Choosing a Chinese Enrichment Centre

Dumpling used to head off to my parents' place after school on some days but that changed with her staying back in the school for an average of 3 times a week because of extra classes and CCA. Hence the exposure to Chinese language has been greatly cut down since that's my parents' mode of communication with her. 

And like many other parents, I find Chinese a harder subject to crack and to support in, which explains why I did Chinese immersion for her from 18 months to her Kindergarten years and where we did a lot of  Chinese homelearning too. However, as she progresses on in school, and with me having started a new job earlier this year, I find the lack of time and the lack of teaching materials a challenge in effectively supporting her in this area. More than that, there are also quite a few elements to exams: Learning Comprehension, Composition, Oral, Paper 2 (which includes *gasp* comprehension and 便条).

We tried a Chinese tutor for a good couple of months but unfortunately, because of health issues, she could not teach Dumpling any more. That started a mad rush for me where I had to look for alternatives i.e. enrichment centre. 

With school (and semester 2) restarting in a week's time, how do you then choose a centre for your child and what are the things to look out for? Here, I share some tips and my thought processes. 

(Source)

1. Distance 
In all honesty, this ranks at the top of my list because choosing a centre usually is decision that will "last" over a few years. 

The closer the centre is to your home or to your child's school, the less tiring it is for all of you. And you will realise the importance as your child goes into Upper Primary because time is really a constraint with them staying back in school for so many days. You will also need to factor in the travelling time too. 


2. Teachers / Environment  
Chinese is already a hard language to master so to me, having encouraging teachers is very important. Dumpling was previously with another enrichment centre and while the workload was really heavy, the teachers she had there were really nice and always had words of encouragement. 

There were days where Dumpling could not finish the compositions in time and the teachers did not mind and allowed Dumpling to continue on, even after the lesson has ended. I feel that this contributed to Dumping's "openness towards this language" because her experiences with these teachers have always been good. 


3. Curriculum / Gaps you wish to tackle
While the syllabus is set by MOE, different centres have their own curriculum where they plan for their lessons and design their worksheets differently. Even elements in their worksheets differ in focus an in intensity. Additionally, the length of the sessions and what are being covered in the lessons differ too. 

To elaborate, some centres run 2-hour programmes as well as a 3-hour programme. The 2 hour programmes usually come in these sort of combinations:

- Paper 2 components (Vocab + words from textbooks as well as comprehension)
- Composition + Oral format 
- Composition + Oral + Comprehension 

Now, you may ask how it is that some centres are able to cover composition + oral + comprehension while another is not able to. This is where you will need to call and do a bit of "homework". 

Honestly, it is hard for these centres to cover all these components in a 2-hour class so some centres may cover comprehension but they are the MCQ versions and then they pair it with composition; they will then do an Open-Ended Comprehension with Oral the following week. Other centres may do a full paper 2 and pair it with Oral before alternating with Composition the following week. So you will need to think and decide if for e.g. you prefer weekly compositions or you are for e.g. fine with 3 per term. 

You will also need to understand your child's schedule - is he / she able to complete the homework given by these centres:

• do they have time to learn extra Ting Xie and Mo Xie words
• do corrections
• even work on the compositions from home 

I have some friends who prefer to let the enrichment centres support in just composition and oral while they work to support the child on the paper 2 components at home, on their own. Then, there are also centres that run a 3-hour programme where it is "all-in-one" ~ paper 2 components, composition and oral. 

More importantly, based on your child's recent SA1 papers, you will need to identify what the areas of improvement are. If your child seems to be weaker in composition, then you may not quite need to do the paper 2 components but focus your time and resources in choosing a centre that offers just composition support. 


4. Home and centre partnership 
It takes a village to raise a child and having a good partnership with your child's teacher is really important. In some trials / holiday workshops with some of the centres, I often ask for feedback and this allows me to gauge 2 things:

- How quick the centres reply with feedback 
- How insightful their observations are 

More importantly, when the teachers share areas which Dumpling needs improvement on, I'd often turn it around and ask them back ~ " How are you able to support her in that area then? What are your strategies and what will be your recommendations?" 



