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!