These past years we involved our Toddler, Pre-Nursery and Nursery Students to our SSDB Project with the theme “Learn from our Past, Dream of our Future”. This project will focus on promoting an appreciation of the nation’s heritage through nature, cultural diversity and marine life from May to July 2019. Our children will be involved in giving back to the community in their own ways by using their creativity and resources. The annual project encourages our children to build a kind and inclusive society, while gaining teaching values like care and compassion.
Class: Toddler (Joy)
“Little Ambassadors keeping our Toa Payoh Heritage clean”
The main goal of the project was to in calculate values of keeping our Toa Payoh Heritage clean. It allows them to be responsible and appreciative towards the environment they are living in. Our Toddlers were given more exposure in how to maintain cleanliness to our surroundings. Discussions by the teachers and children were conducted to create awareness on how and what they can do to maintain cleanliness in public. Then, a trip to Toa Payoh Sensory Park gave them more impact and understanding on keeping the surroundings clean and safe for everyone.
Children brought plastic bags to collect trashes in the neighbourhood. They cleared out litters that were found on the floor. Some of the places they have cleared were playgrounds, pavements and park. Litters were either disposed in recycled bins or brought into classroom for their art activities.
The children’s act of kindness continued after the activity they will pick up trashes they see each time they go out for a walk in the neighbourhood. This has become a daily habit for the children and they enjoy doing it. In their simple little ways, they help to maintain their community clean.
Class: Pre-Nursery
Recycling is a learning experience for the future. Teaching children to care for the environment is a learning experience that is an important part of growing up. It gives them skills in respect, empathy, patience, responsibility, and teaches them about consequences. But it also teaches them valuable lessons about sustainability and how we want to leave the world for future generations. Showing children how to recycle properly is like passing the baton to them for a cleaner and brighter future.
“Making Little Changes for our Future Generation”
From May to July 2019 we launched our SSDB Project “Learn from our past, dream of our future”. The main goal of this project is to assimilate the power of recycling in our daily lives at an early age. Creating Awareness in children on what they can do so that fishes and turtles will be able to swim in crystal clear water and not within plastic bags were taught in class.
The N1 children were introduced to the different types of tissue rolls.
They shared and discussed the harmful effects of the tissue rolls to environment, oceans and humans if tissue rolls were not recycled. Children brainstormed on the things that they can make from tissue rolls and decided upon making binoculars for their neighbourhood walk every morning.
In addition, children learnt some Math Concepts (tall, short, small and big) using the materials found.
“Shakers” was another item they have discussed and made for their music and movement. Children used green beans and beads in making their own shakers.
Class: Nursery 2 Love
Our young generation are able to enjoy the beautiful Singapore due to the time, efforts and contributions by our pioneers and Merdeka generation. Students of N2 Love were brought to the different parks in Singapore to learn and appreciate the greenery. Values of treating the greenery with respect and love were created for the children through arts.
Creating a miniature of a real-life structure. We may be small but we can do big things to contribute in loving our Singapore in our own way. We worked together in small groups to create a mini pagoda that can be seen in Chinese Garden with the following some reusable materials.
Class: K1 (Honesty)
For the virtual launch of Start Small Dream Big project which has a theme of ‘Learn from the Past, Dream for our Future!’, our K1s class was involved in the meaningful activities such as making a book on Saving the Earth, doing kind acts inside and outside home cum filling up ‘Jar of Kindness’ with recycled materials, and visiting Fort Canning to experience Bicentennial.
To impart to children how people can show love and care to the Earth, they were read a story titled ’10 Things on How to Save the World’. Apart from the ideas that they know, K1s were able to have additional knowledge about other and various ways how they can take participation in caring for the environment at an early age. This book has made them love our planet ‘Earth’ more and instilled good values in them like caring, loving, and discipline.
