Early Childhood Development Initiative

On April 2024 Ba Futuru’s Preschool have enrolled a total of 53 children. However, in term 2 (this current term) the preschool has 50 (Boys: 27 and Girls: 23) students who are currently active because 3 of the children have moved.

Term 2- Learning about “The Community Helpers”

 After the one-week break from the first-term, we welcomed back our children to continue their learning in preschool. During the second term children gained many experiences linked to our general topic of “Community Helpers.” In addition, children get to hear directly from these community helpers and experienced the jobs and some of the equipment they used in their jobs.

• On April 8^th 2024, we welcomed mana (big sister in Tetun) Adalberta dos Reis from Comoro health care center to share about her work as a Nurse and introduced some of the nurse equipment. The children were very excited and were very curious during her presentation. They get to see directly the nurse equipment such as thermometer, statoscope and tense-meter.
• In the following week, we have introduced to the children about Drivers. We invited our preschool bus driver maun (big brother in Tetun) Alvaro to share about his experiences. Maun Alvaro took the opportunity to introduce the safety driving procedures to the children, including where to fill up the petrol and other equipment of the car. The children were very excited during his presentation, and they also shared their experiences that they had with their parents and family about driving safely. The children also shared their knowledge of other drivers, Bus drivers, heavy truck drivers and other public transportation drivers.
• Lastly, we organized two-days of site visit to the Fire Station, on Tuesday 16^th and Wednesday 17^th 2024. The children were introduced to the fire fighter’s job. During the visit children got know about the fire fighter’s job, and each children had the opportunity to experience directly some of the equipment of the fire fighters. The children was very excited and curiously asking lots of question about the equipment and the experience of being a firefighter.

Literacy:

During the second term, the children learned the jolly phonics of letter group 2-3 (CK,E, H,R,M,D,G,O,U,L,F,B). The children learned about the songs, sounds and action of these letters. The children learned to recognized the letters, practicing reading, blending sound sensorial play and phonics game. We also have supported children with arts and craft.

Math:

During the second term, children learned to recognize the numbers from 11-20 but some children are already up to 50, depending on the level of learning that the children have. The children was also introduced to the 3D shapes, classification, practicing tracing, sand paper numbers counting, and Montessori math such as; addition, subtraction, and symbols of math. All the activities were accompanied through the game and one-on-one correspondence.

PMP (Physical Movement Program)

Our pre-school teachers have been setting up the obstacle course activities for the children to explore every day. We support our children through games, prepared by our teachers each Monday. Games such as ball-play, jumping, soccer and other fun activities. Through these games children were able to developed their fine-motor skills, eye coordination, and physical movement.

On Tuesdays, we had the opportunity to do different types of dancing with mana Rabea (one of our CPS worker). In this activity the children developed their confidence, balance, body control and other skills. After their dance class with mana Rabea, the children had the brilliant opportunity to present one of those dances to their parents during the second term potluck lunch.

Teacher and Parent Conference

To end the second term, we organized the teachers and parents conference to discuss about the progress of the children during the 6 month at the preschool.

Parent’s voices:

Most of the parents were very happy with our curriculum as it had helped their children to improve their social behaviors, leadership skills, communication and language improvement. The parents also have promised to share the information of our preschool to the their peers and other community.

Ba Futuru Preschool

Quarterly Report- January to March 2024

On January 2024, Ba Futuru’s preschool have enrolled a total of 57 children. In term 1 (current term), the pre-school has 50 (Boys: 26 and Girls: 24) currently active children, since 7 children have moved.

• Term 1- We were Learning about “Settling, my Identity and my Culture”

We welcomed our new and existing families and children. Settling back into our preschool routine!Focusing on learningabout our cultural identity and values that will be accepted and respected by others. Moreover, it is important for children to have people in their lives who encourage and help them to develop their connection to their culture and identity. Highlighting on activities such as:

1. Practicing talking about themselves and their sense of belonging.
2. Children knowing their community: their best friend, their family members, and their parents’ professional career.
3. Children learn greetings from different languages.
4. Children learn about their own culture. By introducing the Timorese traditional costumes. We took the children to Tais-market in Colmera to observe directly and getting to know about the Timorese culture and traditional attires from different municipalities. Including, experiencing and observing directly the process of how the Tais is produced.

• Literacy

We learned the jolly phonic letter group 1 (s, a, t, i p, n) where the children learned about song, sound and action of the letter. The children learn to recognize letters, practice reading, blending sound, sensorial play and playing phonics games. We also have supported children with art and craft.

• Math

Based on their learning stage, children learn to recognize numbers 1-10. The children were introduced to basic shapes, classification, practicing tracing sand paper number, counting down, and Montessori math like road number and court and counter. It is accompanied by game and one to one correspondent activities.

• Physical Movement program (PMP)

Teachers have been setting up obstacle course activities for children to explore every day. We supported our children to develop their skills in fine motor and gross motor, Eye-hand coordination, physical movement. This will help the children to develop their concentration, confidence, risk-taking, through balance or body-control. This term we introduce dance activity and skate boarding.

Parenting Session

The parenting program is introduced in this term in Preschool. Most of the parents focus on learning and increasing their knowledge in understanding the four domains of children development. The parents have a lot of questions, generating an interactive discussion on the parents role in supporting the children’s development at home.

Teacher’s professional day

In this term the teacher focus on the learning about Children Development, Leadership, Inclusion, Theory of psycho-social, and Focus on how to write a good learning story on 25^th -27^th of March 2024. A very meaningful experience for our amazing and dedicated teacher who felt more supported in teaching practice on the next term. Our teacher were an exciting and enthusiastic participants at the training by being active and curiously asking questions, that will level up their teaching skills in the second term.

Links:

• Come and have glimpse at our PreSchool activities