Today’s Motherhood

Pop Art is one of the many art styles art teachers around the world use to get children engaged. The visuals are eye-catching and loud. More importantly, the process of making art is endless. There is more than one medium to create a pop art piece, the project can be achieve through the traditional pencil and paint, it can be a collage and it can also be achieve digitally.

I enjoy applying this art style to my lessons for the pencil and paint approach is a process children are familiar with. It allows children to shine in areas they are good at and to practice in areas they are unsure of. The outcome is always a WOW! To all.

Case Study: Filling in spaces plus a bold black outline

Jasmine, aged 10, loves her art lesson. She does her projects with great pride. She does not like her project to extend beyond the lesson itself. All project must be complete within the session. This resulted in her pieces being hurried in the last 10mins of the session.

It took us more than a year to get her accustom to the notion that each project will last two sessions.

1. Jasmine chose four sheets of coloured paper, each piece is a different colour. These sheets becomes the background. We used double sided tape to paste it on a larger sheet of paper. Jasmine chose to paste the paper in a row.

2. She chose her favourite animal, Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, as her featured subject. She repeats the subject in all four sheets of coloured paper. We have to ensure that the image is large. The image of the butterfly is divided into no more than seven parts for colours to be filled.

3. At the end of the first session, Jasmine painted two of the four butterflies.

4. At the start of the second session, Jasmine was given 45mins to complete the remaining two butterflies.

5. She was given a size ‘0′ flat-tip brush to execute the outline in. We have decided not to have her draw her butterflies using a wide nip black marker. We wanted her to practice painting lines neatly. And as a rule of thumb, the black paint is always used last.

This project is good for children for it trains in repetition of shape and size, after all it is not easy to draw the same objects identically

Contributed by Teacher Ranae’s Art Workshop from Singapore for children with special needs

Congratulations to the winners of Today’s Motherhood Music And I Personalized Music Album & Video Giveaway. They have won themselves 2 sets of Personalized Music Album and 1 set of Personalized Video of their choice.

Below are the names of the winners:

1. Agnes Yong
2. Lim Hee Joo
3. Vicki Koh

*Winners will be notified by Music & I individually.

** Terms and Conditions apply.

The prizes are sponsored by Music & I.

“My son Sam is 4 and still sounding like a baby! When my elder child was 4, she was already speaking in beautiful sentences! All the children at Sam’s school seem to be so much chattier than him. Will he catch up? Is he normal?”

These are common thoughts and questions that go through the minds of parents as they compare their child’s ability to talk with that of other children. So what is a ‘typical language development’? Before we delve into that, a few things should be known about language development.

1. Development is predictable
Developmental stages are attained at about the same age in most children. So, while we expect a 5 year old to say something like “I like that because it is yummy”, it is quite unlikely for a 2 year old to string together a sentence of such complexity.

2. Opportunities for development
It is important to provide opportunities for development. While language development typically emerges as a result of maturation, the development of language may be greatly enhanced when children are given opportunities to learn, interact and play with their caregivers. These learning opportunities will allow children to hone their emerging and newly acquired language skills.

3. Individual differences
It is normal! While 3 year old Jimmy may be saying things like “I want the blue toy”, it would not mean a trip to the paediatrician for Bart if he says “I want toy”. Although children typically develop in a predictable fashion at approximately the same age, some individual differences due to various factors (e.g. genetics, environment) are normal. While there are trends suggesting how children learn language, every child is different and they may acquire language at different speeds.

Typical Language Development
From cries and babbles to your child’s first words. What’s next? The table below provides a summary (although not exhaustive) of what you may expect as your child progresses through his/her early childhood.

Receptive language1: Your child’s understanding of language
Expressive language2: Your child’s use of language
Jargon3: Long strings of unintelligible sounds with adult-like intonational pattern

The first 5 years of your child’s life should see astounding rates of language development – when he/she learns the rules and structures of language without extensive formal instructions. However, there are some children who have difficulties with this language learning process. These difficulties can sometimes result in frustrations for these children and the people around them. If your child seems to be experiencing any difficulties or if you have any concerns about your child’s language development, do contact your paediatrician or see a speech-language therapist. It may just be what you need to set your mind at ease, or a step towards better communication for your child.

This article is brought to you by the team of speech-language therapists and occupational therapists from The Children’s Therapy Centre. They work with children of all ages with communication, motor or attention difficulties.

