A Wow-ed Birthday Party

Jay turned five, and after a few years of a relatively low-key celebrations in his pre-school and so the hubs and I had discussed at length, and thought that this would be a good age for him to have a “full-fledged” party with his schoolmates and friends.

The key to a good party? Is to get good people to run it. Haha… And I had some awesome help!

The venue: WowART Studios. The mayhem? 15 five-year-olds, and a multitude of canvases.

Yes! An ART party! We settled on using WowART for his birthday party, after thinking through options such as indoor playgrounds (but he wasn’t keen), and outdoor BBQs (shot down by Mummy), but the clincher was Jay himself – who is a huge fan of doing art!

Working with WowART was a breeze, and they had a variety of art classes for me to choose for the kids. I decided to leave the final decision to them, the experts, and only requested that it was canvas work.

The kids were first introduced to photos of fishes, where the teachers pointed out the lines and spots that made up the fishes, and the canvases were all lined up, each touching the other. I was wondering why there was no spacing in between each canvas – till the teachers got Jay to start on the masterpiece.

Guided by a teacher, Jay started painting a loooooong black wavy line across all the canvases!

Some of the parents were peeking in from outside the classroom, and like me, were pretty impressed by this cool idea.

  Full of focus, this one.

A few of his classmates also went around to draw more lines across the canvases.

And finally, each kid had a chance to work on his or her own canvas!

 

It was a mess of paints and a whole lot of conversation going on between the young budding artists, patiently guided by the art teachers.

All in all, it was a fun, fun, fun party!

More on the yummy food, cakes and the party packs in the coming days!

All photos courtesy of the talented Daniel Poh – and thankful for him and his awesome looking gear, that took these gorgeous photos and more (700+ to be exact!).

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Colors, lines, dots and more!

Jay went for a holiday art workshop at WOWArt Studios over the September school holidays, and in deciding which class to attend, I showed him some sample artworks to see if he’d prefer to do some craftwork or painting.

Now, his latest ambition is to be an artist, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that he chose to do painting – and opted to go for the Romero Britto class, which would be 2 hours long! I admit I was hesitant if he would be able to last the entire two hours, but to my surprise, he enjoyed himself so! My knowledge of art and artists is… sad, to say the least, and I think it is pretty cool for Jay to be exposed to this at such a young age!

Jay all ready and excited to enter his classroom!

Taken through the glass of the classroom door, as I try to peep at what he will be up to, without being spotted! Haha! Is it just me, or does your child also seem to behave better in class without your presence?

Jay spotted me eventually though, and excited puts up his half-done artwork. Hmm… looks okay so far, I thought, but not particularly impressive.

But THIS is his final artwork.

He admiring his piece of art.

Which now hangs proudly on our wall. His grandparents saw and were so impressed with it, they wanted to hang it at their home, to which my pleased little artist said no to, cos he wanted to see his artwork too! Haha!

Which once again brings me to ask that same nagging question… to start his art class again or not? :P 

Disclaimer: We were invited to attend a holiday art workship of our choice. No other compensation was received, and all opinions expressed are 100% my own.

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heART Studio review

Together with some other blogging mummies, I was invited to attend a trial lesson conducted by heART studio. It has been quite a while since Jay’s last art class, so needless to say, we were both ecstatic to go for the class, which took place over last weekend.

Cheerily painted, we were greeted with these masterpieces at the entrance.

The inside of the centre was as colorfully decorated!

For the one-hour trial class, the theme was flowers! Jay went to the 3-4 year-old Little Dali class, and each kid had to first paint the background of the canvas, and then choose if they wanted to paint a sunflower or a daisy. The kids used acrylic paints and crayons to put in the detailing.

It was a creative process for my little Picasso!

(Special thanks to Karen for sending me the above 2 photos – cos where was I? With the hubby and the young one at the nearby coffeehouse, enjoying some kopi and toast bread.)

And after just one hour, here’s Jay’s final masterpiece – which he was so happy to show me. It now hangs in our living room. :)

I was pretty impressed by the passion of the teachers and how they managed to teach in a way to allow even the younger kids to enjoy and create their own masterpieces!

Good news: For readers of SANses, you can enjoy a special 5% discount if you take up a term at heART studio (10 lessons at a time). Simply quote HSTSMB1 to enjoy this discount!

HeART Studio:

101 Soo Chow Walk Singapore 575385
Tel: (65) 6554 7563
Email: info@heartstudiosg.com
www.heartstudiosg.com

Disclaimer: We were invited to attend complimentary trial class, and all opinions expressed are 100% my own.

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The evolving dinosaur art

In the beginning, there was the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

And many, many, MANY variations of this fierce carnivore.

And just a week or so ago, he was learning all about shapes in school. And he created this masterpiece, using cut-out shapes in school.

(Photo lifted off the school’s email newsletter)

And he was on a ROLL. And on Friday, when my cell group meeting had ended, Jay took up some pieces of paper, and in under 10 minutes, came up with these.

An ankylosaurus (clue: the spikes on the back and rounded hammer tail).

 

A brachiosaurus (clue: long neck, crest on head and four toes).

T-Rex (with a neck!)

A pteranodon (with wings and a longish head)

A stegosaurus (with a small head and the plates on the back and spiked tail. Yeah, it looks like the ankylosaurus, but the devil is in the details!)

A triceratops! Love how he interpreted the frill of this dinosaur.

I was pretty blown away by his creativity… but this conversation we had on Sunday, on the way to church stunned me even more:

Daddy: Hey, Jay, do you want to tell Mummy what you told me just now? Remember, you told me that when you were 2 years old, you liked to put your feet inside the holes in the drains? And when I said I remembered you doing that, and asked you why, what did you say?

Jay: Hee hee… because I wanted to grow up to be a cheeky boy!

