Author: Christy @ Kidsrsimple

Enrichment activities – Are they enriching others ($$$) or enriching your kids?

Some months ago, I had bought a set of edutainment books for my kids. It is called Logico. It comes in Primo series (intellectual development for age 2-5) and Piccolo (for age 5-9), a fun thinker (comes with 10 books and match frame) and 4 Disney Word books. It does not come cheap. From a mummy’s view, I thought these would give hours of fun learning for my kids. I paid for them and cross my fingers that my kids do not throw them aside after 3 days.

Well, on the first day, they were excited about them. On the second day, they walked past, remembered, and played for less than the time on the first day. On the third day, they walked past, but they did not touch them. Disappointment kicked in and I felt I must have made a wrong choice. One small relief was that at least they were interested in the Disney word books and still are after these months of owning these expensive books.

 

Hmm, what’s the lesson here??

1)      Kids do not need expensive books /edutainment or whatsoever.

2)      Kids prefer the old fashion way of getting mummy to read books to them and indulge in a world of unlimited imagination.

3)      Kids would rather enjoy their time with mummy playing silly make believe tea parties, funny faces, etc than to be self-entertained or self-learn with the expensive edutainment.

4)      Kids are kids. They want mummy’s or daddy’s company.

5)      And again. Kids are simple.  We adults are the complicated ones.

Many parents around me have more than one enrichment activity for their kids. Shichida, Kumon, I can read, Berries, piano lessons, ballet class, art class, etc. Like them, I wanted my daughter to learn more than her Yamaha Junior Music Course (YJC) which takes place once a week. I wanted her to learn violin, swimming, ballet, dancing… Sensing side-track, my husband will pull me back and remind me of over-enriching our kids.

Over-enriching = Less time for play = Less happy times to remember when they grow up!

I have to constantly remind myself that kids are simple and they should grow up happily. The really complicated ones are the parents themselves. Parents send their kids to this and that classes on the hope that the kids start out on a better headstart and more advance path than others (not to say if that’s the right path!)  Also, parents subconciously make their children fulfill what they have missed out on their own childhood.

Right now, I am satisfied with the once a week YJC for my girl. My boy has started his since he turned 4 this year.

Spare me the hectic and disruptive lifestyle of sending my kids to numerous classes. Let my kids enjoy a full time-table of play, play and play before they start formal school.

Childhood is short. I want my children to remember a childhood full of happy memories.

What enrichment activities do you plan for your kids?  Share with me how you manage your time!

Preparing for Primary 1

XX is going to Primary 1 (P1) next January which is less than 2 mths to go.

Many parents around me have been preparing frantically for this BIG day.

Some ensures daily one hour “homework” to accustomize their kids to this “habit” of doing homework when P1 starts.

Some decided to stop nap time.

Some send their kids to Preparation class for P1 where such classes drill P1 exam papers onto the pre-schoolers.

For me, I have not done anything yet, and I think I should…  but based on a few principles:

a) nap time – since my girl will not get to enjoy this anyway from January next year, I shall let her enjoy for 6 weeks more

b) homework – since my girl will bound to have homework from school from Jan next year, I shall let her enjoy more play time for 6 weeks more.  However, I will still give her fun worksheets to play while at the same time reinforce some academic basics.

c) preparation class for Primary 1 – since my girl will get to know how it will be like in P1 next year, I shall not expose her 6 weeks earlier.

With the above principles in mind, I will prepare my girl for Primary 1 in the following ways:

1) Eat a good breakfast

This is initially difficult as the time gap between wake up to out of the house is really short to cramp in milk plus breakfast.  My kids are not used to eating breakfast immediately when they wake up, except for milk.  I started implementing this 1 year ago and I learnt that I have to have good variations in breakfast every morning to entice their appetite.  I believe a good breakfast is essential to a good start of the day.  Kids do well in school and have better concentration when they have breakfast.  This will be important when my girl starts school.

2) Earlier bedtime

This is tougher to implement than the first.  There are so many activities to do with my kids that I find it extremely hard to off the lights at 10pm.  And not to mention, all these activities do not include any one hour homework time.  Hence, I need to work hard on this one, and I know 6 weeks is a bit too late to start this routine, and what makes it worse is that we’ll be travelling for 3 weeks in a 7 hour time difference country just prior to school starts.  That brings me to the next preparation – to have a good time-table and FOLLOW IT!

3) Follow a fixed time-table

yh-clock-time-table

I have drawn up a clock time-table which my kids have drawn in the picture here.

Having drawn up a time-table together with my kids help them remember and let them refer to it whenever we exceeded our time in any activity.  There will be little protest on this agreed routine since they are involved in the process.  With this, my kids will be able to know how to follow the time stated, train them in reading the clock, and hopefully it will help my girl in transition to homework time when I incorporate it into her time-table next year.  In this case, I need not purposely start her in doing homework daily in order to get her into following a fixed routine.

