How to teach children on culture Diversity?

Team work!

Children learned to decorate the Kolam.

Selecting the colour to use!

Preparing the material for Kolam making

Respect for and appreciation of racial and cultural diversity is and has always been extremely important to all of us as Malaysian. How and when to educate children on culture diversity? Cultural diversity is an important concept to grasp during childhood. Understanding that people are not all the same will enable children to embrace and value the things that make each person or group of people different. Children notice differences, and taking time to teach what is important to each culture can help foster acceptance and understanding.

Deepavali celebration is the best time to educate our children on Indian culture! By letting the children to experience themselves, they will understand better! With this objective in mind , QQ teacher has arrange a special lesson to teach children Indian culture including their food, costume, what they do during Deepavali! In order for them to experience this special day, all children and teachers were wearing Indian Costume, tried Indian food such as muruku, tosei etc. Most interesting part is decorate the kolam in front of our school!

All children have great experience and understand more about Indian culture and their Indian friend!

The Floor Decoration - Kolam

In Tamil language, the word kolam means beauty; it is a common routine with full of grace to make the home a sacred place. The female members of the house regularly draw Kolam designs in front of their homes, by using rice powder. These kolam drawings are starting with a certain number pattern of dots and curly lines going around these dots. Most of these are finished with a single line going in a stylish but zig-zag away around the entire set of dots. Everyday kolams are naturally white, an indication of purity. On exceptional or festive occasions, kolams become very rich and multicolored. The insertion of yellow (turmeric powder) in a kolam stands for prosperity.
In a Tamil home, it is believed that Kolam design bestows prosperity and success. Kolams may be connected to the earth, the stars or special festivities, but they are first and foremost a willful offering to Mother Earth. Kolam is measured as an important form of artistic manifestation of Tamil Nadu. Definitely, the kolam can be called a most important part of Tamil culture.

QQ has new comer "Snowy"

I am holding snowy with care!

Snowy is sleeping!

I want to touch!

Feeding time!

Taking her lunch!

so small!

finding the nipple!

This is my pet!

can i touch?

2 days old baby rabbit!

one week old sucking milk!

I can eat grass already!

I like the sun!

This is Snowy daddy!

In our kindergarten, any living things and non living things are our teaching material. As we practice holistic approach, we do not only confine our learning from the books, we also let children connect with the nature while building their character and value! How? You may ask, in QQ , we do keep pet, I have started with 2 rabbits in 2009 and later, it breed so many babies and we gave away some to QQ SP and QQ PS. The process of taking care of the rabbits from baby is so challenging and it really made our children laugh and cry! Our mummy rabbit Snow white, daughter Browny and now latest in the family snowy provide us with teaching opportunities and children with playmates. They invite social interaction and are a stimulus for learning and creativity.

What are the values we can cultivate from just having rabbit in our school?

1) Responsibility: Caring for the needs of an animal allows a child to make available something the animal cannot attain on its own. Children provide the pet with food, water, and clean housing and in the process, discover that they are needed and relied upon in a way they most likely have not experienced before. Responsibility is a natural outcome of the realization that, in this world, each person is necessary and uniquely important. Assuming responsibility, at its deepest level means children learn to be responsible for themselves, for their actions and hopefully for the global community.

3) Non-verbal communication: Brenda Bryant, a University of California-Davis Applied Behavioral Science Professor, explains that experiences with pets increase competence in children in ways that other learned tasks cannot. In addition to increased verbal skills, children naturally become more attuned to nonverbal communication as a result of interactions with their pet. This comes from their practice at “reading” their pet’s body language. But this skill is not restricted to their pet. These children also demonstrated the ability to draw the correct conclusions about emotions from human faces more accurately than those from homes without a pet.

4) Empathy: Since all animals need time to adjust to their new surroundings, we can explain the need to keep a quiet voice and to move slowly. This becomes a wonderful opportunity for us to explain about considering someone else’s feelings. By asking our children to consider how rightening this experience must be for their pet, we exemplify empathy and sensitivity. In addition, a relaxed animal is more likely to respond in a positive fashion to the child’s overtures. Robert Poresky, Associate Professor of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University, found that three- and four-year olds with pets were better able to understand the feelings of other children than those without pets.

5) Patience and Tolerance: Children, who learn to care for an animal with kindness and patience, learn invaluable lessons in how to treat people as well. Pets don’t always do what a child wants. Although this creates frustration for the child, it opens an opportunity for parents to teach tolerance, respect, and patience.

6) Self-esteem: Simple caring tasks like cleaning a cage or water dish, feed the rabbit can help a child feel that they have achieved something. A job well done, especially if it is a bit of a challenge helps to build self-worth.

7) Life Cycles: Pets afford the opportunity for teacher to teach about sex, birth, grieving and death. Birth can be introduced as part of the total life cycle, the process of renewal. Witnessing animals breed, and then participating in the miraculous event of the nimal giving birth can be growing experiences for the child.

