In this part 3 of The New Age Parents and Heguru Education series, I’m sharing how to replicate some of the activities we’ve done in class.

If you’ve read my last post on Heguru, you’d recall that I found the “parents’s lecture’ at the end of every classes very useful. The handout explains the purpose of the special activities conducted and how parents can replicate the same teaching methods at home.

Here are examples of the home activities I did with my girls to reinforce what we’ve learnt at Heguru:
 

Number activities

These activities aim to improve a child’s mental calculation by visualisation, as well as reinforce the number concept.
 

In a Heguru class:

 
– To teach subtraction: Each child is given a handout consisting of 10 pictures, 5 on each row. Parents then ask the child what is “10 minus 2” and ask the child to remove 2 pictures and determine how many is left.
– A child is tasked to follow the instructions on the recipe given, count and put the respective number of each ingredient on the omelette.
– Using abacus to count 1 to 100
 

At home:

– I included my girls in our baking sessions and asked them to help me count the cups of flour, sugar and butter needed. They were also tasked to add a specific number of chocolate chips on each cookie.
 

– For older children, you can also give your child a simple shopping list and challenge them to gather all the required items during your frequent trips to the grocery store.
 

Photographic memory

In a Heguru class:

– This is taught by flashing an image with 3 different objects on it. Each child will be asked to place the objects in the correct order.

At home, I either replicate what was done in class, or:

– Use lego or big stacking bricks. You’ll need two sets of bricks – one for yourself, another for your child. Arrange the bricks and show your child for thress seconds. Next, have them replicate the pattern of the bricks that you showed earlier.
 

 
– Memory match game. Lauren and Georgia absolutely love this Frozen memory match cards. I spread the cards, face down on a flat surface. They take turns turning over 2 cards at a time. If 2 cards turned over are the same, it’s a match and it stays face up. If the cards doesn’t match, cards are turned back over in the same place until all matches are found.
 

Link memory / Story memory

In a Heguru class:

– The teacher places cards in the order of the story told. We make up a story together based on the order of the cards. Another set of number cards are placed on of the picture cards and chilren are asked to re-tell the story as a way to memorise the order of the cards.
 

At home:

– We use with our own flash cards. But instead of using 40 cards at one go, we only go up to 10 cards. If you don’t have flash cards, you can search for images online and print them out on your own.
 

ESP

 
ESP, or extrasensory perception, is believed to be one of right brain’s abilities. All babies are born with this ability but as we grow, we move from right brain predominance to left brain predominance, and eventually lost this extrasensory ability.

By training the right brain and practising ESP when young, it helps to maintain this ability and the balance of right brain vs left brain predominance as we get older. ESP is broken down into 5 categories: Telepathy, Clairvoyance, Precognition, Tactility and Telekinesis.
 

While we are not bending spoons with our minds (telekinesis) in class, here are some example of ESP activities the kids do in a Heguru class:

 
– Telepathy: Teacher shows three different images to the class. She picks one without showing the students. She ‘sends’ the image she picked to the child via telepathy. Given a few different cards, the children are supposed to pick the correct one based on the image they receive in their mind from the teacher.

– Clairvoyance: Teacher shuffles two cards facing down – one with yellow dots and another with blue dots. Then students attempt to “see” through the cards and pick the right one with yellow dots.

– Precognition: While the teacher shuffles a deck of cards, she asks each child to guess the final card that would end up at the top of the deck before teachers before she stops shuffling.
 

At home:

– Right before I hand the girls a piece of M&Ms chocolate or jelly beans, I make them guess the colour of the chocolate or jelly bean and which hand is holding on to their treat.
– Lauren is very specific about which outfit she wears everyday. I ask her to guess which drawer has the particular clothing.
– I put 3 lego blocks (red, blue, yellow) in a bag and ask the girls (one at a time) to reach in, grab a block and guess which colour she is holding.
 

Categorising

Children learn to associate items with their categories. It expands their general knowledge by exposing them to different items and their similarities of the same group.
 

In a Heguru class:

– Children were asked to place items into boxes with shop names on them – Bakery, Bookshop, Florist, Fruits.
– Children are introduced to what are living thing and what are non-living things. They are then tasked to classify the items under appropriate categories such as people, animal, plants (living things) and nature and man-made items (non-living things).
 

At home:

– I use flash cards and ask Lauren and Georgia sort them according to their categories, like furnitures, food, vegetables, animals etc. Ours is in Chinese, so I’m teaching them another language at the same time!
 

 
– When we do our grocery shopping, I often get the girls to tell me which section of the supermarket to find a specific item. For example – ‘bread from the bakery’, ‘orange from the fruit section’ and ‘milk from the dairy fridge’.
 

Odd one out

 
Taking categorising a step further, this activity strengthens the observation skill and cognitive thinking of a child as she needs to first examine all the items in the category, come to a conclusion what is the stated category before eliminating the odd item out.
 

In a Heguru class:

– A child is given a ‘X’ and tasked to place it on the item that doesn’t belong to the category.
 

At home:

– On a daily basis, I often point out a group of things and get the girls to name the odd one out. For example, a grey car in a row of white cars in a parking lot, a boy with a group of girls or a rugby ball in a basket of round balls.
 

Letter A to Z

 
It is crucial for children to be able to recognise alphabets and the phonetic sounds connected to the alphabets in order to be literate.
 

In a Heguru class:

– Children learn by tracing the letters by fingers and with pencil.
– They read simple poems with emphasis on a certain sound and spinning a letters and pictures roulette.
 

At home:

– I jumble up alphabet blocks, pick one up and ask Lauren or Georgia to name it and give an example of what word starts with the alphabet. Georgia loves getting the letter ‘G’ because she can proudly says ‘G’ is for Georgia.
 

Always remember to have fun!

I hope this post gives you some ideas on how to conduct right brain training lessons at home. Most importantly, make it fun for your child. All the activities listed here takes less than five minutes to complete. I aim to do at least two to three activities with the girls every day. You can also purchase the lessons materials directly from the various Heguru Education Centre branches.

As it says at the bottom of every ‘Parent’s Lecture’ – always remember to encourage and praise your child. Every child enjoys learning in a positive environment.
 

 
This is the third part of The New Age Parents and Heguru Education series. In the next part, I will share how much progress my girls have made since starting Heguru 8 months ago.