Having Fun At Gymnademics

If you follow me on Instagram or on my Facebook Page, you might have seen some pictures of Naomi in action at Gymnademics.

I’ll be honest and say that I hadn’t heard of Gymnademics until they approached Naomi and I to try their classes. I was immediately keen since my little girl is very active and has a fondness for gym activities. However, I was surprised to learn that Gymnademics is affiliated to The Institutes For The Achievement Of Human Potential (“IAHP”) in Philadelphia, USA, the founders of which include Glenn Doman and other prominent pioneers of early child brain researchers and clinicians. Gymnademics is in fact the first and only affiliate in Singapore.

I had certainly heard of Glenn Doman. The baby flashcard guru, as I know him. But what does he have to do with a gym?

As it turns out, as part of his research, Glenn Doman discovered that there is a connection between being physically active and brain development. His belief is that the physical condition of a child is foundational to brain development and the formation of learning capabilities. This is the premise on which all the programmes at Gymnademics are based.

Naomi’s attending the Pre-Fellow course for 1-2 year-olds. We are just past the half-way mark in our term and she sure is enjoying it. 

Each weekly 1hr 15min session includes a dizzying array of activities. Here are some of the things we do:

Flashcards 

The famous flashcards are part of the curriculum, naturally. There is a theme each month and the children are taught different words related to the theme. The flashcards are also used in various segments, like during the story time and when singing the song for the day. They are also used in the Chinese segment and music appreciation, which I discuss below.

Teacher Ellie running through some of the words for the week

Gym activities

There are plenty of these interspersed between the learning segments. The obstacle course is probably the first thing you will notice when you enter the classroom. There is a slightly different set-up each week, designed to make the children practice their crawling, balancing and jumping skills.

Through the tunnel!

Climb Naomi climb!

There is also one of Naomi’s favourite segments of class — to swing on the trapeze! The first time she saw another classmate swinging on the trapeze, she got scared and completely refused to touch it. But being a girl who loves hanging off monkey bars (and yes, showing off her death grip), she couldn’t resist in the end, and once she tried it, she was hooked!

Here she is, holding on all by herself for 15 counts, before swinging

Why do this, you might  ask? One thing I’ve learnt about Gymnademics is that EVERYTHING has a reason. Hanging from the bar increases the child’s lung capacity, allowing her to take in more oxygen, and more oxygen to the brain improves her learning capability. Also, it strengths her grip, which is a motor skill necessary for writing later.

The children are also taught a gym skill of the week. It’s quite fun practicing this at home!

Naomi doing an assisted candle stand.

Parachute time is another of Naomi’s favourites. After a couple of weeks, she was able to follow along independently as we made the circle “big, big, big” and “small, small, small”, and go “up, up, up” and “down, down, down”. 

Wanting to “do it own self!”, as she loves to say.

Art & Craft

Right after parachute time, and after the children are done with the story for the day, the Mystery Box comes out with the Art & Craft activity of the day. I use this term loosely as the activities involved have been very varied. Aside from craft of the gluing and sticking variety, we’ve also had a sorting activity, some sensorial activities involving play clay, and one week when we were on the theme of transport, we stuck on parts of a cardboard car. Naomi loved this and to this day, when she sees the cardboard cars high up on the shelves in the classroom, she’ll point to it excitedly and ask me to take it down.

What’s inside the mystery box? This week it was a sorting activity.

Sticking on the triangle taillights for the cardboard car

Music appreciation

In addition to plenty of songs and singing, there is also a segment where the children are taught to sing solfege (ie. Do-Re-Mi), and recognise the song of each note. The bells and musical instruments come out to play for this one. Flashcards with the musical notation, as well as the words for the sofege syllables are used.

Fruit Relay

Transferring fruit, piece by piece. Though I notice now that Naomi tried to cheat and took two!

In this activity, the children are asked to run up and down along a mat, transferring plastic fruit from one basket to another at the other end. This is a really interesting one because for a while, I couldn’t figure out what the purpose of this was! Neither could Naomi, seeing as the first time she was asked to do this, she stopped after a while and carried the whole basket of fruit to the empty one and dumped it all in. I was quite tickled by her problem solving skills!

But in actual fact, the activity is designed to get the kids moving and get oxygen circulating to the brain, as well as improve the children’s ability to run in a straight line.

Chinese

There is a short segment in Chinese just before class ends. The children run through the words of the week in Chinese, with the pictures. 

So as you can see, there’s lots packed into the whole session!

I’m sure the obvious question that must be running through your head is: “Surely an hour once a week is hardly meaningful enough to allow the children to learn any words or develop their physical skills?” And you are right. So one of the unique things about Gymnademics courses is that home learning is encouraged for you to really see results, and this is supported by a home-learning package that is e-mailed to parents every week.

Let me tell you — the package is huge! There are soft-copies of the flashcards used, featuring the words of the week in English and in Chinese, together with the accompanying pictures, and the lyrics to songs and rhymes. On top of that, there is a selection of further learning/art and craft activities related to the theme of the month that you can do with your child to enhance the benefit he/she will derive from the programme. I will share a bit more about the home learning activities in my next post that should be coming up shortly.

So what’s our review of the sessions so far? 

For Naomi it’s straight and simple — the classes get her stamp of approval. She took a while to get comfortable and familiar with the routine before she started enjoying herself. Her recent illness has taken her backwards a little bit but I’m sure she will settle down again quickly. She likes to sing “Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do!”, also because Gor-gor is doing it at home, plus the few times I was more diligent with following through with the learning at home, she definitely showed more progress in adding to her vocabulary. I think I’ve not been doing enough to really help her to read. (Oops!)

For me, as a parent, I have to admit that the first couple of weeks were pretty overwhelming. But once I started getting more familiar with the order of the activities, and understanding the reason why certain things were done a certain way, I too started appreciating the classes better. One of the things they believe at Gymnademics is that the classes are a time for the parent and child to bond and learn together, and that is something I believe too. The teachers, especially the principal instructor of the school, Teacher Selene, are all lovely people who are eager to share their knowledge of Glenn Doman’s methods and encourage the children in their learning journey.

If there is anything that I think could be improved, it would be to incorporate more Chinese into the class if it is to be meaningful. Perhaps the intention is for this to be strengthened through home learning, but I personally feel it might be useful to also give the children more exposure to the language in class. Also, I would love it if the teachers explained more about the purpose and benefits of each activity as they put the children through their paces. Perhaps there isn’t really enough time for all that, given all that we have to cover! But I always feel so enlightened when I ask a question about the curriculum and receive an explanation in return. It always makes me more enthusiastic to put Naomi through her paces and follow up with her on it at home!

Naomi’s still got a number of lesson to go before the end of term, and I’ll give you an update on that when she gets there. In the meantime, do look out for my updates on Instagram and on my Facebook Page.

I’ll also be back soon with a post on home learning and a giveaway of trial class passes, so do check back here soon!

Update: Gymnademics Update + Trial Class Giveaway

Gymnademics

SAFRA Toa Payoh 
293 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh #02-01 
Singapore 319387
Tel: 6259 0307 | 8518 7910 | 9651 9331
Website: www.gymnademics.com
Email: info@gymnademics.com

You can check out their Facebook Page to learn more about their classes and see kids in action.

* Naomi was invited by Gymnademics to try their class for the purpose of writing a series of reviews. (I’m the one writing the reviews, naturally, not her!) All opinions expressed herein are strictly my own and are based on my own observations as well as information provided by Gymnademics.