In conjunction with the Mid-Authum Festival, the facilitators in Breakthru Enrichment Station once again taught the children how to make mooncakes during the gourmet class on 26th August (Thursday). This time they were making the jelly mooncakes. The children were encouraged to explore their hands on making the jelly by mixing the sugar water with raw liquid jelly before inserting the readymade filling into it. It must be a fascinating experience for the children.
There are basically 3 ways to learn how to accomplish a task during the session.
1. By listening to the instructions on how to do it (oral instruction) for auditory learner
2. By watching the teacher or instructor doing it for visual learner
3. By doing it (direct involvement) for kinesthetic learner
Children will learn something by listening. They will learn more by watching. But they learn the most when they try their hands on doing it themselves. Again, their products may not be perfect but they gain the most knowledge and experience by doing it and the experience of doing it will be retained in their memory for a long time.
So getting the children to be directly involved in the learning process is crucial. However, in almost all learning situations there are children who have hyperactivity and those who are withdrawn and passive. But the facilitators in the gourmet class were doing a great job in ensuring that the overeager children were appropriately handled and the passive ones were encouraged and prompted to take part in the process by taking turn to do it.
One effective way I observe the facilitator did to encourage children who were hyperactive by inviting them to fold their arms, breathe and count to 10 as a way to get them to wait for their turn to take part in the activities. I found it interesting because I saw that even my restless son Tristan was willing to do this and wait for his turn to get involved in the learning process. Indeed Breakthru Enrichment Station not only staffed by facilitator who are devoted to the children but are equipped with necessary skills to help the children in the whole learning process.
