Family & Life Magazine Issue 8 | Page 24

RELAX Interesting Holiday Enrichment Classes! The June school holidays CRESTAR LEARNING CENTRE are just around the corner One of the regional leaders in lifelong education, Crestar a bunch of fun and and you’re looking for the Learning Centre hasthis upcoming June great enrichment classes for children holidays. These perfect enrichment class programmes are three to five lessons long and last for your children. Well, your between one and two weeks. Some of the enrichment search is over! We’ve found classes are actually short taster programmes to let your a few enrichment classes child experience what their regular 11-lesson programmes are like! that are not only beneficial but fun too! We are especially looking forward to the programmes they’ve created especially for the holidays! Art Whether you’re into clay modelling, 3D paper sculptures or even Chinese brush painting, Crestar Learning Centre has a programme for you and your children! Chilren will learn to create beautiful 3D paper sculptures of flowers and a variety of other gorgeous items from the Paper Relief classes. Here are a list of the oth er Art classes Crestar provides: • Clay modelling • Mosaic art • Felt craft • Canvas painting • Paper diorama • Chinese brush painting Cook & Bake Is your child thinking of becoming the next Jamie Oliver or perhaps the new Twelve Cupcakes superstar? The art of cooking and baking has been slowly increasing in popularity, evidenced by the number of cafes and restaurants sprouting in Singapore as well as the buffetloads of food pictures on the different social mediums. Crestar Learning Centre has also lined up a few cooking programmes catered for children to learn essential kitchen skills and great recipes. Here are some of the recipes that your child will be learning with Crestar: • Cookies - Chocolate cream - Raisins - Butter corn - Strawberry • Cupcakes and large cakes - Marble - Oreo cheesecake - Blueberry • • • • Pizza Fruit tarts Sushi Macaroons Crestar Learning Centre has nine centres around the island. For more information on the different holiday programmes as well as a full list of the addresses of the centres, we recommend opening your browser and pointing it to www.crestar.com.sg. 24 Family & Life • May 2014 LOGICMILLS ACADEMY In an increasingly complex world abundant with information, it’s difficult to find meaning and to connect the dots. Unfortunately, the traditional Singaporean pedagogy just can’t cut it anymore, according to Professor Mark Nowacki, founder of LogicMills. Instead, the skills that today’s children need now, more than anything else, are higher-order thinking skills, great collaborative quotient and the ability to cross different cultures. That’s the promise of LogicMills, the only MOEcertified institution “providing analytical thinking skills through experiential learning”. As Nowacki explains, “the students are actually learning real-world learning abilities by playing games, which makes it fun!” It’s not just fun and games though; the LogicMills programme has been validated by the MOE to increase students’ grades across all the different capability spectrums by an incredible 16.8 percent. In another independent longitudinal study, a group of Secondary One students that went through the LogicMills programme for a few weeks went on to score higher grades than their peers in the ‘O’ level examinations three years later! The idea for LogicMills was planted when Nowacki’s wife and fellow founder, who dealt with the CEOs of a wide variety of multinational companies, asked the C-suite executives about the strengths and weaknesses of the average Singaporean worker. “They’re great. They’re hardworking and are able to follow instructions but we wish that they would be able to make decisions on their own,” was the common refrain. Similarly, Nowacki, who also teaches at the Singapore Management University, realised that young Singaporean children were already blessed with the ability to think rationally and logically through his experiences with them. This quality somehow became blunted as they progressed through the education system, which was what he was seeing at the tertiary level. LogicMills is simply teaching children, perhaps merely restoring, life skills, all of which are useful not only in the boardroom or the office but also in everyday living. We can certainly get behind that! The Academy has a wide variety of taster holiday enrichment programmes, combining thematic integrated learning with fun experiences and excursions. The holiday programmes are typically two to three days long and are held on the second and third week of the June school holidays. LogicMills is at 1 Goldhill Plaza, #03-01. If you would like to know more about the enrichment holiday programmes, do check out www.logicmills.com, give them a call at +65 6253 2558 or email them at [email protected].