For the August theme, most of the activities are related to preserving nature which aligns with sustainability. We are thankful to ALLAH SWT for creating Earth for humans and animals. Being thankful, we show it by taking care of our environment, reducing harmful practices, saving resources, recycling items properly, and planting more greens. Here, we are going to share with you what are the achievements and adventures we did together.
“The concept of sustainability is complex. It is working towards a restorative and generative process for Earth’s systems, that relates to nature, social, political, and economic state. In ECE context, sustainability is about transformative changes, such as our thinking, our ways of being and our ways of acting to regenerate the Earth”. -Teacher 2021
STAR OF THE WEEK is for students to express their character, interest, individuality, and gain a sense of belonging and individual attention. For August, these students were chosen as the stars because of their awesome participation in the sessions, initiative to engage with their peers and teachers despite it being online learning. And their enthusiasm in doing the activities together. For week 1, all teachers had discussed and agreed to pick Aamina Ali and Tengku Hannah to be the stars of the week. For week 2, all teachers agreed to select Saif Khaled and Rizqi Redzuan. Then, for week 3, we chose Omar Abdelaziz and Umaiza Sabina, and for week 4, we picked Adam and Aisya.
We did multiple activities. Starting with “Friends with the World”, where students share their love for our world by drawing a picture of Earth or trees. For the Market Stall activity, we did a drama play of buying and selling goods. The students acknowledged the concept of selling and buying. Students also did a “Helper in Action” in which they show empathy towards other living creatures. They needed to understand the facial reactions and actions of others. For the “Junk Modelling centre” activity, students learned about the colours of the bins and their purposes. They get the idea of why we have to recycle and the recycling process. The students also learned to invent something new from recycled materials in the “Something old and Something New” activity. During the “Friendly Ball” activity they learned to appreciate others’ by complimenting them, which at the same time, they know that compliment will make others happy too. In the “What’s in The News” activity, the students learned to do newspaper cutting about the pictures that they liked.
Students are also able to know why it is important to take care of the environment, where the monthly verse has been explained to all of them in an interactive way that showed how ALLAH SWT is causing the rain and its cycles which has close meaning to recycling concept.
For Play Day basically, we are having a day of messy play or free play with the students. In August play day activities are Water Squeeze activity and Anagram. The water squeeze activity is where the students squeeze the sponge with water into a water bottle. We have to fill in the whole water bottle within the time given and mark the level of water that we have achieved. The purpose of having a water squeeze activity is not a competition or to be a winner, but their capabilities in filling the water according to the time given. We can see some students get wet and some can do it independently and to summarize, the water squeeze activity is for the students simply to have fun! Anagram activity is a game where the students have to form a word and rearrange the letters with the clue given. The objective of the activity is to enhance their reading and speaking skills while answering the questions and to develop critical thinking when guessing the clue! It was so much fun.
Family activity is the activities that parents did throughout the months and it usually refers to the monthly themes. This is a task assigned for parents and students to do the activity at home. For August week 1 family activities are where the parents have to share with us what they can do to help the environment. Parents need to submit the task by sharing pictures or videos. For week 2, parents have to think of ways to present local businesses to their child, e.g., going to or knowing about a local market or farm. For example, they have to plan a day for the whole family to spend time together exploring or knowing about the local businesses. Family activities for week 3 are Recycling, Reusing, Reducing. Parents have to think about the possibilities of a product before they throw it away; it could be reused for another purpose. How about that old t-shirt? It could be used as a car rag. Reuse is different from recycling, but it does lead to reduced consumption – always a good thing. With the children, discuss what can be recycled, reuse and reuse at home. For week 4, parents have to bake cookies and showcase the items we did throughout the months that were recycled together with the cookies.
In regards to Malaysia’s National Day that is on August 31st, we had Merdeka Week with the students. We talked about Malaysia, about the colours of the flag, the meaning of the colours, the people staying in the country, the places & the multicultural community. The students had a task at home which was to draw, paint or colour their artwork that resembles Malaysia. It can be either a picture of the Malaysia flag with KL Tower behind it, or maybe a picture of Malaysia’s national flower, the Hibiscus, or a picture of people at Pasar Malam (Night Market). Another topic we talked about is My favourite Malaysian food is…We shared and talked about the type of food cuisine in Malaysia & describe our favourite food. After discovering the cuisines, we ventured to The best place I visited in Malaysia is...we explored the places and states in Malaysia. Students shared their best place(s) visited in Malaysia… Our second last topic was that Malaysia is full of holidays!; we talked about the holidays such as Hari Raya Aidilfitri, Hari Raya Aidiladha, Chinese New Year, Deevapali and many more! We ended the week with the topic, I love Malaysia because… Students showcased their artwork, presenting it while wearing their selected Malaysian traditional attire.Caption: The activities for Merdeka in August 2021.