’20 Things How I Can Do to Help my World’
Like Melanie Walsh who is the author of the book, K1s also became little authors who made a simple book where they drew illustrations on how they can help save the world. During class discussion, each shared what they do at home and in school to contribute something good to the Earth. ‘I will switch off lights when I do not use it’, ‘I will continue to recycle things at home’, ‘I will walk to school’ are the ways they mentioned. These were some of the contents of their book which was made the next day in the class. Keeping in mind that the book they are to create will be for Mother Earth, they did their best to make beautiful drawings. They coloured their work and wrote a simple sentence on each page. To understand what their drawing is about, teacher engaged them in a show-and-tell session.
Singing ‘Save My World’
Another fun experience that K1s did was singing the ‘Save My World’ song. This extended activity opened their minds that there is something wrong in our society now that needs a change. In order to make that change, they have understood that not only adult can take part but also them, children who can give a helping hand to save the world.
Our Jar of Kindness 🙂
Kind Acts Done In and Outside Home 😊
For parental- involvement, we got our K1 parents to help children inculcate positive values like ‘kindness’ and ‘recycling’ at home . In a month, K1s initiated to do kind acts/show kindness in and outside home, and at school too. Each time they show a good deed, they put a tangible recycled item into their jar. Labelled with ‘Dream for our Future, Spread the Kindness!’, children had shown how they care for future and put into application what KINDNESS is by collecting as many reusable items as they can. During another show-and-tell session, an opportunity was given to all to tell whole class different of kind acts they did from day 1 to day 31.
Common Kind Acts that K1s shared during Show-and-Tell:
• I helped my brother keep his toys.
• I fixed my bed on my own.
• I folded laundry with my sister.
• I shared toys with friends in school.
• I helped teacher to hold the door.
• I helped my daddy take his medicine.
K1s Bicentennial Experience 🙂
On 26 July, K1s went to Fort Canning for excursion to experience ‘Bicentennial’. Exploring the place brought them back in time where they discovered key moment and witnessed defining events unfold in Singapore’s transformation from as far back during 1299.
Time Traveller is a multimedia sensory experience that was explored by children in which they got to watch a 60-minute multimedia show that presents experience of Singapore’s history across more than 700 years. On the other hand, an outdoor area at Pathfinder made K1s learning journey more enjoyable because it gave them a unique experience exploring around sets of pavilions with interactive elements.
Class: K2 Unity
“Our History: Singapore”
On 1st July 2019, the K2 class launched the project Start Small Dream Big with the theme of “Learn from our Past, Dream of our Future”. Singapore has came a long way in terms of history despite only celebrating its 54th birthday. But going with the theme of Bicentennial, the aim was to learn the full history of Singapore in 5 different parts, dating all the way back to 700 years ago. The K2 class got themselves exposed to the stories and videos of how Singapore got its name, and how Singapore evolved from a small fishing port to a prosperous country, gradually picking ourselves up after the war, and gaining independence. Learning about our history helped the children to build pride being a Singaporean and learning about how the future of Singapore lies in their hands.
The K2s started by learning about the story of Sang Nila Utama by watching the video of the story of how Singapore got her name. After learning about the story, they were able to retell the story to their peers and helped them to gain more insight with what the name Singapura means. They also learned about Sir Stamford Raffles and his achievements and different interviews about how the people were during the war and after independence. They shared their thoughts about each part and understood eventually that Singapore had many sufferings.
Next, the K2 were involved in discussing about how can we love Singapore, and the children mentioned about protecting the earth as well as the National Day. We discussed on both topics with them coming up with how global warming affects future, and our solutions, as well as what small acts we can do to help sustain Singapore and our future. We then moved on to talking about the National Day Parade and the things that the children see quite often during each National Day parade. Our conclusion came to learning the National Anthem and the National Pledge.
As part of our school’s national day celebration, we had also learned a few national day songs to perform for the elderly at the United Medicare Centre, celebrating and showing pride for our country.
Our school was able to booked tickets for the K2 class to head down to Fort Canning to attend the Bicentennial Experience event that was held to spread our history to everyone. The children were able to learn so much from this experience and were able to see so much more from what they have learned in class to a multisensory experience.
