Money doesn't grow on trees

Money management skill is a key life skill that all parents need to teach their children. It is never too early to teach a child about money and the process can be made easy, fun and enjoyable for both the parent and child.

As a start, an introduction of a few key money values are important for the child to understand that money doesn't grow on trees but something that they would need to (earn), save, spend and share wisely. While money is important, it is not everything - not everything can be bought with money, and/ or need to be bought with money.

Are there really anything that is free these days? Perhaps not. However, a mini barter trade game could help a child to better understand the need and use of money with ease and fun.

Barter trade is a form of goods and services exchange in the absence of money in the olden days so why do we still need to teach it? This concept remains very relevant and important but instead of cashless trade, it is now more commonly seen in the new form of cross promotion, marketing or business collaboration.

So, why not have some fun teaching your child about money by first showing him/ her how a barter system can work out to be an amazing, fun and wondrous deal? Check out this link at - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-395132/Man-trades-paperclip-house.html. Have a go at your own mini barter trade game too for a more "hands-on" learning experience!

And yes, teaching children about money can interesting and enjoyable - this is but one of the many creative, easy to learn and fun ideas that Numis Academy offers in its financial literacy programs for children.

Details can be found in the link here.

Is Edutainment Effective for Learning?

Image extracted from telegraph.co.uk

With fast advancing technology and increasing pace of life, multi-sensory gadgets and digital contents are not uncommon. To attract and capture the attention of today’s children, education methods and materials have also evolved to be more fun and enjoyable.


The term “Edutainment", an integration of education and entertainment, is said to be in used as earlier as in the 1940s. Classic edutainment will be the TV programmes by Sesame Street, Electric Company etc that teach topics like Math, Science, using fun music and dance to aid memory and learning.


In fact, edutainment remains popular in the present, as seen not only through TV programmes, but including a wide variety of multimedia products, live shows, games and toys by Barney & Friends, Thomas & Friends, Bob the Builder and more.


No doubt that learning while playing or having fun is great, but does edutainment really helps in the development of a child? Research suggests that humor produces psychological and physiological benefits that help students learn. Humor enhances otherwise dull statistical methodology by tapping into students' multiple intelligences and learning styles in a way that forces them to think in divergent and real-life ways. (Reference: How laughing leads to learning by Zak Stambor, American Psychological Association)


While an educator’s job is to educate and not to entertain, if the programs can be designed to be fun, interactive and enjoyable, everyone benefits at the end with easy teaching and happy learning. At Numis Academy, all of our programs are specially designed to be fun and interactive, so that the students can relax in a comfortable learning environment, which in turn will help boost their interest, participation and focus.

Boosting Creativity & Innovation

Can you connect the 9 dots using four straight lines without lifting your pencil/ pen from the paper?

To succeed in doing so, get creative and try thinking beyond the normal ways of doing things.

What exactly is creativity? Is there a difference between creativity and innovation? Dictionary.com explains creativity as the ability to think beyond the traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships etc to create meaningful new ideas, methods and so on. Whereas innovation refers to the introduction of new things or methods.


New ideas, improvements and problems solving come much easier with creativity and innovativeness. Therefore, it is not uncommon that more focus is placed on helping to boost a child's creativity and innovativeness. One good example of creativity is a common urban legend whereby NASA scientists realised that pens could not function in space.


This is because the ink could not flow to the writing tip without gravity. To help the astronauts write things down, NASA spent huge amount of time and money trying to develop a pen. However, the more creative Russians managed to solve this problem easily and almost effortlessly... by simply using a pencil! (Reference: scientificamerican.com)


How can we help breed creativity and innovativeness in a child? One of the good ways will be to guide the child to "think outside" the box, such as:


   * adding new features - e.g. from music player, camera etc to a multi functional smart phone
   * deleting current features - e.g. from telephone to wireless mobile phone
   * making it bigger - e.g. from folded sofa armchair expanded to be a full-size sofa bed
   * making it smaller - e.g. from bulky computer to portable laptop


As a children enrichment programs provider, Numis Academy understands the importance of building these two very important qualities into its programs. With the same beliefs and principles, Numis Academy also develops its own creative games and innovative programs.


Now, have you gotten your answers right? :)

Acquiring Information, Knowledge & Wisdom

In today's well connected world, technology may have increased our level and ease of connectivity with people but has it also increased our depth of interaction and real communication with personal touch? Similarly, we can get information about almost anything, anywhere and anytime by just pressing a few buttons on our smart phones, tablets and/ or computers. Ironically, there are still reports and feedback that our new and young generations are slowly degenerating into a bunch passive individuals or worse still, unthinking passive lot. What has happened? And why has it happened?

With advancing and fast changing technology, new gadgets that kept appearing in the market, as well as easy online search and access, it is inevitable that we may get a sense of “false" good feeling that we can learn new things, check out information or have the power to find out everything under the sun at a simple touch of our fingertips. This perceived power of being able to obtain information has slowed down the need to acquire more and/ or retain information, but created a superficial understanding of a topic and believing of information without verification. 

