Events

新年快乐 (xīn nián kuài lè)! As we celebrate Chinese New Year at our preschool, we wish you and your family a happy and healthy year of the Dragon.

Deck the halls with boughs of holly! This Christmas, we put on our favourite Red and Green attire and had fun in Christmas land. We decorated cookies in the little elve’s house, helped Rudolph find his nose, and stacked mini Christmas trees with cups!

It was our first post-COVID Year End Performance where every child had a part to play in the various art forms. For our performance in 2023, the children put up a show titled “Sale Against the Tide” where an adventurous teenager sails out on a daring mission to save her people. During her journey, Maia meets the once-mighty demigod – Miles, who guides her in her quest to become a master way-finder. Together, they sail across the open ocean on a voyage, encountering enormous monsters and odds. Along the way, Maia fulfills the ancient quest of her ancestors and discovers her own identity.

Just like our K2 graduates, we wish them success as they sail against the tide and venture into the next leg of their educational journey!

For our Children’s Day this year, our little preschoolers put on their sporty footwear and participated in games and activities like Zumba, Bowling, (modified) Table Hockey, and more!

The use of Lego as a play and creative outlet has been widely adopted in homes and educational institutions, from pre-school to college level. There is even a model, Lego@Serious Play, which is used in corporate settings as an instructional, training and collaboration tool.

Playing and experimenting with Lego is seen as a platform to help pre-schoolers learn through play, explore their curiosity, and improve their social interaction skills through positive experiences. Lego helps students develop spatial reasoning and improve language and critical thinking skills. Research has also been carried out which suggests a correlation between Lego play and later development in mathematical skills. [1]

In NAFA Arts Kindergarten, Lego as play and learning is a popular activity with our students. Our objective is to encourage children to learn through free-play, and Lego materials are available in every classrooms.

We see Lego as part of our overall emphasis on creative development and expression. It is play and art in a different mode – whereas drawing and illustration relies on strokes and hand-drawn movements, Lego encourages a hands-on building approach. It promotes spatial awareness, and hand-eye coordination. Students have to problem-solve to build their models, and select different pieces that mostly closely resemble their ideas.

Lego allows our students, when playing to verbalize their ideas, and build social skills by interacting and relating to their peers. We see this form of interaction as supporting their social, emotional and cognitive development through experiential learning. Lego can also encourage their ability to focus to solve challenges, and persevere to work out solutions and alternatives so as to achieve desired outcomes.

  

 

[1] Advanced Constructional Play with LEGOs Among Preschoolers as a Predictor of Later School Achievement in Mathematics, Charles H. Wolfgang,* Laura L. Stannard And Ithel Jones , Early Child Development and Care, 2003, Vol. 173(5), pp. 467–475 

 

 

 

For Mother’s Day, the students showed their appreciation by creating heartfelt craftwork.  These simple and yet touching art pieces were the perfect way for our students to demonstrate the unique bond between mother and child.  To all mothers out there, here’s wishing you a joyous Mother’s Day.

 

At the beginning of this year, NAFA School of Music and NAFA Arts Kindergarten collaborated to present an outreach project to the Kindergarten 2 children of both campuses.  These were experiential workshops where children sang and participated in music making activities such as ensemble, body percussion, movements and others.  Our aim was to create awareness and musical interests in the children.  

This year, our 2 campuses ushered in the Year of the Rooster with fun activities and sharing session on the legend and traditions of the Lunar New Year.  Children were treated to Lunar New Year goodies and created craftwork which featured common and popular motifs of Lunar New Year.  The appearance of the ‘God of Fortune’  to distribute ‘red packets’, which consisted of chocolate coins, to all the children was the highlight of the event.  The school wishes all parents and students all possible happiness and success this New Year.

On 1 September, the School had organized, for the first time, a movie experience for our K2 students.  Memorably for the students, we booked the entire movie theatre for the film screening of ‘The BFG’, a beloved children’s classic from Roald Dahl.  After the movie, the students were treated to an afternoon of fun at the new Marine Cove at East Coast Parkway.

 

A momentous occasion for our East Coast graduating students as they staged ‘A Tale of Roderigo’ during the year-end Graduation Performance.  ‘A Tale of Roderigo’ is inspired by the tale of Aladdin from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Supported by other level students, the students showcased their talents and hard work. To make it more memorable, the finale was performed by our graduating students, accompanied by students and graduate from School of Music.  We are extremely proud of our students. There’s a sense of accomplishment and growth as another school year is completed and we are looking forward to what the future brings.

 

It was the event of the year.  The graduating students at Derbyshire bid their farewell by staging ‘The Nutcracker’ during the year-end Graduation Performance.  The Nutcracker tells the story of little Clara and the Nutcracker Prince battling the evil mouse King.  Supported by students from other level, the students of NAFA Arts Kindergarten were proud to present their version of this beloved tale. The students performed well and we were extremely proud of them.  We want to wish them and their families the very best for the future and thank them for the many contributions they have given to the Kindergarten. They have given us special memories and we hope they will take away a wide range of rewarding and enjoyable school experiences.

For the first time, our Derbyshire campus held its year-end graduation art exhibition entitled ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go’.  The exhibition takes its inspiration from one of Dr Seuss’s beloved children’s books. Visitors were enchanted by our children’s artworks, which were created in a variety of 2D and 3D media, and which revealed their exuberant and unfettered imaginations.

