Children’s Arrival and Free Play

• Warm greetings from the teachers create a family-friendly environment to the children especially those who are new.
• Knowing that the teachers love to see them makes them feel at home, accepted, and secure.
• While free play activates the children’s minds and bodies, they are able to enjoy it with other children as they expand their sphere of acquaintances beyond the scope of family. At this age, friendships with peers does not only become increasingly important to them, but also develop their social skills. They start learning to share toys, play together, as well as develop their verbal skills.

• The children are able to develop healthy minds as they engage in different activities, from playing games or yoga (exercise on breathing and body coordination) to follow the music rhythm.
• The body movements help supply the oxygen to their brains. This is a good start in preparing their brains in grasping the topics they will learn at the Early Learning Program.

• In this activity, the children foster a sense of community as they experience a feeling of belonging. They are also captivated by story time with the teachers using colourful pictures, singing, or skits.
• Music is also an important part in circle time as it encourages them to follow the musical rhythm by the joining of hands, the synchronization of movement and gesture, as well as singing.
• This activity can give benefit not only to the children who love to participate in a discussion, but also to a child who is shy or feels awkward in a group setting.
• This activity develops their positive self concept and builds their perceptions of different subjects from science, sign language, early literacy, French, etc.

In every Circle Time, the children will start the day by updating the calendar and weather. The topic discussion will be:

• Monday: Reading Buddy
• Tuesday: French
• Wednesday: Piano Lesson
• Thursday: Music (Basic Theory), Nature Walk (If Weather Permits)
• Friday: Science Experiment, Show & Tell on every last Friday of each month

The children are given opportunities to learn and practice how to move on stage, deliver a line, sing or dance. This program will help the students boost their confidence in themselves.

• We maintain on-going communication with the parents to ensure that the children would only be given healthy lunch and snacks.
• For morning snack time, we encourage parents to provide the children with only fruits and vegetables.
• Parents send their children with cut fresh fruits they enjoy at snack time. Several important nutrients like vitamin C, potassium, fibre and folate are very crucial in helping the children’s physical growth.
• In preparation for lunch, the teachers start with instruction on proper hand washing as part of the rules of health & hygiene. This routine helps prevent illness from spreading. finishing their lunch as well as cleaning up their tables at lunch time develops their sense of responsibility to take care of themselves.
• This is also another way of helping them to socially interact as they have lunch together.

• For the children who are in full-time program, rest is important, especially after all the activities they do in the morning.
• During this time, we play classical music CD like Beethoven, Mozart or a lullaby song. David Hargreaves, professor of music psychology from Roehampton University, said that “Music has an effect on the child’s thinking, social behaviour, emotions and physical responses of course. What we are saying here is that children’s wellbeing – their levels of anxiety and relaxation – are mediated by the emotion that the music causes” (Headline and Global News, October 29, 2013).

• Cleaning up together gives them a sense of teamwork.
• The children need to be given the appropriate responsibility and are encouraged to be independent. As they accomplish this task, they feel good about themselves and gain more confidence.
• Self-help skills are also encouraged to help the child develop their motor-skills.

A story told in rhyme, and music would not only help children process and memorize the message, but it also increases their desire to listen more, learn more, and know more. The music fills the cognitive and emotional brain.