Daddy: Haha… And then he paused, and told me, “No no I want to be a palaeontologist now!”

We all had a good laugh at Jay’s cheekiness.

Jay: But Mummy…

Mummy: Yeah?

Jay: Don’t tell me to be anything else ok? I want to be a palaeontologist !

Mummy: Hahaha… Okay okay. So you don’t want to be a teacher or a policeman ya?

Jay: I want to be a palaeontologist.

Daddy: Though I’d like you to be a psychiatrist, okay… palaeontologist it is.

Jay smiles, pleased as punch.

~~~

For someone so young… it’s amazing he has his own mind… and can still tell us not to get him to do or be anything else! So I’m supporting Susan’s very first Motivational Monday – and this post is dedicated to the little fella who knows what he wants and ain’t no one going to tell him otherwise!

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Crafty Fun Week: Dinosaur Galore!

Art & Craft was my favourite subject in school!

To skip, sleep and snack.

*ahem*

So you see, I was pretty surprised that Jay loves art and crafting. In the spare time in school, he has scores of toys and friends to lead astray play with, and get this – he chooses to doodle and draw and practice his writing! There is probably no reason to his genius. Even at home, he would take out paper and draw something or proudly show off his Chinese strokes or his name in capital and initial caps (which he now realises is the way “big” people write names – to initial cap only the first letter).

So I am pretty handicapped in the arts department, but I figured Jay has enough arty genes for the both of us. And on a spur of a moment, I decided to take part in a blog hop party organized by the very talented (and arty and very funny) Alicia, from the Singapore Mum Bloggers group. It’s a 15-day challenge – and 15 different mummy bloggers will each take on a craft project. Hopefully this will inspire you to take on a project with your little one too!

(And if you see my project with Jay, you will see… If I can do it, ANYONE can do it! Hahaha…)

So what should I do? I had NO CLUE. But I did have these simple pre-requisites.

1. It needs to be simple.
2. It should probably have a dinosaur theme.
3. It needs to be simple.

Having said that, I searched for inspiration … but nothing like the last minute kicks my creative juices into Gear 1. *ahem* It was also unfortunate I was down with flu for the past many days, and in my flu-dazed state, it didn’t occur to me to actually prepare this, till… well, the last minute.

First, I was thinking of using these cute little things.

When I first brought them home, courtesy of Pamela, my domestic helper thought I had brought back a whole bag of keropok. These are packing peanuts – and no, they aren’t edible, but simple enough to make craft with!

Or so I thought.

With just a dab of water, these peanuts will stick to each other, and so technically you can create some pretty nice structures. Like these.

Jay was so pleased with the packing peanuts, and especially when he managed to form the letter “J” with it!

We tried making a Stegosaurus and a Brachiosaurus together.

 

When it became very CLEAR we needed more practice, Mummy made an executive decision to leave the packing peanuts and we decided to go back to the drawing block. Literally.

I took a cardboard box, tore it up, and gave Jay a marker and told him to draw something so we could cut up and colour. Within a few minutes, he drew the outline of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and I passed it on to Daddy to cut it out!

Ta-da! Here’s Jay bringing his new friend out for a short walk.

And if you think it looks pretty familiar, yes, you have seen it before! He has this dino drawing down pat.

Armed with some brand new acrylic paints and brushes I bought from Art Friend, Jay got painting! (I only managed to buy 2 bottles… cos they cost $10 EACH, and I didn’t have enough cash… Hahaha!) But these are nontoxic paints, and dries so easily, and Jay adores them, so I have a feeling I’ll be getting a few more bottles soon!

And off he went!

Jay had a very clear idea how his T-Rex would turn out, and told me he wanted to do stripes! And I didn’t even help him except to squeeze out more paint upon request. But the acrylic paint was nice and thick and covered the cardboard well, so he didn’t have much complaints.

Remember the “J”-shaped packing peanut? Jay decided to paint it purple, and I used a dollop of the acrylic paint to “glue” it in place.

Ta-do! Meet Jay’s very own Patternosaurus! Of course after he stuck the “J” on, he proclaimed it to be a Jaygantosaurus.

I am so happy & proud my crafty little boy managed to whip something out and save his poor mummy. If you enjoyed laughing at my art-ineptness this post, I promise you will LOVE the really talented other mummy bloggers. We will be posting one a day till 5 July 2012.

What you missed out on

• Alicia & her Eric Carle-inspired artwork &
• Adeline & using polymer clay to decorate a photo frame

Coming Up Next!

Winnie is a FTWM to a pair of girl and boy, aged two years and four months respectively. She home teaches and is a firm believer of play and the great outdoors. She shares her parenting and home teaching adventures at http://toddlymummy.blogspot.com.

She will be making a train from recycled materials with her two year-old girl!

Don’t forget to check out her creation tomorrow (Sat, 24 June)

 

Over the next 2 weeks, these mummy bloggers listed below will feature their creative pieces too! Please hop on over to get some inspiration! :)

June 25 - Susan @ http://www.ajugglingmom.com/
June 26 - Ann @ http://beautifulrevelry.com/
June 27 - Justina @ http://makingmum.blogspot.com/
June 28 - Adora @ http://www.gingerbreadmum.blogspot.com/
June 29 - Regina @ http://www.reginamoo.blogspot.com/
June 30 - Sarah @ http://www.theplayfulparents.com/
July 1 - Jennifer @ http://augdinoegg.blogspot.com/
July 2 - Pamela @ http://tanfamilychronicles.blogspot.com/
July 3 - Ming Yuan @ http://blog.mybabyfootsteps.com/
July 4 - Dominique @ http://dominiquegoh.com/
July 5 - Karen @ http://littlejazzelle.blogspot.com

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