Quite some time back, one of my friends told me that the reason why she started sending her daughter to playschool so young was because her daughter was addicted to watching Barney. She didn’t want her daughter to end up like a friend’s daughter who watched TV all day long.

Up until recently, this has not really been a problem for me because Gavin wasn’t really addicted to the TV. Yes, he would ask to watch Thomas and Friends but I’ve notice that he’s usually only half paying attention to the TV and for the other part of the time, his attention is engaged elsewhere. Sometimes, it is almost as if he just wants the background noise from the TV because it brings him some sort of comfort.

Lately, however, he seems to be addicted to watching Signing Time. Although he learns lots of new words from watching these DVDs, I don’t exactly want him to watch TV all day long.  He needs to have other experiences to fill his day and be engaged with other activities.

The only way to separate Gavin from the TV, sometimes, is to take him out.  Whether we go to the park to play or to a shopping mall to run around, the important thing is to leave the house so that his mind is pleasantly engaged with other sights and sounds. 

While I was out with my MIL shopping for a present at the Royal Selangor display store, I discovered a cool new place to take Gavin.  The display store is located on site at the Royal Selangor factory where they manufacture their products.  They also run tours of the factory, showing you historical pewter products, unique products made just for their display and the actual factory itself.

Below: Gavin sitting next to a huge model of a pewter crocodile.  They sell a much smaller version of this crocodile in their collection.

Below: Gavin is fascinated by the view from the bridge, but Ah Mah is feeling a little worried he might slip through the wires.

Below: Gavin enjoys practicing his skills of walking down the stairs. 

Below: the wall of pewter frames.  We were trying to get Gavin to stand in front of one of the frames but he wouldn’t stay still long enough for me to get the shot.

Below: the Bell chamber.  They have lots of different noise-makers in this room - bells, chimes and hollow cylinders.  Our tour guide helps Gavin reach the bells for a closer inspection.

Below: Gavin being shown how to hold the xylophone stick.

Below: Gavin has a go on the pewter xylophone with the help of our tour guide.

Below:  The formula for pewter - antimony, tin and copper.

Below: the Wall of Hands.  All employees who have worked at Royal Selangor for 5 years get a plaque of their hand made and it is posted up on the Wall of Hands.

Below:  When Gavin saw the hands, he immediately thought they were “Signing Time” hands because the Signing Time logo is of two hand prints.

Below: A model of the Petronas Twin Towers made from Royal Selangor pewter mugs.  Our guide told us how many mugs it took to make this but I’ve forgotten.

Below: At the pewter factory, they give you a go at hammering out a pattern on a pewter mug.  It’s a skill that requires a lot of focus. 

I had a video of the lady hammer a row but my connection’s a little unstable tonight so I’m having trouble uploading the video.  I’ve got quite a few videos from the Royal Selangor Pewter Factory visit which I will upload at a later date when my connection is more reliable.

The Royal Selangor tour is free of charge but they also run a “School of Hard Knocks” where they teach you how to make a pewter bowl.  I forget the charges, but I don’t think it’s much.  You also get to keep the bowl you make and the apron.  Gavin’s been pretty keen to go back and learn how to make a bowl because every time he sees the Royal Selangor brochure, he says, “Daddy, Gavin make bowl.”

I thought Gavin might be a little young for the School of Hard Knocks but I’m sure we’ll be bringing him back when he’s older.

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One of the “must-haves” in the Go-bag has always been a box of crayons (or coloured pencils).  The ability of this colourful box to keep my restless toddler’s bottom firmly planted in the restaurant high chair has been nothing short of amazing.  So when Gavin’s Pelikan colour pencils were running down to their last leds, hubby and I decided to get another box.

I’ve seen Pelikan stationery at Times Bookshop and Parkson but don’t ever buy it from Times.  A box of colour Pelikan colour pencils at Times will cost you something like RM17 but only RM12 at Parkson.

While browsing through MPH Bookstore in 1Utama, I saw this:

It was a Thomas and Friends Carry-Along Colouring Set!  It comes with over 70 pages of colouring and activity pages AND 8 Thomas and Friends crayons:

It’s a good size for Gavin to hold it on his own without it being cumbersome.  And it was all for RM10.90!  What a bargain!

