Shen-Li — Babylicious by Figur8

Creative Play with Lego

May 21, 2013 by Shen-Li Leave a Comment

Aristotle loves Lego. He started with Thomas Duplo which he would work on with Daddy. After that, Daddy decided to give him a bigger challenge and bought him a small Lego City kit. Aside from the manual dexterity problems (Lego is much harder to put together compared to Duplo), Daddy found that he could follow the instructions on his own so he continued to expand Aristotle’s Lego City collection. Then he got into dinosaurs so his uncle got him the Lego Dino Defense HQ (which he used as part of his background and props for his Jurassic Park movie) for one of his birthdays. Some months back, he got into Star Wars so he started collecting a few of the Lego Star Wars sets.

It has been difficult giving Aristotle time to work on his Lego projects because Hercules would inevitably want to take part – which is great, except for the fact that his idea of taking part is to grab his brother’s completed models and dash them onto the floor. Understandably Aristotle gets upset about that so I would try to distract Hercules in the play room. Unfortunately, sibling rivalry would come into play as Aristotle wonders what fun Hercules and Mummy are having in the play room without him and he wouldn’t want to work on his Lego any more. Then I tried to encourage Hercules to work on the old Thomas Duplo sets while Aristotle worked on his Lego but Hercules would feel he was missing out on the good stuff because he had the big, clumsy Duplo blocks while his big brother got the cool, cute Lego pieces.

Finally, I decided to get Hercules his own set of Lego bricks that he could build and tear down as many times as he liked without upsetting his brother. Hercules was so pleased, he invited Mickey to play Lego with him…

After a while, I noticed something else happening…

The mad scientist (Aristotle) started creating an army of robots to take over the world – from the underwater cities of Otoh Gunga…

Photo May 01, 9 18 00 AM

…to the volcanic planet of Mustafar…

Photo May 01, 9 18 12 AM

…to the ice planet of Hoth.

Photo May 01, 10 25 34 AM

Looks like in spite of all the new creations in Lego branding, the good ol’ fashioned, open-ended play opportunities with plain Lego bricks are still the best…

While we’re on the topic of Lego, did you ever hear the full story about Lego? If you haven’t, it’s a beautiful one and truly inspiring.

Watch it here.

It’s a great story to share with the kids to teach them about the value of persistence, determination, and thinking outside the box.

If you want to do more with Lego, check out the following Lego Educational Resources:

Amazon.com Widgets

Filed Under: Activities, Aristotle, Hercules, Play Tagged With: creative play, Lego

How to Train Your Brain to Think Faster

May 20, 2013 by Shen-Li Leave a Comment

After our recent experience with the coin, I have been thinking about a new skill that would be great to have – the ability to think quickly on your feet. Actually, to be honest, the real inspiration for this has existed for far longer but it was the recent event that finally prompted me to sit down and write about it.

After the incident with Hercules, I went back to search what the proper method for handling an emergency in the event of a swallowed object. Even armed with the knowledge of what to do, I can’t help but wonder if I would have been able to handle the situation if the coin had lodged in a position that made it hard for Hercules to breathe. I did an first aid course many years ago as part of my training and I remember the broad strokes for DRABC – danger, response, airway, breathing and circulation. I remember the rules of how to do EAR (expired air resuscitation) and ECC (external cardiac compressions), but if I had to do it all in an emergency situation, would I be able to? I don’t know.

It’s easy to think clearly when you’re not under pressure. It is easy to run through all the things you were taught and to apply it when it doesn’t count. The question is whether we can apply our knowledge and think clearly if the life of a loved one depended upon it. Sometimes we freeze from the shock of it all. Sometimes we react with the wrong responses because we panic. Sometimes we forget to think and proceed logically because we’re clouded by emotions.

I find that whenever I am looking back in retrospect, it is easy to see how I should have responded but what I think after the fact is usually quite different to how I actually responded at the time. It would be great if I could respond to emergency situations with the ability to think clearly and quickly. I’m sure such a skill would come in handy to my boys as well.

Have you ever seen the movie “Flight” starring Denzel Washingston? Just in case you haven’t, let me give you the overview: in the movie, Denzel Washington plays an airline pilot, Captain Whip Whitaker, who successfully navigates a malfunctioning passenger plane to a “safe” landing, saving 96 out of the 100 passengers aboard. There were a lot of other issues being explored in this movie but the point I want to bring up was Whip’s ability to think creatively and respond quickly during an emergency that would otherwise have resulted in the death of everyone aboard the aircraft. At one point of the movie, they highlight that fact:

“The FAA and the NTSB took 10 pilots, placed them in simulators, recreated the events that led to this plane falling out of the sky. Do you know how many of them were able to safely land the planes? Not one. Every pilot crashed the aircraft, killed everybody on board. You were the only one who could do it!”

So we’re not just talking about the ability to think quickly, but the ability to think well under pressure. Some people are naturally better at this than others but if we wanted to, could it be a skill that we can develop? If we could develop it, how is it done?

It is obvious that practice and experience counts for something. The experts in any field would be better at thinking quickly and responding well in situations related to their expertise. For instance, you would expect ER doctors to be able to respond more quickly and with greater proficiency to medical emergencies compared to an individual who has simply been through a first aid course. But what if you didn’t have the practice an experience? Is there a general way to train your thinking so that you can think faster and better no matter what the situation required?

According to Posit Science, there is. In fact, Posit Science has several exercises that are specifically designed to speed up the brain to think faster and more efficiently in any situation. Here they are:

And you can try them for free if you sign up for a free account with Brain HQ by Posit Science.

What other exercises and games can you play to help speed up your reaction time?

