WE'RE READY FOR EASTER!

Are you?!

Happy Easter from Kinderland

Kinderland Sunway SPK Damansara wishes you and your family a Happy Easter!

Let's Make Some Fruit Salad

The nursery students made some yummy and healthy fruit salad for snack last week.

Here's how you can enjoy some at home:

Step 1 : Choose some fruits! The more colour choices, the better! Here we have some red apples, green and purple seedless grapes, yellow Chinese pears, and oranges.

Step 2 : Cut up the fruits into small pieces! Make sure you use safe knives and have adult help.

Step 3 : Stir them all together and mix the fruits well!

Step 4 : Serve it up and enjoy!

Remember This!

Fun in the Sun!

The K2 students had some sun today when they were taken out to the field for some playtime.
The students had a half-hour session of pass-the-ball and kick-ball with the teachers!
Kids had fun in the open space and playing with their friends as it gave them the opportunity to explore their neighbourhood just a little, and to run around unconfined.

Even though it was just a short one, the KinderFit session sure made us sweat!
Here's to hoping there will be more outdoor play in the future to keep the students healthy and happy :)

Challenge Accepted!

This is Mr Elmo Francis, a Sri Lankan mountaineer.

Recently, he pledged to climb 7000 metres in the Himalayas if 100 schools promotes sustainability, and we have accepted the challenge!

So here's what you need to know about the Earth Hour movement:

The Earth Hour Movement first began 9 years ago in Sydney Australia where 2.2 million Sydneysiders and 2.1 thousand businesses switched off their lights for an hour. Since then, many more countries have taken participation in this annual event, Malaysia included.

What is Earth Hour?
For an hour, once a year, Earth Hour asks people from around the world to switch off non-essential lights. However, it is not a complete blackout as this may affect safety. It is a voluntary action by its participants to show their commitment to an act of change that benefits the planet.

Why should I turn off my lights?
While many question the impact of turning off their lights for an hour, once a year, people forget that the Earth's sustainability depends on the small act of saving by each of its residents; saving electricity, saving water, saving energy, saving fuel. Now, imagine what 1 hour of no electrical power use in Kuala Lumpur alone, could do!


When do I turn them off?
This year, the Earth Hour is set on the 23rd of March 2013 from 8.30 pm - 9.30 pm


What will I do in the dark?
Here are some of our suggestions!

1. Have a family movie night! You can extend this hour to the full length of the movie to make up for the energy you've used to run your tv!

2. How about a romantic family dinner? With candle lights and home-cooked food!

3. Picnic at the park? Surround your family in the light of tea candles and have some family time out on the grass.

Can you suggest more?


We hope parents will participate in this event. If you do, please send us photos or post them on Facebook (tag us!) so we can share them with our community too!

The Pizza Project!

As part of the integrated learning syllabus, the students are currently learning about Food and Nutrition.
Last Tuesday, the K1 students of Kinderland Sunway SPK Damansara 1 made their own pizzas as their morning snack!

This is a truly simple recipe and can be done at home, too, with the kids. Letting the children choose toppings from an array of healthy ingredients help children eat better and healthier!

Here's how you can make your own home made pizzas

Ingredients:

1 loaf plain white bread
1 can tomato puree/ tomato paste
1 capsicum, sliced thinly
1 red onion, sliced thinly
10 button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 pineapple, diced
1 pack sausages, sliced
1 block mozzarella cheese, grated
Oregano to taste

Instructions:

1. On a plain bread base, spread some tomato puree.
2. Choose toppings according to preference.
3. Sprinkle some oregano.
4. Top with lots of cheese.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 10 minutes or until cheese is has fully melted and bread crusts has browned slightly.
6. ENJOY SOME PIPING HOT PIZZAS!

Food tip: 

Give the children a variety of coloured toppings to choose from! Having the purple of onions, green and red of capsicums, yellow of pineapples and brown of mushrooms sprinkled on your child's snack makes it not only pretty but also super healthy!

Fire Safety Awareness Day

On Monday, 11th March 2013, The students of Kinderland SPK 1 had a Fire Safety Awareness Day during which they were given a briefing on fire safety. Through the briefing, the children learned what precautions they should take in order to minimise the likelihood of a fire happening as well as how to face different types of fires and what to do when they are in one.


Among the fire safety policies that the children were taught include:

1. Taking note of fire exits when they go somewhere and maintaining clear exits in homes.
2. Complying with electrical safety codes; i.e: one electrical item to a plug, use of extensions only for small electrical items to avoid overloading wiring.
3. Placing and maintaining proper fire extinguishers.
4. Maintaining a fire alarm system to detect fire at early stages.
5. Prohibiting flammable materials in certain areas of the home such as near stoves and electrical power points.


The children were also taught what to do in case of a fire and how to put one out.

So what should you really do in case of a fire?

Here's what!

Always practice safety at home and we hope this info helps!

Yummy, Yummy, Baked Macaroni!

As part of the lesson on healthy eating, the K2 students learned healthy ways of cooking food. One of these ways is to bake! So, the teachers and kids rallied together and made some baked macaroni for lunch last Friday.

First, the main duties were divided among the students:

IJ was on vege duty! She had to rip out the mushroom stalks and tear the mushroom into chunks.

Yong Jie was put on cheese duty where she grated up some mozzarella to top the baked macaroni!