I managed to pry Gavin away from the Thomas and Friends’ section of MPH by promising to buy him the crayons which kept him occupied in the carseat all the way home.

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When I was in University, we studied child development in our psychology lectures so we could learn how to manage children of different ages in the dental clinic.  Although I memorised this information for my exams, I confess I’ve long forgotten the average timeline of milestones for children.  Since I wasn’t particularly interested in paediatric dentistry and rarely saw children in my clinic (after that spell I did in the paediatric clinic when I was still a student), I didn’t really need the information on hand.

It wasn’t until I was pregnant with Gavin that I started to read up about child development.  Gavin being my first child and having a lot of things to remember, average age for specific milestone achievements weren’t especially high on my list.  So long as he was learning new things and developing normally, I was pretty content. 

Of course that didn’t stop me from looking for new materials and tools to help Gavin’s development - such as those flash cards I made for him and the Signing Time DVDs I bought for him.  I believe that at this young age, a child’s potential for learning is at it’s maximum and not to utilise this advantage is a poor waste of your child’s resources.  Anything that helps to establish a strong foundation for later life is always worth the investment of time to do it right from the beginning.

As any mother would be of her own child, I’ve always been proud of all of Gavin’s achievements - no matter how big or small.  That I should think my son is intelligent, handsome and charming is only to be expected because I am his mother and I harbour the natural biasses of a mother.  So when hubby and I receive comments from friends, family and other acquaintances expressing their surprise at the pace of Gavin’s speech development, I did stop and wonder whether he really is advanced for his age.

Just looking at the timeline for the average speech and language development of a child seems to confirm that Gavin is ahead of the average in this area.  For instance, this is what the average 2 year old should have achieved:

• Expressive vocabulary of 150-300 words.
• Uses short incomplete sentences.
• Uses many different consonant sounds in the beginning of words.
• Puts many actions together during play like stirring, pouring, scooping, and feeding a doll.
• Points to pictures in a book when named and listens to simple stories.
• Learns a few new words each week.
• Understands simple questions (“Where’s your shoe”).

Gavin is 22 months old and he has hit all of these for a number of months already.  I think I have to thank the Baby Sign Language DVDs that I exposed Gavin to since he was about 5 months old for this advanced development. 

When a few of my relatives heard I was teaching Gavin Sign Language to help him communicate with me and express his wants, they believed that learning Sign would delay his speech development.  The premise was that if he could already communicate using Sign, he would have no incentive to learn how to talk.  Despite my telling them that observations on infants learning Sign found that this was not so, I think they were still somewhat doubtful.

Well, it looks like my study of one confirms that learning Sign does not delay speech development, but advances it.  And this is just the results of my showing him a couple of DVDs and signing to him on the odd occasion when I could remember.  I wonder what his development might be like if I had been more dedicated to teaching him Sign?  I’ll let you know with baby no. 2.

Now that Gavin can speak, I still find the new Signing Time DVDs I bought to be very useful.  Aside from the fact that they are the only other series that Gavin enjoys watching aside from Thomas and Friends, he also learns a lot of new words and concepts by watching it.  For instance, he now knows a lot of names for animals where previously he wasn’t really interested to learn about them.

Because the format of Signing Time shows the word, associated pictures, the sign for the word and accompanies it with music, the DVDs are educational in other ways beyond the teaching of Sign.  For instance, when teaching the word “tiger”, they show a picture of a tiger, the written word “tiger”, how to sign “tiger” and then a series of shots showing children signing the word “tiger” and more visuals of tigers.

Currently, Gavin’s favourite DVDs from the Signing Time collection would have to be:

The Zoo Train - below is one of the songs from the Zoo Train called “Walking Thru the Zoo”:

Time to Eat - below is a video of one of the songs from this volume:

My Favourite Things - below is a song from this volume called “Colours of the Rainbow”:

What are the benefits of teaching your baby to sign?