With almost everyone capable of writing and posting information onto the web or social media for sharing, there is so much information that are “pushed” to us that we are facing a problem of information overload. This makes it difficult for one to sieve out the truths. Given our fast pace society, we get impatient when information is slow. It is also easier for one to accept and choose to believe in information that comes across closer to one’s beliefs as truths, rather than spending the time and effort on more research. Humans tend to have a herd mentality hence, even the untruths, when spread by many, may become the “truths".

To ensure healthy progression and growth of our new and young generations, it is crucial to first understand the difference between Information, Knowledge & Wisdom. 

From there, it is also important that parents and educators pass down the right information, teachings and beliefs. So, what exactly is Information, Knowledge & Wisdom, and what comes first? 

The first level that comes first should be Information - knowledge obtained about someone or something : facts or details about a subject. This is followed by Knowledge - facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. Lastly comes Wisdom - the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.

In conclusion, checking for accuracy and verification of data to acquire the right Information takes time and effort. This, is Knowledge gained by those who go down this path. It is with great knowledge that comes with Wisdom. 

See the World Through the Eyes of Our Children

How often have we heard exclamations that "We never used to behave like that while we were young!" or "The kids these days are just so different from our times!" and so on. The way that the adults see the world today can be very different from the way the children see it, and age or experience are just one of the few factors.

Seeing through the eyes of an adult & a child
In an example of an adult who is is born in the 70s and and currently aged around 30s-40s,  he is likely to see the world as a well connected village and yet where people may feel more distant from one another as communication is more via online than face-to-face interaction. To him, playing with friends means meeting up physically for a game of sports like basketball or football. 

In an example of a child, he may not find spending long hours online as anything unusual and may even prefer electronic face-to-face communication in the comfort of his own home. He will probably consider chatting with his friends via google hangout, messaging them on twitter or whatsapp a means of "hanging out" and "communicating" with them. To him, playing with friends means meeting up electronically for a game of football via mobile or computer games.

Generation Gap
The above phenomenon is also commonly known as the generation gap. For adults who are currently aged around 50s-60s, they would probably felt the same way with those who are now in their 30s-40s. In addition to age and experience, changes in environment, technological advancement as well as education will impact on the degree of differences of how the world is seen through the eyes of the adults and children.

When tuned to think in differently, it is inevitable that the children will also behave differently and sometimes, even far from what the adults may expect. The link below is a video that has gone viral recently. It shows a secondary school boy asking  his teacher to apologise for raising his voice.

While there were some supporters for the boy, there were also net citizens who think that he is too manipulative of the situation, and that his body language displayed strong signs of defiance towards authority.


Bridging the Gap
While the above situation seems worrying, generation gap is nothing but psychological and emotional gap between parents / elder people and the younger ones. It is important for the adults/ parents to try to be current and updated with information and technologies, make friends, listen and make it a point to communicate effectively with an open mindset and heart, be willing to accept new things, as well as to stay close to help mould the good behaviour and attitude in the children.

Important Development in the Games of Skill

It is not uncommon these days to hear complaints from the parents that their children are glued to playing games all the times. 

There were also concerns and studies that examine the social and mental development of the children who play long hours of games. 

Is playing games detrimental or can it actually be of any benefits to the development in the children?

Games of Skill
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Games of Skill refers the use of skill in a game to determine the outcome, rather than due to chance.

How Does Games of Skill Helps In The Development of Children

Playing the right games, and playing them right can actually help enhance multiple areas of development in the children.  These include:

• Character - Patience, Discipline, Confidence, Integrity and Sportsmanship

• Social - Playing, interacting and learning from other players

• Awareness - Analytical and Decision making skills

• Brain Development - Creativity in overcoming hurdles, thinking out of the box, strategy planning, critical thinking as well as deductive reasoning skills and more

What Are The Typical Games of Skill?

In the tabletop game genre, typical games of skills can be developed via playing Chess, Go, Bridge and more. These are games that people have been playing for decades. 

On card games like Poker,  Mahjong and Big 2 (a game more commonly found in Asia), there are still varied views and arguments if they can are considered as games of skill. 

An interesting note is that in Germany, Poker is considered legally, to be a game of chance and is only allowed in casinos. 

As there are more recognition and awareness of the importance and impact that games of skill has on the development of children, there is an upward trend of new educational games developed in the market. 

One of more recent games being developed include the Math Game Plan by Numis Academy, a  game that integrates a strategy tabletop game into Mathematics learning for children. 

Photo courtesy of kotaku.com.au

In recent years, there is also another electronic sports game genre with game of skills that is fast gaining recognition, even from organizations and government around the world (Link). 

Some popular examples are the Starcraft and Street Fighter series. 

The iconic player in the Street Fighter series is Daigo Umehara, whose feats in tournaments has even been recorded into the World Guinness Book of Records (Link). 

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