4) Reinforce her academic basics

I have printed some fun activity sheets for my kids (in separate difficulty levels).  I take these sheets out, explained how to do in game rules style, so that they will not feel like it is a boring homework.  Even though I don’t stress too much academic activities on my kids, but I still think my girl has to know some basics to not feel overwhelmed in Primary 1 classes.  I need to prepare her moderately especially most kids will be much more “advanced” from their P1 Prep class from the first day of school.  She just needs to know the basics and learn the rest in school so that she will not feel bored or switched off when the teacher starts to teach something she already know too much about.

5) Take down notes, write faster

My girl has a habit to day dream, and write slowly.  I am glad that her Yamaha teacher, Ms Tan has taught her to take down notes quickly in her music class.  Also, the Yamaha fast paced lesson forbids her to day dream too much and she is forced to listen attentively to not miss an instruction.  However, at home, she still reverts back to old self and I have to constantly remind her to write faster.  This will be very important in Primary school and I am training her speed in writing.  I have yet to train her by the clock and I will not do so for fear of stressing her too much.  So what I have been doing is constant reminders and also correcting her way in holding the pencil.

6) Independence

Independence is extremely important for any kids, and not only to prepare for Primary 1.  Kids are easily trained in independence if we start them young.  I want my girl to be responsible for her own books and what to bring to school.  I shall only do the checking and not pack her bag for her.  Again, her Yamaha Ms Tan taught her before I do, to pack her bag and ensure pencils are sharpened, erasers are in the pencil box, her Repertoire and Solfege and Ensemble books are in her bag.  All these to be checked every Friday night before the Saturday Yamaha lesson.  I shall take a leaf from here and make sure she does this everyday when she starts school.  We have started to let the kids, including the young one, the moment they step into the house, to put their shoes on the shoe rack, bring the dirty uniform from the childcare bag to the laundry basket, put school letters in the letter holders, and put their school bags into the cubby hole.

Independence applies to learning for spelling tests.  I used to remind my girl endlessly on whether she has learnt her spelling.  Soon after, it seems to become my responsibility!  But recently I have tried to cut down on my reminders and told her it’s HER responsibility to remember when she has her spelling tests.  Parents should not be the ones to be responsible for everything including learning for tests.  Kids have to learn their life skills too.  The only way to encourage independence is that parents trust their kids and let go, with some checks along the way.

Nowadays, parents are so involved in their kids’ lives, we seem to be the ones attending school.

Whatever we do, I feel the element of fun learning and enjoying childhood should always be the fundamentals in parenting.

How do you prepare for your child’s first day of formal school?

Learning Piano: From Dread to Love

XX has been learning piano in the Yamaha Junior Music Course (YJC) for almost 3 years .  That, to me, is already an achievement to her and me.  Firstly, learning something new is not easy, and to be able to sustain learning is even more difficult.  Piano course is XX’s first enrichment class and in fact her only one till now.  Kel and I have been careful not to stress our kids in taking too many courses.  Ok, I know one is not alot at all and she may have time to learn another new skill.  Or rather, WE as parents can “squeeze” some more time to bring her to a second enrichment class, which means multiply by 2 if you have 2 kids like me.

All parents will know that for their children to take courses, it involves tremendous determination, time, effort, coordination and of course trade-offs.  It doesn’t help that YH has started this year in the same Yamaha JMC course too (The first 2 years being JMC – Junior Music Course, and the next 2 years being JXC – Junior Extension Course).  Luckily I was able to find an exactly same time slot for the both of them at the same Yamaha branch.  In that case, we do not need to spend unnecessary hours waiting for the next class to start.

I have all praises for Yamaha JMC/JXC course.  Having some background in music, I appreciate the Yamaha teaching approach and emphasis on by-ear hearing for children at the age of 4 onwards.  Age of 4 is the golden start year of a child’s hearing.  Parents have to sit in with their children for the initial 2 years in JMC.  So now, XX is already in her 3rd year (JXC) and I am proud that she is independent enough to attend the weekly one hour lesson on her own!  That includes taking down notes and following her teacher, Ms Tan’s instructions!  I could not have believed it half a year back!  One thing I have learnt is that kids will be forever dependent on you until the day you let go and let them be on their own.  How true is that for XX!

These 3 years are not without ups and downs in learning piano.  The ups and downs apply as much to XX as to me.  From the initial enthusiasm to asking for permission to skip the class to tearful practices at home and to current going-to-piano-on-her-own, it indeed is a roller coaster ride for both of us.  I would not say she has great affection for the piano.  But she definitely enjoys it.

How do I deal with her tantrums at the point of low interest in piano?

The ingredients are lots of PATIENCE and PATIENCE and PATIENCE!

