August 13, 2010

Swimming lessons

The kids have been going for swimming lessons every weekend  (except for when the coach called in sick!). So far, so good, really crosssing my fingers! You see, I never force the kids for extra-curricular lessons, except when they seem to like a particular activity, but past experiences made me wise up.

I have been cracking my head hard, trying to think of some skills which the kids can learn up, besides academic lessons. My daughter has displayed interest in arts. So, when she was 5 years old, we sent her for arts lesson. At first, she enjoyed the crayon colouring and we would painstakingly encourage her and put up her drawings in the house. However, after a few months, her interest started to wear thin and she requested to stop the lesson.

We notice that she always starts shaking her body when she listens to any music at the shopping mall or at home and she seems to have the flair for dancing. So, we brought her to the dancing studio and asked her, 'Would you like to take dancing classes?' She nodded her head eagerly and off we went to register her. She liked the class at first, but after that she could not follow the steps because the teacher was teaching her as she would for those 1 or 2 years older than her. She was taller in size than others her age, so even at 7 years old, she looked like a 9 year old. So, the teacher changed her to another class with those her age, but the dance steps were too boring for her. So, we stopped her lessons after a while.

Learning my lessons, I gave them preliminary piano lessons by myself (instead of sending them for classes) just to gauge their interest. And all this was done at free will, no forcing or coaxing. But I guess, it will not work without constant practising.

So, I thought, maybe they should learn something that can make them exercise as well as play!

My boy wanted to take up taekwondo. We enquired here and there and when we were about the sign up for lessons, my hubby suddenly found out about this swimming lessons held at the sports club nearby. So, every weekend, the kids will look forward to their twice a week lessons, and hopefully, they can swim better than papa and mummy after 10 lessons ! (BTW, it cost RM250  inclusive of entrance fees to the sports club)

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