OCH Themes, Projects, Inquiry-Based Programme

Based on the brain-based learning principles, the school organises lessons for the themes, projects, inquiry-based programmes in order to optimise the children’s learning and retention.

They are relatable to the children’s life’s experiences; including celebrations, about themselves and their families, friends, nature, and the world they live in. There are extensions in the themes each year to make learning fun and evolving. Some of the projects include the following activities.”

 

Programmes

Montessori Activities

A multimodal environment offering verbal and also non verbal processing of information by children will promote a “deeper understanding and retention of material “ (Peregoy and Boyle 2005)

Our school also believes that each child is an individual, with different learning styles and needs. The children are given opportunities to hone their fine motor and critical thinking skills through practical life and sensorial activities. Special emphasis is given to Montessori mathematics and phonics, to ensure that children are ready for primary school.

The Montessori activities are supervised by fully qualified Montessori directresses from accredited US and UK Montessori centres. Children are also individually tracked for various Montessori activities according to their relevant abilities.

 

Preparations for Primary School

At our school, we believe in ensuring that our toddlers and nursery children receive good foundations in the various domains of learning. This will help prepare them for further learning in K1 and K2.

Some of the key areas of learning for K1 and K2 are as follows:

K1 children

• Place values up to thousands
• Addition and subtraction to tens and hundreds
• Ordinal numbers
• Mathematical vocabulary for story sums
• Simple spelling, early grammar and comprehension
• Cambridge Reading Adventures guided reading programme*
• Social and emotional skills
• Science and Geography

K2 children

• Time, time management, measurements, picture graphs, money
• Introduction to multiplication, division and fractions
• Simple story sums
• Group operations
• Building vocabulary
• Cloze passages, simple listening comprehension and composition
• Show and tell
• Cambridge Reading Adventures guided reading programme*
• Social and emotional skills
• Science and Geography

*Cambridge Reading Adventures guided reading programme was created in collaboration with the UCL Institute of Education’s International Literacy Centre (IOE), and is endorsed for reading by Cambridge Assessment International Education.

我们的华文课程 (K1 & K2):

• 趣味识字
• 连词成句
• 日常用语、会话
• 主题课本与课外故事绘本阅读理解
• 国学经典《三字经》
• 手工制作、绘画
• 汉字笔画、笔顺及书写
• 汉语拼音（拼读、拼写、听写
• 口语表达
• 量词理解运用
• 传统节日认识及理解

Our Chinese Curriculum (K1 & K2):

• Fun With Literacy
• Conjunctions into Sentences
• Daily Conversational Language
• Reading Comprehension of Thematic textbooks and Extracurricular Storybooks
• Chinese classics “San Zi Jing”
• Art & Craft, Painting
• Chinese Character Strokes, Order of Strokes and Writing
• Hanyu Pinyin (Pinyin, spelling, dictation)
• Oral expression
• Understanding and Using Quantifiers
• Understanding of Traditional Festivals

 

The Mandarin Programme

(Newly revised Mandarin curriculum developed by the CI-NTU(Confucius Institute – Nanyang Technological University) for levels N1 to K2)

We also have a strong Mandarin language and literacy curriculum that will complement the IPC programme, using multi-intelligence strategies and developmentally appropriate activities to help make learning Mandarin interesting and fun. It will lay a strong foundation in preparation for primary school in the later years.

Our Mandarin teacher has had extensive experience in curriculum development and teaching in many notable schools.

In addition, Our Children’s House will implement a challenging and exciting Mandarin curriculum developed by the CI-NTU(Confucius Institute – Nanyang Technological University).

CI-NTU has been jointly established by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and NTU in Singapore. CI-NTU aims to strengthen Singapore’s Mandarin capabilities, and to provide Singapore with a common platform in learning the Chinese language and culture. CI-NTU has also won the “Confucius Institute of the Year 2010” accolade.

Reading and Pre-Literacy Programme

The school also has a special joint reading and pre-literacy programme for the children, using a range of books which cover EQ related subjects and child-centred themes to inculcate early recognition of Chinese characters, and a love for reading.

Programme Objectives & Resources

• Understand Chinese
• Converse in Chinese
• Read Chinese
• Write in Chinese
• 70% of content is in accordance with MOE Mandarin syllabus
• 30% of content transmits the learning of culture and values
• Lessons are infused with fun and interactive activities
• A combination of resources like news reports, magazines, songs and poetry will be used to make lessons engaging

 

Financial Literacy Programme

Imparts values such as contentment, commitment, carefulness, consistency, confidence, compassion, charity, making sensible decisions, having a savings mind-set, prioritising between needs and wants, promotes healthy eating and habits.

Achieved through age-appropriate lessons, books, games and role-play, all specially designed by pre-school practitioners and designed and researched by Dr Koh Noi Keng, Chair of the Citi-NIE Financial Literacy Hub for teachers.

Augmented by centre-based creative lessons with concrete materials and experiential learning for overall holistic approach to learning.

Objectives:

To ensure that the children will :

1. learn how to make good judgments while decision making.
2. learn to differentiate between needs and wants.
3. understand the consequences of making an unwise decision.
4. learn to develop good habits and a healthy lifestyle.
5. understand the concept of money, it’s uses, and adding and subtracting.
6. apply their learning in a concrete way.
7. improve on their observations and writing skills.
8. learn that their actions have consequences.

 

S.T.E.A.M and Sustainability Programmes

Our children will be exposed to different programmes in relation to science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, as well as on sustainability. These will include, but not limited to:

-science experiments, magnets, simple machines, the human body, simple circuit boards

– different genres of art; including fabric printing, resin craft, silk printing craft

-robotics and coding

-indoor (hydroponics) and outdoor planting.

-recycling, reusing and reducing activities

 

Outdoor Activities

Children at our school have ample opportunities for outdoor free play, gardening and learning in the natural environment.

Research has shown that free play can positively promote and develop the children’s overall well being physically, socially, emotionally and cognitively. (Söderström et al., 2004).There has been research linking physical activity in children with the development of sensory-motor integration (Williams, undated, in Burdette & Whitaker, 2005).

When children play outdoors with each other, the unstructured activities and free spaces provide opportunities for children in decision making, stimulating problem solving and creative thinking skills. Children would also have more visual and gross motor exploration in the outdoors, inducing curiosity about the natural environment. Emotionally and socially, children would have to learn how to get along with each other during play, to turn take, to come up with imaginative ways to play together. All these help children to develop their “emotional intelligence”, as they learn flexibility, self-awareness, self-regulation and empathy. These are foundational for successful social interactions in adult life (Goldman, 1997).