5. Slots availability and fees 
These 2 factors are pretty self explanatory ~ with Dumpling staying back in school so often, it is a challenge to be able to look for a class that suits her timetable so that took a bit of calling and checking too. Additionally, there's the question of fees of course. 

So far, based on my calls, most of these centres charge around $20+ per hour for group sessions (if you were to break the fees down by per term and then by per hour) but of course, there are some who charge a more premium fee. So it will be good for you to call and ask to see the materials and understand the justification in these places charging for a premium. 

I hope the sharing is useful and here's wishing you good luck in your search and in the upcoming Semester 2!

I have previously written a post on nurturing a love for the Chinese language before and you can read more about it here:

Part 1: Read Read Read (books of a different kind)
Part 2: Speak it, Use it!
Part 3: Watch it!

Part 4: Play It! 

Part 5: Write it! (小书 Small Book) 

Looking for more sharing on the Chinese syllabus, I recently interviewed a friend who is an MOE Primary School Chinese teacher on Chinese Composition which you can read about here too. 

If you have enjoyed this post, please follow me on my Facebook Page where I share my parenting thoughts, food photos (be prepared for tons of them!), early shout outs for giveaways and interact with you, my readers! You can also follow me on Pinterest and Instagram!  

Raising the bar: Heart Studio June Holiday Workshop

Children express themselves in many ways, differently. As the pace of formal education picks up, the "need" and the "want" in me to look for ways for the kiddo to "let loose" increase too. And with the kiddo, it is all about Art.

The kiddo doodles when she is free, when she is happy and even when she is thinking (as that seems to be the way she processes her thinking). She started her Art journey with Heart Studio since almost 4 years back where I first blogged about it here and she has been with the studio ever since.

I advocate unstructured play and the kiddo gets loads of this at home, on her own where she draws, does crafts, paints pebbles and draws some more. Because it seems to be the medium which allows her to unwind, we have pretty much stuck to her Art classes.

For the regular terms at Heart studio, Dumpling has pretty much done Animal Themed projects,

Buildings (this was a "work-in-progress" photo)

and even artist inspired pieces like this "Henri Rousseau" piece

(my favorite project so far not because it is pretty but the kiddo applied the technique in one of her recent school projects) 

Now, for Heart Studio, their Holiday Workshops take on a different approach. The projects are mostly designed as 1-day workshop (usually less than 3 hours) where the studio introduces a mix of genre and media for the children (see poster below!)

Now, what Dumpling really loves is that the holiday classes also offer her the opportunity to learn different things such as new technique (pointillism), use new media (clay), etc. This time round, the kiddo chose "The Dancer" workshop.

The painting is of 3 ballerinas and the style, abstract. What the kiddo like was that it was a new technique learnt (short strokes, "layer on" instead of blending) and that well, all girls like pretty ballerinas I suppose! :p

:: The Process
One thing that stands out is that while most of the students' work look really impressive but in all of the sessions, it is the process that the teachers focus on.

From the very first lesson when the kiddo was just about 4YO, the teachers at Heart have been working with the children on the same process: starting all artwork with basic shapes and outlines. This was the same as with the Dancers painting. The hubs was at the workshop earlier and he proudly told me that the kiddo was pretty much independent in doing the painting with Teacher Elma demonstrating or making certain suggestions along the way.

The learning objective of this project is to introduce the children to "Abstract Art" as well as getting them to learn how to layer on the paint and learning how to use colours harmoniously. :) 

For me, I was glad that Dumpling has a chance to learn how to paint human forms as that is often challenging.

From the years that she has been with Heart Studio, she has grasped the understanding of light and shadow as well as the technique of blending. For this piece, Teacher Elma shared that Dumpling was "challenged" as there was no blending involved but to work on layering different tones. The style was that the paint should be thick where there is "texture" too.

From a parent perspective, I like that with each workshop and with each term, Dumpling is always learning new things be it a different style, working with water colours in different ways, etc.

And the finished piece? Ta-da! 

For parents who are keen to try Art out, I do not even know where to begin on the great things Art does for children. Besides improving on areas such as fine motor skills and focus, Art empowers children to exercise their imagination and creativity. It allows children to have a means to express themselves and allow the brain to make connections in ways we cannot imagine.

