January Activities

The children were excited to be back to school after the year end holidays. The Class topic continued with 'Australia', but this time we talked about the animals in the Great Barrier Reefs. They finger painted a whale, a starfish, and a turtle. The children specially enjoyed the free finger painting. What joy to explore with the different colors and spread it all over the paper, no boundaries to worry about!

It was science exploration at the water table.' Look! the plate can float like a boat but see what happens when the stones are put on it...one, two, three stones...the plate's sinkiiiing!..' and the exploration continued with the children putting other objects on the plate.

We added some flannel shapes for the children to work with..Ata specially loved it and created a rocket, then 'papa'. The homemade play dough is an all time favorite. We did not provide any tools to encourage the children to do some free sculpting with their hands.


The children have been practicing the "Ant Dance' last semester. So, when we got invited to a dance and costume competition, we participated. Take a look at our dazzling beautiful ants! Al and Queen stole the show with their amazing traditional costume and was awarded third place! Congratulations Children! The children also participated in a coloring competition conducted by IGTK Jakarta Barat.

Notice the display board?..  The
children's finger painting of the
animals in the barrier reef 

It has been raining heavily and many of the children stayed home last week due to the floods. But, we are looking forward to a nice sunny week ahead! Next, for our unit topic, we will be moving from 'Australia' to the Indonesian island of Papua..



Parents, please don't forget to have the children bring in images of Papua on Monday...welcoming any volunteers to share a Papuan folk tale with the children..

Ho ho ho! Making rumballs with Santa...

The children were really excited when teacher told them that we were going to make chocolate rumballs (with no rum, of course), that too with Ms. Santa!

The children squealed with laughter when teacher came out in her Santa suit.

‘Ha, ha, Kak Nila pakai apa?’ Rayn was laughing.

‘Yuk semuanya ke snack room, kita mau buat rumballs.’

‘rumball apa?’ Apta asked. Teacher explained that it’s something like chocolate cake in the shape of a ball’. 

Yay! Chocolate cake! Yummy’, the children said

First, crush and crush the Marie biscuits, crush some more!’ - a good exercise for fine motoric skills and concentration.

  

‘Who wants some more Marie to crush?’ ‘Me, me, me’, the children cried.

Then, we are going to add in some chocolate condensed milk and Mix, Mix, Mix.

 

‘Wait, stop eating your mix or you won’t have enough to make your rumballs.’, teacher reminded the children.

‘Next, let’s put some mix in our hand and roll it into a ball….like making balls from playdough!’

 

For the next half an hour, the children focused on making their chocolate balls. Finally, roll the balls in this plate of chocolate sprinkles…Yay! Done!

‘Masukkin ke oven, kak?’ asked Zahra. Teacher explained that it didn’t have to go into the oven but it would be good to refrigerate before eating. And amazingly, the children complied even though earlier they just couldn’t wait and were licking away the chocolate mix.

Ah! It sure was an all-in-one package. The children exercised their fine motor skills, concentration, and eye-hand coordination. They learned to follow step-by-step instructions. They also learn restraint as they controlled themselves from eating the chocolate mix. Finally, they got a good boost to their self esteem, “Yes, we made delicious rumballs!” and all of it was so much fun.

Merry Christmas to our Christian parents and friends. Happy Holidays to everyone! We will be back on Jan 6^th, 2014.  

Merry December

The 14^th was a beautiful sunny day, just perfect for our garage sale. Customers showed even before we opened. Parents and teachers put out their best sales pitch and people were pou ring in even when it started to drizzle. Thanks to our dear parents and friends for making it a successful event. It turned out quite well and proceeds will go into a social event, to be determined soon.

Highlight event this December is ‘making rumballs with Santa’. It is our policy to expose children to the diversity in our culture, so during the Moslem Idul Fitri, we made ‘ketupats’ with the children. Early this week, teacher dressed as Santa and we made rumballs. Mmm…what will we make for Imlek and Nyepi..Anyone has an easy recipe for making mooncakes?  (scroll up to read about our post 'making rumballs with Santa)

Garage Sale

Thank you parents and friends for all the items that has been donated for our Annual Garage Sale, upcoming this Saturday, 14th December 2013. For those who still want to clean their closets, we are still receiving garage sale items till Wednesday, 11th Dec.