They can be contacted at

Address: 9 Yio Chu Kang Road, #02-01 Kovan Centre, Singapore 545523
Email: mth@thkms.org.sg
Tel: 6488 1271
Website: http://www.moraltherapyservices.org.sg

Question : My 5 years old girl, has been behaving weirdly for the past 2 months in Child Care. She refuses to sit during lesson, scolds the teacher who tries to talk to her nicely, locks herself in toilet, dozes off during lesson, not attentive. sometimes she even tries to run away from lesson. Does my child have ADHD or emo behaviour? Please advice. thanks a lot.

Answer : Typically, children who are diagnosed with ADHD would have already been demonstrating symptoms of it since toddlerhood. There are three variations of ADHD (ADHD-Inattentive type, ADHD- Hyperactive-Impulsive type, ADHD - Combined type). But the most common symptoms of ADHD include but are not exclusive of:

• inattention/distractability
• hyperactivity
• impulsive

A diagnosis can only be given if your daughter is fully assessed. However, if you have only recently started noticing these behavioral symptoms in your daughter, it is best to discuss these behaviors with her teachers.

Perhaps she is under or over-stimulated in class, perhaps she’s not resting well at night, perhaps she is lashing out with behaviors because something has happened in her social circle, perhaps she is having a difficult time learning, etc.

There are many “theories” why a child acts the way she does. The important part as a parent is to identify the trigger of her behaviors and to understand the purpose of it. Most behaviors have a reason.

If the behaviors continue and are impairing her daily interactions with teachers, friends as well as her ability to learn, then it is best to seek professional assistance. It may be necessary to assess her to understand how to best support her.

Vanessa von Auer
Clinic Director/Psychologist
MA (Counseling), B.A. Psychology (hons.), EMDR

Vanessa von Auer is the Clinic Director/Psychologist of Von Auer Psychology Centre VAPC. She has spent her career helping parents learn effective parenting strategies, has helped children process their emotional difficulties in healthy ways and has helped families grower closer in their dynamics with one another. For more information, visit www.vapc.sg

Many parents often find it difficult to make their child love and enjoy learning. However, these parents often forget the first two years of their child’s life. The child learns how to sit, crawl, stand, walk and talk among many other important and difficult things with little to no prodding by anyone. Nobody ever worried about a child being lazy and unwilling to learn in his early childhood. Hence, the question that we shall address in this article is how to nurture this natural love for learning and to allow it to grow beyond his early childhood.

As any parents of young children will know, children are naturally curious and have an in-built desire to learn everything about the world around them. Childhood education begins not in the classroom but in the everyday environment that the child grows up in.

A child does not need to be instructed to find out about the complicated world around him and he does not need stars or good grades to motivate him to do so. He is excited and experimental and willing to try everything to learn anything. He can smell, touch, taste and throw the same object repeatedly just to find out everything about it. Thus, in his childhood education, parents should not be trying to help him to discover the love for learning for it is already in him. The role of parents here is to nurture and grow it so that it stays with the child beyond his early childhood.

And the best thing parents can do for their child in this early stage of their child development is to give them the space and room to explore their love for learning. Children know instinctively the best way to learn. And parents have to trust that their child will discover for themselves the best way to learn.

The worst thing a parent can say “that’s the wrong way!” It creates stress in the child. And to quote John Holt, “when we make children afraid, we stop learning dead in its track.” Young children do not respond well to stress in the early stages of their child development.

The fear of failure and the intimidation of admonishment from their parents often make it difficult for them to enjoy learning. Instead of being willing to try anything to learn, a child often tries to protect himself by hiding his ignorance. Hence, stress does not motivate them to work harder; instead it causes them to bury their natural curiosity so as to avoid this negative feeling.

And as Albert Einstein wrote, “It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion.” Thus, parents should not be coercing their child into learning. Rather, their role as parent is to facilitate and encourage the process of learning. Hence, rather than holding the child’s hand in the learning process, the parent should give the child room to make mistakes. This allows the child to discover the best way for him to learn and at the same time avoid giving the child unnecessary stress in his learning process.

Beyond their role as facilitators, parents also play another critical role in these early stages of child development. Parents often believe that the best way to help their child learn is buying a shelf full of books, sending their child to a range of enrichment programmes, purchasing a variety of educational games and videos. While all these play a part, they ignore the fact that the parent is often the best teacher a child can have. The natural bond that exists between a child and his parent means that it does not take much effort on the parent’s part to inspire the child to find out more about his everyday environment.

The trust between the child and his parent is not something that can easily be replicated by enrichment programme teachers as such it is much more difficult for the child to learn from an external agent. Hence, brain-stimulation programmes such as My Little Genius which are parent-accompanied programmes are much more effective at encouraging the child to learn. With their parent by their side, the child experiences less stress in a new environment and is more willing to open up his mind and to learn.