Heart Studio offers highly personalised classes where even in theme based classes like these, the children are allowed to choose the angles, characters and colours they wish to work with. Just look at Dumpling's recent term project on "Cubism"!

Check this out: almost all the children were working on vastly different characters! How's that for child-led approach? 

Workshops, to me, are a great way for children to try out something new as well as allow parents to gauge the child's interest and if they are comfortable with the environment, the approach and the teachers. For us, I am glad to say that the approach still "works" even after almost 4 years. :)

Heart Studio is running its June Holiday workshops from 30 May till 10 June. Because I am nice (LOL!), I have pasted the schedule below for your convenience :p

If you wish to contact Heart Studio to find out more about their cost / availability, here's their contact details. The slots do run out pretty quickly so do call them earlier :) 

Address and Tel

1 Charlton Lane #01-04,

• Singapore 539631
• T: (65) 6554 7563
• 
  Disclaimer: We were invited to the Holiday workshop so that we can give our opinions about it. We are not compensated for the post. All opinions (and  artwork LOL) are entirely ours though your kid can bring home their piece of artwork if they were to enrol too!
    

If you have enjoyed this post, please follow me on my Facebook Page where I share my parenting thoughts (both to the kiddo and my furkid, food photos (be prepared for tons of them!), early shout outs for giveaways and interact with you, my readers! You can also follow me on Pinterest and Instagram!  

Heart Studio - Little Picasso - Review + Giveaway!

Sponsored Review

Dumpling has been progressing along in her Art journey with Heart Studio for more than a year. She 'graduated' from Little Dali almost a year ago (which you can read more about here, here and here) and is now with Teacher Elma in Little Picasso. With the coming of age (ha!), comes a tad more technical skills and the little one has been exposed to different mediums and themes - Water Lilies (with water colour) to Pointillism on canvas.

For this term, we have been blessed to be invited for a term review of Dumpling's progression in Little Picasso. In a strange twist of 'fate', this module introduces Dumpling to Vegetables, which is one of her least favorite food items. :p LOL

:: The Class
Regardless of level, each term spans across 10 weeks and for Little Picasso, each term yields 2 artwork. While Little Dali focuses on smaller projects, at this level, there is more details given to the shape, form, composition and techniques.

What struck me immediately as we entered the class for our first lesson was that teacher Elma brought in 'live specimens' - as in real vegetables were brought to the class where the children had a chance to be introduced to the various vegetables, touch them, observe them (seeds and all!), feel the texture, etc. I really like it as I feel that it provided much more depth and perception for the children before they chose the vegetables they wanted and proceeded to paint.

:: The Progression
For the first 2 lessons, the sketch was done on the usual draw blocking where the children were given chances to explore with the shapes and sizes of the vegetables they chose.

Here, Dumpling started with carrot, mushrooms, potatoes, avocados and...

even chili padi! (otherwise known as bird's eye chili). Check out how 'decent' her artwork was after lesson 2. :) 

Once the students got the 'hang' of painting the vegetables from the sketched version during lesson 1 & 2, they then went on to paint on a larger piece of brown paper. 

The children had the chance to 'change' the items and were not at all confined to those they had selected initially. In fact, half of what Dumpling chose to do for this piece were vegetables which she did not paint during the earlier lessons. 

With some experience garnered from the previous sessions, Dumpling knows that the very first thing she needed to do was to do the outline of the vegetables she chose. Once that was done, she painted the background of the table the vegetables were sitting on.  

Lessons 4 & 5 were spent on colouring in the vegetables and of course the detailing. I am often very fascinated at this stage of their art pieces because this is where I feel the pieces come to 'life'.

Here, Dumpling was taught how to sketch out the outline of the shadow before filling in the dark grey colour.

Thereafter, she was taught to use various hues to add on the details.

The final art piece!

Now, here's the exciting news! Keen to let your kiddo try out Heart Studio's Art classes? You may unearth a Little Picasso too! 

GIVEAWAY ALERT!
 Holiday Programme - Toy Story & Let's Go to the Beach!

