12.6.11: Visit to Ivan's Eco Farm

At the invitation from one of the committee members from the Aloka Rainbow Kids group, we made a visit to Ivan Ho's Eco Farm in Gombak. A group of children and parents came along.

Our arrival was greeted by the geese who approached us curiously. 

We observed fungus growing on the side of a rotten log.

Eating their breakfast

Lizard

Ripened bittergourd 

The boys loved to play with the 'shy' 'semalu' plant and get it to close by touching it with a stick

This bee flitted from flower to flower. I wonder what the name of this pink flower is. 

Can you spot the bee?

We managed to attract the gaggle of geese from afar and they came waddling through the mud to honk at us. After awhile they got tired of honking at us, and became quiet. When another person passed by the place, the started honking again. 

S and E drawing vehicles.

After being in the sun for some time, the boys got tired and went to rest under the shade. They took out their sketch books and drew vehicles. A 5-year old girl saw my 4+ year old son's drawing a vehicle and said,"It is nice, but ...not so nice". A 9-year old boy said, "It is ugly". I thought to myself, "They are so young, and have already started to judge. Why do young children learn to judge? Who teaches them to judge? Who are we to judge anyway? My guess is that it starts from the parents. Whenever the children show their parent's their drawings, their parent(s) would say, "It's nice. It's ugly, it's not good enough, etc, etc." I think parent's shouldn't judge their children's drawings. What is ugly to a person may be nice in someone else's eyes. After all, art is relative and there are so many styles to draw something. Judging also makes the child feel inadequate and the child may not want to attempt, if their attempt to draw is met with negative comments.

The 5-year old girl looked at the drawing and said, "This is not correct. There is no such thing as round windows." (on vehicles). My boy said: "There is. The other day, I sat in an aeroplane. An aeroplane has round windows". 

I remember many years ago, when my hubby and I facilitated a camp for students and we asked them to draw a card of appreciation for their parents. A 9-year old boy drew a card for his mother and when he gave it to her, his mother took one look at it, and all she said was, "You spelt this word wrongly" and gave the card back to him. The poor boy was so disappointed, I'm sure his heart was crushed that day.