Shake them Skeleton Bones!

It is exciting to start the cultural theme this year as we are working on a familiar yet complicated topic – The Human Body.

The Aunties first gave the children an overview of the human body and their five senses. Children love singing the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes” with the omission of different body parts. They often laugh hysterically if someone in the group makes an error to sing out the missing part of the body.

Children learn about the human body parts through songs. They love it!

Auntie Latifah used "Life Models" to teach the children different body parts.

Auntie Margaret was preparing the materials to stimulate the children's senses.

Each child from the Nursery group had a chance to isolate his/her sense so to refine his/her senses. To refine the gustatory sense, the child was blindfolded and nostrils were "closed" so to isolate the taste sense (Picture on top). To refine the tactile sense, the child was blindfolded and felt the item naming it rough or smooth (Picture at the bottom).

Then, with the courtesy of Dr. Theva and Dr. Mun, who are parents from our graduate student Kareena, we managed to borrow a REAL human body skeleton to school! This skeleton was even taller than any of the Aunties! The children and teachers were in awe when they touched and felt the REAL bones of a human body. This concrete experience was indeed inspiring.

The Human-size skeleton and its skull gave the children a very good concrete experience.

The children also worked on skeleton puzzle and some work that reinforce and extend the learning of bones. The younger ones learn about bones in their various names, such as head bone, neck bone, back bone, finger bones, thigh bone, foot bone and toe bones. The older ones were introduced to more advanced terms like the skull, ribcage and spine. Everyone enjoys learning about bones, and they love singing the song of bones too.

The older children were good at fixing the huge skeleton puzzle and labelling each bone.

The younger children were good at fixing the skeleton puzzle too under the guidance of Aunties. They were very excited especially moving from the concrete experience of Human-size skeleton to a huge 2-D puzzle.

Aunties will continue to teach other extensions of bones to the children doing craft and experiment in the next few weeks. The children are all looking forward to the activities!

Young Musicians Emerge!

Our 5 to 8 year-olds completed their Kindermusik Young Child semester 2 last December. It had been a great semester as children started to play melodies on their glockenspiels. Some of them told me that they even tried it on their piano, which made them excited. I could see the children were enjoying their fruit of labour – having to learn all the theories and took some time to build up their musical foundation in Semester 1. They are now more confident to play on melodic barred instrument and also with the strong foundation in music, they seem to be able to make music everywhere they go! (To see more of this blog, click here)

Children's and Teachers' Day 2011

What a WET fun-filled day!
It was the first time we had so much Water Play in school. The children came into the school with swimsuits. Angels’ grandparents also came in early to help setting up the swimming pools.
At 9.30 a.m., we started our warm up. The children were grouped into two groups and Aunties demonstrated how the telematch was to be played.

First, the children had to soak up water from a pail and squeeze out the water into another pail. Second, they had to scoop a coloured ball from the first swimming pool and sort it according to its colour in the 4 pails (practical life skill!). Then, they slid down the slide and splashed into the 2nd pool, quickly pick up a water shooting tube to aim and shoot at the bottles.

There were one or two children who were not used to water play and were afraid to get wet despite wearing very nice swimsuits. To get them “going”, Auntie Chaz Yee started pouring pails of water at those children. It was not long after, the Aunties and Angel’s Grandma were having fun pouring big pails of water at the children. Some children started to get back at the Aunties (e.g., Zhi Jean picked up the water shooting tube and started shooting at Auntie Latifah! Haha!).

At about 10.15 a.m., the children went into the building and changed. They were all very helpful and practical-life-skilled children, helping Aunties to set up the dining tables. We had guests children like Jael, Alfred (Angel’s brother), Anastasia (Angel’s cousin), Mita (Auntie Margaret’s daughter) and Trevor (Tristan’s brother). They enjoyed the company of their new friends. While the Aunties were busy setting up the dining area, Angel’s Grandparents volunteered to clean up all the outdoor equipment for us, so kind of them!

Finally, we had the Teachers’ Day presentation session. The children presented their little cards and gifts to the Aunties to show their appreciation for their Teachers. This was a chance that Zhi Hui took to show off her photography skill (her father trained her well!). Although she hadn’t gotten anything for the Teachers, she assisted Du Ee & Ze Ming to make their Teachers’ Day cards at home, good effort! Umasivu also stood up to say her gratitude to Auntie Latifah & Auntie Chazyee. “Auntie Latifah, I Love You!” Gabriel Wong said it loud and clear enough that almost made Auntie Latifah tear.

The Young Child in Kindermusik Sem 1

The 1st semester of the Kindermusik Young Child for the 5-8 year-olds ended last Saturday. The children were learning a lot of musical theories through focused listening, instrument play, moving with music pieces in the correct number of beats (Ta as crotchet, ti-ti as quavers, sh as rest). (To see more of this blog, CLICK HERE)

Growing the Algae - Proterozoic Era

After learning and getting all excited about volcanoes, the children were introduced to the next era in the History of the Earth -- the Proterozoic Era, where the first life began.

Oceans were formed then due to consistent rain over many years. Micro-organism started to grow in the water and it was the first life seen on Earth. Algae was one of the first few plants appeared in that era. Hence, we let the children grow Algae in a tank.

Auntie Shirin brought in the sand and algae, and showed children how to plant it in the water. The children were excited about putting water into the tank (see video below). They also touched the algae, which was at that stage in a rough hairy state.

After they have planted the algae in the tank for a few days, the algae turned slimy. Again, the children touched the algae and felt the difference. This stimulated the young minds in awe in terms of how the state of a living thing changed after being nourished by water and sunlight.

DayCare@Clover

We provide after-school-care in the afternoon for children from Clover and other pre-schools/kindergartens.

Our Aims:

• To provide an environment where each child can develop a sense of security, warmth, love and affection
• To offer opportunities for children to be creative while maintaining appropriate protection and supervision
• To let children enjoy learning through Dance and Music classes.
• To promote positive attitudes to learning
• To develop an awareness of the needs of others
• To encourage independence and a sense of responsibility
• To stimulate independence and creative thinking
• To encourage reasoning

Day Care Operating Time: 12.45 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.

Meals: Lunch & Afternoon Snack

Activities:

• Fun Dance for Boys & Girls (build up foundation in dance steps that can help the child to go into any professional dance lessons later on).
  


• ABC Music & Me (Award-winning Kindermusik lessons to develop children's musical, language, physical, emotional, intellectual and social skills).
  


• Free-painting (to develop creativity)
  


• Interactive/ Intellectual Games
  


• Story-time / Reading time
  


• Other fun activities that promote creativitiy and learning.

DayCare@Clover

Need your child to be taken care of after school?

Want your child to learn some skills in his Day Care centre?

We now provide after-school-care for your child 2.5 to 6 years of age.

For more information, click Here.