(Giveaway is not valid for existing customers/students)

     

:: Painting

The children will learn how to draw forms using shapes and lines and at the same, they are taught using the techniques of painting, mixing of colors and color harmony and contrast. This painting programme will open a window of experience for the student to try out canvas painting to the many different interesting subject matters that have been chosen for the class.

:: Lets go to the Beach

10am-12.30pm

10^th June 2014

2 passes to be won -  WORTH $150 IN TOTAL

:: Toy Story

4.30-7pm

17^th June 2014

2 passes to be won -  WORTH $150 IN TOTAL

:: Terms and Conditions:

- Entries that do not fulfill the requirements stated will be disqualified without notice.

- The child has to be 5 years and above, based on the month and year of birth.

- No repeat winners are allowed.

- Winners will be notified by email, through the email address provided.

- Winners must confirm by reply email or phone call, within three days. Otherwise, a new winner will be picked.

- No changing of date or time is allowed.

- No Existing Customer allowed.

- This giveaway is open to Singapore residents only. 

Enter the Rafflecopter below! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: Dumpling was invited to review Little Picasso for a term to give our opinions and experience of the classes. No monetary compensation was received. All opinions and views are entirely ours. 

If you have enjoyed this post, please follow me on my Facebook Page where I share my parenting thoughts, food photos (be prepared for tons of them!), early shout outs for giveaways and interact with you, my readers! You can also follow me on Pinterest and Instagram! 

A Chinese Speech and Drama Holiday Programme - 新小红帽！ (Little Red Riding Hood)

Dumpling had a wonderful experience in a March holiday programme which was put together specially for a Homelearning Group for Preschoolers which I belong to, organised by Apple Pie Language Centre. It was a Chinese Speech and Drama programme which spanned over 5 days. In March, the production was on Alice In Variousland, a tweak from the classic Alice in Wonderland. For September, the group was very blessed to have been able to proceed with another workshop and, the production this time round is a tweaked version of The Little Red Riding Hood.

There has also been so much focus lately in the news, on the importance of Bilingualism and I, for one, am thankful that I started exposing Dumpling to Chinese since young. She has been attending Chinese classes while I homeschool the rest every evening. It is also for this reason that Dumpling has gone for only Mandarin workshops and activities over this past year, during the school holiday period.

I personally believe the language to be a beautiful one and while there is a certainly element of rote involved, there are also fun and exciting ways for the kiddos to learn it. Speech and Drama is definitely one of them. 

Taking into consideration that the children have been working on the play for only 5 days where the daily sessions are also peppered with activities such as crafts, etc., the children did remarkably well. :) Here's a peek on the performance day (play  lasted a tad over 10 mins)!

The backdrop

Prior to Day 1, I had prepped and explained to Dumpling that it does not matter which role she took on as long as she has fun. When I saw her that evening, she was very excited to share with me that she was going to be Little Red Riding Hood. Frankly, I suspect that she was just excited that she got to be all dolled up. LOL

Little Ms. Dumpling being cast as Little Red Riding Hood and looked to be totally enjoying the performance

The costumes were lovely and as the children entered into the performance area slowly, "Ooos" and "Ahs" can be heard from the ever supportive parents seated amongst the audience. 

 Now, I did mention that the story was tweaked right? Here, 3 little pigs make a performance! Aren't these "piggies" adorable? :D

Now, what about the Wolf? Isn't he convincing? 

I personally thought that he was great and delivered his lines convincingly too! From a chat with his mummy, I understood that Wolf-boy has never been keen in the language but after Day 1 of the workshop, he was already sharing with his family on the play and how much he enjoyed himself.

Finale song

Dumpling also made a new friend at the workshop - fellow mummy blogger Felicia's Princess. The girls look simply adorable. :)

Besides the food craft which Dumpling and I share in the evening daily, Dumpling really loves the storybox which the children made over the 5 days too! I thought that it was very creative and cute too!  

And of course, a last "photo opp" with Mama before she changed out of her costume. :) 

Based on the parents' feedback, it seems that the kiddos enjoyed themselves tremendously. I have had requests to organise another round in December so hopefully we are able to have a go at a Chinese programme again. :) 

For parents who are keen to find out more about Apple Pie Language Centre, here's their website. If you should wish to participate in the December workshop, do drop me an email -> beanienus{at}gmail.com so that I can inform you if we are able to proceed with the next production. :) 

If you have enjoyed this post, please follow me on my Facebook Page where I share my parenting thoughts, food photos (be prepared for tons of them!), early shout outs for giveaways and interact with you, my readers! You can also follow me on Pinterest and Instagram! 

