Singapore Awards Volunteers and Institutes with President's Award for the Environment

What exactly makes Singapore the global leader in technology, education, and environmental spotlessness? Certainly, it’s continuous and well-timed appreciation of those who contribute to these areas of work in any manner!

Living up to its standing once again, the nation has recently awarded two educational institutes and an individual with the esteemed President’s Award for the Environment. All the awards were recognized for contributing constantly and selflessly to the intactness of the environment.

The first awardee is Eugene Heng, the founder and chairman of Waterways Watch Society, an environmental group in Singapore. The 65 year-old has devoted as many as 16 years of his life to the good cause of observing and taking care of waterways in his country. With his dedicated volunteers, Mr. Heng is often busy identifying and removing litter in rivers and reservoirs. Undoubtedly, he well deserved the nation’s highest environmental accolade!

The other two awardees are the Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) and Institute of Technical Education (ITE). Both these educational institutes have been actively promoting environmental consciousness among their students. They have also included certain environment-related subjects and courses in their curricula.

On Tuesday, all the three awardees received a certificate and trophy at Istana from Tony Tan Keng Yam, the President of Singapore. The award recognizes individuals and groups for their input towards the environment. 

Music Practice Time Tips for Beginners

If you dream to earn fame as a musician, you will probably have to give every bit of yourself in it. You will have to spend continuous hours practicing and perfect the art.

Although, professional musicians have dedicated practicing schedule, beginners can face certain difficulties in managing time. Because students have to complete school work and assignments, they will always find it hard to devote time to music practice sessions.

For that reason, we have listed some easy practice time tips for beginners suggested by music tutors in Singapore:

Spare an Hour Everyday For Practice

Try dedicating at least one hour daily from your routine for practice. Make sure that stick to this schedule. You could either devote an hour in the morning or evening.

In case, you skip the routine for a day, try to cover up with extra time in following sessions.

Warm Ups and Finger Exercises

To be a good musician, you need to warm up and exercise your fingers before every practice session. Preparing your fingers beforehand, will provide them flexibility and will make them run with no risks of injuries.

Exercising the fingers is even more important if your children are learning how to play string instruments.

Take Practice Sessions Seriously

Music course tutors in Singapore recommend dedicated practice session every day. You should also try to keep a record of your child’s learning.

Besides, it’s vitally that your kids should have open interactions with their music teachers to learn without stressing themselves.

You can set daily tasks for the kids, and reward them on completion.

Gradually Increase the Learning Time

As a beginner, it’s virtually impossible to spend hours practicing musical notes. Therefore, a beginner must start his practice, let’s say 20 minutes and then gradually add five minutes every week.

Just follow these tips and within no time you will observe significant improvement in the level of music skills. 

Tips To Help Your Child To Choose The Right Instrument

Picking a musical instrument for your child is not a small decision. A lot of factors will determine the decision making process. Money is one of the most important factors as good quality musical instruments don’t come cheap. The other primary factor would be the child himself and his level of interest in learning music.

Read on more to know about the points to keep in mind when selecting a musical instrument for your child –

1. Size of the Instrument

A child can get frustrated if he get tired holding the instrument or if it is a size too big for him. For example a small child will find to difficult to handle a violin or a saxophone at a young age. MusicTutors in Singapore suggest that he should instead start with a cornet or a piano.

2. Does The Personality Of The Child Matter?

Contrary to what parents might think, the personality of the child plays a major role in the selection of the instrument. For example an instrument that has a high pitch like a trumpet, will suit an extrovert child, whereas a flute or a trombone will suit a shy child more. If your child likes to do things independently, pick a French horn or a bassoon for him.

 3. Do Not Be Gender Biased While Selection

Listening to what the child wants to play is very important to make the right selection of the musical instrument. Do not try to force the child to choose an instrument based on a gender image that you might have. In this modern age girls can play drums and boys can play anything they please. The important thing is to be supportive and encouraging at every step of the way.

4. Sound of The Instrument

If your child does not like the sound of an instrument, you are trying to win a losing battle. Only when a child will like the sound of an instrument will he or she try to learn it. Let the sound be the first and foremost criterion for selection of the musical instrument.

Pre-Schools with Strong Focus on Arts Education Are Growing in Popularity Now

Arts education during pre-school years is one fun way to help your child learn and develop perceptual abilities and you probably know that.

Image Credits: education.asiaone

Art is an essential animated element of every kid’s infancy; it sets that perfect foundation for a young mind’s development. Tender minds have a sharper perception to learn new things and they develop an inclination towards arts education with time.

Unlike other preschool subjects, kids show greater proclivity for arts and crafts. However, one thing we parents don’t realize is how arts as basic pre-school leaning is inventively shaping you those young minds with better communication, problem solving and social skills.

Explaining the importance of arts in child’s education during the formative years and its popularly in preschools, we have a perfect illustration of preschool story about Patrina Lew and her 4 year old daughter Heather.

Even before Heather made it to this beautiful world, her mother Patrina Lew was busy planning a perfect pre-school life for her. And just about three months after Heather’s birth, Mrs. Lew had already registered her daughter’s name at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Kindergarten.

As an expecting mother, Mrs. Lew always wanted her daughter to be in a preschool that doesn’t completely focus on an “academic” environment. So, she chose Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Kindergarten after receiving quite a few suggestions from her friends.      

Now after four years of preschool learning, Heather still loves practicing arts and has also developed incredible learning skills.

