This year, Little Seeds Preschool (St. Paul’s Church) pivoted from a kindergarten to a childcare and one of the unique highlights was that we were open for the first time during the school holidays! To ensure that children have fun attending school during this period and get a unique experience, we launched our first ever Holiday Programme titled “Desert Oasis”.
Principal Ms Monica Xavier said: “We wanted to replicate a holiday feel in this programme because a few families went for overseas trips. Some children wondered where their friends went and they asked what a holiday is. So I thought, ‘why not let the children experience a Holiday Programme in school?’”
“The main purpose was to get children to have some fun and to recharge for the new term. For children who did not go on holiday, we wanted them to feel included and not left out.”
Why the theme “Desert Oasis”?
“Because it was so hot! Even the grass needed to be watered.” Monica said, laughing. “But more than that, we wanted to create awareness of the environment and the world around us.”
While the Holiday Programme was a break from the usual school curriculum, learning still took place in all the activities to ensure that it was in line with our teaching.
All the activities conducted incorporated at least two of the five learning areas – Language & literacy, Discovery of the world, Numeracy, Aesthetics and creative expression and Motor skills development.
Learning about desert animals & plants
The week encompassed of daily combined mass activities for all levels and individual class activities from Playgroup to Kindergarten.
On the first day, the children were introduced to the theme song, “Out In The Desert” and learnt about some of the living creatures found in the desert. Following that, they did an art & craft activity in class with their friends creating desert animals and plants from recycled materials.
Making desserts
To extend the children’s learning, they even had a cooking lesson! The children created their very own dessert called “Sandy Fruit Mix”. Each student learnt about the different fruits and ingredients and followed the recipe to make their dessert. They could not wait to taste their dessert at the end of the day.
A treasure hunt for water
We also organised daily combined sports activities which included “Desert yoga”, “Desert Zumba” and obstacle courses to ensure that our children engaged their gross motor skills.
The highlight of the programme was the finale event titled “Water-Is-Treasure Hunt”. To educate children on the importance of water and hydration, we invited a special guest none other than our Executive Principal Ms Eudora Tan who turned up as “Aunty Dora the Explorer”!
Firstly, Aunty Dora read a riddle for the children to solve and find out what the treasure was. (Psst…it’s water!) Then they had to search for hidden water bottles in the outdoor spaces and return with them. Finally, they had to fill Aunty Dora’s special glass jar with water from the bottles they had found. At the end of the activity, the children discovered that both people and nature need water to survive.
The children enjoyed the treasure hunt so much that one of our nursery children even wanted to bring back one of the water bottles he found to water the plants at home!
The Holiday Programme was not just a hit with the children, but with the parents too.
Many of our parents mentioned that the Holiday Programme was both educational and fun for their children and that they can’t wait for the next one during the June Holidays. One parent said that they would plan their overseas trips around the school’s Holiday Programme so that their child would not miss out.
We are glad that our children thoroughly enjoyed the Holiday Programme and learnt more about the importance of taking care of our environment and all of God’s creations in it!
To find out more about our preschools, visit https://littleseeds.edu.sg
