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Join UsNews / Nunn Road / 2014 / December 2014
We are at the end of the year again. Looking back, the memorable thing is we have finally opened another branch at Halaman York i.e. Nania II in July.
With the opening of the new branch, more children have the opportunity to enjoy their childhood in a loving and natural environment that we strive to nurture in Nania.
Here, we structure our activities rhythmically to include artistic activities, creative plays, simple house chores, story-telling to enrich the soul and exciting yearly festivals to look forward to. Children learn order and rhythm by adapting to these familiar routines till it is time for them to move on to primary school.
During their first year in Nania, they imitate what the bigger children are playing. They join the bigger children who have turned the dividers into aeroplanes, cars or motorcycles to play with. They use blocks to build castles and zoos and flat boards for vehicle tracks. They decorate their ‘houses’ built with dividers with cloths in rainbow colours. These children also use colourful yarn as drapes for the windows. Some will use the same yarn to make ‘pizza’, cook, take orders and serve in their ‘restaurant’ while others cut up blocks that serve as onions, carrots and other types of ingredients. At another corner, some children have used dividers to build tunnels and were busily collecting tickets from those interested to crawl into their tunnels and have fun.
Many more activities are created and experienced each day and these children repeat their play from time to time. The active ones never stop until it is time to do so and even then request for additional time to play. Later, they willingly clear up all the toys and put them back into their respective places after play.
When they are in their 2nd year in Nania, they will be the ones who will create and direct the creative activities for the others who want to join their play.
When they are playing outside in the garden, they run very fast now and climb to the higher branches of the “Longan tree’. Some brave ones will try to ‘conquer’ the pinang tree. Among themselves, they would remember the ones who had climbed so high that they were able to pluck the colourful pinang fruits for the others.
When they are in the sandpit, they build sand castles and tunnels. Someone will always start to pour water into these tunnels and everyone would then have a happy and muddy time.
In their 3rd year, they become the big children in the class and are proud to be called ‘ko-ko’ and ‘che-che’. They start the formal disciplines of reading and writing. They also spend their time weaving. They are the ones the rest of the children look up to during creative playtime and the festivals. They are the ones who take turns to be ‘little teacher’ to serve lunch sitting at their tables. They are the ones who by holding the younger ones hands gather the class for morning circle and take care of their younger friends during festivals. Their growth builds momentum throughout that year till it is their graduation day. The highlights of graduation day are the ever popular artistic movement of ‘I am a Star’ and the musical performance to ‘Rasa Sayang’.
The growing up process varies with every child. Many children that I have had the opportunity to meet over the years blossom and become confident in everything that they do when they have been groomed well over the years.
Likewise the 6 children who graduated this year are all capable and confident children who are able to take on the challenges that another phase of their life journey bring. They all are very positive children who are looking forward to go to the ‘big school’.
As part of our preparation for our Christmas Festival, we have placed a “Star Window calendar” in the centre of the display corner. Each day before lunch, the teachers will invite one child to open a calendar window. Another child will then hang a colour star on a tree branch while two others will each take out a gnome and a wooden animal and put them on the display table.
Every child will have a chance to perform this ceremony until all the windows are open. When the last window is opened, it signifies that it is time to celebrate the Christmas festival at Nania. We are looking forward to see you and your family on the 12th of December.
Teacher Elina, who is in the process of recovery, will be joining us on the festival day. She misses the children and will come back to the English class when the school re-opens on the 5th of January 2015.
Teacher Ling and I wish to take this opportunity to wish everybody Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Teacher Nora