GIVEAWAY + REVIEW! Neuromath Junior Math Intelligence Programme: The Importance of Cognitive Development

In my earlier posts, I have shared an overview of Neuromath Junior's Math Intelligence programme and also delved into 'Values and Math Concepts'. 

Unique to the Math Intelligence Programme is also the Cognitive part of the lesson plans where the first half is usually on Math concepts while the second half focuses on cognitive development, taught through games. 

Neuromath Junior believes that cognitive development is critical in young children as these are the formative years that determine how a child’s mind receives, processes and uses information and hence, memory games are often played in each class.

:: Auditory Memory

An example is that after "whole numbers and values" are taught to the class, a way that Neuromath Junior reinforced the concept was through an auditory game where the children had to move their bear counter based on the audio instructions before finally checking if their bears have ended up on the right 'number'. This worked on not only her listening skills, spatial awareness (right, left, up and down) but also the recognition of whole numbers and simple counting-on where the children had to move the counter to find the mystery number.

Being an audio-visual learner, this is one game which Dumpling clearly enjoys. 

 

:: Visual Memory

Neuromath Junior also believes very much in on other areas such as memory training as this allows the children to be able to absorb more information and recall them quickly and easily. An example of how this can be useful is that when reading off instructions from the whiteboard, children are able to process the information very quickly as a whole image and hence can work on the problems quicker. 

Above: here Teacher Esther puts up some 'occupational cards' for a said set of time before the children attempts to line them up in the correct order

Above: Dumpling trying very hard to recall... 

Above: Dumpling with her 'super duper' camera taking a mental 'snapshot' of a beach scene...

Above: and the children pointing out to the 'correct' picture! 

:: IQ & Higher Order Thinking Games

In every lesson, IQ games are also being played. The objective is to train the children on their concentration, develop their spatial reasoning skills as well as ranging from their logical thinking skills. 

Unlike the usual tangrams available outside, Neuromath Junior creates its own materials which includes shapes with curve lines. Besides introducing to the children basic 'fractions' incidentally, Neuromath Junior develops them into creative 'pictures' which resembles animals (hones their creativity and imagination) too.  

Above: picture of a rooster made with semi circles, quarters, etc

Above: Dumpling having a go at it and unused to the finer details of curved versus straight lines

Above: an activity on spatial reasoning skills  

Above: Dumpling with her worksheet; trying to guess what the underside of the paper would look like

What I found really interesting was also a series of higher order thinking activities which the children were introduced to. Higher ordering thinking questions basically are non-routine problems which uses heuristic 

strategies to solve the problem. There are different strategies used to solve heuristics questions one of which includes 'draw and construct'.

Draw and Construct 

Dumpling's class worked on a problem which gave them a total number of "wheels" some vehicles (a mix of cars and motorcycles) have. The children had to work on the sum with stickers to 'assign' the wheels where they can then identify how many cars (4-wheeled vehicle) and motorcycles (2-wheeled vehicle) there were. 

I like that even for such sums, the children had hands on tools (in this case stickers) to help them grasp the concept and the way to go about solving the problem. Having done this activity in class, the children were given another sum to attempt at home too.  

Nets

Having attempted the spatial reasoning activities (shared above) for a few weeks, the children were then led to doing some Nets activities using a cube which also trains their logic reasoning and perceptual skills which aids in their understanding of geometry. 

Dumpling has definitely benefited from the Math Intelligence Programme where her understanding of basic operations (addition and subtraction) is now much stronger. From the homefront, this makes it much easier for me to continue our Math journey where I can continue to scaffold on what she has learnt. While previously I was a tad unsure of how useful the Cognitive part is, I can now see that she has better focus when she attempts Math questions and has strong spatial reasoning and logical skills. More than that, what is most important to me is that she is engaged in the classes, likes the subject and has also taken an interest in puzzles and heuristics problems.   