1) Patience! Patience! Patience!

There are many times when I feel like pulling my hair or stomp off the seat (which I guiltily admit I did!) when I am coaching her practice.  There are times when I feel like stopping her lessons.  But, this is the only class she goes, and she is good at it, and I can see signs of enjoyment during class and smirk of satisfaction on her face when she masters a piece.  I have to keep telling myself to think positively that both of us must persevere and must not give up learning halfway.  I took a bet on this one despite many negative withdrawal thoughts.  I won, at least until today.

2) Practise in a fun way!

Children love games!  When my girl is discouraged with playing a difficult piece, I put her favourite clip on the back of her hand.  The challenge is to play the piece without dropping the clip.  She takes up the challenge happily and practices more times and it helps her familiarize the song without knowing.  Bravo!  She masters the song!  (By the way, XX is good at memorizing and mastering songs in less than 5 tries!)

As for YH, he practises the piano with his pooh bear behind him as you can see here 🙂

 

3) Have a mini concert

While XX is practicing her pieces to almost passable standard, I will invite her brother YH to have a crazy dance.  We can fall to the floor at the cue of the last note.  We can dance in a slow but funny way with moderato or largo tempo.  We do a fast one with allegro songs.  We tried waltz and tango as well.  Everyone enjoys the concert.

4) Playing for others

Sometimes, knowing too much can be a disadvantage too. XX loves to play for her 爷爷 (grandpa) who doesn’t know how to play the piano.  She finds herself an expert compared to him and loves the applause and encouraging words from him after a song.  He doesn’t criticize much.  For me, I have the urge to correct mistakes and point out improvements.  XX, at her lousy mood times, will throw tantrums when I correct her.  When tantrums flood in, the entire session is spoilt.  I try my best to avoid this.

5) Encouragement and lots of it!

XX’s Yamaha teacher, Ms Tan is extremely good at handling kids.  I learnt from her some silly ways to make practice sessions fun.  When XX plays a song well, instead of clapping my hands, I ask her to tap her nose together with me.  We tap our cheeks and shoulders and anywhere we find silly and funny.  Such amusing and fun actions liven up the entire practice session.  And it works great with the young one YH.

At times, when my girl throws tantrums, I bit my lip and use my most tender and loving voice to push her on.  When it doesn’t work, I stop the practice session totally and announce to continue the next day.  I would rather stop the session abruptly than to let her continue in a sulking manner.  Playing the piano is supposed to be fun and enjoyable.  I would not want her to link piano with stress and lousy feelings.

 

I strongly believe that learning the piano will teach my kids

–                PATIENCE (while figuring out notes and expressions),

–                ENDURANCE (in mastering a piece of song),

–                PERSEVERANCE (in the long road to Grade 8 and above)

–                INDEPENDENCE (go to class alone, take down notes, and practice on her own at home)

–                ENJOYMENT (a way of expressing herself, her feelings, her thoughts through music, that’ll be in the future)

–                PRIDE (to learn a skill and able to display confidence to an audience)

Well, the route of learning is tough.  But, I am happy that I am able to accompany XX and YH in this long journey to reap the intangibles and values that we pick up along the way.

Do you have interesting ways to encourage your kids?  Share with me!

 

Dealing with back talk and rude behaviour [+ Free Printables!]

Recently my 6-yr-old has been going into her “pre-tweens” stage.  Yes, “pre-tweens”!  (Tween is the new word for describing someone between child and teen age, and I guess my girl belongs to the stage before that, hence, “pre-tweens”)  She has been defiant and rude to her mummy and daddy.  She challenges our stare or no stare, mumbles under her breath, knuckles on her waist, folds her arms, back talks, anything that you can see in an adolescent.  Oh dear!  You can imagine how devastated I feel. My natural instinct was to flip back on my childhood memories and nope, I could not find anything similar in my childhood days to deal with such behaviour.  Usually I will think back on how my mother would have dealt with such a situation and mirror her actions or improvised from there.  My next thinking is self-blame.  This is bad.  I start to think I may not have spent enough time with her.  There were some changes in the house recently as we just moved house.  Next on my thought list is that she picked up from her friends in school.  Fair enough, I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she is not by nature a rude girl. Continue reading “Dealing with back talk and rude behaviour [+ Free Printables!]”

Our first winter holiday – my preparation


We are going on a holiday to Sweden at the end of the year.  It will be our first long trip with the kids and our first winter trip too!  I have started to plan much ahead on the things to buy and the activities to do with the kids.  Be prepared will definitely be the most important step to travel with young kids.  Besides having a super long “Things to bring” list, a “What to pack for car trip”, a “What to pack in snack bags” and “What activities to do” lists, one important ingredient to a fun and stress-free trip is the right mindset. Continue reading “Our first winter holiday – my preparation”