I finally took Valerie to Heguru for a trial. So happened that I was at MV doing my facial on Wed and Heguru was open so I walked up to have a look at the place, saw the CD preview of the programme and signed up for the RM80 trial. What I like about it is that they have a trial class and you only need to commit to the programme on a monthly basis. Unlike Shichida and Tweedlewink, no trial class and they want you to sign up per semester of 3 months. The thing is, how do you sign up for a RM1200 course for 3 months, without trying it in the first place. 3 months is a long commitment, if your baby doesn't like it, it's like paying to suffer.
So we brought her to the class on Father's Day. I forgotten that Sunday was Father's Day. When we reached MV, we only had 50 mins to lunch and I've promised Ivan a Fathers' Day treat. I picked Chinoz at Gardens cause I've always wanted to try it but mainly because the place is not that full and I thought the food will arrive faster :P
But I have to say Chinoz's food is pretty good. We orderd Spaghetti Carbonara and Smoke Salmon Pizza. The pizza is just superbly yummy with lots of smoke salmon on it. After the quick lunch (sorry daddy), we rushed to Heguru. We were 5 mins late. When we walked into the trial room, we could hear one baby crying very loudly. Entered in and we saw it's a 20-months old boy, crying non stop after sensei asked him to introduce himself in front.
Valerie just watched in amazement. Then sensei asked her to stand in front to introduce herself with a big name tag prepared. Valerie just grinned and walked to the front, not knowing what is happening and smiled, while trying to grab the name tag from sensei. There was only 2 babies for this trial, Valerie and the boy. And the boy continued to cry hysterically.
In the end, the sensei had to allow the boy and the parents to leave the room while continue on the lesson. So only Valerie left. We started with a quiet relaxation time. Listening to soft music and we're told to imagine something with our eyes closed. I covered Valerie eyes for a while, before she start pushing my hands away and walked around the room, smiling.
Next is Mandara session, where a picture of geometrical shapes and colours in shown on the screen, we're supposed to watch it for few seconds and then recolour the same thing on the worksheet. Well, errrm.. Valerie obviously doesn't know what is going on but she's having fun picking crayons and drawing lines on the worksheet, while sensei helped mommy to colour the shapes. I'm quite embarassed at how bad my memory is :P
After that, it's a series of very fast flash cards that covered a lot of things like words, numbers, japanese chars, chinese chars. There was also flash cards of famous paintings and musical instruments, words in French, chemistry element and world names. In between the flash cards, there were other sessions where Valerie could get her hands on the exercise. I don't know what they are called. Placing those geometrical shapes according to the picture on the sheet. And then tracing of Japanese char and a chemistry element?! There's singing and dancing too. Oh, and also a guessing game session, where Valerie supposed to pick the card with raining picture, is that to train ESP? Looks more like a 50-50 probability to me.
How does Valerie react to the session? Well, she just enjoyed running round and round the room while I tried to pick her up ocassionaly and ask her to look at sensei. At one point, she even climb up her work table and started turning round and round while the teacher is singing. Certains times she would walk to the front and try to snatch the cards from teacher. Gosh!! What an hyper kid!
Halfway throught the session when sensei open the door a little for the other boy to join the class from outside (he would cry the minute he walks into the room), Valerie took a leap and run straight to the door trying to explore new grounds. Gosh, the kid!! I have to pull her back in to pay attention again.
Then there was craft time, where she's supposed to draw something for Fathers day. Of course she could only draw lines, so I traced her tiny hands on the paper, sensei gave Valerie a few stickers to stick and I wrote 'Happy Father's Day'. Valerie sticked the sticker on the floor, aiyooo.. so sensei put it back onto the paper. The other boy joined in the craft, still crying a little while his parents coaxed him to draw. Valerie then took a few stickers and gave it to him. She said 'Nah....' Very cute right, her own craft not finished but want to kacau 'kor kor'.
At the end of the session, I had a chat with the sensei and asked her a few questions. She told me the younger the easier and better to train the right brain. Of course first session can expect Valerie not to pay attention so well, but she seemed to enjoy the class. She told me I can start seeing results in a year's time. Then, daddy took her to the playroom and she enjoyed climbing the slides (she loves slides, don't know why).
I checked a few more details at the counter and will decide if I want to sign her up. The thing about this right brain development is, I don't expect a 1hr per week to do miracles on her, cause it takes daily practice as well. So if I want to sign up, I have to seriously find out more about this and what I need to do at home to make this effective on her. It's either I go all out or don't start on this at all.