Children’s Day was celebrated in the only way we know – lots of fun and games.  The students at Derbyshire celebrated the day with their friends at East Coast campus. Games were organized, finger food was served and we had candy floss too.  Children were treated to Zumba and after which, they had fun sliding and bouncing on the bouncy castle.  The rain did not dampen their spirits at all. 

In the spirit of National Day celebrations and unity, our students dressed up in Singapore’s colours of red and white and joined in the School’s National Day celebration on 08 August 2016.  They sang a selection of favourite National Day themed songs, as well as popular folk tunes from our diverse Singapore culture.  The event ended with National Day themed cake and lots of food.

As part of our continued involvement with the Singapore Kindness Movement, the School organized a food donation drive for the elderly.  The East Coast campus worked with Peacehaven Nursing Home, which provides shelter care for the elderly, while the Derbyshire campus worked with St John’s Home for the Elderly Persons.  The food donation drive was extended to our main campus at NAFA. 297 sets of staple food items were collected and donated to the 2 centres. We hope that initiatives such as this will help encourage a greater sense of empathy and compassion in our students and among our colleagues.  We thank everyone for their support.

The 2 campuses celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival on 9^th September 2016. Traditional games were organized and family members got together over mooncakes and food, while children walked about displaying their bright and colourful lanterns under the moonlit sky.  The Derbyshire campus organized a Mid-Autumn drawing competition whilst the East Coast campus organized a mass lantern walk in the company of their parents.  Needless to say, the celebration was a joyous occasion for our students and their families.

Since its establishment, NAFA Arts Kindergarten has been a pioneer in the integration of a multidisciplinary arts programme in our core curriculum. It has become a distinguishing feature of our pre-school experience.
 
This tightly integrated and seamless arts programme is intended to create a learning atmosphere that is multi-sensory, immersive and experiential. Lessons are reinforced though this engagement of the mind, body and imagination.
 
We believe that students learn best when they are active learners, not passive recipients of instructions, and that they discover the joy of learning, and build their sense of self-esteem, by embracing their different roles as learners, problem solvers and artistic persons. We encourage students to not only value the products and outputs of their endeavours, but more importantly, to enjoy the process of thinking, learning and creating.
 
Through Arts-integrated teaching and learning, children learn to solve challengers by trying, revising, reflecting, and then re-trying within a safe and supportive environment. This sense of exploratory, open-ended play and learning is important to developing cognitive, social, emotional and motor-sensory skills. Research has also shown that such a learning experience encourage children to develop both creative and critical thinking skills, which will become more important in later stages of their schooling and education. *
 
NAFA Arts Kindergarten is deeply appreciative that our unique approach has been welcomed and warmly supported by successive cohorts of pre-school students and their parents/caregivers. 

 

*References:

http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/article/process-art-experiences

http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=509

http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/integrating-music-drama-dance

This year, the students of NAFA School of Music once again collaborated with Nafa Arts Kindergarten to present an outreach programme to the Kindergarten 2 children of both campuses. Their musical performance was well received and it was a wonderful way to introduce our students to the world of percussion instruments.

On the 5^th of February, students from both campuses dressed up in traditional Chinese costumes, and welcomed the Year of the Monkey. The School celebrated the Lunar New Year with a series of fun activities, as well as sharing session on the legends and traditions of the Lunar New Year.  We would like to thank our parents for their kind support and active participation during the event.  

Much has been said about reading with children and so when I was approached to write an article on this topic, I wondered what more I can share with readers.

After reflecting on my own experience as a librarian in a public library, as a volunteer storyteller with NLB’s KidsRead programme, as a devoted aunt reading with my nieces and nephew; I am postulating an acronym on reading that will help you remember the essentials of reading with your child.

Here is the acronym, in a table form, with some descriptors to give shape to each attribute. The attributes are written in the continuous tense to reflect that reading with your child is meant to be a journey and not a race; not to just strive to reach the end quickly, but to use the book as a tool to launch a conversation with your child about life; and perhaps to teach a little on language and vocabulary.

Attribute	Description
R elating	Bonding time with your child
E xpressing	Giving time for your child to express his/her emotions
A ffecting	Using the story to influence your child positively
D eveloping	Improving your child’s language skills, fluency and vocabulary
I nquiring	Facilitating your child to ask questions and be curious
N onsensing	Allowing for fun and humour in your interaction
G rowing	Developing your child as a whole person

So, there you have it. The benefits of reading with your child have been summarized in the above acronym. Keep reading with your child and have fun, and have more fun!

Author: Ms Carol Sim Soek Cheng, Supervisor, NAFA Arts Kindergarten

On 16 Jul 16, the School held a Sports Carnival – Race of the Wild. This is the School’s first joint event and it was held at St Joseph’s International. The event was intended to encourage healthy competition, a sense of adventure and parent-child bonding. From the happy expressions of our students, we believe the event was a successful one.

In May this year, the K2 students from both campuses put up a short mini performance at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Campus 1. During this performance, our students sang and played handbells. They were joined by our Supervisor, Ms Carol Sim in one of the song segments, as well as students from the School of Music who played musical accompaniment on the keyboard, violin and cajon.