Summer is Here! And so are Summer Classes!

Pre-school just ended this week, and summer has just begun. Apparently, my daughter has 3.5 months of summer break to enjoy before she resumes her regular classes.

Fortunately, so many people are offering a broad variety of summer classes. That’s why, I’m swamped with deciding which activity I am to enroll her. Yipee!!!

While money is no object (since many of the classes are affordable anyway), I have to be more selective on which class to enroll her since I don’t want to tire her unnecessarily.

I still do want her to enjoy summer as she’s only 3 years old. 🙂

Just in case you’re wondering, my decisions are based on five important factors, as follows:

1. Schedule for more convenient Logistics – The classes must fit each other.  I don’t want her classes to be all over the place.
2. Location – It still has to be graphically desirable.
3. Enrolling her must make sense on the type of person I want her to be – Sorry, but I don’t think I’d want her to be a ballerina, so ballet classes while cute, is a no go.
4. Talent – She must have a natural affinity for it. My daughter cannot draw and doesn’t seem to be interested in coloring so no art classes for her.
5. Reviews and Referrals – Which is why I picked two of her classes, CMA and The Reading Station. Both programs come highly recommended by my peers.

To be honest, her learning how to cook or to dance may be cute, but we don’t really think it’s that important at this time.

We can teach her how to cook and bake at home (or at least, wait until she’s a little bit older to appreciate it), and from what I heard, dancing classes at such a young age may not be optimal as other older kids may overshadow her.

In the end, I’ve enrolled her in the following classes, and I’m very happy with my choices. Here they are for your reference:

1. Swimming Classes: Aqualogic Swim Co.

My class of choice is from Aqualogic Swim Co.

Photo Credit: Aqualogic Swim Co.

Swimming is a very important life skill, and I think it’s important for a child to get over their fear of water at a young age. Aqualogic has a lot of venues available, and their Richmonde Hotel Ortigas class is set in an indoor heated pool (I like!).

Rates are also reasonable given how important swimming is as a skill to learn:

We are enrolling our daughter twice a week for the entire summer. It’s easy to enroll them. Simply text their numbers and they’re quite responsive.

To contact them:

Aqualogic Swim Co.
Tel: 0917-858 2782, 0917-703-6386, 02-703-6386

2. Math: CMA Mental Arithmetic

I wanted to enroll her at CMA ever since we conceived our child, but was forced to wait until she was 3 years old before we could enroll her.

This is the class that excited us the most. Why?

Watch and be impressed:

Here’s her assignment for Class 1 — Pairing builds up familiarization to the Chinese Abacus. Even my husband wants to learn how.

After seeing the kids compete in a CMA Competition in SMX, we were sold. We’ve been wanting to enroll her ever since. Can’t believe she’s starting now. 🙂

The rates are also reasonable for me:

Php 4,200 for 8 sessions + Php 2,500 for materials = Php 6,700.00 per month
Makeup classes: 2 classes

To inquire:

CMA Mental Arithmetic
East of Galleria Building, Topaz Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig City
Tel: +63 2 584 9670, +63 917 568 6875
https://www.cma.ph/

3. Reading: The Reading Station

Self explanatory. I believe that books open up a lot of world for kids and so far, I’ve heard a lot of good reviews about The Reading Station. There are a lot of branches available, and I booked the branch that is closest to my husband’s place of work:

Taken from the website, here are the program details:

The Phono-Graphics Reading Program (COURSE LENGTH: 2 1/2 years to 3 years)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Phono-Graphics Reading Program also known as the PGRP is a course for Early Reading Literacy. With practice, training and discipline, goals are achieved.

The program is designed for non readers and emergent readers ages 3 1/2 to 7 years old.

Kids who are found to be more than 7 years old but with reading skills covered still in the program are accepted in the center.

Special emphasis is given to decoding, encoding, comprehension and early love for reading.

COURSE GOALS

• Early Reading (Decoding)
• Spelling (Encoding)
• Comprehension Skills
• Vocabulary Build up
• Sentence Construction
• Language Skills
• Basic Paragraph Writing
• Reading Discipline
• Very Early Love for Reading

Rates are a little bit higher but let’s try before we complain — Php 18,000 for 36 hours or 3 months program, at one hour per class.

To inquire, book for an assessment at the branch closest to you:

The Reading Station – Philippines
MAIN BRANCH
Unit C, 109 Scout De Guia, Brgy.,
Sacred Heart, Quezon City, Philippines
Tel: +63 917 100 5252  •  +63 2 358 3337
Branches:  http://www.trs.ph/branches.html
Website: http://www.trs.ph/index.html#about

4. Conversational Mandarin: Bless Learning Resources

This is the first time for me to try Bless Learning Resources but their summer program looks very interesting.

I talked to Teacher Eliza today, and was interested in their conversational Mandarin class. Ideally held 3x a week for the summer period for one hour per class, their conversational Mandarin focuses on words that are regularly used daily like:

“How are you?”

“What’s your name?”

“How much is it?”

It’s a great complement to her now Chinese classes at her preschool.

