Happy 3rd Birthday

We were thinking of whether to eat out or continue to have a family birthday party for Valerie's 3rd birthday. Since there were mommy's side and daddy's side to consider and which side would be celebrating with her on the actual day, we decided to throw another family party instead. No need to fight for which side getting to celebrate with her on actual day :P

We went around looking for a 'cute' birthday cake.
Turned out most famous cake franchises do not offer fanciful cake. They usually have those 'cartoon print-on cakes' or 3D cakes which were not what I wanted. So in the end we walked into one of those small cake shop and it seemed they are more creative / flexible with their cakes. We had to compromise on the flavours though.

The party turned out ok, nothing fanciful. We even dropped the idea of getting balloons due to not enough time although I think this is actually the age she would appreciate having balloons. Next time, no need to get balloons for 1st or 2nd birthday, too small to appreciate. Get balloons when the kids are 3 and above :P

Valerie with Daddy's side Grandpa, Grandma, Daddy and Mommy

Valerie with Mommy's side grandpa, grandma, aunties and uncles

Valerie with Daddy's side aunties, uncles and cousins

Singing Happy Birthday song to Valerie, she standing so straight, not used to be the centre of attraction

Blow candles time!

Open pressies time. This year, she's better at opening presents

Toys.. toys and more toys...

Her favourite of the night - A Doll House. The minute she opened this one, she was engrossed with the figurines and furnitures. Barely saying bye bye to all the guests leaving.

Kindy for Valerie?

With the new baby due next March, I was contemplating whether to send Valerie to preschool next year or not. Since she's a year end baby, she would only be 3 years and 2 months, while following the academic year, she should be in the 4 year old class. I thought it would be a better transition for her to start early next year, before the 2nd baby comes along, rather than to juggle with having another sibling and starting school altogether mid of next year.

While still thinking, I've decided to check out Superfun Learners near my area as recommended by my sis-in-law. When we reached, the lady at the reception was very nice and showed us around and explained their curriculum. I have to say the classrooms are filled with many colourful activities sets around which I could imagine keeping Valerie occupied. I was amazed that 4yo class even included Science and Computer labs. Gosh, I'm so outdated. This seems to be a norm nowadays. And she told me they would be teaching English and Mandarin for 4yo. Bahasa would only come in at 5yo as to avoid confusion with Englsh.

Then we were shown their homework. Another shock for mommy. They already learning how to write A,B,C at the age of 4?? And numbers too? And I had in mind, 4yo kindy was more like a playschool, just singing and dancing. One of the teacher later explained it's better to start training the kids' to do writing and colouring, so as to strengthen their fingers. In fact, a lot of their activities set are also to train the kids to have good control of their hands.

After showing us around, she told us the morning class was already full and only afternoon classes are available. I was a bit dumbfounded. I've never known even for a 4 yo kindy, you need to be fast to register, like somewhere in August? And I thought there would be plenty of seats left and was still thinking want to send her to kindy or not. Nevertheless, I put Valerie on waiting list (3rd one from the list) and went home.

Some of my friends told me to check out other alternative like MRC or Q-Dees or Montessori. But I don't know why, I seem to have my mind fixed on Fungates. Simply because my nephew who attended the same kindy told me 'Go to Superfun, it's a really really fun place you know.. '. Well, what could be more convincing than to have a kid himself telling you he really enjoyed his kindy? I just wanted a place for Valerie to take learning as something fun, just like how I've adopted Heguru methods.

I've also met another colleague at the Superfun Open Day and he strongly believes in this system. He told me he sent his first 2 kids to Fungates at Brickfields and it's all about fun learning. He did switch his daughter halfway to another system but later found it was too academic based and too much homework. In fact, parents were scolded for not helping the kids to finish the homework. Then he switched back to Fungates. So I guess this looks like the most 'fun' learning system around.

So, we'll wait.. and hopefully, there may be a spot for her.

Last Day of Sunday School

Today was the last day of Sunday School for Year 2011. They called it Prize Cupboard Day. It started off with some games at the field and later a short ceremony to give prizes away to kids based on their attendance and achievement throughout the year.

It's the first time Valerie has been on such a big sports event and I was afraid she couldn't cope. When she arrived at the big field, she clinged on to mommy's feet and asked me to carry her. Her SS teacher seeing that I was preggy, offered to carry her instead. Surprisingly, Valerie didn't protest. So teacher Caryn carried her for a while n then led her to each activity. I was amazed, she didn't look for mommy, instead, focused on each of the games.



Valerie holding on to teacher Caryn




Teacher passing a bean bag to Valerie




Getting ready to throw



First in line... ready to go...