Like Mrs. Lew, there are several parent groups in Singapore who emphasize on arts as a basic preschool subject. Fortunately, preschools like Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Kindergarten and Creative O Preschoolers Bay have emerged as perfect solutions for parents seeking to impart arts education to their little ones. 

Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts Kindergarten has always been a preferred option among the parents and some even register the name almost three years in advance. But, the pre-school only registers kids between the ages of 3 to 6. It has a scheduled daily art program and includes topics like dance, music, art and drama.

When The Creative O Preschoolers Bay started in 1998, they just had a handful of pupils but now they have more than 30 students on its waiting list.

Even principals of both the institutes explained how kids from their preschools have shown superior aptitude to learn new things at the school level. Besides, parents have responded with encouraging feedback's and are pleased with their children’s academic records.               

Benefits of Learning Music

If you’ve noticed, most people take pleasure in hearing music and are also able to feel lighter. Like most arts, music too needs complete dedication and commitment.

Having your kids take music lessons in Singapore can benefit them in several ways, which are:          

• Learning Music and Positive Impact On Cognitive Learning

Learning music at an early age helps our brain develop astoundingly well. It improves our learning attributes and amplifies on our lift section of the brain.

Music is directly related to spatial intelligence and acts as therapy for treating several major and minor mental disorders.

Music helps the mind to develop flexible intellect and enhances our communication skills.

• Music Can Boost Your Kids Overall Personality

 Music as we all know is great stress buster, but learning to play musical instruments improves memory too.

Learning music helps in overcoming fear of taking risks by helping us keep calm.

According to research, students learning music have higher confidence and have a more expressive mind.  

The percentage of drugs addiction in students learning music is considerably less to fellow teenagers.

• Learning Music Will Definitely Improve Academic Performance

Students learning to play musical instruments, show a certain tendency to opt for second languages or other skill activities.

Surveys on music education in Singapore show that students learning music score better in English and maths when compared with other students.

Students learning music have better vocabulary and reading skills.  

Besides percentage, students learning music have shown a better attendance records.

•  Music Introduces Discipline In Life And Also Excellence

While learning music, a student becomes more disciplined and focused. His communication skills improve

Students learning music have shown better evidences of team work, thinking skills and greater interest in studies.       

With music, your management and organization skills also improve a great deal.  

5 Ways to Change up Homework Plan

There are times when the very thought of asking your kids to complete their homework after a long day in school is frustrating. However, to convert this difficult task into a pleasant experience, here’s presenting 5 excellent ways to change up their homework plan.

1.    Motivation is the key

Tutors should make use of interesting incentives to get children wind up their homework without indulging into unnecessary fights.

Incentives such as small snacks, toys and amusing stickers work extremely well for young children.

Experienced tuition coordinators in Singapore always try to match up kids with tutors they can gel easily with. This allows for a better chemistry, ultimately helping a tutor keep a child motivated most of the times.

2.    Allow them to Dictate

This certainly does not mean that you do the work for them. Having a mixed routine where the children dictate the answers to you, might help them to think in a strategically different manner.

This is apt for younger kids where they would be allowed to think more about the subject matter other than simply writing it down.

3.    Use an App

There are hundreds of apps available today which are geared towards all types of subjects. Simply find the app that reinforces what the student actually needs and get them started with its use.

4.    Team Work Pays

Getting students working together is a great way to make the learning process much more interesting, fun and efficient.

The students will not only learn but they can also help each other  in more ways than you can possibly imagine.

5.    Stress Is Their Biggest Enemy

Tuition coordinators, tutors or parents should not put too much pressure on students to perform. Stressing them out will only make the learning process more difficult. 

Top 10 Ways to Motivate a Music Student

The important thing to remember is that no two children are the same. One might respond to discipline and other might revolt to it. It is important to be really patient when dealing with a child who needs a little encouragement and motivation. He might do something he thinks is impossible but not without a daily dose of motivation and regular music lessons.

If music starts looking like an additional subject that needs thorough studying, the child will start neglecting it whether he has been enrolled into a part time Singapore music school or not. It is important to stress on consistent and quality practice, rather than excelling in it.

Take a look at tips that can help you motivate a child to learn music happily.

1. Practice routine

Set a fixed schedule for practice every day. It should be ideally set before any fun activities that the child likes to do. Some children like to practice in the mornings and others in the evening. Let him choose the right time for himself. You may also consider the timing of music lessons in Singapore.

2. Be real

Do not expect your child to become a music maestro in a few months. Music courses available in Singapore are no doubt great but all children do not like music and hence, do not excel at it.  Set a real target for him or let the teacher supervising a music course decide that for him. Even when it comes to practice do not expect him to practice more than 30 minutes in a day. As and when he gets older, the time can be increased. Start looking for Singapore music schools for senior students at least a year in advance.

3. Learn yourself

When dealing with young children, try and understand their psychology. They might be tired or just not in the mood to practice on certain days. Be considerate and offer to take music lessons with them. You will be able to connect to the child more this way. There are many music courses in Singapore, catering to parents and kids both.

4. Be his audience

Children love getting attention and performing in front of friends and family. Be their first listeners’ and cheer them on to do well. Play games that involve listening and playing music.

5. Provide interesting music

Have a clear idea of the child’s interest in music and provide him with his kind of music. Choose the best of Singapore music schools to give the right push.