Children also learn best via interaction with other people and through first-hand experiences. Hence, instead of encouraging the child to watch more educational videos or to read more books, it is often more effective to give the child opportunities to learn for himself and to learn together with others. And programmes like My Little Genius allow them to do so with opportunities to interact with other children and also opportunities to learn first-hand.

Ultimately, parents play an important role in deciding if the child will continue to develop his natural love for learning or become one of the many typical children that dread going to school and hate the entire process of learning new things. It is in these formative years of the child’s development when a parent’s choices will have effects beyond the early childhood.

Contributed by Ivy Lim (from MLG Hougang) & Lim Wee Ming (MLG Jurong East)

Congratulations to the winners of Today’s Motherhood Genius Learning Hub Photographic Memory Kit Giveaway. They have won themselves Photographic Memory Kit worth $130 each.

Below are the names of the winners:

1. Jessica Ler
2. Joanne Chua
3. May Chow

*Winners will be notified by phone individually.

** Terms and Conditions apply.

The prizes are sponsored by Genius Learning Hub.

News from www.notinthemalls.com

NEW divine Chandamama kid’s fashion - Exciting news… Those of you needing to buy for a little fashionista will be thrilled to hear that the new Chandamama collection has arrived - and in one word DIVINE! We picked a few of our favourites to show you.

New Seller - Each Willow and Tate notebook is linen-bound, contains 140 pages of heavy weight paper and is presented in their signature, ‘keep-sake’ ribbon-tie box. Lined pages on one side and blank on the other, each notebook is perfectly crafted to capture the thoughts of writers, poets, doodlers or sketch artists alike. The notebooks are designed for lovers of stationery to enjoy as an everyday organizer, private journal, or to keep boxed as a treasured record of private moments or special memories.

10% off your next order - It’s very simple, all you have to do is email us at info@notinthemalls.com with five different email addresses for people you know who would like to receive our newsletters. Pop ‘Discount Code‘ in your email title box. Provided all email addresses are new to us and valid we’ll then email you a lovely little code you can use for your next order and get a whopping 10% discount off your goodies!

Our Next Fair - Come see us for the first time at The Goodwood Hotel Fair this Wednesday and Thursday, 13th and 14th April. It will be all about the kids for these two days. We’ll have clothes from Kidsagogo, Tiger Tribe Toys, and some very special products from a new seller, who is yet to be officially announced…

ChildFirst Preschool @ Mountbatten Square will be having an open house this coming Sat, 16 Apr 2011.

Date : 16 Apr 2011
Time : 10:00am to 1:30pm

The curriculum presentation is at 11am. Seats are limited so please call or email to register your interest in advance. See you soon! For more information, visit www.childfirst.com.sg

Address: 229 Mountbatten Road #01-32 Mountbatten Square Singapore 398007
Tel: +65 6440 4466
Email : contactus@ChildFirst.com.sg

Genius Learning Hub is happy to announce the following deal

50% OFF Neurostar Academy’s Brain Development Trial Class at $60nett instead of $120!

• Two separate sessions of 1-hour Trial Class by Neurostar Academy aimed at stimulating the brain build knowledge, confidence and love for learning.
• Two classes held in Chinese and English respectively
• Tailored programme that caters to kids aged 6 months to 4 year old
• 10 - 15 different activities done in an hour which includes : Flash Cards, songs, motor-skills activities, memory games, language games etc.
• Interactive Parent-child learning programme

Offer ends this coming Thursday 14 Apr 2011.

To get the deal, please visit Today’s Motherhood Great Parenting Deal

Remember to visit our Great Parenting Deals Fans Page too as we are giving away 5 x $30 Cold Storage Vouchers for supporting us. Like us now at www.facebook.com/greatparentingdeals

SportsKids will be offering free lessons for ‘CLAP & Go’, a multisports program, to 10 lucky Today’s Motherhood readers. Each winner will get 8 lessons worth $240. Contest ends 9 May 2011. See below for contest details

About SportsKids Multi-Sports Program

‘CLAP & Go‘ is our revolutionary multisports program designed with the development of the individual child in mind.

We teach kids major movements in a set of sports to develop their fundamental motor skills in accordance to their current capabilities.

Kids learn about sports such as soccer, basketball, baseball, golf, hockey, athletics, cricket, rugby, volleyball and tennis while having immense fun in the process.

Suitable for children age 2.5 – 6 years old

Giveaway Contest

We have free lessons of the ‘CLAP & Go’ multisports program to give away. Total 10 winners. Each winner will get 8 lessons worth $240. All you have to do is

Simply fill in your contact details

Contest ends 9 May 2011

The above contest is proudly brought to you by SportsKids Singapore and Today’s Motherhood.

Terms and Conditions Apply