Highlights
One Day Wilderness Camp
Drama Workshop for K2
Joint Charity Fair with West Grove Primary School
Creative O Family Day - "Stranded"
Promoting Arts Amongst Pre-School Children - Art Pak Project
Distinguished Teacher Award - Pat Chong
K2 Graduation Camp
Introducing Chinese Children Literature Pre-Schoolers
Project Approach
Others
One Day Wilderness Camp
16 March
This wilderness survival preparatory camp gave the K2 children a headstart before their graduation camp at St John’s in Sep. The children were taught life preserving skills like shelter building, fire-making, food preparation. It also gave them opportunity to work as a team. The instructors were Foo Guo Liang and Vickneswaran from Unleash.
31 May – 4 June
Click on images to enlarge
K2 children attended a 1-week drama workshop, which was conducted by a theatre practitioner Mr Julius Foo. During the process of learning, the children learnt how to present a play, how to control and project their voices, how to express themselves freely and be comfortable with moving their bodies to express themselves. There was a sense of pride and the children exuded a comfortable level of self-esteem when they performed. Their performance showcased their self-made props and their skills learnt during that workshop.
Joint Charity Fair with West Grove Primary School
24 July
Click on images to enlarge
Involving children in charity is an annual event. Creative O adopted the Association of Persons with Special Needs (APSN) Jervois Primary School (Delta Branch) as the charity organisation for 2004. The children made art and craft work during the June holidays. On 24 July, the children participated in Family Day cum Charity Fair held at West Grove Primary School. Our K2 friends manned the stalls to sell their created art and craft works. The fair also served as a good opportunity for our pre-schoolers to experience and master the skills and technique of handling a bigger and different crowd and in a different environment . In total, we raised $5,000 and it went to Jervois Primary School. On 29 September, children visited Jervois Primary School to interact with their children.
Creative O Family Day – “STRANDED”
14 August
Click on images to enlarge
Our annual Creative O Family Day was our way of enhancing the school-parent-child relationship, where we helped create opportunities for all to spend time together in a fun and educational way. This year’s Family Day was held at Marina South and it was our pleasure to engage Mr Foo Guo Liang and his team of instructors from UNLEASH to organise this outward bound activity. This adventurous programme was a series of “possible missions” for families to accomplish. After the missions had been accomplished, we had a short feedback session while having lunch.
Promoting Arts Amongst Pre-school Children - Art Pak Project
21 August
As part of a pilot project initiated by AECES and supported by the National Arts Council (NAC), collaborating with Creative O and Loving Child Care Centre in promoting art among pre-schoolers, Ms. Susie Wong, our visual Art teacher conducted the art workshop especially for parents and children (K1 and K2) of Creative O and Loving ChildCare Centre. 14 families (comprising of 1 parent and 1 child) attended this sharing session. The objective was to encourage families to engage in art experiences with their children at home in order to promote the arts to the community and make it a part of their lives.
Click on images to enlarge
Through the process of working together with these activities, they learnt to overcome obstacles faced, increase their awareness of the Arts and eventually learnt to appreciate and understand it and use the Arts as a form of bonding in the family.
3 September
Our English language teacher Pat Chong Yoke Lian was awarded the Early Childhood Teacher Award at the Child Care Seminar 2004. This award served as a great platform to express developmentally appropriate practices. This award is initiated by the Association for Early Childhood Educators (AECES) and supported by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS).
Click on image to enlarge
Awarded by Association For Early Childhood Educators ( Singapore)
Award recipient Pat Chong Yoke Lian holds a Diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education from the Regional Training a nd Resource Centre (RTRC) Asia. She has 26 years of experience working with children. She joined Creative O in 2001 as Senior Teacher.
Remarks by colleagues
Pat is an experienced, helpful, thoughtful, passionate, resourceful, diligent, serious, patient, unselfish, dedicated, initiative, responsible, capable and caring teacher. Her child-centred approach and her warm and sincere personality have made her widely loved and respected by the children, parents and fellow teachers. She also provides leadership in the area of teaching by coaching and sharing her valuable experiences with fellow teachers and parents. The teachers in Creative O regard her as their role model.