Parents' Day - Our Wonderful World

Our Parents’ Day theme this semester was ‘Our wonderful World’. To support the ‘Continents’ theme in class, all the parents, teachers and children donned on costumes from different parts of the world. What an interesting experience for the children! They paraded with mom or dad, they had a burger making contest, and there was all kinds of food to taste. And the Best Costume went to Darren and Papi as ‘The Emperors of China’. A wonderful time indeed for the children, parents and teachers!

 

Caring for Animals

Caring for animals can offer several developmental benefits to young children, from fine motor skills, to emotional growth and cognitive enhancement.

Fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination develop as children learn to hold the food for the animals to eat, or even to hold the bottled milk just right for the young animals to drink from. They also learn to give just the right pressure when carrying or caressing the animals.

Children are usually on the receiving end of being cared for. So, it’s quite a different experience altogether for children to be giving care to another living thing. This makes them feel ‘big’ and ‘grown up’. Their self-esteem and sense of responsibility grow with the experience.

As children come up close to the animals and touch them, they learn new things about the animals, as in the texture of the animal skin, detailed features of the face, the feet and more. Young children are very observant and in Montessori’s terms, they are at the sensitive age to observe very minute details. 

The children at Saraswati Preschool had an amazing experience last week feeding farm animals from goats, to pigeons, hamsters and rabbits, cows and chickens, even the turkey (or 'Daddy Chicken' as one child called it) and lots and lots of fish at Kuntum Farm.

Fun Learning about Australia

Awal semester ini, topik bahasan di kelas dimulai dengan memperkenalkan benua pada anak-anak. Alat peraganya berupa puzzle benua khas Montessori. Ada juga lagunya lho! Ini dia lirik lagunya:

The Continent Song

‘North America, South America

Africa, Asia, Antartica, and Europe

subab, subab

And Australia

Anak-anak senang sekali dengan lagu yang satu ini dan sudah hafal benar (Ata sering menyanyikannya di rumah, begitu kata mama Ata). Sempet juga terjadi yang lucu..

Teacher: ada lagi nama benua yang belum disebut?

Sena: subab, subab, kak!

Tentunya teacher kemudian menjelaskan bahwa 'subab-subab' hanya sebagai pengisi irama lagunya saja.

Tema kelas kemudian kita fokuskan pada benua Australia, dan dimulai dengan pengenalan terhadap binatang khas benua Australia. Ada kanguru, emu, dingo, sugar glider, dll. Begitu melekatnya benua Australia dan binatang khasnya pada anak-anak, sehingga waktu ditanya mengenai rencana ke children’s zoo melihat kanguru:

Teacher: besok kita mau kemana?

Apta: ke Australia!

 Kunjungan melihat kanguru dan
wallaby di children's zoo Ragunan
Jakarta Selatan seru sekali lho!
(silahkan baca posting ' at children's
zoo)

Sambil menyanyikan lagu 'if you are a kiwi', anak-anak dikenalkan juga pada binatang khas New Zealand, seperti kiwi, tuatara, dan dolphin.

 

Berlanjut dengan eksplorasi mengenai binatang Australia, kakak-kakak dari komunitas pencinta sugar glider Indonesia  (KPSGI) berkunjung ke sekolah membawa binatang marsupialia kecil sugar glider yang lucu dan sangat bersahabat. Ternyata, binatang marsupialia ini juga tinggal di Indonesia, khususnya di Papua. Anak-anak membuat tower yang tinggi dari brick blocks agar si hewan bisa ‘terbang’ ke ownernya. Mereka juga memberi makan si sugar glider…Kakak dari KPSGI juga menunjukkan kantung bayinya, sangaaat kecil, bayinya pun hanya sebesar kacang hijau!

Masih ada lagi lho!…beruntung sekali,  bu Lilik, orang tua alumni Saraswati (Liam yang sekarang sudah Grade 9) bisa hadir di Saraswati untuk
sharing mengenai kekhasan Australia – diantaranya, orang Australia suka sekali barbecue bareng keluarga, dan banyak sekali pantai yang indah disana. Bu Lilik juga membawa boomerang, dan menunjukkan bagaimana memegang boomerang dengan benar – kalau lemparnya benar, boomerang bisa kembali lho ke pelemparnya!

Fun learning about Australia masih akan berlanjut selama semester ini. Berikutnya kami akan membahas mengenai 'The great barrier reef animals'. O ya, tema Parents'Day bulan Nopember nanti adalah 'continents of the world'. Jangan lupa ya parents, siap2 cari kostum berbagai negara....