Why we started Pikiko
Our founder kept noticing the same two things about how children spend their week. Too much of it is spent looking at a screen. And too much of the rest is spent being measured.
Children are tested on reading. They are tested on mathematics. Almost none of their week is spent making something with their hands, at their own pace, with nobody marking it.
Pikiko was built to be that hour. Not another subject, not another assessment, and not another app. Sixty minutes a week where children put the screen down, pick up something soft and colourful, and make a thing that exists in the real world.
The learning is there, and it is deliberate. Children practise their hands, their focus, their patience and their ability to follow a sequence through to a finished object. They pick up facts about animals, places, science and culture along the way. But they experience it as the best hour of the week, not as a lesson.
And they do it together
Thirty children around a table, comparing what they are making, asking to borrow the green, showing each other how they did the ears. Nobody competing, nobody being ranked.
For a lot of children that shared, unhurried hour turns out to be the most sociable part of their school week — and it is the part teachers tell us they notice first.
The method behind it
Pikiko is a new programme in Malaysia, operated by Atas Mindset Sdn Bhd. The teaching method behind it is not new — it was developed by art teachers, educators and art therapists experienced in how young children learn, around one simple structure: discover, create, imagine, celebrate.
Every instructor completes thorough professional training before their first class, and all come from a background in teaching, instruction or working with children.
Pikiko is a creative enrichment programme. It is not a therapy or a treatment, and we make no clinical claims.
The whole year, planned before it starts
We do not write Pikiko lessons week by week. The entire year is designed, sequenced and written before the first class of the term.
That means we can show you the whole plan in advance — every week’s subject, every project, and how the difficulty builds from the first session to the last. Ask for it when you book your demo and you can see exactly what your children will be making in week 3, week 20 and week 35 before you commit to anything.
That is the difference between a programme and a series of activities.
What you can see in advance
- Every week’s subject, in order, for the full year
- The project children build each week
- How projects grow harder across the three terms
- Which weeks align with school holidays and celebrations
- The alternative non-figurative project for each week, where your school prefers it
Shared as a written plan you can take to your committee or your parents.
How we build a Pikiko lesson
Every lesson passes six tests before it reaches a classroom.
Educational
What can children discover through this project?
Creative
Which technique will they practise?
Developmental
Is the level right for this age group?
Classroom
Does it work with thirty children and one instructor?
Progressive
Does it build on what they did before?
Imaginative
Where can children make it their own?