Just for Beanie N Us Readers ~ FREE TRIAL!

I am excited to share that 10 lucky winners will stand a chance to win a trial lesson worth $30!

Take part now and you can win a trial for your child to enjoy a first-hand experience of Neuromath Junior lessons!

:: Details

Each lesson is designed to cover 2 sections:
1) Mathematical concepts
2) Cognitive & motor skills development

* Parents are required to accompany pupils aged 3 and 4 during the lesson.
For 5 and 6 years old trial lesson, we also welcome parents to attend with their children so that you can have a good understanding of the Neuromath Junior approach.

Date: 20 July 2013 (Saturday)
Time: 12nn (for 3 & 4YO), 2pm (5 & 6YO)
Topics:
~ Comparing Set within 10 (2 sets) (3 and 4 years old)
~ Money (5 and 6 years old)
Duration: 60 minutes
Venue: All free trial lessons will be conducted at the Upper Bukit Timah Old Fire Station Centre

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: Trials cannot be exchanged for cash or take place on another date / time. 

As the Neuromath Junior trial takes place in Singapore, this giveaway is opened only to Singapore Residents.

Winners will be chosen randomly and winners will be announced on 17 July 2013 on this blogsite and via your email address. Should you be unable to attend the trial, BeanieNUs and Neuromath Junior reserve the right to give your slot to the next winner.
By taking part in this giveaway, you agree to have your details shared with Neuromath Junior. 

:: Neuromath Junior Enrichment Centre

West
272 Upper Bukit Timah Road #01-13/14 Singapore 588212
(Old Fire Station @ Green Block).

T: (+65) 6466 0145

East (Opening Soon!)

80 Marine Parade Road 
#17-02 Parkway Parade Singapore 449269 

Email: ask@neuromathjunior.com  

Facebook at www.facebook.com/neuromathjunior

Disclaimer

Dumpling and I are invited to participate and review Neuromath Junior's 5YO Math Intelligence Programme in order to give my opinion of it. All opinions I have given are mine and may differ from others but were not influenced by the company or the complimentary classes given. 

Wordful Wednesday - Painting is not just kid's play!

As part of the Singapore Mom Blogger's first anniversary celebration, some of us had a chance to try our hand at painting. Dumpling has been attending Art classes for a while at Heart Studio and being someone who love colours, I have actually expressed my interest in picking up painting and was speaking to the studio too!

Heart Studio hosted 2 groups of mummy bloggers that morning and I was placed with Teacher Syafiq and Teacher Elma where we explored on Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Though I am no stranger to Van Gogh having done a homeschool unit with Dumpling on the famous masters, attempting it on my own all in one morning is an entirely different experience!

Teacher Syafiq (Dumpling's teacher) introducing the theme for the morning and the journey ahead...

You know that you are with a group of blogger mummies when they are ever so ready to smile and ham it up for the camera and when photography takes on to another level...

Teacher Elma (the regular teacher for the 5 - 6YO) guiding us on the very first step - the outline

And it was our cue to start ~ starting with choosing our colour theme

After the outline was done...

I started on the background. Van Gogh is known for his thick and bold strokes where he also layered on paint to create the textured effect and so, I decided to try my hand at layering on. Boy, was it hard work!!! I now have new found respect for Dumpling who was ever so attentive in her classes.

And after about 2 hours, I was done!

What I like a lot about the class was that just like Dumpling's Little Dali journey, there was no teacher to hold on to our hands but instead, the teachers' roles were to guide and at most, demonstrate. I also had free rein in terms of colour choice - something that definitely satisfies the rebel in me as opposed to having to follow a colour scheme strictly. 

I was pretty amazed that even I managed to churn out a fairly decent painting. So I decided to take a quick look around the studio and these are the works of my fellow mummy blogger friends! Gorgeous aren't they?

And here's a group photo of all the talented mummy bloggers! :)

Special thanks to Heart Studio for hosting us that morning. It was loads of fun and was certainly great to have a go at painting my own sunflowers which is now proudly displayed on my bedroom wall! :) 

Heart Studio

101 Soo Chow Walk Singapore 575385

T: 6554 7563

Also linking up with