on the bus and have just a couple of them ply through some major routes at specific times, say late mornings, after peak hours?

Image taken from http://www.absolutelimos.ie/our-fleet/the-kids-play-bus/

Or how about having some of our buses turn into some major playground fun like the Kids Play Bus in Ireland? Way too cool huh!

Image from http://www.absolutelimos.ie/our-fleet/the-kids-play-bus/

A small kids’ corner will certainly be free entertainment for anyone on the bus. It’s better than frantically scrolling our phones and doing damage to our eyes. It gives tired mothers some breathing time and perhaps, even ten minutes of shut-eye. It gives the young ones an outlet to expend their energy while on the move.

Heck, I don’t even mind paying more to get up on this bus.

Just suggesting.

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Homelearning fun Learning fun!

Befriending the letters D and E

April 30, 2013

We had more learning fun this April with the letters D and E.

Homelearning

We did the usual tracers from our homeschool package and printables from Kids Learning Station. Ben also started a letter book this month. It’s like a scrapbook with pictures from magazines that is categorised alphabetically. I had him recap the things beginning with the letters A, B, C, and also got him to look for pictures of things beginning with the letter D. He managed to find some dinosaurs, deer, dog and dolphins from a few of my old Nat Geo magazines.

For the notice board, I printed the pictures of things beginning with the letter D and E from this wonderful website called Homeschool Creations, which has an immensely rich resource bank of printables and activity sheets. I also introduced the sight words “eat” and “egg” from my Level A Sight Words Pocket Flashcards to them because that’s what they love to eat for breakfast!

What was hilarious was when I was going through things beginning with the letter E, Ben pointed to the picture of the envelope, asked me what that was and corrected me, saying, “Mama, this is not envelope lah, it’s EMAIL!” This is the world our children are growing up in. They don’t see envelopes much these days, but they certainly do see their mums and dads clicking on the envelope icon a lot, checking their emails!

Outdoor learning

We were invited to Breeze Singapore’s Today I Am roadshow earlier this month, and the kids got acquainted with the letter D again. They got a chance to play Dress Up. My favourite is the doctor and chef combo, hurhurhur. Please choose either of these professions when you grow up, guys!

They then went on to make some play-Dough.

And also got Dirty playing with paint pingpong and eating chocolate fondue.

D is for Dental health, at HealthZone

I read about HealthZone from one of my favourite blogreads, The Gingerbread Mum, and carted the kids there one rainy weekday. The kids got to skip kindy that day and learned about the importance of dental hygiene, eating right and maintaining a healthy lifestyle at this exhibition located inside Health Promotion Board at Singapore General Hospital. It costs $3 for an adult and $1.50 for kids aged 3 to 18, and is open Mondays (1 – 5 pm), Tuesdays to Saturdays (9 am – 5 pm).

The section on dental health has this giant mouth with a cushy tongue and a full set of adult teeth, with two black, decaying molars, and two missing front teeth. It was an awesome sight for the kids to behold. They were initially quite frightened, but soon warmed up to the set of teeth, and started touching the gums and sitting on the tongue.

The message was preached loud and clear by the videos they were showing at this section: brush your teeth twice a day with a good toothbrush and toothpaste, floss regularly, see the dentist twice a year.

The kids particularly enjoyed the activity station where they could press giant buttons with food inside them to find out if the food is good for their teeth. The good tooth and bad tooth would then light up correspondingly.

That day, I dramatised how eating sweets and chocolates, and drinking sodas would give them “teeth so black nobody wants to look at you”. I am secretly very pleased at myself for brainwashing them. Hurhurhur.

Dental Printables

To reinforce what we learned, I downloaded some activity sheets found in KidsSoup which has plenty of dental health activities, crafts, and other resources for children to learn how to keep their teeth healthy (thanks again, Gingerbread Mum!).

We helped EarTwiggle get to his toothbrush by identifying the food that’s good (and not good) for our teeth.