QQ Green Day

29th September is QQ Kulim Green day. This is another activity related to our GO GREEN syllabus, love the nature! As children have learned a lot on recycle, reduce and reuse, we shift to taking care of the environment this month. Children naturally are curious, and eager to learn. Doing gardening give them a lot of learning. What they learn?

Understanding Responsibility
It’s important that children are allowed to involve in this activity and we even involved toddler who are only 2 year old. We divided the Children into groups and give them seeds to plant. We want team work and they will take responsibility to plan who put soil in the box, dig holes, place seeds, and then cover them up. They learned a lot in the process.

They also need to labelled what they have just planted so they don’t forget what’s growing and not mixed up with other group. It is their responsibilities to take care of the plant . Once their seeds start to sprout they need to weed around the plants. Then, they learned that some plants don’t belong in a garden and that it’s important to remove them so their flowers or vegetable can grow up healthy and strong. Teacher will teach them to be responsible as they need to continue to care for their plants and flowers, make sure they keep them watered every day until harvest time!

Connecting With Nature

Children will learn to connect with nature. We can show them where food begins, explain to them that when a farmer plants a seed, it produces many of the foods they eat. Every child should know that meat is not born from a container at the grocery store or that milk doesn’t come from a bottle on the shelf.

Learning about the Circle of Life

Children will also learn that life has a cycle. They will see that from seeds come flowers and that after those flowers bloom they will turn brown, wilt and then die. It’s a lesson we all learn in time but when you teach it with beautiful flowers, the lesson doesn’t seem quite so harsh.

A lot can be learned when you put a rake or a shovel in the hands of a child.
There are so many more things that children can learn out of gardening. Like learning to protect nature, nurturing, appreciation for beauty and understanding of & respect for the circle of life. These important lessons cannot be learned by sitting in front of television or the computer.

See how they enjoyed the gardening. More photos on facebook!

I want some seeds to plant!

Teacher explanning how to plant the vegetable! See how focus children were at work!

I am digging a hole, so you put seed!

We need to put soil in the box first!

We are ready with my soil, seed and gardening tool!

QQ Go green Creativity Contest

Concentrate and focus!

We need to build our dream house!

3rd Prize- My Dream house

2nd Prize -My Dream hous

1st prize- My dream house

Dragon Boat

Train

Many prizes to be won!

1st prize - Train Station

We have started Go green syllabus in QQ this year, children were taught on what is recycle, how to recycle how to protect our environment, how to save water etc. In order to let parents also participate in recycle ( as every one is responsible for our earth), QQ has organised a go green creativity contest on 4th of Sept 2011 (Sunday) at Kulim Land Mark Central. The contest is opened for all 4 QQ branches- Kulim, Padang Serai, SP and Sg Ara.

The contest is divided into 2 categories, Category A is a family project and the theme was Transportation. Category B is for school project, each school has to come out with their dream home using recycle material.

The response were good as we have 7 fanilies took part in Cactegory A and surprisingly each family chose different transport.

In this contest ,I was amazed by their creativity, I also felt happy and warmth to see parents working together with their children to complete the task. Children are so focus and so proud of their finished work! I would like to thank all the parents for taking part in this activity and spending your time with your children to complete a project.

I also fascinated by teachers ideas on their dream home! go thorough more photos in our facebook. please refer to http://on.fb.me/o2NZ1a

Results :

Category A

1st Prize -RM200 + trophy - Wong Zhen Yu- Train Station (QQ Kulim)

2nd Prize - RM150+ trophy - Ng Jiey Suen -Dragon Boat (QQ SP)

3rd Prize -RM80 + Trophy - Lim Wei Khang - Train (QQ Kulim)

Category B

1st Prize - RM180 +trophy - QQ Sg Ara

2nd Prize - RM120+ Trophy-QQ Kulim

3rd Prize - RM80+Trophy -QQ Sg Petani

4th Prize - RM50+ Trophy - QQ Padang Serai

Why Science is important for our children?

Making our own dough!

Hello, hello, can you hear me?

the plant is grow from seeds!

Balancing! Can you do that?

Blue mixed with red give you purple!

My butterfly can fly!

Vibration!

Science is everywhere in today’s world. It is part of our daily lives, from cooking and gardening, to recycling and comprehending the daily weather report, to reading a map and using a computer. Advances in technology and science are transforming our world at an incredible pace, and our children’s future will surely be filled with leaps in technology we can only imagine.

Being “science literate” will no longer be just an advantage but an absolute necessity. We can’t escape from the significance of science in our world. But not everyone understands that, or has been taught to think critically, or been provided with the tools to analyze and test a problem or situation.