Yu Ming was our sauce master! He was asked to stir up the cream of mushroom to perfection!

Jia En filled our cream sauce with chicken chunks so we could have some protein in our meal!

Once the sauce had all the ingredients in, Shaun and Alyssa were put together to scoop up the sauce and mix it with the macaroni.

What works? Team work!

We then scooped them into trays and topped them off with some mozzarella and cheddar!

Just before it gets popped in the oven.

Fresh out of the oven!

Yummy, yummy, baked macaroni!

Soon after their lessons, the children were served with their baked macaroni!

The boys can't wait to get a taste of their handiwork 

Some for me and some for you :)

The children truly enjoyed their meal and many of them had second and third servings!

A tip for mummies: Getting children involved in the preparation of their meals helps them understand why they should eat healthy and is a good way of getting them to eat more!

We're hoping for more cooking sessions in the future! Parents, do share with us if you know simple recipes for kids that you and your children love making together!

Till next time :)

Why SMART Board Learning?

During our meet and greet with parents at our opening, many parents were curious as to why we chose to use a SMART Board. Well, here are 7 reasons why:

1. The SMART Board provides teachers and students with a whole new interactive learning environment to share ideas, information, images, animations, audio or video.

2. Learning is much more powerful if it is multimodal and the SMART Board supports several different learning styles - visual-spatial, auditory and kinaesthetic.

3. Students are highly motivated when content is presented on a SMART Board.

4.  It increases their enjoyment by being physically involved touching and moving objects and by the size of the screen which makes images large enough for everyone to see.

5. The engagement and knowledge building of young children is fostered when they are given the opportunity to interact in a physical and mental way in the learning environment.

6. Children's excitement in demonstrating a skill or 'operating' the SMART Board boosts their self-esteem and builds confidence in science and technology and aids them to work independently at a later time.

7. The collaborative nature of using the SMART Board in the learning environment, where the teacher and students are grouped in front of the board engaging in an activity is highly effective for whole group instruction, active discussion and questioning.

Naturally, what they've learned from the SMART Board could be made more powerful if they're followed with hands-on experiments and activities. However, in the absence of materials and the constrain of time, SMART Board learning on its own would have sufficed.

So, we say "why not?"

Excursion to Sunway Lagoon Wildlife Park

Dear Parents,

In-line with our upcoming theme, "Nature and Environment", Kinderland Sunway SPK Damansara 1 and 2 will be having an excursion to the Sunway Lagoon Wildlife Park. This trip is intended to teach children about the wonders of nature and wildlife, and to provide them with an opportunity to see these animals up close as well as interact with these wildlife creatures.

The details of the excursion are as follows:

Date / Day                  : 22nd March 2013 (Friday)
Time                           : 9.00 am - 2.00 pm
Drop-off/Pick-up Point : Kinderland Sunway SPK 1
Fees                           : RM 55/child & RM 60/adult

While the excursion is open to all students, Pre-Nursery students have to be accompanied by an adult.
School for all levels will be closed on excursion day.

If you are interested in joining the excursion, please signify your interest in the reply slips provided in your child's communication book as well as make the necessary payment.

We hope this trip will benefit all those present.

Thank you.

Kinderland Sunway SPK Damansara would like to wish all the women out there a Happy Women's Day. May you never forget how phenomenal you truly are and may you always have the strength to be your phenomenal self.

We love YOU!

SMART Board Learning - Healthy Eating

The K2 students experienced SMART Board integrated learning for the first time today on "Healthy Eating".

The lesson began with the teacher explaining what are healthy foods and what kinds of food should not be consumed regularly.

The lesson began with the teacher explaining what are healthy foods and what kinds of food should not be consumed regularly.

The children were asked to sort food images into "healthy" and "unhealthy" categories.
Once the children understood that oil is bad for health and should be taken sparingly, they then learned that eating fried foods and deep fried foods is not recommended.
The children suggested other ways of cooking food that is better for health and oil free such as baking, boiling, steaming and grilling.

Can you suggest other ways of cooking food that are good for health and retains nutrition, mummies?

Eggs-periment! (Part 2)

Following yesterday's little experimentation session, we found some time to allow all the K2 students to test the squishy-ness of our squishy eggs. Priceless were the expressions we saw, from utter amazement, to absolute delight, to complete disgust!

                                     

Squish!

So, did anybody manage to figure out the answer to our three questions?

1. Why does one egg stop spinning while the other continues?

2. What is the item used to balance the second egg?

3. Why can the second egg stand when placed on top of the item?

The children did!

First, we had a few volunteers help us spin the eggs and stop them to see which egg continues spinning and which egg stops.

Justin and Alyssa spin the eggs

 Then, we cracked both eggs open to see the difference!

Crack! It's raw and gooey!

This one's nicely cooked all through!

Ah! So, that's why! The raw egg continues spinning as the gooey yolk inside the shell also spins!

Now, what about that balancing egg?
We called Janiel to see if she can make an egg stand on a the table.

Janiel trying to achieve the impossible.

And then Nicklesh help us make it stand on the mount of salt (yes, the secret is salt!).

Nicklesh looking proudly at his standing egg.

 But why does it work that way?

Well, the perfect cubes of salt grains form a nice and stable pedestal for the egg to balance on. That's why!

For more fun eggs-periments, visit NatGeo Kids!