We also learned to brush a tooth! Using this printable of a tooth, I coloured two sheets with random spots representing food bits and plaque.

I then gave the kids some white poster colour, told them to brush away all the dirty bits using this “toothpaste” and had them painting away.

With this learning trip to HealthZone and the follow-up activities, whenever Ben and Becks hem and haw when it’s time to brush their teeth, I’d start reminding them of the gross black tooth and the tooth with food bits which they painted. It’s been working so far!

E is for Eating right and doing lots of Exercise, at HealthZone

Another section in HealthZone is called Exciting Eatery, which featured exhibits to educate us about healthy eating – the types of food to choose when we cook, eat out, and the types of food to avoid.

The kids got a chance to learn the different food groups and what they do for our bodies. Bread, rice and noodles give us energy. Pork, beef, chicken and fish make us strong and help us build muscles. And the veggies and fruits – Becks will tell you “You must eat them cos they make your poo poo soft!” Well said, my girl!

The kids also got to exercise at the fitness corner where there was a small indoor play structure, a rock climbing wall, exercise machines, balls and an interactive running game by Milo. I was really glad to have only paid $7.50 (for 2 adults and Ben; Becks and Nat went in free) for a few hours of learning fun and a good workout for the kids.

Anything for them to expend their energy!

The only thing I have yet to do with them to wrap up the letter E is to bring them for an elephant ride at the zoo. I hope to bring them sooner, cos we are moving on to other exciting letters next month!

Here’s a tip to teach kids to differentiate between lowercase letter b and d:

This month, I learned this tip from watching Word World with the kids. You can sing this song (to the tune of Happy Birthday, or any tune that fits) to drill it in, so the kids can sing it to themselves when they have trouble distinguishing! Here goes:

“Line and circle is the letter b

Circle and line is the letter d

Line and circle is the letter b

Circle and line is the letter d”

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Homelearning fun Product Reviews

Castle painting fun with CraftPlay [+Giveaway]

April 26, 2013

The kids don’t do much art and craft, thanks to their not-so-artsy mother that is me. I know they love to, and want to paint, draw, craft, and make a mess without needing to hear much nagging and screaming from their mother who has some obsessive compulsion to keep everything clean.

So I introduced them to their Art Buddy, whom the affectionately call QX jie jie. She comes occasionally to do art with them, while I hide in a corner and bite my tongue, and refrain from taking out the broom and mop to clean up the mess they are making while they are at it.

Last week, the kids had a CraftPlay date with QX jie jie . The folks at CraftPlay kindly sent over their Out of the Box Castle so the kids can have some painting and decorating fun. It was supposed to be a project with their new BFFs from kindergarten, but the other kids haven’t been feeling too well, so we thought we’d just go ahead on our own.

CraftPlay Out of the Box Castle Instructions

Instructions for Out of the Box Castle

The package came together with packets of paintbrushes and roller sponges, and the kids couldn’t wait to start working on the castle made of recycled box materials. I decided that they should each take individual pieces of the castle tower, walls and gates to paint, instead of assembling the castle first, and paint away they did, with the help of QX jie jie.

Let’s start painting!

And of course, at four and two half (and the baby at 14 months), you wouldn’t expect these kids to stay focused painting nor expect that they decorate the castle with funky designs and patterns. They were up clowning about after five minutes of serious painting, and started rolling paint on each other’s legs, toes and hair. That is the fun of art and craft to them.

Painting legs and toes is fun too!

When the paint dried up, I tried to assemble the castle but to my dismay, it was not as easy as I thought. We probably used the wrong type of paint and some parts of the cardboard were too wet when the paint went on initially, that the corners were torn even when the paint dried.

The paint was initially too watery!

Painting completed!

I spent a good hour trying to put the pieces together but the “tongues” that I inserted into the different slots kept coming out. I got desperate after getting nowhere near to assembling it after half an hour, I started taping the folded parts so they don’t come off. The kids only hung around to watch for a grand total of 7 minutes, and then got very impatient and kept singing me the same refrain,“Why the castle still not ok, huh?

