We believe children have the right to express their ideas, thoughts, emotions and learning in a variety of ways. Our curriculum offers a variety of rich opportunities for children to express themselves through music and movement, painting, stories, sculpture-making, ceramics, construction, dramatic play, and puppetry, along with conventional ways of communicating such as retelling, creating stories, discussions and negotiations.
Engaging in dramatic play enables children to explore various roles and scenarios, helping them understand different perspectives and situations. Through this play, they naturally use language in context, expanding their vocabulary and comprehension skills. They also encounter numeracy concepts as they count, sort, and problem-solve during play activities. Moreover, dramatic play fosters social interaction, cooperation, and empathy as children navigate roles and relationships. It offers opportunities for emotional regulation and understanding of others’ feelings. Educators play a crucial role in supporting children’s learning during dramatic play, guiding and extending their exploration. Overall, dramatic play provides a rich and holistic learning experience, promoting cognitive, social, emotional, and linguistic development in a meaningful manner.
Constructive play involves using materials to build and create, and as children grow, their creations become more complex. These materials can be blocks, tubes, ramps, boards, play dough. Constructive play enables children to act like engineers, either building for the sake of construction or for something they can use in other forms of play – such as creating structures like houses or forts for dramatic play. Dramatic play and constructive play often go hand-in hand and these two play areas are in close proximity to one another to facilitate sharing of materials. Through constructive play, children learn to collaborate, plan, and design while developing spatial awareness, gross and fine motor skills, problem solving, critical thinking and logical reasoning.
In art education, children explore a variety of mediums, including paint, pastels, clay, wire, and textiles, encountering diverse materials and expressive forms. Teachers collaborate as co-researchers, documenting the children’s creative process through photographs and dialogue notation.This documentation helps educators assess the progression of learning and decide on future directions. They provide additional provocations to challenge and expand the children’s theories, facilitating a deeper engagement with the artistic process. This approach not only enhances creativity but also fosters critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
The music program is designed to be highly responsive, following the emerging interests of the children throughout the week. This approach allows the curriculum to be uniquely co-developed with the children and is based on the philosophical assumption that all children have a natural capacity to develop musical skills and abilities, and that children learn through play. Through the use of percussion instruments, guitar and voice, children are led through a magical, movement-rich programme to enhance their love of music. Although our Music programme is offered weekly, children have access to musical instruments in the classroom, with music and movement being a large part of the daily programme.
Our weekly offering of Kids Yoga is an introduction to self-care practices that can extend through adulthood. Through music, dance and storytelling, children learn about their bodies and are introduced to breath work, yoga poses, stretching and sensory games – leading to self-regulation, emotional learning, mindfulness and gratitude. Kids Yoga builds self-esteem, body awareness, concentration and focus in a fun, engaging and healthy way.
Cooking provides a hands-on way to introduce mathematical concepts to children. These concepts include estimating, measuring, counting and sequencing. Language skills develop when new vocabulary is learned and applied. Cooking also develops motor and coordination skills through movements related to chopping, mixing, kneading and stirring. Our cooking classes take place once a week and give children the opportunity to make new connections with each other and build relationships in a new context.
Our curriculum includes a gardening programme that educates students through practical experiences that as human beings, we draw our daily sustenance from the earth, and therefore have some responsibilities toward the earth both for our sake and for the well-being of others. The students experience this directly when they plant seeds, care for the plants, harvest the crops, prepare the produce, and then consume it as part of our Food For Thought organic school lunch programme.
Our curriculum includes a gardening programme that educates students through practical experiences that as human beings, we draw our daily sustenance from the earth, and therefore have some responsibilities toward the earth both for our sake and for the well-being of others. The students experience this directly when they plant seeds, care for the plants, harvest the crops, prepare the produce, and then consume it as part of our Food For Thought organic school lunch programme.
