Remark: This is just what I feel. The playgroup is good but not my cup of tea! If any mistakes about the teaching concept please let me know and I always welcome any comments which help me improve. ^^
Last weekend, me and Abbie went to the learning centre to have a trial lesson about music. Honestly, I was quite disappointed and felt sorry to Abbie because of wasting her time >.<
As we went there late perhaps we missed the warm up part. When we rushed into the classroom, the class was playing pee-ka-boo and the teacher claimed that it can train the children Object Permanence however she didn’t explain what it is.
“Object Permanence” which simply means “out of sight out of mind”. It is acquired by human infants from 8 to 12 months of age and there are 6 stages of Object Permanence.
And obivously she played pee-ka-boo with the see-through scarft is suit for 4-8 months old infants.
And most of the babies are older than 8 months some of them are 14 months. Although my girl is 7.5 months old, she has already understand it.
Using partially hidden concept, indicating knowledge that the whole object is still there (mommy/hand)
After that we played the song named “jasmine” and the teacher had the parents hold/ assist the babies walk and count 8 beats then stop. She said that can help the children learn phrasing.
Then what we do were listening the music and sang the songs with shaking the bells. But it was impossible to listen the music when the bells were shaked coz too noisy. And the songs were too fast to sing.
The bells are fit for Abbie to put into her mouth >.<
Shaking the bells and singing songs.
Lastly, what we did were putting babies in the blanket then rock them and blowing the bubbles.
See! I can rock my Abbie with one hand and take a picture with the other hand ^^
Bubble time!! My silly Abbie, she doesn’t know what’s going on >.<
There were some points I feel uncomfortable with
- Teacher is using non proper English, as I said that I don’t mind teacher who is using Cantonese but please don’t use non proper language. Since baby is senstitive to language, Adult should speak proper language in front of baby. (Interestingly, the center’s staff admit that the teacher is not good at English)
- Age range of the class is from newborn to 18 months. I think they should split the class at least 6-12 months and 13-18 months. Huge difference between 0 and 18 months and what they need is obviously difference.
- The teacher’s professionalism. “Is the teacher trained?”I asked. The staff replied she is trained. “How they trained?”I asked again. Then ……
*Summary: Teachers and Staff are very nice. Environment is OK big enough for babies to move. The program content is not what I want for, it consists of songs and activities but ……. The teacher is nice but …… *
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