So after one trying hour of putting it together, I gave up and told them, “Nah, this is the castle. It’s supposed to look pretty and all, but well, Mama just can’t assemble it without getting frustrated.” Now you know why art and craft is my least favourite subject in school. I’m totally NOT good at this at all!

Assembled with the help of tape!

This is how it should look! Image from CraftPlay.

Still, the kids were happy and started to find uses for this piece of artwork they’ve created – they started throwing their baby brother’s balls into the castle towers like those Uncle Ringo games they play at pasar malam. And then they went on to spend an evening with the cardboard castle, perfecting their aiming and laughing away.

Ready, aim, throw!

Thank you, CraftPlay, for those few hours of fun. Though it wasn’t too much fun for me putting everything together (ok, it’s me and my fat fingers!), my kids had a good time painting and playing!

Here’s a giveaway, so you can have some painting fun too!

I’m sure you can do a better job than me assembling the castle – how idiot-proof is that, right? – so here’s a chance to win an Out of the Castle (more castle types here) worth $17 for some hours of crafting and painting fun. Simply LIKE CraftPlay’s Facebook Page and leave me a comment with your name and email address. It’s that simple! Giveaway ends 1 May 2013.

UPDATE: Congrats, Chuyan! You won the Out of the Box Castle! Happy painting and crafting! A big thank you to all who took part!

12 Comments

Learning fun! Reviews

So much fun at Gymnademics!

April 16, 2013

Ever since I stayed home with my three kids, the youngest has been getting the shorter end of the stick. There’s a whole lot of homelearning fun but the activities I planned hardly included him. Well, I did try to get Nat to do some art until he decided it was better to lick the brush than paint. I read flashcards to him every alternate days and an occasional storybook, but that’s really about it. He has about half an hour of playground fun with Ben and Becks daily, and then stays home for most parts of the day with the helper while they are at kindy; not that fun if you compared it with the things he used to do at infantcare – crafting, singing nursery rhymes, playing masak masak, cutting cheese, squeezing cold toothpaste and chasing bubbles, balls and balloons – with ten other babies his age.

So when Baby Nat was invited by Gymnademics to attend their Pre-Fellow weekly lessons for a term, I couldn’t be happier. Finally, he was going to get some engagement, stimulation and much needed physical exercise beyond the confines of our home and the playground downstairs.

Gymnademics is the first and only intellectual enrichment and gym centre in Singapore that is affiliated with the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) in Philadelphia, USA. IAHP is founded by the guru of flashcards, Glenn Doman, and is a non-profit organization that does research on how to develop and enhance a child’s brain growth through a combination of physical education and intellectual stimulation.

At Gymnademics, classes are built upon the concept of purposeful play, because play is a child’s natural way of exploring the world. This sets a strong foundation for a lifetime of discovering and learning for children.

If you’re telling me that Nat would get to learn, play and exercise all at the same time, I’m saying yay all the way.

The Pre-Fellow class Nat is attending now (suitable for 1-2 years old and parent-accompanied) encompasses three core components – intellectual, physical and social. Each lesson lasts 1 hour 15 minutes. The first 15 minutes is free play, getting used to the environment and warming up to teachers and friends, and the subsequent hour is packed with 10 activities, lasting 10 – 15 minutes each.

Running freely at the Gymnademics Studio

Exploring gears with friends

Some of the things Nat does in class include:

Reading aloud (ok, not yet, so I read aloud after Teacher Selene instead) word cards, encyclopedic cards and picture cards

These help to stimulate his visual and auditory pathways. There are also stories and music to make learning fun for both parent and child.

Learning about the different types of dance

Getting acquainted with Claude Monet

Getting acquainted with Pablo Picasso

Gym activities that focus on balance and mobility, and at the same time develop his manual and tactile competencies

Nat’s favourite so far is the gym circuit. He has a skip in his step when it’s time to go on the obstacle course.