While I was searching for ways to train thinking speed for children, I stumbled upon The BrainFit Studio. Unfortunately, it’s only available in Singapore so I cannot comment beyond their website. Maybe the parents who have been to see the center and have sent their children there can comment.

Brain-Speed

If you would like to get your child interested in this subject as a means for motivating him to train his brain to think faster, check out the project suggestions at Science Buddies:

In summary, even though some people are born with the genetic disposition to think faster and some are not, it’s good to know that we are not limited to what we were born with. The brain is like a muscle – exercise it.

Filed Under: Brain Training Tagged With: brain training, think faster

Accidents, Emergencies and a Swallowed Coin

May 18, 2013 by Shen-Li 2 Comments

Two evenings ago, Hercules swallowed a coin. In spite of all our best intentions to make sure there are no hazards for our children around the house, the older they grow, the more resourceful they become, and the harder it is to keep the house “safe”. Of course, having a child like Hercules also increases the risk of these incidences happening. As is it, this was not his first visit to the hospital but the third – the first was when he cut his brow and the second was when he had dengue. You would never expect something like this with Aristotle because he never put foreign objects into his mouth and he never did anything “dangerous”.

What happened?

Hercules was tired and hungry so I served him dinner early. He ate a large bowl of Niku Udon. When he finished, he said he was still hungry, so I gave him a bowl of strawberries for dessert. He was done by 6pm. Aristotle hadn’t eaten so I sat Hercules in front of the TV for an episode or Tom and Jerry, thinking to put him straight to bed after I served Aristotle his dinner.

Just as I was coming out of the kitchen, I heard Hercules coughing. It sounded like he was choking on something. I rushed to him and brought him to the sink and tried to help him get whatever it was out. I asked him what he put in his mouth (since he was long done with any food) and he finally answered, “A coin.”

I write this all very calmly now that Hercules is safe and well, but I assured you, I was anything but calm that night. I should also add that we do not leave coins lying around and there were definitely no coins around the living area. I only discovered later (upon questioning Hercules after we got back from the hospital and all was well again) that he climbed a stool to access a drawer where Daddy kept his spare change. Just when we thought it should be getting easier, we are reminded that the older kids are more resourceful – it’s much harder to keep them from danger because they go in search for it.

I tried to get Hercules to throw up the coin but all that came out where the noodles from dinner and the strawberries. After a while, Hercules calmed down and it seemed like everything was back to normal. I thought perhaps the coin had made it down to his stomach. I called the hospital and my brother (non-practicing medical doctor – long story that one) for advice. We ended up heading to the hospital to A&E (accidents and emergency) for a chest x-ray even though we thought it made it to the stomach. It turns out it was just as well we checked because this was where the coin really was:

Since it was fairly high up, the ENT was called to come in and get it out. According to the ENT, it was mostly likely a 20 sen coin (roughly the size of an Aussie 10 cent) because he has never had to pull out anything smaller as they usually make it to the stomach. He didn’t think it was a 50 either because those are usually too large for a child of Hercules’ age to swallow. In fact, just from the way he talked about it, swallowed coins seemed to be a common occurrence. It was really no different to a swallowed fish bone, except that it was usually easier to remove without complications.

He did a laryngoscopy which he says usually takes about 2 minutes. Because Hercules is a child and children struggle, he had to go under a GA. So the big commotion was really getting him prepped and putting him under. By the time the procedure was over, it was pretty late, so Hercules has to stay overnight for monitoring and recovery.

The doctor said that there was a slight cut on his throat which meant that he might have trouble eating or drinking. If we were concerned, we should not have been. Once Hercules knew that the coin was out, he wasted no time tucking into his breakfast. Lunch was a big bowl of noodles and dinner was a healthy serve of Bah Ku Teh. His return home was so uneventful it was as if the whole incident had never happened. The only thing that tells us it really did happen was the X-ray, the hospital bill, and this souvenir:

I realised that I was actually quite unprepared for an accident like this. No matter how “safe” you keep your house, it is always best to know what to do in the event of an emergency. So I looked up some pointers for a refresher on choking…

What do you do if something goes down your child’s throat?

1. Assess the danger

can your child breathe?
is your child in distress?
is your child coughing, wheezing, crying?
is your child silent and turning red or blue?
do you know what your child swallowed? Some items can cause damage – batteries, pins, etc.

2. Help your child dislodge the object

your child needs to be in a position with his head lower than his body
thump your child’s back
in an older child, encourage the coughing as it can help to dislodget the object; don’t put your fingers down the back of his throat, you might push the object further in
See: Infant First Aid for Choking for babies

3. Take your child to the A&E department of the hospital

Some sites say it’s okay to adopt a watch and wait if your child is not in distress and see if it comes out in his poop. I say bugger that, just go to the hospital and get the chest x-ray to see where it is. And if you don’t know what the object is, you need to find out if it’s dangerous to leave it there. If it’s in the stomach and the object is relatively harmless, then you’ll just need to wait until it comes out in the poop within the next couple of days. Of course, if it doesn’t, then you’ll need to go back to the doctor’s to have it removed because it is obviously having trouble being eliminated.

The real danger of swallowing an object is if it is not in the stomach. You need to know whether it’s stuck somewhere along the way down or if it entered the lungs. In either case, it needs to be removed because it can cause an infection and serves as a blockage.

The reason why I say just go to the hospital even if your child doesn’t appear to be in distress is because some children might be like Hercules – they don’t appear to be in distress even though the coin is stuck. Based on Hercules’ reaction, we all thought it was already in the stomach. The X-ray was merely a formality to confirm that fact. Lucky we checked…