• reduces tantrums and frustration from not being able to express needs (thus making the stage of the “terrible twos” a little easier)
• promotes language acquisition
• reinforces existing language skills
• increases rate of spatial reasoning development
• develops understanding of language for communicating emotions
• may increase IQ
• increases creative thinking
• teaches a second language (ASL is a formally recognised language)
• increases early literacy skills

As the hubby says, baby no. 2 benefits from everything we’re learning through raising Gavin.  Now that I know how effective Signing Time has been, I’ll be sure to be more dedicated when it comes to teaching baby no. 2 how to sign.

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It’s been about two weeks since I first started using my own tailor-made flash cards on my son so I thought it was about time I wrote an update on how it was going.  Gavin is still showing a lot of interest in his flash cards - especially the ones with Thomas and trains featuring largely.  I find that the flash cards work pretty well, as long as he’s interested in going through them.

For instance, here’s a video of Gavin going through the Thomas flash cards on colours:

He used to only be able to relate to colours based on the names of the Thomas and Friends trains.  For instance, the colour green would not be “green” to Gavin, it was initially “Percy”, and then “Percy colour”.  If his green crayon rolled under the chair, he would tell me Percy was under there.  After I started using the slides, he can now tell me green is green, although the phrase he will use might be “green, Percy colour” or something to that effect.

And this is Gavin running through the Thomas alphabet flash cards:

He’s picked up the new words I inserted pretty quickly, but I find his recall for some are much quicker than others.  For instance, he learned words like “valley” and “viaduct” fairly quickly but still forgets words like “x-ray” and “vase”. 

Recently, I stopped focussing on the letters from the alphabet and just concentrated on the word.  I think perhaps I ought to start going back to “A is for…, B is for…” because Gavin has demonstrated an ability to recognised letters he sees in other context.  For instance, he saw a word beginning with “g” today and said, “Gorno (his pronunciation for “Gordon”) G”.  Then when we were at the shopping mall, he pointed out the name of a shop beginning with “g” and repeated the same phrase.

His pick up rate has been pretty fast.  We don’t go through the slides every day - maybe just one every couple of days and when we do, we usually just run through them once and I’ll give him a train sticker for his effort.  To reinforce his interest to learn, I let him choose a train sticker from his Thomas Sticker Express book after he completes a round through the slides.  He’s gotten so attuned to getting the stickers that he’ll offer me some self-praise as if to tell me he deserves another sticker: “Baby good job.  More sticky (his current pronunciation for sticker).”

I mentioned that the flash cards work well only if Gavin is willing to go through them.  So this is the hitch I have run into:  Thomas and Friends can only be used in flash cards up to a certain point (alphabets, numbers, and colours) before I have to start using non-Thomas flash cards to create new learning material.  The problem with non-Thomas flash cards (such as the ones I made on introducing animals, fruits and vegetables - which I have yet to post up) is that Gavin simply isn’t interested in them.  When I open up the file, he’ll start exclaiming, “train, train, train!”  There’s little point trying to run through a set of slides if your toddler isn’t interested in them.

Luckily, I’ve discovered another method to teach Gavin about animals, fruits and vegetables…

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After making the first series of flash cards for Gavin to teach him the alphabet, I decided to add on and modify a few of those slides to see if I could teach him a few words that weren’t related to trains.  Since Gavin only seems to be interested in trains these days, I thought I would try to sneak a few words unrelated to trains and see if it raises any objections. 

To reduce the likelihood of objections, I tried to make sure they were words for things that he likes - for instance, he loves to eat pizza and pasta, and he also likes fish (in general, not necessarily to eat).  If you look at the slide show, you’ll notice that this isn’t your average alphabet chart since a lot of the words are tailored specifically to Gavin (except for some of the less popular letters where I was struggling to come up with a word, let alone a word that Gavin likes).

He seemed okay with the non-train-related pictures when we went through it, so maybe it’s time for me to test out non-train-related subjects, like food and animals and see how we go.  Hubby bought Gavin some animal flash cards some time back for a steal but personally, I thought the pictures were rather poor quality and difficult to recognise (even I had trouble guessing what some of the animals were).  Gavin wasn’t particularly interested in the flash cards except for the animals that he was already familiar with - like bird. 