Another telematch, Valerie getting a ball




She threw the ball and it's hitting the cans!!



Valerie @ Scoop The Peanut game


Valerie & daddy @ Shoot the Animals game

Photo Memory Training (part 2)

As Valerie gets older, her memory retention power is also improving. I've now added 2 more objects to her Photo Memory Training.

Looks like she can remember all of them :D

iPad

I don't know how to begin writing about iPad. I never thought we needed this gadget but Ivan has been pestering me to get one. Reason being: Good educational value for Valerie. It wasn't until our recent trip to Redang and we figured we needed something to keep Valerie seated throughout the plane journey that I agreed to look at this gadget.

When we got into the Machines shop and let Valerie played with one of the baby games, we saw how quickly she took on the game. And yes, she knows the one big round button at the side is to switch off whatever she didn't like playing. Same concept as iPhone I guessed.

Needless to say, we bought the iPad and she sat through the journey to Redang blissfully. Ivan has been downloading loads of games / educational apps for her and I'm surprised how fast she's learning from this thing.

I've video captured her on a few apps below. Pretty impressive considering she's only 2 and a half.

Playing Memory Game - 6 cards


Playing Memory Game - but shooing daddy away. Shy, don't want to let daddy see in case she fails.


Memory Game of 10 cards - takes a bit longer but she manage to finish it


Sorting Colour


Cover Orange - how she learns to play Cover Orange really puzzles me. She observes how we played this IQ game and then demands that we show to her step by step. Then she repeats and repeats until she gets it...

Love, Affection and Knowledge

Earlier this year, Heguru founders have mentioned some changes happening in June. One of it is a short talk by the sensei on RB development. I've actually forgotten about it until we were told to stay behind after Valerie's class to listen to a short talk by the founder.

It turned out to be a video clip of Mr Henmi talking to us on 'Love, Affection and Knowledge'. It was in Japanese with English translation. As Valerie was bouncing up and down, I tried to grasp as much as I can what was being shown on the video. Here is a very short summary of what I can remember.

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Love, Affection and Knowledge


Many parents like to emphasise children on education. When a child is forced on knowledge, her heart will be closed. When heart is closed, she will not feel the affection and the brain cannot develope to its fullest potential.

There are 2 aspects of Love

1. Physical Touch - give your child a lot of hugs and cuddles. She will be able to feel your love towards her.

2. Words of Affection - always smile to them, telling them everything is alright.

When Love grows, Affection will grows too. Then the mind will be open to Knowledge

Heguru Founders Were Here

The Heguru founders were here in Malaysia for 2 weeks in March. They came to give parenting talk and conducted a workshop for older children. And mainly to train up the teachers and upgrade their level. I attended the parenting talk. Personally I couldn't understand why I still had to pay RM150 for the talk considering classes were cancelled for that week with no replacement?

The talk was pretty enriching, although the founders could only speak Japanese, there was an English translator. When the talk started we were shown a video of a kid flipping books after books in a bookshop. We're told that she's wave reading, meaning she could finish reading a book in seconds just by flipping through. And that is the goal of right brain training. When a child can wave read, it means the child's right brain is fully developed.

Well, I could hear gasps around the room. Like other mommies, I couldn't help but to think if this is possible? One of the mommy asked Mrs Henmi what is the success rate in Japan. With no hesitation, she said 85%. As with more training, the right brain will open up more and more. When the right brain is developed, the child can perform wave reading. From young up to 12 years, we should focus on developing a lot of method. Above 12 years is to teach how to apply the method.

Before the talk ends, she showed us the '10 Rules of Right Brain Training':
1. Believe - understand information about Right Brain and believe in the child
2. Attend Lesson - open up the Right Brain and listen to lecture
3. Read story book
4. Stay next to student where RB is developed - Theory of talent formation site
5. Do fun and exciting thing - When a child is happy, the RB is open
6. Develope left brain without pushing hard - left brain required to strengthen right brain
7. Self Esteem is developed - do not scold for lack of ability, but for misbehaviour (should start at 2 yrs old), do not scold the child by mentioning name but scold the wrong behaviour
8. Need patience, suffering & worry - state of heart is required for growth, hard to develope RB if spoilt. I think it means we should not spoil our kids here. We should raise kids who are considerate and willing to share (should start 2-3 yrs old)
9. Fully absorb positive comments from parents, teachers and people around - encouragement will tell them to do better next time and have positive thinking, build high self esteem
10. Develope the Heart - RB strongly affected by the heart, hard to develope RB if heart is not good, so should stress on heart education