Friday 19 July 2013

Art Garden

After hearing so many mummy bloggers taking about Art Garden, we decided to bring Kah Yen there as well. Museum is also a fun place for family outing. What's more I have been in the "doing more art activities with Kah Yen" mood recently, hence I am visibly more excited than her about our outing.

We went two weekends back. We had a fun time drawing and taking photos in the Enchanted Garden, I personally think that's the best exhibition among all. It is bright and vibrant. There are round table at children's height for drawing and coloring. There is this magic mirror to display each child's art work. And the rainbow bridge right in the middle is a big draw for the young kids.

We went through the rest of the exhibition pretty fast. They are either too abstract or too creepy for Kah Yen's age. 4-5 years who are interested in physics, science and experimenting might enjoy the exhibition more. There are more art activities on the second and third floor too, but it is more suitable for older kids. Kah Yen was not able to focus very long for the 3D cat and the watercolor project, the husband and me were the one busy drawing.

She did enjoy making the hot air balloon with color paper and glue though.

All in all, it is a good place for a Saturday morning out. I'd love to go back and visit the art museum more often in the future.


Children drawing at the Enchanted Garden

Our art work displaying on the magic mirror
 
Kah Yen and the magic tree house

On the rainbow bridge

Making a hot air ballon to travel around the world
Oh did I mention that she is in the "I am the photographer" mode? The moment I mention we are going to the art garden and we can take a lot of nice pictures. She went to her toy shelf to grab her toy camera!

Kah Yen the young photographer


Monday 15 July 2013

Kah Yen's turtle

I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, Kah Yen was dooddling on her sketchbook on the sofa. A few minutes later she ran to the kitchen and called me "Mummy, come and see, I draw a turtle."

I responded the way a typical parent would respond to a toddler "Oh, really? You have drawn a turtle? I can't wait to seeing it." then ran out of the kitchen with an exaggerated excitement.

Honestly, I was expecting probably an out of shape circle, with some random dots, then a few twisted lines. That's how her drawings look like most of the time. At this age she can't really draw anything recognizable yet, and I think it is perfectly normal.

I was really surprised when I see this. Though at first glance I thought this looked more like a wild pig than a turtle. But...Hey! It is at least some recognizable shapes and you can see her finger gripping and coordination is improving.



Kah Yen's drawing of a turtle
 This is the original picture she was looking at from a coloring book we bought.



The two aren't exactly the same but we are still mighty proud of her. We are not in any way trying to train her to be an artist but we certainly enjoy seeing her grow through her drawings. From dots which she called "ants" to lines which she called "rivers", to finally this turtle with mouth, eyes, patches, and legs (way too many though!), how much she has grown in the last two years!



Friday 12 July 2013

Our family time after dinner

From Monday to Friday, since both of us are working and Kah Yen goes to full day childcare, the only family time we have is after dinner. It is usually between 8pm to 830pm, latest by 845pm I will have to rush her to shower and bedtime routine starts.

Usually it is a time of free play. We don't do any teaching of ABC or 123 at home. She is not even three years old after all. I don't think I will do any coaching or schooling at home till she goes to primary school. For now she has spent the whole day in school, there is a lot of structured learning there. In fact too much for my taste, I always thought they should have more playing than learning for children of this age.

TV is totally out. We try not to switch on TV when Kah Yen is awake. Not that we are trying to be Nazi parents, we have learnt out lessons a tough way. We have never let her watch TV for the first two years, then slowly Daddy felt guilty and brought back DVDs from the library occasionally, Sesame streets, Finding Nemo and Madagascar. They are all fun to watch, the content are not bad at all. In fact we enjoyed watching together with her and seeing her all excited. BUT, we are almost never able to switch off the TV and get her to shower without a meltdown from her and much scolding from us.

It usually takes me two minutes to get her to the shower room, but if we watch TV, it takes fifteen minutes. TV is a devil.

Most of the time Kah Yen plays with her toys, and we try to join in, from cooking to building blocks to Lego to picnic. Sometimes I switch on the kiddy music, and together we sing and dance to our hearts' content. Almost every other day we read a few pictures books together. I did not set aside reading time with her every night like what we did in the past, since now her bedtime is getting later, we usually do with the kiddy bible before lights off. What makes me glad is Kah Yen will almost always pick a book or two towards the end of her play to ask us to read to her. It is also a perfect way to end playtime and transit to shower.

Daddy loves to engage Kah Yen in drawing and coloring, especially when seeing her not able to focus playing with her toys. Drawing and coloring is a perfect way to train her attention span, of which she is quite lacking from our observation.

I'd usually leave the two alone when they are doing drawing and coloring, I love to watch them from the side.





Her coloring skills has improved a lot as you can see from the Nemo and the Seaweed, she is able to color within the lines finally. Dory is colored by Daddy.

Sometimes I am not sure if we have done enough with her, for her learning and development. Especially I have friends with children of her age signing up for music classes, mandarin classes and doing a lot of home schooling. But that thought only came to my mind for a second then to my relief, it is gone. I know exactly what we want to give her for now - our time, our undivided attention, and our love, lots of love. Our family time, though it is very short, is the best part of my day, and I know for sure it is Kah Yen's too.




Thursday 4 July 2013

The (lack of) art activities in our house

I have always hoped to do more art activities with Kah Yen at home, despite the fact that I am totally not artistic and I have no experience playing with most art materials when I was growing up. It is totally a new area for me to venture into, but I am all excited to learn something new myself and provide a space for Kah Yen to explore, learn and have fun.

I have been very slow on this though. Before we moved into our new house, all she had played with are magnetic white board, paper and crayons. Recently we have finally set up the activity corner at our new house for her (though it is still very bare, I am yet to come out with a place to display art works), and we bought an easel from Ikea. She has been drawing on it with markers happily once a while, especially if we draw together with her.

Here are some photos of her using the Easel.




That's all about it though. The other side is a black chalkboard but we have not bought any chalk yet. We worry about the dust making the space messy and aren't sure if it is healthy for a todder to breath in too much. Mostly it is the messy part I am worrying about.

We have not started any painting with her for the same reason - the fear of a messy house. We have bought a table for her which is on the opposite side of the wall. There are color pencils, crayons and large notebooks for her to freely draw on, but no paint materials.

I chanced upon "The Artful Parent" blog recently and I just can't stop reading it. It is such an inspiring blog. The amount of art activities they do at home is such an eye-opener to me. Here are but a few useful links:


I am now more determined to create an art space at home for Kah Yen and to source for more variety of art materials, even though it means a messy house for us.

Our art endeavor will start soon!