The Bub in the Belly

Last month, we met up with Ryan's preschool teachers for a parent-teacher conference, to discuss his progress and things like that. He's doing great. The teachers said that he gets along with everyone; he's really easygoing and he is comfortable hanging out with anyone. He reads well, writes well. He likes to draw a lot. His Mandarin, including his Hanyu Pinyin, is good enough such that his Mandarin teacher assumed that we coached him at home (we don't).


In particular, the teachers mentioned a project in which Ryan took the lead. The children were discussing plans to make a charitable donation and they were deciding which charity to donate to. Ryan took the lead: helping to document and tally the votes, writing a letter to the school office to inform the office of the final choice, leading a group of classmates to the office to deliver the letter and explain its message and even using a camera to take photos of the whole thing. I thought that was quite impressive.


Ryan is doing golf as an extra-curricular school activity; something which I think he has a love-hate relationship with. According to the instructors, he is quite good, and when I talk to him about golf, he's happy and enthusiastic. On the other hand, whenever I remind him that he has a lesson, he will tell me that he doesn't want to go (too late though as I'd already paid for the term). I know that he enjoys himself during the lesson (I sit and watch him from the sidelines) so I was a little perplexed at his reluctance. Recently, I realised the reason - the golf lesson is conducted under the hot sun and I know that he really doesn't like being in the sun. When he actually goes for the lesson, he always has a good time and forgets about the heat, but when he's at home and we dissect it, he definitely remembers the discomfort!

Ryan is still taking swimming lessons once a week. Apart from golf and swimming, he doesn't do any classes. I have a feeling we won't do golf next term though! Haha!


Ryan's modelling/acting life is pretty busy. He had a casting call on Friday, followed by an audition on Monday (yesterday) and he has another casting call later this week. Keeping our fingers crossed that he'll be selected for one or more of the roles.


These photos were taken last Sunday at the beach near Parkland Green. We'd finished our meal and Ryan and I ventured out for a walk, while Richard minded babydoll who had fallen asleep. Ryan headed straight for the beach. I was surprised because I thought he wanted to ride his scooter along the path. What surprised me even more was how at ease he was with the sand and the surf, even taking off his shoes unprompted. When he was much younger, he was not a fan of the beach at all - he hated having sand between his toes and he was very uneasy with the surf. Now, he's a pro. I told Richard that it must be because of all the training he got when we went to Bali and to Mauritius!


Ok, that's all!

So this week is going to be about our Chinese New Year 2014, which was back in February. Better late than never, eh?

Leading up to Chinese New Year, Ryan's preschool had a week of Chinese New Year themed activities. I was invited to be in charge of one of the sessions, which also meant sourcing for materials for the session. The children voted on what activities they wanted to do at the session, and we ended up with lantern making, cherry blossom art and paper cutting. I got all the stuff they needed and took charge of one of the stations that day, which was the lantern making one. The children were super excited to make the lanterns and it was a lot of fun for me to be with them.

I was quite inspired after that day to make more lanterns. I looked up some tutorials on the internet and I made one every night! Ryan would bring it to school the next day and soon his classroom was full of lanterns.

Here are some of the lanterns I made.

Here they are, hanging in Ryan's classroom ...


... and outside his classroom too. The one in the middle can revolve!


This is the lantern that Ryan made during the session in class.

Today, we met Ryan's teachers for this term's Parent Teacher Conference. As usual, we collected his portfolio from his teachers at the meeting. They told us that they had Ryan's strict instructions not to open his portfolio and they had not, so Richard and I did the same and chose to wait until Ryan was with us to go through it together.

We spent about 30 minutes talking about Ryan and Ryan's teachers had nothing but praise for him. They said that he is doing so well! Last term we talked about how they were working on getting him to be more assertive and to speak up more. His teacher said that, that could have been because, at the time we discussed this last term, we were only six weeks into the term and he was still adjusting and building relationships with the teachers and his classmates. This term, he is so different - he is super confident, he is socially driven, and he doesn't stop talking! Hahaha! He still speaks quite softly though, to the point that his teacher sometimes wishes he would just shout it out!

Last term, his teacher would ask him, "What would you like to do today, Ryan?" and he would say something like, "What do you think I should do?" This term, his response is. "I want to do painting, I want to play with the clay, I want to build with the blocks, ..." and his teacher goes, "You can't do them all at once!" Ryan goes, "Ok, I'll do painting first, then I'll do this and then I'll do that." His confidence really shines through.

This term, Ryan is very socially driven. In any activity, he will invite one or more of his friends to do it with him. For example, if he's going to work on his portfolio, he will ask one of his friends to sit down with him - "Let's do our portfolios together!" His teacher said that this is a very good thing. He has a group of friends that he loves to hang out with. Apparently, they are always chatting away, making up games to play and they really enjoy each other's company. They have been banned from sitting next to each other during circle time, because they won't stop talking to each other! Hahaha!

Ryan's teacher mentioned that, at this age (3-5 years), the children are ego-centric and, as an example of this, Ryan loves to do presentations, he loves to bring items to show his friends and he loves "showing off" - apparently, he demonstrated his catwalk to everyone in class the other day! (This ego-centric stage is a natural stage of development and it is highly encouraged. It is an important stage because the child learns to feel secure about himself, which in turn enables him, when he is a little older, to feel empathy towards others.)

