PHOTOS

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What is Playgroup?

Playgroup is an informal session where children come together to socialize and have fun in an air-conditioned, clean, relaxed and friendly environment. Playgroup experience helps your child gain an appreciation of what school is like and to have a positive attitude towards school.

The expectation is not that they are going to learn to read or write but that children start to absorb language and letters as part of their environment, always in the context of classroom activities.

Playgroup provides an opportunity for children:

ü To have fun, make new friends and to build relationships through social    interactions with friends and teachers

ü To discover new experiences

ü To find out about the world around them

ü To gain self confidence, develop self expression, develop verbal and non verbal communication skills through their contact with other children and adults and through observation

ü To learn how to get along with other people and develop their skills of cooperation through music, group singing and free play

ü To be given opportunities to enhance all areas of their physical, social, emotional and intellectual development.

"No children would be forced to join any activity if he/she refuses to."

Importance of Playing With Toys

Children need to play with toys so that they can explore, manipulate, learn to problem-solve on their own and importantly, they create, discover and learn in a fun way. They will also learn to share with one another and take turns to play. They also need space to move about, equipment like balls for them to throw and houses for them to crawl inside. All these help to develop their gross motor skills which are necessary for their development.

Importance of Fingerplays with Rhymes

Fingerplays and action songs give an opportunity to have fun! Fingerplays and rhymes come to life during circle and large group times as preschool children show word meaning through simple actions and finger movements.  Preschoolers develop memory and recall skills as they sing and recite the songs.

However, the benefits do not stop there. Fingerplays and action songs help children develop an understanding of rhythms, both the rhythms of speech and music. Fingerplays and action songs can also help build a child's vocabulary and aid in language development. Other benefits of these activities include:

• Allow for self expression, encouraging a child's own response in his or   her use of body and speech.

• These activities encourage students to participate verbally.

• Provide relaxation (a legitimate opportunity to wiggle and move around).

• Assists the child in learning to follow directions.

• Increases attention span.

• Develops listening skills.

• Teaches order and sequence.

• Helps teach number concepts.

• Increases manual dexterity and muscular control.

Importance of Playgroup Games & Activities

Play is a way toddlers learn about the world and prime themselves for future achievements. It contributes to a child's emotional, physical and intellectual development. Through play, a child learns so many vital skills such as eye-hand coordination, gross motor skills, social skills and listening skills, just to name a few. These games will help your children grow, learn and most important of all - have hours of fun together.

Our All-Rounded Curriculum incorporates the use of:

1. " Letterland " - a creative, fun and successful phonics based system from  UK over 30 years, to teach letters recognition and letter sounds.
   
2. " Multiple Intelligences Approach " - which is a way of providing  activities and experiences that address all of the ways that children are "smart." The brain has at least seven 'intelligences'. Many people fully  develop only one or two. They may be brilliant at mathematics or language, but weak in music and art. Yet everyone can develop all these intelligences if he or she is exposed to the right sort of activities. Professor Howard Gardner, of Harvard University has identified the eight intelligences as: 

Linguistic Intelligence : The ability to use words effectively, whether in words and writing

Logical-Mathematical: The ability to use numbers effectively and to reason well.

Visual-Spatial : The ability to perceive the visual-spatial world accurately and to perform transformations upon those perceptions.

Bodily-Kinesthetic : The ability to use one's whole body to skillfully express ideas and feelings and facility in using one's hands to produce or transform things.

Musical : The capacity to perceive, discriminate, transform and express musical forms.

Naturalist : The ability to discriminate among living things as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world.

Interpersonal: The ability to perceive and make distinctions in the moods, intentions, motivations, and feelings of other people. The ability to process information both verbally and non-verbally through interpretations of all forms of dance, hand gestures, body movements, and music.

Intrapersonal : The ability to act adaptively on the basis of that knowledge.

   3. " Montessori Partial Learning " - Practical Life Skills through Practical Life Exercises & Sensorial Exercises

Importance of Montessori Partial Learning:

Practical Life Exercises & Sensorial Exercises

1) The first lessons in the Montessori curriculum are Practical Life & Sensorial   exercises. These introduce the child to an independent & hands-on mode of activity & enhance the child's concentration, a prerequisite skill for self-education. It prepares children not just for school but for LIFE .

 2) Equip the children with basic life skills. This area of the curriculum focuses on developing skills that allow the child to effectively control and deal with the social and physical environment in which he lives.

3) Give children the independence they need to function in society.  

4) Focus on the most basic human movements.

The Rounded Child

Chil dren who join our quality playgroup programme can be assured that all their developmental areas will be developed as follows:

1) Physical Development: Gross and fine motor skills

2) Social Development: Be able to share with friends, take turns, caring & giving, cooperate with people around him, gets along with friends, helps friends in need, greets people around him

3) Emotional Development: Build self esteem and values, a secure and happy child, respect of others and their property

4) Intellectual Development: To encourage creativity, logic skills, memory skills, thinking skills, language skills, math skills, problem solving skills

Benefits for Adults
Through playgroup, mothers, fathers, grandparents and other caring adults find the opportunity for

• meeting new friends

• reducing isolation or loneliness as one gets to meet people who've got children in the same age range as yours and share experiences in taking care of children and how they solve problems with their children

• It opens up the community to you. Parents can share resources like where the best places to go for a good children's doctor or shops that sells a great variety of toys and children's clothes 

• developing a new self-confidence

• having a special time with your children

• discovering new ideas for extra fun at home through talking to other parents and caregivers

• developing a greater understanding of children and what being a parent and carer is all about through interaction with other parents and caregivers

• building a support network and social contacts

Pre-Reading Skills

Pre-reading skills are the skills children need BEFORE they can learn to read. Many of these skills are learnt naturally, during the course of a normal childhood and nursery environment. By talking and reading to your child, you will be doing a great deal to develop these essential skills. It does help if you know what you are doing, though, so that you can make the best use of your child's natural inquisitiveness during the pre-school years.

The Pre-reading Skills

Group Size

7 to 16 students per class with 2 caring, qualified and experienced teachers who possessed recognized Certificates in Early Childhood Education. 

Who will be able to join?

The playgroup is suitable for toddlers aged 18 months to 3 years old.   

DAILY PROGRAMME

*Mon - Letterland Phonics
  Tues - Thematic English
  Wed - Math
  Thurs - Partial Montessori Programme
  Fri - Playgroup Games/Art & Craft/ Nursery Rhymes/Science