MINNESOTA BABY: Centre stage school of the arts.

Before Linna starts nursery school in January, and before we head back to Minnesota for a visit in November, I signed us up for some classes at Centre Stage School of the Arts in Singapore. It's a cute little school not far from our condo (on Woking Rd.), and they have a Play Stage class on Monday mornings that is imagination and theater-based learning for little ones. Every Monday morning for an hour and a half, Teacher Owen leads the moms and kids in songs, arts and craft projects, dancing, and imagination games and activities. Teacher Owen is AMAZING, and is like a real-life Drop Dead Fred (remember him from the movie?). He's is always "on", is so incredibly funny, lively, and the children LOVE him!

Every class is taught around a specific topic, letter, and color. One day we learned about submarines and other things that start with the letter "S", and another day we learned all about diggers (I think we call these "bulldozers" in America). Teacher Owen does such a great job leading the kids on an imagination journey during class. One day, the kids helped Teacher Owen drive a bus, and fill a hole in the road with their diggers and shovels. No actual props are used during these activities... Only the children's' imaginations! It's so cute. The kids play in sand boxes, in water tables, have snack time, and before we know it the class is over! Our class was very popular with the Aussie moms in Singapore, and I had a great time getting to know some of them in the short time we were taking classes.

Centre Stage also has dance, music, and acting classes for children as young as six months. They have classes for adults too. We attended classes at the Woking Rd. school, but they also have a school on the East Coast of Singapore, where most of their dance classes for little kids are held. Hopefully, if Linna isn't too tuckered out from attending half-day nursery school when we return from the US in January, I'd love to get her signed up from some dance classes at Centre Stage. We both had so much fun, and can't wait to go back!