Charity Bazaar of Love
For this year, our centre collaborated with the Down Syndrome Association (Singapore) in a fund raising project in conjunction with our open house to tie in the with ECDA’s ...
Curriculum
The center adopts an integrated curriculum, which places equal emphasis on all six domains. Since the center only has nursery and pre-nursery classes, less emphasis is placed on concrete knowledge, and more emphasis is placed on developing the child holistically through hands on activities and other activities. The aim of the curriculum is to expose the students to as much as they can absorb and to teach them to take instructions in preparation for the move to K1.
The students are exposed to a wide variety of activities, including cookery classes. Cookery lessons are in term 2 where the theme is food, and students get to cook simple things like pizza and porridge. This helps make them more independent and obedient as they learn to follow instructions but do everything else by themselves (with teacher supervision of course). This is good experiential learning for students as they can participate in activities they usually would not be able to do at home.
Learning environment
The center is very bright and cheery, due to the presence of many windows and light fixtures, and classrooms are open and wide, allowing for open space and for student movement. Also, at the end of the center, there is a loft. This loft will be decorated accordingly to the different learning corners for different times of the year and is also furnished according to different themes, such as the home corner or a supermarket, where the dry and wet food areas are divided. This aims to increase interaction between students and teachers as they come together to do role play and make the place come alive, and also to increase the students’ vocabulary as they learn new words concerning the new environment. It also enhances the learning environment, making it more real and convincing, and also makes the student use his or her creativity to enjoy the loft.
The center also constructed a new gym recently, to add to the facilities that the students enjoy. Gym classes will be conducted there.
Community collaborations and special events
The students go on learning journeys (LJs) to various places around the neighborhood as well as around the country to explore their environment. These places include the nearby zebra crossings to teach students road safety; to the supermarket and wet market to teach them where food is bought; and on various LJs with their parents to the zoo and weekend farm, and other places.
The center also has a collaboration program with the National Library where students get to go to the library on a guided tour and to listen to story telling sessions by the library staff, and all students are issued their library cards to encourage them to borrow books from the library and to encourage them to have a love for reading. Tetrapak also installed a tetrapak drink carton recycling can in the center to promote a greener environment and the 3Rs.
Parents are also invited down for special events such as Occupation Week, various ethnic festivities, Parent Teacher Conferences and others. For every festival or occasion, there is no class and the teachers throw a party for the students to teach them about the customs of the culture and the ethnic group celebrating the festival, as well as common customs and the students come dressed in traditional garb, promoting cultural and heritage awareness.
