The Bub in the Belly

Last Sunday, Ryan and I attended a class at Heguru. The school had very kindly invited us to participate in and observe a trial of their new programme to be launched in July 2013.

The programme is called "Preschool I" and is for children between 4-6 years old. These are some of its features:
- The class is 70 minutes long. After the 70-minute class there will be a short debriefing session for parents to keep the parents informed of what the class did that day.
- The children are not accompanied by their parents in class. For last Sunday's class however, the parents were allowed to stay in the classroom to observe and to evaluate if the class was right for their children.
- The class size is larger than that of the Infant and Toddler class, with a minimum of ten students. There are benefits to a larger class size - the students have a prequel to primary school classes, the weaker students will be motivated by the energy of the stronger students, and the environment provides opportunities for learning social skills in a classroom setting. There is a sense of healthy competition as the children feed off each other's enthusiasm and eagerness, and there is a vibrancy in the air.
- There is one head teacher giving instructions and taking the children through the class, with a team of assistant teachers to assist the children.
- The first half of the class is mostly spent on input, which includes intuition games, memory games, math, and some moral teaching. The second half is spent on one handicraft and one booklet of worksheets. The aim of the second half is to strengthen the connection between the right and left parts of the brain. There is also a physical exercise segment and a dance segment.
- For the worksheets, the students work through the booklet together, one page at a time. They have one minute to work through one page.
- Each child is given two more booklets of worksheets to bring home for reinforcement and revision.
- Compared to the Infant and Toddler programme (which Rachel is attending), there is more emphasis on discipline, independence, and active participation by the children. The children have to carry out little tasks like hand up their name cards in a certain way, handle their worksheets on their own, sit in a certain way, and answer attendance call in a certain way. There is a segment where the children have to individually speak and do a short presentation in front of the class, and there are times when the children are expected to voice their own answers and responses to the activities.

If you have an image of what a Japanese or Chinese classroom is like, I'll bet your vision has well disciplined students, every child shooting his or her hand up to answer the teacher's questions and everything running like clockwork. That's pretty much the feel that I got. A little military-like with the teacher barking out orders, of course without the military put-downs and punishments. There is a level of strictness, but there still is a lot of positive encouragement. If the child is unable to do the activity, the child is simply encouraged to try again next time. Of course, there is a lot less of the huggy-feely stuff that we like to give our 1-3 year olds, which didn't seem to matter to these older children.

Did the children like it? I think yes, most of them felt the high energy and were spurred on by the challenging environment. All the children had no problem responding to the sharp and brisk tone of the teacher. Some of them were very responsive during the activities, shouting out their answers and eagerly putting up their hands when they completed their worksheets.

To be honest, the atmosphere felt stressful to me, but the students didn't seem stressed and, in fact, were enjoying themselves. A couple of them were withdrawn, but that seemed to me to be part of their personality. Perhaps being in a class like this will help them to come out of their shell?

The class was mainly made up of boys. I don't know if things would have been different if more girls had been in the mix. I do believe that, after a few classes, the students and the teacher will find their equilibrium so, ultimately, it may not matter as different genders, different personality traits, and different levels of engagement will all find synergy.

As for Ryan, he enjoyed the class, although I am not sure if it was because his good buddy Brayden attended the class with him! It took him a little while to get a feel of his surroundings and to get accustomed to the loudness of the teacher and the students. Nevertheless, he was interested in what was going on, kept his attention on the activities and generally managed to be independent and, after a couple of worksheets, he was comfortable enough to point out, "I'm not done yet!" when the teacher indicated time was up.

We won't be signing Ryan up for the programme. We are looking at signing him up for a martial arts class, so his schedule will be full. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience to attend the class. Fast-paced and challenging, full of energy, and I imagine that the children find it lots of fun. It was eye-opening to see the children responding so well and so eagerly to the teacher, and enjoying themselves in the process.

Last Friday and Saturday were packed with activities and events. Friday was the day after we returned from our trip to Jakarta and, as is usual, the day after every trip is spent picking up the dog from the boarding kennel, catching up on laundry and other housework and, of course, attending to office matters.

In addition to all that, Ryan had two auditions on Friday. We picked him up early from school to get to the first one, and after that, we went for lunch, during which I told him that we were going for another audition. He told me, "Not too many." Hahaha! I told him, yes, three is too many, two is still ok. He paused and considered that for a moment, and then nodded his head. Phew!

Friday afternoon was spent back at Ryan's school, where there was a picnic and carnival, with proceeds going to charity. Good fun - there was a huge bouncy castle, face painting, balloon sculpting, and arts and crafts.