To inquire:
Bless Learning Resources
Address: 219-6 Biak na Bato corner Makaturing St. Brgy Manresa Quezon City
Tel: 560-4519, 0943-858-3211
Look for Eliza

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I’ve stopped at enrolling my daughter at four since just these alone will give her a busy schedule with two varied classes per day. Here’s her schedule:

• Swimming: 2x a week, 1 hour per class
• CMA Math: 2x a week, 1 hour per class
• The Reading Station: 3x a week, 1 hour per class
• Conversational Mandarin: 3x a week, 1 hour per class

Overall, I’m happy with her choices. I know it looks like a lot, but it’s over a space of 6 days so it’s quite loose.

I will revisit this post after daughter finishes her programs to give you an unbiased review on how good these programs really are.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Life Tip: Get a smaller house

When I was 22, I lived on my own in Taipei. I rented out a small studio unit close the the University that had its own bathroom for NTD 10,000.

It was a few streets away from school. I shared the unit with a few other rooms lined up in a dark narrow corridor. I usually never saw my neighbors come and go.

Once you open the main unit, you go straight to your room. My room was the first room on the left side.

Once you opened my room, my bed was on the left, and the small closet and bathroom was on the right. There was a shower area but no divider. In all sense and purposes, it was a dinky room. But I stayed there for more than a year after I took Chinese lessons at Shida.

I LOVED THAT UNIT.

It was small and manageable. I think it’s around 25 Sqm. It was big enough for me to jump rope in, which I did everyday, but small enough for me to clean every other day.

All I did was to sweep the floor and mop it using this:

It was a very simple and content life.

That’s what a home should be: Manageable. It fit all my things, had sufficient Aircon, wasn’t expensive and a place I called home.

I moved two other times when I was in Taipei. The second time was because I wanted a brighter room. The next and last time was for a more convenient location: I walked to work!

As I grew older, my house/unit was always still small but my rent just became increasingly expensive especially after moving to Hong Kong!

My most favorite place was my small 40 Sqm two bedroom unit at North Point. T was on one of the buildings on top of the public market and it felt luxurious:

This sofa was super comfy and I used to sit on it for hours while looking out the water:

The bedroom was kinda kinky. It has darkened mirror on the ceiling! I was afraid there was an earthquake, break the ceiling and kill me in bed.

It had a separate small kitchen and another room which I kept as a closet and study area. I was very very happy here and I was sad to let this unit go. I wish we bought it during SARS where property prices were at the lowest.

The cheapest I got was my subsidized dorm room when I was doing my MBA in Hong Kong. It only had a super single bed on the right (won’t fit two people!) and a study desk on the right:

The view was amazing.

It was still fun rooming with your classmates and we had a lot of bonding moments in campus. The school even had a bar! The room was small and suited my needs — a walk to school, fresh air, and a hub for intelligent discussions — what more can I ask for?

The most expensive was my room at St. John’s when I studied in London — this ROOM cost php 81,800 per month!

Here was my rent at that time in 2011:

The deposit is GBP 1350 (of which 600 is the balance to pay the landlord and 750 is the amount I advanced to her). That’s php94,500!

The first month rent to be paid in advance is GBP 1168.75 (php81,800). So in total, GBP 2518.75.

You don’t need to pay all 3 months rent at once. It’s paid each month in advance.

Until I married, I have always lived in smaller, very manageable units. They were reasonably priced for the area, located very close to school/work/subway, and easy to clean. Despite their small space, they were still comfortable and relaxing, a place away from the bustle despite being in the middle of the city.

After I married, my husband’s dad let us stay in a 271 Sqm place with three bedrooms! It was big and we only used two rooms — the bedroom and the kitchen!

It’s a lot harder to clean and gathers dust most of the time. Good thing new Yaya cleans it for us!

As I look back at all the rooms and units I’ve stayed in, I cannot help but wonder just how far I have traveled. Holy, I think I’ve moved 8 times when I was in my 20s!!!!

Through it all, I am just thankful for the memories. And if you have a choice, smaller units trump bigger units all the time. They are cozy and easy to clean. Cheaper too given less electricity consumption!

So who cares if you don’t have a mansion? So long as you have a house you call your own, then that’s the place you should have!

“Your Child is ‘Matigas ng Ulo’ (Hardheaded)”

My daughter’s teacher has been complaining about our 19-month old child. She said that our kid is strong-willed and hard headed.

The teacher also said that she has a tendency to hurt herself when she is frustrated. According to the teacher, our baby goes dabog dabog (pull a tantrum) when she doesn’t get her way, stomping her feet in frustration.

This unfortunate news was met with shock by the husband and the grandmother. 

“They don’t know our kid!” they exclaimed. “She’s not even 30 and don’t even have kids. How can she be a good judge on whether a child is hardheaded or not? All kids her age are the same way!”

That’s what parental love is — if other people criticize your child, you become a protective tigress and immediately defend them. 

In my husband’s case, he can’t help but think that the teacher is picking on our kid, singling her out. “She’s been complaining about her over the last two days,” he said. “Does she complain about other kids too?”

