Kids doing ADULTlike work. :-)

Learning Through Play.

That would be the Unit that'll I'll have to research and do two papers when I start my intake in November. Can children learn through Play? Of course! As I have said before on how children can actually even learn from throwing stones into water, something which is self directed is considered play.

There's a whole issue just on the topic of play, all the developmental and cognitive theories on just Play itself, that it'll take up an entire chapter or even more on that...

Anyway, today I let my 6 year old kids watch this video which is from the Preschool Power 3 series.

The Preschool Power series is basically a Montessori based video showing kids doing adult work, such as sweeping & mopping, buttoning, cutting, doing work together or individually (with songs in the background), and of course, cooking/baking.

The kids range from ages 2 1/2 to 6 years. Its features young kids doing work, as opposed to adults doing it, which naturally would not interest young kids, since they'd assume that all adults would be able to do this...of course, watching other young kids doing things that you can't will normally interest you more, IF you are YOUNG kid. It's partly that competitive spirit, and also, tat I can do it by myself spirit in each kid for themselves.

The series is quite old (the main cast kids are already in their mid teens now), but the ideas that are presented in this series is still something new to Asians anyway. (Although pioneered by Montessori in the 1960s?) Sigh.
The kids were complaining that the video was boring, and kept complaining that they wanted to watch the Australian series of Hi-5, which I had shown a couple of weeks back....but then....

Anyway, the series they watched today featured a girl helping out and doing housework by herself , a boy doing watercolour mixing, a 5 yr old boy arranging dominoes to form a chain reaction, a girl baking French loaf, a 4 yrs boy making a bubble solution and then blowing it, children playing with scarfs, a girl folding chinese fans, and etc.

The children were wowing and woo-ing especially at the girl who baked her own french loaf, saying in Mandarin, "wah, small girl doing adult work!", at the boy arranging the dominoes and also the boy making and blowing his own bubbles, saying, wah, the boy can use many things to blow bubbles from...... and yet complaining they wanted to watch Hi-5 at the same time........tsk, tsk, tsk.

Later, when I was sending two of the 6 year olds home, i asked 2 girls who I sent back....."so, do u know how to make bubbles?".....they said, "very easy......put water in a bowl and two teaspoon of washing powder...." moving on to a discussion about, what kind of washing liquid can use? washing powder can or not?" Lolz. I told them I didn't know, so why don't you try it out by yourself and then you come and tell me after u do it? :-)

Later, I asked Michelle, so, can you make your own bread?
she said , no. My mom can't make bread. But my nanny can.

So I said to her, If you like, why don't u ask your nanny to teach you how to make bread?
You can tell your nanny taht you saw a video where this girl made bread all by herself, except when the daddy put the bread into the oven....that's very hot, so obviously you can't do it.
It's not that hard.....you just need someone to show you how to make it, isn't it?

Oh really?, she asked disbelievingly.

Well, even if I showed u 10 times on how to make bread, and each time you were running around and weren't bothered to come and help out or even watch, do you think u can learn to make bread?
Michelle shrugged her head sideways.

As I left her at her nanny's and entered the elevator, I overheard her telling her nanny taht she had watched a girl on video making her own bread......

Well, I'll follow up on what happens to her....Till next time, folks!

Another thing was, one of my 4 yr old girls, Emily, after watching the video, came to class the next day with a paper fan she made herself. I asked....

Who made the fan for you?
I did. I made it all by myself. Emily answered.
Oh my, you must be a really clever girl to make your own fan. Where did you see anyone making the fan?

On tv. there, that girl making that fan, Emily replied...

And the chain reaction goes that....three other girls and the rest of the class decided to take some paper and make their own paper fans....LoLz.

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