babee tales

12 December 2008

My thoughts on "educating" the kids :) I had initially thought of sending nat to a nearby Montesorri from next year, however, I did a trial class for a day and decided against it. Nothing wrong with the school, it's a nice place, great teachers, the only problem is that I feel nat would learn more at home than in the school. At this tender age of 2, I think that the school serves mainly as a childcare facility. As there are many children in the school, you really can't expect the teacher to provide your kid with one-to-one attention all the time. At home, at least my mum reads to nat daily, sings to her, recites nursery rhymes, it's almost like a little kindergarten :) Yet, I would still like nat to have some social interaction with other kids. Have decided to send her to Julia Gabriel next year for the Mandarin Playclub. Let's hope she has fun.

Meanwhile, I'll try to teach her new things on my own. The internet is actually a great place for resources, many helpful mummies have posted useful materials and templates online. I feel it's really best to adapt different teaching methods to the way you feel most comfortable. People often say flash cards need to be flashed to the kids at top speed. I have often questioned that theory. For me, I don't really do the quick flashing method, instead I show nat the cards, I let her touch them and she often asks me "what's this?" when she cannot recognise the picture. We take our own sweet time ploughing through the cards and it's something she enjoys. So to me, there is really no hard and fast rule to learning, just go with the flow. Most importantly, let the kids have fun.