The Developmental Derby

The Developmental Derby starts way too early for my liking. Recently, I got a message in his message book informing me that he "still hasn't improved his colouring, therefore could you please give him more practice at home".

I wasn't in the mood to write a lengthy reply telling his teacher that while he can colour well, it's usually a question of whether or not at that particular instance he wanted to and had the patience to colour nicely. So I just put "OK" and signed it.

The next time I went to pay his school fees, the principal mentioned again that his colouring is still "not very good". Being the non-kiasu parent that I am, I shrugged it off and told her not to worry about it because from my observation, he has improved and that's what matters. So she softened the blow by agreeing with me that although he has improved, it's not as good as some of his classmates.

While we're not too concerned about comparing him with his classmates, we gave him "more practice" anyway and applauded his efforts, as well as his technique of colouring the edges first and then filling up the middle sections of the drawing. This lets him avoid what in kindy speak is referred to as "colour chi-chi cha-cha", i.e. scribbling.

In addition to the colouring, the picture on the right shows some numbers which Abang wrote by himself (or, as he likes to say, "by his own self"). I'm quite amazed that he can write numbers and most alphabets.

Today he built a tall Lego tower, counted the number of pieces he used to build it (40) and wrote "40" on a post-it note and stuck it on the tower.

My favourite is the fruit basket below:

It's so nice and colourful!