In conjunction with Racial Harmony Day, our centre organised cultural appreciation activities with the children in various forms. From the Pre-Nursery to Kindergarten classes, the children showcased their understanding of living in harmony, through their language, attire and food they experienced. We paraded our outfits on stage with a backdrop of colourful handprints we made, to indicate togetherness and unity. We observed children pointing at each other’s outfits and noticing that they were different that day. Through their gestures and interaction, we could see that they communicated their excitement and curiosity about the special day.
Communication was also visible through the children’s languages as some of them expressed themselves in Mandarin, English and Hindi. As they heard their peers using different words in the different languages, children seemed to be curious and repeated after them too! As a future possibility for a follow-up experience, we are thinking of exposing the children to songs from different languages as a lead up to National Day too!
As part of our continuity into Singapore’s heritage and to foster a sense of belonging to the nation and community, we have shared the significance of the crescent, the five stars, and the colours (red and white) of the Singapore flag. We also had a quiz on “How well do you know Singapore?” For the past weeks, we stood outside last week to recite the Singapore pledge together.
Dialogue with the children as we talk about Singapore.
Why do you think Singapore is being called a garden city?
Because Singapore has many pretty flowers in Botanical Garden and Flower Dome.
There’s lots of leaves and the trees at the roadside and park, that’s why it is called a garden!
We cannot simply litter on the floor.
What about the beautiful things that you like about Singapore?
I like the sky scrappers!
I like the super tree tops!
I like the colourful houses in Singapore.
I like the Merlion.
we took this opportunity to share with the children that National Day is a special and significant time for everyone in Singapore to come together as one people and one Nation. Through our practices in our dance performance and learning songs about Singapore for our National Day Celebrations, we hope to cultivate in the children a sense of belonging to Singapore. Beautiful crafts were created to decorate the school to usher in the National Day celebrations.
