This year has been pretty special
to me. While I did participate in Year-End Event before, I found this year’s
event the more meaningful of them all. Of course, this bunch of children has
been the dearest to me, being with them since they were toddlers! We held a
two-day event – A K2 Graduation Party for the families only, and a Carnival for
the entire school. To know more about the event, here is the documentation that
I’ve written for this year’s event😊
We all have
different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we
are - Fred Rogers
At the Cove, we take on the lens
of the socio-constructivist approach where children are active participants in
their learning and learning is co-constructed with the children and families
through experience, routines, and interactions. Through the process of Year-End
Event, children are facilitated to think of their own ideas and beliefs before
listening and communicating with others. As we kick-start the planning
process of Year-End Event, we posed questions to our children for them to be
aware of their needs and interests – What are you good at? What is the class
comfortable in doing? It was an experience that invited our children to
identify and reflect on their own ideas and opinions. As a class, we
shortlisted possibilities that we would like to pursue such as games, art, and
food. Their responses were that a Year-End Event is “about growing up”, “about
being happy”, “a celebration for us”, “showing others what we can do”. Their responses tell us that the event is a joyous
occasion to celebrate as well as to showcase. They also talked about how the
event is to for us to “say bye-bye”, and “to say thank you to all our friends
and teachers”. Finally, they also talked about it being an event to make daddy
and mummy proud.
Why are we having a Carnival? What are the values of our Carnival?
We teach who
we are - John Gardner
The teachers went on to think
about what some learning dispositions are we want to infuse in the process. We
would like to provide opportunities for children to invent, innovate and
imagine, to collaborate and be compassionate, to celebrate and enjoy. We want
to help children see the possibilities of a Carnival to embed their interest in
Game, Food, and Art alongside with these learning dispositions. Further, the possibilities
of having a Carnival allow children to apply their structured skills to
strength the emergent project. The planning process allows for play and
interaction experiences, which act as vehicles for learning and opportunities
for authentic assessment. For example, poster-making, writing, reading, and
measuring.
What are our plans? How did we do it?
Beyond just games, art and food,
the class teachers deepen the concepts with two key learning points in the
English Curriculum. The concept of the Ugly Food, a K1 Emergent Project, and our
ABC Book, a K2 Literacy Project, was included in the repertoire of ideas.
Our plans with Ugly Food Booth – Presenting our children’s voices
At the
initial stage of our Ugly Food Booth, We looked at
the planning process we need to make this idea to fruition. Our children
recalled Aunty Wendy, a Singapore Food Rescue Volunteer, who shared about Ugly
Food and though the food looks ugly, it tastes the same as the others. Thus, we
wrote to the Singapore Food Rescue to ask for carrots, potatoes, and fruits
that no one wants, so we can make carrot cake, mashed potato and fruit juice to
sell. Though the Singapore Food Rescue was not able to contribute and
commit with us, we managed to work with the Singapore Ugly Food Rescue on our
mini-project. The Singapore Ugly Food visited our classroom and took this
opportunity to review the recipes our children had created while sharing about
edible and non-edible ugly food! With our edited recipes, we experimented with
the flavors in school with our friends and teachers. We, then, invited all our
families to help to design the recipes that will be put up on display at the
Carnival.
In the last few weeks leading up to the Carnival, we shortlisted
the materials (e.g. signboard, tables, bins)
and equipment (e.g. juicer, blender) we need for our Ugly Food Booth. As a
class, we considered where would be an ideal location to host our booth. After
thoughtful discussion, consideration of needs of younger children, scouting of
venue around the school, our friends decided to host our booth at the outdoor
area, behind the blue house. The location was chosen as it has hand-washing
basins, electrical power points, and sufficient space to place our fruits and
signage. Based on their layout plan, they worked together to draw and describe
the positioning of the materials and equipment (e.g. in front of, next, behind,
besides) within the space. We went on to use play dough to make our plans into
three-dimensional artwork to check if the layout was possible as well.
Our
plans with our ABC Book – Presenting our children’s thinking
Lively intellectual
curiosities turn the world into an exciting laboratory and keep one ever a
learner – Lucy Mitchell
Considering
our children’s strong interest in books, we have been embarking on a few
authors’ studies to help us identify the different writing styles and
illustrations. We went on to read and explore more writing styles by Shel Silverstein.
Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl. As we continue to explore the different types of writing styles,
we were inspired by Oliver Jeffers’ writing style in “Once Upon an Alphabet” –
when the beginning letter helps starts the story. In the process, our children
shared, “A is for Aunty Susan, she cooks for us every day”, “A is also for
Aunty Wendy, who teaches us about Ugly food”, “B is for Butterfly, for taking
care of it and setting it free”. It was a meaningful process as we contribute to
our most significant moments in our preschool years in an alphabetical manner.
In the process, we faced a huge challenge in finding words that comes up with
X, Y, Z – it took us four weeks to come up with the ideal words but we did not
give up. We went on to write, illustrate, edit and finally publish it.
Our plans with our Graduating Performance – Presenting our
children’s repertoire of movements ideas
As we inched closer to our Graduation Party, we
observed how our children are exhibiting different movement repertoire through
the different children’s songs. We saw them engaged in different levels (high,
low, and middle), speed (fast and slow) and direction (forward, backward,
sideways). Hence, we introduced an empowering lyrical song to our children –
“Roar” by Katy Perry and invited them to use their movement to represent ideas
they have. Our children shared that the song is a hopeful reminder on being
ourselves, to stand up whenever we fall down and be fearless in overcoming
obstacles.
Teachers’ Reflection: Who are they? What have we
achieved thus far?
As their teachers, we understand
their individual temperament and traits and it got us thinking about how we
should facilitate them in the process of planning and carrying it out. We
noticed that our children have many great ideas, but they do not follow through
their plan. We quickly identified that our children need to know how to make
good decisions and follow a plan, albeit a poor plan. Hence, we were excited to
use the idea of a Carnival to help facilitate them to plan, decide and improve
on their work. They learn that work takes time and hard work pays off. Most
importantly, they show their sense of
inventiveness and perseverance in their work. Beyond just contented faces, it was gratifying
to support our children in making their ideas into realities.
