At MOE Kindergarten @ Sembawang, we place an emphasis on building our children’s social awareness, promoting inclusivity and developing empathy for others. We want our children to experience what it means by embracing an inclusive community and help our children understand how they can render support to friends with additional needs. As part of our Start Small Dream Big project, “We Show Love and Care to All Our Friends”, MK@Sembawang involved all our children and families to share extra joy with the children at Fei Yue’s Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (EIPIC) (Wellington) on Children’s Day!
Upon learning about the collaboration with Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle), the children eagerly initiated gift bags and performances to celebrate Children’s Day with them. Putting their creative hands together, they created soft clay keychains and made a kindergarten-wide fingerprint canvas artwork for their friends at Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle). Our teachers worked with our children to choreograph fun and engaging dance items which was performed live via Zoom during the Children’s Day celebration.
All the teachers and the parents at MK@Sembawang joined in and contributed to the initiative. They went out of their way to donate stationery sets (pencils, coloured pencils, crayons and drawing pad) for the gift bags. Members of the Parent Support Group lent a helping hand to pack the gift bags, shared their talent in making stickers and helped to send the items to Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle).
On the day of celebration, all the classes from MK@Sembawang performed their individual dance items. Together with the children at Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle), they worked out together for a Superhero Zumba Dance choreographed by the teachers in the Children’s Day celebration team.
Looking back at the whole project, the children at MK@Sembawang have gained awareness of their friends at Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle). Nevertheless, we felt that we could have a more meaningful engagement with the children at Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle. Should we have another opportunity, we would like to extend this project to collaborate further with the teachers and children at Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle). Perhaps with the greater easing of SMM and a more improved COVID situation, we could connect and allow first-hand experiences where the children get to meet and engage with one another through a shared play experience. In that way, our children can better learn about friends who need additional support and how they can assist them. In all, everyone at MK@Sembawang are happy to be able to have the opportunity to demonstrate our love and care to friends at Fei Yue EIPIC (Wellington Circle) through this project. We hope that we were able to spread the joy for everyone on Children’s Day.
