Field Trip - Botanical Garden, Penang

Our school took a first ever field trip to Botanical Garden after learning about Insects. The children were transported by two cars. We departed from school at 9am. Here we all are...very hard to get the little ones to focus though, they were too excited to explore the plance. So Gabriel was left out in this photo... Gabriel Gabriel where are you ?...

We began with a walk from the entrance and helped our selves out at one of the shady spots near the river. While we were walking, I posed a few questions for the children to keep observing things around them. Can you spot a monkey ? Can you see a butterfly? What type of plant is this ? They had a blast with this!

A picnic mat provided a nice sit down moment for the children. We had sandwiches, children's fav drinks and fruit.
Do you want to play with me ? Let's go and catch some butterflies. I heard Ms. Estee said there are some dragonflies over there. Come on, let's go!

How many butterflies you caught ? Well...fun time has to end. It's time to go. The children helped packed the things and put in the picnic basket. They helped each other fold the mat.

This activity was a favourite for them. We truly experiencing fun time with each other and the children have chance get in touch with nature.

The day ended with a smile. We had a great day and perfect weather. We're already planning our next trip in Feb.

Jan News

Welcome back everyone to the start of the new term. We have certainly had a very busy month in Dec with holiday camp, cooking party and Christmas party too! We had lots of fun during the Christmas party. The children enjoyed decorating cookies and made party necklaces.

We are pleased to say that we have a total of 12 new children joining us this term. We hope that the children will settle in well soon and are looking forward to an exciting time with them. We will be spending most of our time getting the children know each other, daily routines and exploring the environment.

Our first theme is All About Me. We will be discussing about ourselves, our bodies and senses, favourite things, friends, families and also Chinese New Year festival that we will be celebrating end of this month. Some fun activities we have already planned for children include sharing information about their family as well as themselves. birthdays, making prints of body parts, culture table of Chinese New Year and lots of paint exploration.

We have a few children whose birthdays are around the corner and yes we encourage birthday celebration in our school. It’s a tradition in Montessori environment to celebrate children’s birthday by having a birthday walk. Here is how it goes..The birthday child will hold a globe and walk around a circle line. A candle will be lighted up and place on a model sun in the center of the circle. While the child is carrying the globe and walking on the circle line, his/her story (based on info given by parents) will be told. Every one complete walk around the sun represents the earth orbit around the sun one round and means one year is past. If the child is three years old, he will walk for three rounds. The child gets to blow the candle in the center at the end of his/her story. Then the birthday cake will be brought out and we’ll sing the birthday song together.

To let the children know more of the birthday child, photographs of the birthday child from each year of his/her life, a basket of his/her favourite book, toys or things will be shown to the class. These things will be displayed in the environment for a week and will be returned home after that. Parents are encouraged to inform the school early before the event.

Happy New Year

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and are enjoying the new year! I apologize that I have been absent from blogging as compared to my past presence. I have to get use to update my blog often as I know some of you out there are waiting for me to upload the photos that I've promised. Yes...i still remember and will do it soon... do appreciate your patience. I hope that I'll be here more in the near future as I've made some adjustments to the demands on my time at school because I have a bunch of dedicated teachers who help me a lot with school work and share their love of teaching with me. I really appreciate their hardwork.