Learning to balance on a beam

Swinging on a trapeze

Fruit relay: learning to run in a straight line and putting fruit and veggies from one basket to another

Activities that teach social behaviour and encourage the development of his fine motor skills

With Teacher Selene’s help, Nat learned to tie a knot to string a bell. On another occasion, Nat learned to use his thumb to peel off tape so he could stick some shapes to make a paper plate pizza.

Tying a knot for the bell

What I especially appreciate about the programme is that Gymnademics provide a Parent-Child Bonding Package after each lesson. The package includes materials used in class, as well as extra activities that parents and the whole family can engage in to reinforce what the child has learned that week. This means that I can do things with Nat without having to specially plan for it, and he gets some homelearning fun together with me as well.

It’s been two lessons so far (one trial lesson, plus his first lesson last week) and Nat has shown me that he has enjoyed every lesson thoroughly. The range of activities they do in class with children his age within that one hour is indeed impressive and tremendously engaging. At home, I sing him the songs he sings in class and he starts jiving and grooving. I show him flashcards and he readily sits himself in front of me to babble and point. I am sure he looks forward to his Gymnademics lesson every week. Do follow me on Instagram and Facebook if you’d like to find out what this little fella is learning and how he is progressing.

If you’d like more information on the programmes in Gymnademics, you could connect with them on their Facebook page or check out their website here.

More details:

Gymnademics Early Enrichment Centre is located at SAFRA Toa Payoh 293 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh #02-01 Singapore 319387

Tel: 6259 0307 | 8518 7910 | 9651 9331
Email: info@gymnademics.com

Disclosure: Nat and I were invited to attend the Pre-Fellow Class at Gymnademics for review purposes. All opinions here are Motherkao’s own.

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Homelearning fun

Now I know my A B Cs

March 22, 2013

The kids have been homelearning for a while now, and I have revisited the basics with them through tracing, drawing, singing, counting and colouring.

We learned the letter A through counting and eating lots of apples. I bought this learning and counting tool from The Mind Store called Attribute Apples, and taught the kids to sort the apples and their different attributes (by colour, by worms, by stalk, by size). The kids also traced the letter A with the materials from Hands on Homeschooling and printables from Kids Learning Station and went stalking ants downstairs with their magnifying glass, looking at aeroplanes at the airport and watching Chip and Dale pick acorns in a classic Disney cartoon.

The Traceable Letter A Worksheet that I used from Kids Learning Station can be downloaded here.

We learned the letter B through playing with balls and in boxes. The printable worksheet for the Letter B can be downloaded here.

We just finished learning all about the letter C. I told them about the story of the Cross, and why Jesus was crucified to it. Ben learned how to spell some simple words like ‘car’ and ‘cake’, and we traced some candles and coloured them. We also coloured corals and made them as colourful as we could, in preparation for a mini aquarium project to come.

The printables for the corals can be found here. Here is another useful worksheet with illustrations for the Letter C.

It has been fun learning our A B Cs! Now to move on to the other letters.

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Learning fun! Nat Kao The Kao Kids

The day the baby ate paint

March 18, 2013

We were all ready to some painting. I moved the table out of the house (to minimise my cleaning up, hur hur hur) and prepared the Crayola finger paint, some brushes and drawing paper. I told my little Picassos to let their imagination wild and fill the paper with whatever they liked. I gave them little styrofoam bits that came with the laser printer we bought a while ago, and the kids were very excited.

I got things ready for Nat as well, who was anticipating eagerly on the high chair. He’s not new to painting; he’s done it a couple of times at infantcare and his teachers said he was a focused learner who enjoyed the activity a lot. They say he’s never put anything in his mouth while painting. So they say.

Was he interested? Certainly. For a grand total of five seconds. He then spent the next few minutes licking the paintbrush, smearing paint on his tongue and teeth, and frightening me silly eating red ink and making slurping sounds.

