Wow! The speed is gaining fast as we enter the 2nd week of 2014! Activities are back into place, with several new ones being introduced at Clic, namely, Fun Math with Am! (Thur) – Where Math is done through games and hands-on activities, Craft with Auntie Fei Ping (Wed) – she runs a Play-center in Klang, alongside our regular ones like CSI (Wed) – Creative Self-expression & Innovation, which I have been conducting for the past few years, Diziguei (Thur) with Uncle Chee Keong – learning Chinese through verses on moral values, and park days on Tues & Fri mornings. Upcoming new activities starting in March will be a 1-month gamelan workshop with teachers from Rhythm in Bronze, and video-making with the kids (to encourage them to make short videos to tell a story).

So, here is a recap of what we did last week!

Picnic at FRIM (14th Jan)

As last Tuesday was a holiday, some of us took the opportunity to take the kids for some Nature at FRIM (Forest Reserve Institute Malaysia). It was a fun and pleasant outing for the families who went, and the kids had fun walking along the hiking tracks and playing at the shallow stream.

Good to see the fathers coming out too! Father-son bonding is essential in bringing up healthy and happy boys! But if they are not around, then foster dads will do too!

Aikido buddy

Arian is very happy he finally has an aikido buddy to go to classes with. His playmate Xuan Yu has signed up and is attending regular classes together with him. They look absolutely sweet together! Xuan Yu sleeps over at Arian’s whenever he has aikido classes, and they have a marvelous time together!

Math & Craft with Angpow packets! (15th Jan)

Amrita conducted a math and craft session with the kids. It was fun & effective as they learnt how to add and subtract using the red packets, and turning them into pretty paper lanterns!

CSI – Creative Self-expression & Innovation in story-making (15th Jan)

This program was born out of the need to help children express themselves in various creative ways such as story-telling, story-writing and doodling. It has proven over the years to be effective in improving grammar, spelling, writing & drawing skills as well as developing confident stories- creators in children. This month we are starting with “All About Me” – a project on self-discovery and self- actualization through a book project on themselves! Here are some of the highlights this week:

Barter Market at Sun Yoga, Bukit Jelutong (18th Jan)

It was their first barter market and we were excited to bring our big fat winter melon from our garden, plus papayas and sunflower seeds and our compost, which we were delighted to discover, were much sought-after item! This is a great idea and we certainly hope there will be more such events for our organic produce! Judging from the great and enthusiastic response, we are confident this idea will take off pretty well into the future!

Gamelan Festival (19th Jan)

As we are planning to have the kids take a gamelan course soon, we thought it would be a good idea to take them for the gamelan festival in KL last weekend, and it turned out to be a very good outing indeed!

We stood out in the audience as the only group with a bunch of kids below 12 years old! And the kids were marvelous throughout the entire 3 hours of gamelan performances by various groups in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. Well, if you minus out the time one of them fell deeply and mouth-openly asleep during 1st half, and towards the end when the kids had sudden urgent urges to go to the toilet! All in all, a good family outing and cultural exposure for everyone! Looking forward to more cultural exposures in the near future!