Our N2s at PCF Sparkletots Preschool @ Sengkang West 330A kickstarted this year’s Start Small Dream Big project by learning about what SSDB and President’s Challenge are about. They watched videos of previous year’s projects, discussed about the topic of gardening, as well as listened to some tips on gardening and planting. They also ‘met’ an elderly under the care of volunteer group of caregivers through an interview video in Youtube shared by CNA Insider and had a look on what happens inside Elder homes. What a great way to get equipped with knowledge and be filled with love to share to one another and to the elderly in the elder homes through this project!
With “giving back to the community” in our minds, we decide to participate in the President’s Challenge by organizing a fundraising project and donate to St Luke’s Eldercare, our partner of 2 years!
We started to involve parents through introducing the Share and Care Dice. This is in conjunction with our theme on ‘My Neighbourhood’ and an integrated home-school partnership. It encouraged parents and children to do simple good deeds to contribute small steps and encourage kindness in the neighbourhood. Children learned values such as kindness, caring and sharing which also paved a way for better social interactions with people around them.
As the N2s are collaborating with the elderly from St Luke’s Elderly Home, they participated in a planting activity in our Sensory Garden and took videos and pictures to include in a video presentation for the SSDB Virtual Session with the elderly on 23 August, Tuesday!
We brought the seeds, soil, pots and spray bottles to St Luke’s Eldercare Rivervale Centre, together with the Photo frame and cards prepared by the children. These items will be used during our virtual session. We hope the pots decorated with the children’s wonderful drawings, will put a smile on the elderly’s faces.
The children had a virtual session with the elderly from St Luke’s Eldercare through a Teams video call and enjoyed it! They said hello to the grandpas and grandmas who were equally excited to see them! A sharing was done by our children through a video about the items needed and steps to follow for planting as well as how to care for plants. We invited the elderly to join us in singing and dancing to songs from the different races such as ‘Chan Mali Chan’, ‘Munnaeru Vaalibaa’, ‘Yue Liang Dai Biao Wo De Xin 月亮代表我的心’ as well as some National day songs such as ‘Singapura, Sunny Island’ and ‘Singapore Town’ integrated with the recently concluded National day. A planting session was done too wherein our children and the elderly simultaneously planted some Kangkong plants to grow. Smiles were seen on all our faces when the cards the children prepared were handed over to each elderly as a reminder that there are people who care for them and that they are special. What a wonderful day!
The children designed and coloured photo frames to give to the elderly from St Luke’s Eldercare as their remembrance and souvenir for this year’s partnership in the project.
The children brought the pots they planted during the virtual session to the Sensory Garden to allow the sprouts to get enough sunlight, air and space to grow. We were all proud of the creatively decorated pots and excited to see the Kangkong grow! They visited the garden weekly to check on our Kangkong plants and observe how they grow. They made sure that they have enough water, space, air and sunlight to grow tall and healthy. As the Sensory garden space is being used by all classes from all levels, they helped us to water the plants daily too!
The second virtual session with the elderly was as exciting as the first especially because the children prepared so much to share to the elderly since the last virtual meet-up. We gave each other updates on how the plants have been growing and shared about what we did to care for them. A presentation was shared to the elderly as we talked about the process of the plants growing. The children engaged the elderly with a dance session, then everyone had a great time in doing their own tasks to complete a ‘Thank you’ card for the upcoming Fundraising activity. The elderly made a wonderful painting while the children coloured some pictures.
The children prepared invitation cards which were mailed to their house as a way to encourage their parents to participate with them in the upcoming SSDB President’s Challenge Fundraising Activity! They were also busy decorating paper bags for packing of pots for our upcoming Fundraising project.
Did you know that we have artists among the elderly from St Luke’s Eldercare? They were involved in painting wonderful landscape painting which will be given out as ‘Thank you’ cards for every donation! This is their small way of saying thank you.
Finally, it was our ‘Seed to Plate’ fundraising day. Our N2 parents joined their children in decorating their pots, adding soil and seeds, and watering them. They generously donated and brought home their pots. This wraps up our SSDB with a blast and in a meaningful way. We are very thankful for the parent-community-school collaboration during this project. Our N2s have learned so much about compassion and kindness. We hope that they will continue to spread kindness wherever they go and result in ripple effects of kindness in the community!
