Our very own Growing Me Books

Written by: Ayu Norma

It was one of the most rewarding feelings when I finished compiling these books. I love the artwork used to create coloring pages, puzzles and other activities. I love artwork that tell stories, true artwork created by true people and I have a vision that our children activity books should be full of beautiful artwork - real pieces. Drawings that move them, inspire them and cherish individuality.

The idea of creating this 'Growing Me' book started with the dullness of using the regular computer graphic drawn worksheets that were usually printed or photocopied and given to the children one or two pages a day. And the result at the end of the school term is a pile of papers, not quite easy to organize and store. So there you go point one. And why are they called the 'Growing Me' book is because the book's focus is about the children. It's a journal of the child's everyday life during their time spent at school and also as their art portfolio. At the moment we have 3 different books, one for each age group. The books are completed with a skills milestone list, developed according to the child's age group, which the teachers can always refer to. This is just a general guideline in child's development - point number two.

There's also a page for recording the children's height and weight measurements. This activity is conducted by ManuWaluya, an independent health service that also runs our edu heallth programme for our 3 to 6 year old groups. They are brilliant! The children play games and do activities that also get them thinking about how our body needs healthy food and what healthy foods are.

I love the children's silhouette on this growth chart. Thank you Charlotte from Simplymadescrapbooks.

I love this new concept of coloring page. I've always thought the regular black and white coloring page is extremely uninspiring and sometimes even limiting. I like how this combination of artwork and free space for putting in your own drawings or colors turned out.

The Growing Me book also contains a page about the child's favourite activities at home that we'll ask parents to fill and put in comments . We'd like to build a healthy communication between school and home. The Growing Me book will be sent home every two weeks for you to have a look and enjoy. This book is designed for children who join five days per week, so if there are some uncompleted pages just ask the teachers how you can cover them at home.

Some of this artwork is ours, but some are not. A full list of credits for artists are available in the centre.