Saturday was an interesting day. Richard had a meeting in the morning so I had to take Ryan for violin class (with Rachel in tow) and Rachel had to skip Heguru. Then, in the afternoon, Ryan attended a catwalk modelling class! It was a trial class. He enjoyed it so much and had such a great time. It was utterly adorable to see the children walking out onto the catwalk strutting and posing! Such a fun way to boost their confidence and build up their social skills! After the class we asked him if he wanted to come back for more and he enthusiastically said yes, so we signed him up for the six-week course. Another attraction for him was that he had struck up a friendship with one of the other children and was very keen to cone back to see him. I don't know if that boy will be signing up though.

We had lunch at Masons at one of the blocks in Gillman Barracks, after which we went to see an exhibition at a neighbouring block.

The exhibition was at Mizuma Gallery. It was titled "Mythopoeia" and it was by the multitalented Yoshitaka Amano. This man is the creative mind behind the characters in Final Fantasy and Gatchaman as well as several book cover illustrations such as Vampire Hunter D. He has won several awards and is considered to be of legendary status.

For this exhibition, he made 25 aluminum-based works, using automotive paints and acrylics. The level of detail on these were stunning, the precision of application was almost unbelievable, and the works were simply breathtaking. I leave you with some photos from the gallery. Enjoy!

For today, an update on Rachel. Rachel had a jab and checkup on Tuesday at Dr Ngiam's clinic, one week before her 1st birthday. All is well. She can say a few words and is starting to walk, and Dr Ngiam said that is fast. She is 8.39 kg and 74 cm tall. We didn't have any questions so the visit was very short.


For her meals, apart from latching, I am feeding her baby yoghurt every morning. Her nanny feeds her porridge with meat and veggies, as well as my expressed breastmilk from a bottle. In the evening, she takes dinner with us. I usually prepare some grains with either fruit or veggie (in the form of cereal) plus we give her lots of finger food, which ranges from fruit to veggies to meat to biscuits to bread to french fries and nuggets, or whatever we are eating ourselves.

There aren't any hard rules in terms of how much she has to eat or what she has to eat. She sleeps better if she has had enough to eat, so if she takes less than her usual portions, we know that she is going to want another meal or snack before she goes to bed for the night. This means, for example, if she's had a tiring day and falls asleep at 8 plus without having had her dinner, we won't wake her up. We will expect her to wake up around 10 or so to eat before really settling in for the night, so we will wait for that. This sort of thing doesn't happen very often. Still, in general, we do try to be flexible and just go with the flow.


We have been making some plans for Rachel's birthday. Richard's sisters, Margaret and Mary, have been doing all the real work - booking the venue and ordering the cake - we are really thankful to have their help. We are having a dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Malaysia, with family and a couple of close friends, just as we did for Ryan. That will be this Saturday, which means more travelling for us!

Last Friday, 7 June 2013, was Rachel's first lunar birthday. As we did for Ryan, we played the Zhua Zhou game with her. We gathered items to symbolise different career paths and let her pick whichever drew her attention. Although we are not superstitious, we still carry out this traditional custom as a way of expressing our good wishes for Rachel, as we did for Ryan.

Not surprisingly, Rachel went for the music CD. Looks like music will be a big part of her life!

The stamp/seal caught her eye next. This symbolises someone high-ranking in office. This holds a lot of importance in olden Chinese times. Nowadays, I think it simply means that she will be very intelligent (in olden times, only the scholars can be officers or high-ranking officials). She gave the stamp a little push and it rolled away. Then she lost interest.



After that, the toy car. Driver? Mechanic? Engineer? Speed demon?



We reset the board and let her try again. This time, she went for the cash!


Then the computer mouse (IT line).


Shoes. A lady is never without a good pair of shoes.


Finally, she picked up the camera and the stethoscope before she crawled off. Enough!


After the game, we served Rachel a chicken drumstick while she had one foot in the house and one foot outside the house. This is so that she will always have food to eat wherever she goes. Rachel really chomped down on the drumstick and munched away!




Click here to read what items Ryan chose on his first lunar birthday!

Here's the video! It's slightly under three minutes.


Did you do this for your child's first lunar birthday? Which items did your child choose?

Photo of the ladies' room. Lots of lusty photographs. Heh heh.



After lunch, we wandered around Fatahillah Square. It was a public holiday in Jakarta and there were plenty of people out and about. There were many buskers including these fire-eaters who drew the largest crowd.



Spongebob Squarepants was there too. Ryan was excited to see him at first but after he got up close, he was not impressed, as you can tell from the photos. He told me, "I want other Spongebobs".




The atmosphere around the square was relaxed and casual. People were just milling around, enjoying the good weather and the laidback vibe. Ryan must have felt it too because he started tapping his foot and dancing to an imaginary beat.