Kang Kang Lay joined PlayClub at Julia Gabriel

Finally Mummy chose Julia Gabriel over others after attending trial classes at various playgroup centers. In fact, Mummy really likes the Learning Horizon's 2-hr playgroup at Grassroots club, Yio Chu Kang. It is not only near to our house but it is spacious & has outdoor playground. Both English teacher & Mandarin teachers were good at their languages & their teaching methods were superb which included art & craft, story telling, flash cards, music & play. It's pity that my dear son is 2010-born and that time the center accepted 2009-born children only. We waited till Dec and happily went there again to enroll our dear son only to find out that the center has stopped the playgroup classes for public but it will provide enrichment classes to the children from Learning Vision childcares. Mummy was so desperate. Although Mummy tried trial classes at Learning Kidz, Kindermusik, GUG, none of are comparable to the Learning Horizon's playgroup in many expects. Mummy had to google again everyday, every night until very late, read parents' review of different centers at online forums & blogs. Mummy was really stressed out because I already paid deposit to the Learning Vision at Grassroots Club for the full-time childcare in mid of March 2012. Mummy wants to give him the concepts of teachers, school activities, friends, etc. and want him to know that he'll have fun with friends & activities in school so that it won't be that shocking to him when he goes to the childcare.

Mummy finally found out about the Julia Gabriel center, which has 2 branches, one at Evans Road and another at the Forum the Shopping Mall, Orchard. The branch at Evans has outdoor playground & much spacious but Mummy chose the branch at the Forum due to convenience & proximity and time-tables. It's a 2-hour session every Sunday and 10 sessions per term. It'll be better for him to attend 2 or 3 sessions per week but both Mummy and Daddy needs to work on weekdays. And Sat & Sun classes are of the same. No choice! Mummy decided to go for the one at the Forum after a visit to the center, which has a library, play areas, and classrooms for different age-group. Only things that it does not have are musical equipment for children. But it's alright to me as the teachers play them for them during music time. Oh well, it's set to "Bilingual PlayClub" for Kang Kang Lay every Sunday from 11:30am to 1:30pm. One parent can accompany one kid and parents can swap during snack-time or at a convenient time.

The first session pleased Mummy and I found that our dear son, Kang Kang Lay, enjoyed art&craft, outdoor playtime & music time. Theme for this term is "Transport" so kids are taught about transportation related vocabularies & concepts with colors, numbers, alphabets & phonics.

Being a bilingual class, there are 2 English teachers (Rina & Carol) & 2 mandarin teachers (Lee & Kyung) who are young and energetic yet very patient & friendly. Sometimes teacher Zack helps out the class if one of the teachers is unavailable. Their commands of English & Mandarin are excellent. The session starts with free-play to warm-up the kids followed by greeting to
every kids & teachers with music & song. What next are introduction of word of the day in English & Mandarin, after that it's the 2 art & craft sessions lead by the English & the Mandarin teachers separately. After cleaning up, the story time in Mandarin & Magic box by the English teachers come next.

After the hand washing, it's snack-time. Mummy found out that Kang Kang Lay does not like to eat cheese. I blame myself as I don't like to eat cheese either and didn't introduce him with cheese at earlier age. Well, next is the favorite part for Kang Kang Lay to have fun at play area.

After that, music & song sessions amuse kids and even parents. Then saying good-bye song, the class ended at 1:30pm. What I noticed him after the class was that he becomes more active and talked more. I'm very positive about the class and pleased with the right choice for our dear son.