Remarks by the management
Pat’s 26 years in the early childhood education indicates her strong commitment and devotion, and more importantly, her quality, energy, enthusiasm and capability as a teacher has not diminished after all these years. Her unselfishly sharing of her experiences and help given to her fellow teachers is rooted in her concern for bringing high quality education to the children. She has gone beyond the call of duty in her care and concern for others.
Pat is indeed viewed by her peers as the role model. She joined this profession in a period where little reward and recognition are given. However, this did not put her off as she believes in the significance of early childhood education and the happiness of children. Thus, she has made her devotion to this profession her life long career.
Her perseverance in supporting the early childhood education is long due for recognition.
K2 Graduation Camp
15 – 17 September
St John’s Island
In an attempt to prepare and equip our graduating K2 children the social skills as they advance into primary school life; they were given the opportunity to plan and organise their time and activitiesfor their graduation camp. They learnt to make decisions, take responsibilities, take care of themselves, work as a team and apply what they have learned in school. 39 children from the K2 class went with teachers and volunteers to St John’s Island for a 3-days / 2-nights exploration.
Click on images to enlarge
Our outdoor activities instructor Mr Foo Guo Liang and his team from UNLEASH executed a full day of Treasure Hunt exercises and the children were rewarded with valuable treasure (items for the BBQ) that were unearthed by them. This was the main activity to put the children’s teamwork spirit and problem -solving to “test”. Other activities included campfire, night walk and preparation of meals.
At the end of the camp, the children rounded up their camp experience and shared with their parents the photographs they had taken with captions, models of St John’s Island and their pictorial diaries.
Acknowledgement
Our heartfelt thanks to Mr Foo Guo Liang and Mr Vikneshwaran for planning and leading the outdoor physical / mental challenging games, Mr Tay Kiam Yong for taking precious time off from his busy work schedule to be our cameraman for the entire camp. We are also grateful to all volunteers and parents for their support and trust.
Introducing Chinese Children Literature to Pre-schoolers
20 November
Creative Technology Auditorium
Our Chinese language teachers, Ms Liu Yun, Ms Goh Shuly and Mdm Li Li were invited by the Singapore Chinese Teachers’ Union to share their experience with the primary school Chinese teachers. The focus of sharing was on “Introducing Children Literature To Pre-schoolers – Classroom Practice”. The response to their talk was so overwhelming that another session had to be added in the morning to accommodate all the participants.
After reading the classic comics, K2 children created a comic character Xiao Yuan and they wrote about his adventures. Click on images to enlarge
In total, 409 teachers from Primary schools, childcare centres and kindergartens attended this very inspiring seminar which our teachers shared about on how we helped children to appreciate Chinese Classics, comics, poems, proverbs and legends. They also shared tips on how to inspire children in creative writing of poems and short stories.
Creative O has been introducing children’s literature in both languages to our young friends since 2001. Over the years, teachers found that children literature helped them in their learning as well as enriched their personalities.
In Creative O, we continue working on Project Approach for the kindergarten level. We believe that “Children learn best when they have the interest to learn” and that wanting to learn is from the child’s innate. Indeed, year 2004 proved to be a fruitful year for our little ones, as they learnt to initiate, participate, explore and create works that were related to the topics concerned. For the K2 level, the projects embarked were “K1 to K2 Transition”, “Time”, “ Animal” and “Camping”. Whilst, as for the K1 level, they did projects on “Aeroplane”, “Making Books”, “Frogs” and “Watches”. Each project lasted for about 10 weeks.
This project lasted for 10 weeks and an animal show was created by the K2 children and presented to parents at the parent briefing. Children were actively engaged in props making and scripts writing. Click on images to enlarge.
Cultural Weeks
This is an annual activity. 2 weeks in December were focused on learning about the food and methods of cooking used by the Indian and Malay community. The children viewed the display set up by teachers so as to appreciate the different utensils and ingredients used, visited Little India and Geylang Serai and participated in some hands-on activities.