It was interesting to note that Gavin first thought the picture of the zebra was a horse.  I can’t remember where I heard it (perhaps on Animal Planet) but zebras have been likened to horses because of their similar appearance (minus the stripes, of course).  Their genetic material is obviously quite similar since zebras and horses have been crossbred although I wonder if the “zorse” is capable of reproducing or if it is infertile like the mule?  Okay, so we’re getting off topic… 

Since a number of Gavin’s new Signing Time DVDs are about animals, I thought of focussing on the animals featured in Signing Time so Gavin can learn the new signs, the words and the animals.  The reinforcement of seeing the animal through different media (signing, music and pictures) might make the topic a little more interesting.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

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On Tuesday, Gavin woke up late (by late, I mean 11am), so to help him expend some of that infamous toddler energy, I took him to Kizsports in 1Utama since we’ve never been there.  It is much bigger than the one in Bangsar Village 2 with more space and more activities.  For instance, you can play futsal, you can shoot hoops, and you can boulder (rock climbing).  Yup, they have a mini rock climbing wall for kids!  They also have a cafe so you can have a meal there as well without having to leave the premises, unlike Kizsports at BV2 which only sells drinks over the counter.  However, now that Fit For 2 has opened opposite Kizsports in BV2, I suppose this isn’t really an issue any more.

On first impressions, I think the jungle gym in BV2 is bigger (albeit more compact), however, 1U Kizsports makes up for it with height.  It looked really interesting and I was all for exploring it, except that Gavin decided that this was the day he was going to be afraid of heights and refused to go up.  Dang!  There goes my excuse for crawling through the tunnels and sliding down the big slides.  Ah well, looks like I’ll have to bring Gavin back there again - preferably with one of his godsisters to encourage him to take on the heights.

Kizsports 1U also has a designated “under 3 year old” area that is sealed off from the other areas which I thought was good for parents with young children who didn’t want the big ruffians colliding into their infants as they attempt to negotiate the slides.  According to PL, they also police the play areas quite seriously and will redirect children they observe attempting to climb up slides or engaged in any potentially dangerous activities (to themselves or others).

Although I like the setup at 1Utama, due to proximity, BV2 is just a lot more convenient to get to. 

Sorry there aren’t any photos, I forgot to bring the camera.  But here’s a shot of Gavin and his godsister Emilie on their way to Kizsports one Sunday a couple of weekends back (although we didn’t end up going in because they were having a birthday party and the place was really crowded):

Kizsports 1Utama is located in the old wing near Jusco Department store.  It’s on Level two above Toys ‘R’ Us and Marks and Spencer.

Kizsports Bangsar Village 2 is located on Level 3 (same level as Celebrity Gym) above MPH Bookshop.

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I first attended Fit For 2 back when I was in my fifth month of pregnancy and I found it an excellent place not only for keeping fit during the pregnancy, but also for meeting other Mums-to-be, socialising and networking.  Located along Jalan Bangkung among a strip of shops in Bangsar, it was great place to visit.  After my delivery, I did go back a few more times to do the post-partum classes but had to stop when Gavin got to a point of being difficult in the car. 

One of my biggest difficulties taking Gavin to Fit For 2 on Jalan Bangkung was that there isn’t much else to see there except for Fit For 2.  Sometimes, after class and a meal, Gavin wouldn’t want to get back into the car and I would be stuck trying to figure out how to manage him for the car ride home.  If Fit For 2 had been located in a shopping mall, then I would have been able to carry him around window shopping until he was content to go or until he fell asleep.  As a result, I hadn’t been back there for a long time.

During one of my visits to Kizsports in Bangsar Village 2, I discovered that Fit For 2 was opening next door.  As of Monday this week, Fit For 2 in BV2 has officially opened.  They offer the same facilities and classes as they did on Jalan Bangkung - pregnancy exercise classes, post-partum classes, classes for early childhood learning, and the cafe.  Now we’ll have one more place we can visit for lunch at BV2.

Fit For 2 in Bangsar Village 2 is located on Level 3 (same level as Celebrity Gym) above MPH Bookstore.  They have officially moved to BV2, so the venue on Jalan Bangkung is no longer open.

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After letters and numbers, the next subject surely must be colours, so here are the flash cards I made for Gavin on colours:

Even if I didn’t really see much value in Thomas from an educational standpoint beyond the teaching of values in some of the stories they showed in the series, I’ve realised that the creators been rather clever to incorporate numbers (1-10) and colours, making it easier for parents like me to teach those topics to children who are mad about Thomas.

