March was a good month for me as I got to spend 1/2 of with my darling son in Perth. It was a good time of bonding between mother and son although it would have been perfect if Papa was on the holiday trip with us. Nonetheless we had an enjoyable time and mummy was SHOPPING crazy... =P
The last day of march 2012 marked Little's R first official trial lesson at an enrichment centre. It was the first time we actually went for a class.
Here are some of my opinions and observation of the class.
Class was meant to be 1.5 hours but we spent about the first 10-15mins waiting for most of the kids to arrive in class. Class size is small 2 teachers to about 6-8 kids. During the first 10-15min while waiting, kids get to sit on this mat which seemed rather dusty and there were a few toys for the kids to play.
Class starts off with a goodbye song to the toys which teaches the kids to keep away the toys in a basket. Followed by an introduction to the no. of friends in the class and the Phonics of the day which was M for MMmmmm. Teachers went on to introduce a few items that was associated with the sound e.g. markers, muffin, moon but the kids did seem rather oblivious to them. This was then followed by a song that involves 10 finger with actions. After which we had a project time where kids were introduced the concept of fishing for magnetic fishes. Apparently they had learnt about magnets in the previous week. Little R enjoyed this activity a lot and he was able to follow the instructions of catching the fishes and passing them back to the teacher before going off for his next hunt.
After fishing, we then proceeded to a MUSIC room where we were greeted by another teacher on a keyboard. In this room, kids had to remove their sock and dance and jump to the music. They sang songs about counting lemons, the wheels on the bus and a story time about some animals (counting no. of animals). There was also a song about bubbles and a teacher was blowing bubbles for the kids to pop.
After this, the kids headed back to their original classroom for a 5 minute break then it was time for an introduction to an animal in the zoo bag. In line with the day's alphabet, out popped a mouse hand puppet from Zoobag. Its name was Missy Mouse. Kids hugged the mouse and we learnt that mouse like cheese. From there we somehow (*sorry there is a memory lapse in my brain at the moment) moved on to the topic of a moon and the teacher used whiteboard markers to draw on the kids hand a MOON (is this ok? I wasn't too comfortable with using markers to draw. Maybe I'm a little paranoid but aren't these toxic? What if the kid licks the ink?). This followed a run through of ZooPhonic A-Z song then the kids were given picture cards (*from the song) to match the animals on the wall.
That basically sums up the day. It does seem like a lot that is covered within a supposed 1.5 hr class but how much of this is really absorbed by the kid? Most of the the kids are all over the classroom and there is bound to be one screaming at some corner at one time or another. I mean what do you expect of 15-18 month olds? So therefore the question is it really essential and do the kids really stand to gain anything out of this? Or was it just one particular incident at this particular school?
Here's some milestone progess in Little R:
Words:
- Teeth / Star / Moon / Keys / Mummum / Sound of an Elephant / Golf / Juuuu for Juice /Full
With ♥
Mummy of Little R