So that part was about Ryan's social development. We also talked about more "academic" stuff and in this area, his teachers were thoroughly impressed, calling him a "genius". They said that he really thinks things through and considers them well before voicing his opinion in an "almost poetic" way. They said that his thinking is of a "higher order" and he is so in tune with everything. They were quite amused that they would find Ryan imploring his friends, "Look guys, that isn't going to work, just listen to me, do it this way..." - and he is always right. He just knows.
His teachers also told us that, when they conduct purposeful discussions with the class on a topic, Ryan is able to speak in context and also to think in context. They told us that most of the children can speak in context but it is really hard for them to think in context, but Ryan can. They also said that he has an amazing photographic memory. He can look at something once, or watch you do something once, and reproduce it faithfully.

For reading skills, Ryan's teacher said that his reading skills are amazing for his age (she was amazed that he could read the word "sketches"). She is working more on comprehension now - asking him questions about what he just read, asking him about his opinion on the story, etc. They use level books and she is using two different levels for his reading and comprehension (the higher level for his reading). She thinks he should be able to level up his comprehension next term. They are also working on punctuation. Writing is progressing really well. His pencil grip has improved, although still a little "soft". He enjoys writing quite a lot, actually.

Ryan's Mandarin teacher continues to be impressed by his Chinese language reading skills - both characters and Hanyu Pinyin. She said that he is able to read the Hanyu Pinyin accurately (it is still a mystery to us how he is able to do this, as we never taught him). He is able to read the characters without the Hanyu Pinyin, and he is also able to match the correct character to the Hanyu Pinyin. Ryan is also confident enough to read his Chinese storybooks to his friends and do presentations based on those storybooks. All this is a mystery to Richard and I because Ryan doesn't speak a word of Mandarin at home.

His teachers said that he also understands Malay - one of the teachers spoke to him in Malay and he responded. This was interesting news because Richard and I have never spoke to Ryan in Malay; we only use it to speak to each other sometimes. Ryan must have picked it up from listening to our conversations. Richard has taught Ryan some Cantonese and his teachers told us that he was speaking Cantonese with one of his Chinese friends the other day in school - they were counting in Cantonese - and they invited their Mandarin teacher to speak her dialect (Hokkien) with them!

In other news, Ryan continues to be picky about his food, although he has made a significant step forward - he has accepted the suggestion that he should at least give everything a try, so the teachers are happy with that. Small steps, small steps.

So, everything is really good, everyone is really happy with him and he is really happy in school.

Other than that, I also want to make a mental note of the experiences and the materials that he uses. For example, when he was much younger, I toyed with the idea of getting him a mirrored surface to play on, and a light-table to explore materials with at home. His classroom has both, so I don't feel the motivation to buy these for the home anymore. In his classroom also, there are plenty of natural materials, like tree/branch rounds, feathers, shells, glass pebbles, glass squares, wooden spheres, as well as beads, buttons, wooden blocks, ribbons, wire, playdough, clay... the list is endless.

He does painting, arts and crafts, and all the sort of stuff that I would be doing with him at home if he were not in pre-school. If you've followed the blog for some time, you would have noticed that we used to do all these activities at home. Now we don't. Instead, at home now, we dedicate our time to other meaningful experiences which he would not have in pre-school. We even do a lot less reading, as he has quiet reading time everyday in school.


I don't know exactly how these pebbles were introduced to the children, but the tray is now displayed together with a board recording what the children thought each word meant ("If you trust someone, they can play with your Buzz Lightyear"). In addition, and what struck me most were these beautiful, beautiful photos of the students hugging each other and grinning widely as they posed for the camera in groups. Different races, different cultures, arms over shoulders, happiness and joy radiating from each photo. I wish I could show you the photos, they're amazing. They are the representation of a perfect community - without bias, without prejudice, where everyone is accepting of each other and where everyone is kind to each other. If my son grows up with those qualities intact, and if he spreads those vibes to the people he meets in his life, that would be more than enough for me. As for the pebbles, they are the perfect reminder that the most important things in life are the little, simple yet enduring things.

Last Friday was Community Day at Ryan's pre-school. The celebration was supposed to be a picnic on the school grounds but the rain put paid to that plan. The rain couldn't stop the festive mood though and the parties went on in the classrooms. The photos in this post were taken in Ryan's classroom during the party.

The students were encouraged to come in cultural or national dress. I knew that Ryan would have wanted to don his Chinese traditional outfit but it is a little small for him now (plus he has worn it so many times) so I pulled out his kurta instead. After three years, he now fits properly into it.

5. No stress. I initially wanted to write "less emphasis on academics". Then I realised that this wasn't really accurate because I do want Ryan to have whatever "academics" he is supposed to have for his age, although I'll admit that whether something falls under the term "academics" or not is up for debate. In any event, what we were looking for was an environment where the learning was not stressful. If he is learning hard-core academics, then if it is done in a positive way, without sacrificing other worthy pursuits, without stress, then I see no issue.
6. A good and established pedagogy. For us, the philosophical foundation and theoretical underpinnings of the methods used by the pre-school were very important. We wanted to see a conscious application of sound principles and we were interested to see how the teachers create a learning environment for the students. In particular, we were looking for a child-led approach which was based on respect for the child. I wanted to see a lot of hands-on activities and I was not interested in worksheets at all.

7. The curriculum. We definitely needed a programme that incorporated Mandarin and English. We also wanted a good mix of art, music, literature, ... the list goes on and on. Most pre-schools do provide a mix and a balance of worthy pursuits.

Again, whether the curriculum incorporates "academics" is, to me, not really the issue because "academics" is always going to be part of pre-school. More important is how the curriculum is delivered. For example, Ryan's pre-school does not have a single alphabet chart pasted on the classroom walls, yet the children know their ABCs.