Sharing the Joy of

GrowthDionne Pok

Year 2007

Practical Life Activities Practical Life activities are daily activities that we

do. In our environment, these activities play a very important role as tthey aim to help the child in their work of adaptation and also responds to the natural development of the child.

In a way, these activities fulfill the needs of the human tendencies particularly independence, repetition and concentration. Also, the child’s sensitive periods for co-ordination of movement, social behaviour and sense of order.

The activities of Practical Life are grouped under – Preliminary Activities, Care of Self, Care of Environment, Care of Plants, Food Preparation and, Grace and Courtesy.

Preliminary Activities

Through these activities, the child develops concentration, gross and fine motor skills, independence, eye and hand coordination skills and sense of order.

In the photos below, Dionne can be seen working on various activities which indirectly develops and strengthens the three writing fingers.

2 Finger Grasp

In this photo, Dionne is using a pincer grip movement to transfer the beads onto the soap holder. When working on this material, Dionne is very careful when placing the beads so as not to “knock” over any beads which had already been arranged on the soap holder.

Grasping Using the tongs, it helps to strengthen the three writing fingers which indirectly prepares him for writing. In this activity, Dionne tends to grasp all the beads floating on the top before grasping the marbles at the bottom.

Grasping

Through this activity, Dionne’s fine motor skills are developed and refine. With the use of the tweezers, her three writing fingers are strengthened

Care of Self

The activities in this area, consists of Dressing Frames, Hand Washing, Bathing An An and Washing Cloth.

These activities allows the child to master a particular skill, develops concentration, independence and refines fine motor skills.

Bow Frame In this photo, Dionne is

invited to practice on the bow frame which she has not been working on for quite some time.

She had a little difficulty during the initial stage of putting the two ribbons together and also at the last stage when tying the bow.

After much trials, she is much more able to tie the bow independently and with ease.

Bathing of An An Dionne initiated this activity after observing one of her friends working on it. When being presented, Dionne was attentive and eager to start. She was gentle when bathing the doll and took care not to spill any water around the mat. After the doll is bathed, she was shown how to dry her with the towel and dress her up before replacing all the materials back onto the shelf.

Care of Environment Wiping of tables and chairs, washing table and

scrubbing of outdoor equipment, pavement, stone bench,…… are just some of the activities which the children carries out daily.

Through these activities, gross motor skills, sense of order and social skills are developed (as most of the time, the children will do it in pairs).

Children of the younger age group especially enjoys these activities as it allows them to exercise their gross motor as well as having a different space (garden) to work in.

Washing of Toilet

When Dionne takes her shower, she will usually take her time to enjoy. But one day, we realised that she was longer than usual and when we went to see, she was using her bath soap to wash the tiles of the toilet wall! Therefore, she was then given a brush and a small bottle of diluted detergent to wash the toilet instead.

Art & Crafts

Activities in this area allows children to use different materials such as paintbrushes, chalk, glue, etc…. to create various art or crafts pieces.

With the variety of materials which is easily accessible to the children, they could create their little masterpieces creatively any time.

Painting Dionne initiated this activity. After having a little help in putting on the apron, she was all ready to start with the brushes. Through working on the easel, it indirectly aid in the development of gross motor skills and strengthening of the three writing fingers.

Chalk Drawing

Dionne enjoyed this activity when it was first introduced. She will choose the colour of the chalks carefully before drawing her picture. In the photos below, she would also use the chalk board to draw portraits of her friends.

Chalk Drawing

Origami

In this photo, Dionne can be seen enjoying a great time with her friends while they fold various objects with the small folding paper.

Decorating a Photo Frame

Here, Dionne is using the different tiles to decorate her photo frame. After choosing the tiles she want, she will paste each tile onto its exact position carefully.

Sensorial Education

An area where the senses are trained and refined, language and mathematics concepts “learnt” directly and indirectly, and memory games “played”.

The materials not only helps the child’s mind to bring order in the information which he/she has received but, it also enlarges the field of perception in which the child will be led to greater awareness of the details of his/her environment, facilitates the process of abstraction and last of all, offer “keys” to the child’s exploration of his/her environment and the world.

Colour Tablets Box 3

As Dionne has mastered this material, she is able to grade the tablets in a different manner.

Square of Pythagoras

Through working with this material, it indirectly prepares the child for mathematics – algebra (squaring a number). After the showing Dionne how to layout the first three colours, she was able to continue and complete the activity on her own.

Sensorial Extension

When discussing on “creating colours”, the children were shown how to create secondary colours using primary colours. Through this specially made “coloured lens”, Dionne is able to experiment with the lens which in turn reinforces how secondary colours are created.

Mathematics

Mathematics consists of 5 different groups: Group 1 – Introduction to Numbers, Group 2 – Decimal System, Group 3 – Linear Counting, Group 4 – Essential Combinations and Group 5 – Passage to Abstraction.

Each group holds equal importance as each builds a foundation for the next level.

Unit Division Board

Through working with this material, it is to familiarized the child with various ways in which numbers may be divided. After the initial presentation, Dionne was able to complete the rest of the sums on her own.

1 – 100 Chart

Dionne is invited to practice on this activity. When working on it, she will use the control chart to check whether she has placed the sequence correctly before moving on to the next number.

Language Arts Language is used as a tool to establish and

maintain our social life. It is also a tool which helps us to think in an orderly and logical manner as language in itself, possess order.

The activities for writing and reading is slowly introduced to the child, depending on his/her ability. In which, each activity provides a key for further development and the isolation of difficulty, enables the child to fully understand the activity before moving on.

职业三部分卡

睿颖正在做的是职业的三部分卡 , 她可以说出一些常见的职业名称 . 对于她不熟悉的职业她也会想要了解他们 . 在配对字卡的时候她可以很快速地找出相应的字 , 并且正确无误地把它们配对好 .

Book Copy

Through this activity, it is to allow the child to practice on her penmanship as well as being able to copy text accurately.

Puzzles In our environment, we provide various puzzles

with varying difficulties. When working on the puzzles, the child will be

introduced to the simpler puzzles which may have less than 10 pieces and then moving on to working with puzzles with around 20 to 40 pieces.

Through working on puzzles, the child indirectly

develops his/her sense of order, learns the parts of an animal or plant or gains a sensorial impression on the different life cycle of an animal or plant.

Sports Puzzle

Dionne is being invited to work on this puzzle. When working on this puzzle, she was able to match them accordingly with minimum help from the teachers. Once complete, Dionne was introduced to the name of different sports.

3D Puzzle

Dionne initiated this activity. Once she has chosen the picture card, she was able to locate the picture which she needs by turning the cube all around to find the corresponding picture.

2007 Graduates!!

The End