With the topic still on trains, it comes as no surprise that Gavin likes the flash cards I made for him on colours.  However, he was most interested in the new pictures and the new trains that I added rather than the old pictures I recycled from the alphabet flash cards I made previously.  Point to note: even though it takes more time, it’s worth the extra effort to look for new Thomas pictures rather than recycling the pictures from the old slides.

Now we’ll have to think of what else I can teach Gavin using Thomas and Friends pictures…

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After hearing about the series “Your Baby Can Read“, I was really eager to buy the set - the DVDs, the flashcards and the books.  Unfortunately, none of the locations that sell them in Malaysia have any stock.  The few locations of Metrojaya that I went to only had the Your Baby Can Learn books (which I already bought and unfortunately, Gavin is not that keen on because it’s not about trains or Thomas).  Bebehaus is still waiting for stock to come in.  I’m reluctant to buy online after my last experience of buying DVDs online.

I had tried the computer program by BrillKids which Gavin didn’t find too interesting.  I thought of incorporating a Thomas theme to it or some trains, but unless I just don’t know how to use it properly, I don’t seem to be able to do that. 

That was when a little brain wave hit me and I decided to use Microsoft Powerpoint to make my own flashcards.  It works out pretty well because Gavin loves using the computer.  Unlike the educational posters I made, I don’t have to rely on my mediocre drawing skills since I can source for just about any Thomas picture online.  At any rate, the powerpoint slides and the educational posters can supplement each other and make the whole learning process more fun.  I’ve even started a little book for Gavin which I’ll write more about in a later post.

As always, the most important critic is the person for whom all this is made for.  If you want to know what he thought of it, you can check out the video below:

Needless to say, he really liked the slides and kept asking me to repeat them over and over.  He’s only gone through it about three or four times but after that he could say the words without my prompting.  The next step would be to remove the pictures and see if he can remember the letters and words without the pictures…

Below is a slideshow of all the slides I created on Microsoft Powerpoint (although I have since made some modifications as new ideas come to mind):

Honestly, I think this is probably the cheapest and easiest way to get your child interested in learning.  Although I would like to see the format of the lessons on the “Your Baby Can Read” DVD, I think the gist of teaching your child to read works something like this. 

The best thing about making your own flash cards is that you can tailor it to your own child’s personal preferences.  For Gavin, it’s Thomas the Tank Engine.  If your child likes Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh, all you need to do is look for pictures related to those characters.  With the letters that don’t have a corresponding picture in your theme, you can always choose an object you know your child will be interested in.  For example, I couldn’t think of an “i” word from Thomas and Friends so I used the word “ice cream”, which works just as well for Gavin who loves ice cream.

The real key to early childhood education is to make the process fun.  So even though most of the words Gavin is learning now are simply names of train characters from Thomas and Friends, I don’t really mind as long as they can help him learn colours, numbers and the letters of the alphabet. 

Not only that, but these flash cards have the added benefit of being a reward to encourage Gavin to behave, since he considers these flash cards as something desirable and fun to have.  Sometimes when I promise to make him more or to let him read through them again, he’s willing to to cooperate with me.  And when we read through it together, he keeps asking for “more, more, more!”

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Since my SIL2 started using a sticker rewards system with Gavin to encourage good behaviour, I’ve been looking around for Thomas stickers.  Some time back I saw 200 Thomas and Friends Stickers at MPH for RM20 but I didn’t buy it - what a big mistake.  Since then, I’ve been hunting through all the MPH Bookshops I’ve come across looking for those stickers without success.

So when I spied the following Thomas Sticker Express at Borders Bookshop in the Gardens yesterday, I bought it without a second thought (it was the only one left on the shelf).  A colouring book with over 700 stickers for RM50 - I thought it was a good deal since I was already prepared to pay RM20 for 200 Thomas and Friends stickers.

Needless to say, the stickers have been pretty effective in getting Gavin to be extra cooperative.  Definitely RM50 well spent!  And I haven’t even gotten to the part about the colouring pictures, yet!

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