There are three simple reasons why science is important for our kids:

1. Kids love science because it engages their curiosity
2. Science provides practical tools for understanding everyday life
3. Science advances critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity in early learners

It is widely known that young children learn science best by direct hands-on learning. Understanding science helps kids appreciate and relate to the world around them. Preschool is the perfect time to get kids interested in science when they are naturally curious. Science education fuels that curiosity and provides children with valuable ideas, skills, and potential future career choices.

Our kids need more opportunities to learn and love science. In QQ, We wanted to help more children to be interested in science and to establish a basic love of learning in our kids and help them experience and understand the science they see everyday.

Whether a child gains an interest in becoming a doctor, lawyer, teacher, investor, or entrepreneur, developing a scientific mindset with questioning and problem solving is critical to enhancing a child's cognitive growth, logic, and reasoning.

Hence, QQ is going to give our kids a real chance to learn science. If we are lucky, we might help educate the next Einstein, Newton or Planck!

Music and Art?

This is our final work! Excellent!

Sherwin & Brandon were so engrossed in this activity!

The music has stopped , let's draw!

Wei H'ng was excited to paint something out!

Iris is drawing something , look at her expression!

Ever wonder how art can be taught together with music? In QQ , we always emphasize on children creativity. We want children able to express freely and creatively! Hence, this art with music lesson enable children to express out their feeling and emotion creatively through art! With the music , they get excited and expressed themselves freely. They are only 3 years old! Children enjoyed this session very much!

A Fun family day at Balik Pulau

so cute....

He likes my grass!

Concentrating on the explanation.

Teacher Tong trying to cut the nutmeg... not bad!

Mr. Cheah showing us hoe to cut the nutmeg.

The durian we ate on that day...this is just starting.....

I like durian!

Delicious!

Ley's try the durian!

Everybody say cheese.....

Fruits party

Harvesting bayam!

Wow, what is this?

walking up the hill.......

Nutmeg fruit

Do you know nutmeg fruit has male and female? Do you know that goats are similar to human being and they will get running nose, fever and take the medicine same as human? The trip to Nutmeg factory and goat’s farm in Balik Pulau last school holiday is really an eye opener not only for our children but also to the parents! This is the first time QQ has organised a trip that involved parents in the field trip together to create bonding and learning together opportunities! We received good response from the parents and we even have grandmother go with their grand children!

The weather on that day was really hot! However, 60 people from QQ Kulim and 47 people from QQ Padang Serai were so excited for the trip! We walked up and down the hill to the organic farm, listened to the owner explaining how they plant the organic vegetable, children experiencing the harvesting of the bayam under the hot sun! Then, we walked up the hill again to the fruit farm to enjoy fruits and DURIAN! I was really surprised that so many of our students were DURIAN lovers! Every child was happy when leaving the organic farm as each one got a pack of organic vegetable !

Next stop was nutmeg factory, the owner, Mr Cheah, an experience man in nutmeg greeted us at the main entrance and started to show us the nutmeg tree! Nutmeg tree will start to bear fruit after 5 years. One year there is two seasons March and September. Nutmeg fruit has male and female, the usage of the male and female nutmeg is the same except female can be used for planting and male nutmeg fruits cannot be used for planting. Male nutmeg has double seed and irregular shape. Nutmeg can be used for making oilment, juice, tea, pickle and spice. Unripe nutmeg is used for making oil and ripe nutmeg is use for pickle and juice. The seed is beautiful and with red stripe when ripe ! Mr. Cheah even teach us how to open and cut the nutmeg and let us tried the cutting process. Few parents and myself tried the cutting process, it was not difficult but need skill to be efficient!

We have cold nutmeg juice to quench our thirst especially with the hot weather! We had our lunch there and imagine more than 100 people were there as this is the point where both QQ Kulim and Padang Serai met!

After lunch, everyone gets a bottle of nutmeg juice and dried banana chips and left the factory happily and proceed to goat’s farm. We need to walk about 10 minutes to the goat ‘s farm located in the ‘kampung’. Children are enjoying and walked eagerly toward the farms whereas parent s were a bit exhausted! This might be the result of lack of exercise!

The goat farm was neat and clean, of course we can sense goat’s smell before we reached the farm ! All of us were given the grass to feed the goat! This is the great time I can say as children as well as parent were so anxious to feed the goats. The goats were white in colour and were originated from Australia! Everyone was so focused in feeding the goats and you can hear screaming and laughing all over the farm!

The visit will not be completed without watching the milking process and taste of fresh goats milk! We were served with fresh pasteurised goat’s milk and the taste was superb! Many parents bought the milk home!

It was indeed an informative and fun trip I would say, every one of us was exhausted and enjoyed ourselves very much! Some parents even requested to join in the next trip!

All photos were uploaded on QQ Kulim facebook ! Please visit QQ fan page and download the photos if you were in the photos! Http://facebook.com.qq.kulim or go to http://on.fb.me/jlbBq2 to download.