My own mother is at a loss too. This is the first time a teacher has actually criticized my child. Most of the time, teachers love and adore her.

To be honest, I am a bit surprised too. 

My daughter is sweet and helpful. She is very active and likes to learn. In class, she’s usually in front listening intently to the teacher. And while she is stubborn and opinionated, a little bit of personality does not hurt anyone. 

“Do you want a pushover for a daughter?” my husband asked. “You said you wanted personality. Well, you got personality.”

Personally, I think being defensive is an automatic reaction by any parents who love their child. It’s easy when other people adore our kids. It’s hard if other people don’t like our kids as much. 

I think maybe the teacher doesn’t like our child as much. In defense, our child doesn’t lean towards her as much with the other teachers. While she can easily show affection to other people, she is a bit wary with this one, which may cause the teacher to single her out. 

Regardless, I’d like to believe the alternative — that the teacher is telling the truth and our kid truly can be stubborn and hard headed. She is our firstborn daughter and the first grandchild after all. 

If that’s the case, this might be an eye opener for us. That our daughter may not be as sweet as we think she is, and we may have to adjust how we deal with her a bit so that she won’t turn into a complete brat. 

In the end, we chose our school for a reason. They chose their teachers following strict standards, and we have to respect that these teachers know exactly what they are doing.

It’s very tempting to paint the teachers as the bad guys. That they are wrong and we know our children better. 

But if we fall into that trap, we don’t do our kid or ourselves any favors. If we think we can do better, why don’t we homeschool them ourselves?

The truth is, we can’t do it better. 

We aren’t trained teachers and we don’t have the time to teach our children. The school has been there for decades and the teachers are properly trained and must follow a strict curriculum. 

Teachers deal with a lot of children everyday. 

Because they observe a lot of kids, they can see disturbing patterns earlier. If left unchecked, our daughter might become increasingly difficult. 

So even though the news is hard to accept, I thank the teacher for opening our eyes. For bringing this to our attention. 

Again, teachers are not the enemy. They are our partners in teaching our kids academic knowledge and common sense. It’s critical that we work together to maximize our kids potential.

How about you? Do you get defensive when your own child is criticized?

My kid is starting school next month

 

A recent study reveals that a child’s intelligence is inherited from the mother. That means, if the mother is smart, usually the kid is also.

And while I don’t believe in it fully — there’s so much that genetics can do — I see evidence of this whenever I look around.

For example, my cousin-in-law’s two children are top students in ICA, one of Manila’s most prestigious Chinese schools. This is surprising considering that Tyrone failed grade school twice, and almost got kicked out of high school. Every one was surprised that he even graduated.

Tyrone was a great guy, but as a kid, he was never academically smart, causing his mother to pull her hair during every report card season.

His wife however was pretty and received top grades.

They were classmates and she was a performer, while he was at the other extreme of the sphere. They fell in love, got married, produced two kids and BAM, the children are as smart, or are even smarter than the mother!

My father for example graduated from Mapua, one of the premier engineering universities in Manila, but he was just an average student. He was more active in extra-curricular activities than my mom, and had his fair share of bad boy adventures.

My mom however was a bookworm. Specifically, she graduated with a degree in Mathematics and taught calculus for 10 years in another university. In other words, my mom was slightly smarter than my dad.

When I look at my cousins (from my dad’s side) and I, it seems that my family was more inclined to study. My little brother, who hated reading and studying, still graduated from university with honors. I graduated from a pretty good university and my dad never had a problem with me academically.

Compare this to my cousins from my father’s side, most of them did not even finish university. Many dropped out due to personal problems, and didn’t amount to much.

And while I’d like to think it’s because I was smarter and better than them, I would much rather give credit to my mom’s wish to immerse us in education and academics.

My mom gave me free credit to buy myself any book I wanted from National Bookstore.

She supported me in every school project, and tutored my little brother every evening.

I was tutored my Chinese subjects every single day up until 9 in the evening. And after coming home, I would study my English subjects.

We were expected to graduate from university. It wasn’t a choice.

I think that intelligence is more about the parents’ belief in myself and my brother. Of repeatedly exposing us to books and real-life experiences.

According to this other research, parents of high achieving kids have higher expectations for their children. What they believe, they subconsciously do, steering children to the direction that they wanted.

My father used to brainwash me all the time, “You need to be a businessman. It’s great to go corporate but you have to start your small business.”

Well, he never told me the downsides of having a business, but maybe all his brainwashing had fruit since we now have a small business to manage.

So don’t laugh at me when I share with you that I am investing early in my daughter’s education.

How early?

She’s been attending Kindermusik the last couple of months, teaching her the joys of music, and this November, at 11 months, she will go to pre-nursery school.

My Husband thinks I’m loco but I tell him to watch me as I mold my daughter to love studying and reading and socializing with other children.

But I’ve been right so far.

She’s hitting all her mental and physical milestones early, and hasn’t embarrassed us too much yet.

Sure, I might be wrong and my child may turn out to be an angsty, gloomy kid, but hey, I’d rather bet and do my darnest to ensure she turns out to be the opposite.

Have a great weekend everyone!