The next time Nat paints, he is painting with food colours.

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Learning fun! Product Reviews The Kao Kids

Learning through craft with the Toddibox – Product review & giveaway

March 12, 2013

I’m a little late with this review. We received the February Toddibox last month and only got to open it just this week. The kids (and adults) have been taking turns falling ill and I have absolutely zero energy left ever since my SAHM gig started. Finally it seems, that we are more settled this week .

The big box came with individually packed activities, similar to the Lollibox I reviewed in December. Objectives and instructions were clearly printed out and slotted in ziplock bags, similar to the Lollibox. The difference between the Toddibox and the Lollibox is that the former is pretty generous with their activity packs. It also comes with a story book related to the Valentine’s Day theme to promote parent-child bonding through reading.

I was overwhelmed when I opened it because this meant I had to look through every single pack, read what’s in store and decide if it’s age appropriate for Ben and Becks. It was a good thing I opened it before they did, so they wouldn’t go crazy opening ziplock after ziplock and go, “Shall we do this, Mama? And this? And this?”

I personally found the instructions in the Toddibox a little more vague than the instructions in the Lollibox. The ones in the Lollibox were much more detailed and had clear step-by-step instructions complete with illustrations.

Activities in the Toddibox came in four categories – Ten Fingers, Tempo and Beat, Thinking Tots and Test Tube. I naturally gravitated towards the Ten Fingers packs to see how I can occupy my tots with craft activities, being not very crafty myself.

I selected the ‘Family Link’ activity for Ben and Becks. I began the activity as suggested by telling the children about the family members in the house, and that we are all linked together by our love for one another. I got them to cut out the paper people and hearts provided in the pack, had them personalise each member in the household. They also stuck eyes onto the people and coloured them when the glue dried up.

There was a fair bit of cutting and I ended up having to cut the paper people for the project because it was difficult for Ben and Becks to cut out its shape with precision. There was also no glue provided so I had to go get white glue from my own stash for the buttons. I also wished there were more than 5 paper people to cut out, because we have a helper and we’ve told the children she’s family too.

The final product now hangs proudly on my front door.

On another occasion, the kids got to try ‘Walking in my shoes’. The activity requires the kids to trace the shape of each family member’s foot and make shoe lace holes with the soles that we’ve cut out. This may even be an opportunity to teach older kids how to tie shoe laces or sequencing by getting them to arrange the different soles in ascending order. But because dad wasn’t home for them to trace his foot and the baby was taking his morning nap, I decided to modify the activity a little to tie in with what I’m covering this week for our homelearning. So I got them to trace each other’s left and right foot, had them cut them out and label their soles ‘R’ and ‘L’. We’re making an ‘All about me’ scrapbook in line with this week’s bible verse from Psalm 139:14 (I am fearfully and wonderfully made), so this gets to go into their scrapbook! I also got them to ink their fingerprints and study the lines to see how special their prints were (which lasted five seconds).

There are so many activities to try and we’ve only done two this week. I’ll be working with the kids on our family tree soon, as well as getting them to do some CSI work studying family members’ fingerprints. The box is certainly value for money, and I am sure one box, with its 8 activities, would keep the kids busy the whole month.

I thought I’d put a review of these two activities up first because I have a giveaway for you – next month’s Toddibox!

If you would like to win next month’s Toddibox (theme on Music), simply leave a comment to say who you like to win this for and why. The giveaway ends 18 March 2013.

More details:

Toddibox is designed and created by a team of trained educators. The Toddibox’s multi-disciplinary activities are designed to help a child (from ages 3 to 6) relate to the real world and develop his confidence.
A Toddibox is priced at SGD$39.95; or SGD$239 for six months subscription (including a stationery pack); or SGD$440 for 12 months subscription (including a stationery pack and a free month).

UPDATE: We picked a winner randomly! Congrats Ganesan Arsheitha, Toddibox will be in touch with you shortly!

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