Graduation Concert - Iko Iko
13 November
Nanyang Girls’ High School Auditorium
Children from various levels and their teachers came together to perform for the graduation concert. The guest of honour was Ms Lim Sau Hoong, a renowned advertising personality. The spirit of “teamwork” and determination in accomplishing a job well done was most evident among those who did a part in this concert. Since the K2 friends were the “Star Celebrities” of the concert, they put up two pieces of dramas entitled Sang Nila Utama in English and Momotaro in Mandarin.
Holidays Activities
Wilderness Camp
31 May – 4 June
It was a 4-day outdoor skills programme, which allowed the participants to acquire the basic outdoor skills and to have fun. The main objective of the camp was to develop the participant’s character and values through activities e.g. patience and perseverance through fire -making, team spirit through shelter -making, self confidence and independence through knife -handling and food preparation. In addition, these children learnt some basic outdoor survival skills, topography skills (stage 2) and orienteering, knot -tying and gadgets -building.
GLOB Art Camp
7 – 11 June
The children were introduced to art made of common everyday materials such as things in the kitchen and in the tool box or hardware store. The highlights included print-making, looking at some public sculptures in Singapore, visiting the Singapore Art Museum and an artist’s studio. The children were engaged in creating both 2-D and 3-D work. They made 2 cows by using empty Magnolia milk cartons. We would like to extend our thanks to F&N Foods Pte Ltd for sponsoring the milk cartons for this project.
Teachers' Training
Visit to KinderCampus (Project Work related)
3 May
We paid a visit to KinderCampus to know more about project approach from the founder of KinderCampus, Ms Sharon Kow.
Project Workshop
12 teachers were sent to attend this 9-session workshop on active learning and project approach, conducted by Ms Sharon Kow
Parenting Activities
Helping Children To Keep Calm
21 February
Creative Technology Auditorium
Yoga practitioner Mr Julius Foo shared with parents his experience in helping children to keep calm and establish a way of finding concentration. In this talk, he also demonstrated some basic exercises that can be practised daily by parents with children.
Mr Julius Foo, is a practitioner in Meditation and Yoga and an actor in the field of physical exercises, Taiji and voice work. He has more than 6 years of experience in facilitating drama workshops for adults and young people.
Healthy Eating Habits
21 February
Creative Technology Auditorium
Ms Celia Ning discussed about choosing proper nutrients for kids and how to change bad eating habits.
Ms Celia Ning Yi Bing is currently working at F&N Foods Pte Ltd as a Nutritionist. She pursued her interests in Exercise and Nutritionist Science and graduated with a Masters degree from Liverpool University of UK. She did her first Medicine degree at Inner Mongolia Medicine University. She has more than 4 years of practical experience as a nutritionist and over 6 years in traditional Chinese medicine at hospitals and clinics.
Trees of our Garden City
28 February
Creative Technology Auditorium
Mr Tee Swee Ping shared his knowledge and interest with participants on trees, and how to appreciate and value them for what they really are.
Mr Tee Swee Ping has been working with plants and trees since young. He studied Agriculture and graduated, has varied work experiences, including being a school teacher before being uprooted and transplanted into the National Parks Board in 1990 and is now firmly established in it.
A Day of Adventurous Outdoor
28 February
Creative Technology Auditorium
Mr Foo Guo Liang demonstrated how to coach children in understanding and mastering survival skills. Through designed outdoor activities, he showed parents and teachers how to build up children’s confidence and adaptability.
Mr Foo Guo Liang is an instructor and camp-chief for various Camping and experiential learning companies. He conducts training for participants of various age groups and from various schools such as Toa Payoh South Community Centre, Creative O Preschoolers’ Bay, Yuying Secondary School, Queenstown Primary School and many others.
-
Copyright © 1999 to 2006 by Creative O Preschoolers' Bay, Creative O Pte Ltd. All rights reserved, including and not limited to the right of reproduction or transmission in whole or in part in any media or form whatsoever.