Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Since young, we have not really signed him up for much classes save for two terms of music lessons. We usually spend weekends just exploring new places, playgrounds, museums etc. However, since he just turned 4, we figure it's time to expose him to more structured learning to hone his skills and more importantly character.  Earlier, I spoke on enrolling for Little Executive lessons. For November, we enrolled him in the Little Shaws holiday camp to let him do a bit of sports and taking a trial class at Yamaha. For the Shaws camp, it was interesting that kids got to not just try new sports, but also do a bit of painting and baking.  As he arrived earlier, after kicking and running for 5-10minutes non stop, he was already tired and wanted to go home, but eventually he was coaxed to continue and they did have breaks with non sports activities in between the 3 hour program.  While he couldn't quite blend in the first day because the other kids all seemed to alread...

Recently ,  we have signed him up for his first enrichment lesson at Little Executive, a fun way to build up his executive processing skills. We have been to four lessons so far. Up till the second session , he was a little shy to join. But by the third  session, he was up and ready to go though feedback thus far is that while he was engaged in the first one hour , he couldn't quite concentrate thereafter even with movement breaks.  What I like about the lessons so far is that they teach concepts like goal setting to the kids. So for Cayen, his first goal was to "stop running out" of the class and he remembered it. So in the following session, he didn't run out of the  class at all. However, in week 2, he had to set new goals to stop drawing on the table and to stop climbing on the tables after he is done with his assignment. Let's hope we can increase his stamina over time.  On one of these Saturdays, Godma brought him to a party which he enjoyed thorough...

Why I like to use storybooks as a tool to promote good behaviour because they work far better than nagging when it comes to pointing the point across. Also, kids tend to be more receptive to listening to stories as opposed to being told what to do. They also understand it more when examples are given in the story.  As such , apart from reading parenting books, I have also bought and read a lot of children books that impact certain skills - both English and Chinese. And I will try reviewing and sharing them here in this blog.  It's an interesting book with colour pencils as characters where each colour has a certain trait / personality and Brown was initially disliked. The story went on where he uncovered why people didn't like him and how he changed and how he made friends eventually.  I like the simple but interesting story and so did Cayen.    By the way, I tried to make the book more interesting by asking him to relate which of his classmate rel...

Given Cayen and his Ah Pa's obsession with Pokemon, naturally we had to be the first to visit the Pokemon exhibition inside the SEA aquarium when it opened two weeks ago. While it was interesting to see the various interactive exhibits , I was quite surprised the area was rather small. There's 8 stations in total plus a pokedex showing all the different Pokemons. And each person can only have a Pokeball (there's 3 different categories that one can choose from based on difficulty level).  Using that one Pokeball, you will choose 4 out of the 8 stations to place the Pokemon and see the clues they give. End goal is to guess the Pokemon that resides within the ball. At the end of day, there's literally no prizes for guessing correct, just some satisfaction.  I was glad that the game didn't involve any Pokemon gaming on the phone and involved mainly the booth interaction. Honestly I think it wasn't that exciting but since Cayen liked it, it was good enough for me.  A...