Early Childhood Development Initiative

Ba Futuru Preschool, Term 2

Quarterly Report - April to June 2023                          

This term we have 43 children enrolled. We had 5 new enrolments this term. 7 children are full time. 9 are from the Seroja Community. 27 are fee-paying children. We have 18 boys and 25 girls.

Term 2 Focus - Exploring Community Support Services and Occupations and revisiting Unity - Working as a Team.

This term our teaching and learning plan focus has been exploring our local community occupations and services. We have had a trip to the airport, learning about an engine of a plane and a pilot’s work. Our children have learnt new vocabularies, and have asked and answered questions and gained knowledge about how their world operates around them. At preschool, we have read stories, sung songs, done art and crafts, and role-played different occupations to learn more.

We facilitate daily the importance of working together as a team through sharing a common goal. Teacher’s role model this and at tidy up times everyone gets involved to tidy and clean. Our children show responsibility and a sense of pride through working together to tidy their environment. Our older children are good role models to our younger children through helping their younger peers, through being friendly and supporting them when they are in need. Our children have a deep sense of identity, belonging and wellbeing through being able to enjoy their place of play and learning through developing confidence and competence in being responsible for self, others and the environment.

Maths and Science

Many different mathematical activities and processes are happening daily in our programme. Building a tower of blocks to exploring with water, sand and other sensory materials. Our younger children are learning the fundamental elementary mathematic language and concepts. Some concepts our children are learning are full, empty, high, low, same, more, less, one more, not enough, how many, plenty, fewer, take away and add on. Our children compare objects and learn that a value can be attached to objects.

This term we continue to focus on numeracy, patterns, measuring, sorting, counting, grouping, shapes, addition, and subtraction. We encourage our children to think mathematically, through estimating, connecting, problem solving, and playing with 3 dimensional objects.

We explore science activities regularly and like to start early each year introducing these for our children’s curiosity and desire to explore and experiment. This ultimately strengthens our children problem-solving and analytical skills. It gets our children to question how things work and develop an understanding of their environment. This term our children showed a strong interest in learning about Volcano eruptions, and enjoyed making the chemical reaction. We also experimented with fiction doing the non-leak plastic bag experiment. The Rainbow magic milk experiment has also been popular. We also have reintroduced this term slime to our sensorial activities, our diverse learners really enjoy this medium to work with.

Physical Movement Programme (PMP)

Skate board

We have continued with this activity “skateboarding” introduced last year. We have been practicing every Wednesday and Friday there has been a huge improvement of skill and balance. Our older children have become confident to get on, balance and skate along and learn how to turn around, and skate independently.

Physical Movement Programme

Pedro has been leading our PMP every Monday. Children have been practicing gross motor skills, coordination, concentration, eye tracking skills, team work, and balancing through participation. We have been playing, musical chair, mat races, running race, balloon race, parachute, breathing exercises, Circus dance, Yoga and challenge courses.

Place Based Education (P.B.E) Exploring our Community.

Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F) Airport Excursion 15/06/2023. 40 children visited in groups of 10 children. During the visit the children were all naturally curious to find out about the Pilot Job, and how the airplane worked. The pilot introduced the mechanics and answered our children’s questions.

We believe connecting classroom to the community and to learn by being involved, gives children a strong sense of belonging and identity through community and their place in it. Place-based Learning is a framework that effectively delivers experiential learning and supports teachers in amplifying learning from place and context.

Transition to School Programme (5 and 6 year olds)

Our teaching team have been delivering the Jolly Phonics Literacy Programme for over 7 years, and are very experienced. We deliver the programme systematically going through the alphabet sounds, actions, reading and writing, carrying on from last term. We have been playing many literacy games including memorising the English Rainbow Sight words and we have devised a Tetun Sight Word list. We are very proud of 5 and 6 year olds, who are eager to learn and have a solid foundation of letter sounds and are able to blend the sounds to read words. Many of our 5 and 6 year olds are reading our early reader books and are creating simple stories to write with a teacher’s support.

We are using our Montessori Maths materials and learning about numbers and place value.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

This term our parents’ conference took place from 19 - 27 June 2023. 41 parents participated in the conferences.

Parent’s Survey

28 parents participated in the survey. We had positive feedback about our preschool service. Parents were over all happy with their child’s learning and progress. Many parents thanked all the teachers for their good work during the semester, they could see the good results in their children’s development.

Quotation from Parent

Parent from the community (Child is in the Sprout Class-2-4 years)

“First of all, I would like to thank to all the Ba Futuru teacher for your amazing work.

Since my child enrolled in Ba Futuru, my child has shown a lot of improvement. His English language vocabulary has improved, He is confident to practice speaking with his brother and sister at home after coming back from preschool and during the weekend. We, as parents are really happy to see our child developing. He said at school we learn to use a nice voice and respect each other. We as parents will collaborate with the teacher to help him learn better. Again, Thank you very much.”

Now we have three classes operating; Sprouts class is for children aged 2-4 and our Explorer class (transition to school) is for children aged 5-6.

One class in the morning and two classes in the afternoon.

We currently employ, 6 teachers and 1 cleaner/cook.

In this term, we welcomed our new and existing families and children and settled back into our preschool routines. This term Our focus is on teaching and learning to recognize and regulate their own emotions. We are enforcing a positive attitude toward learning such as persistence, engagement, and curiosity.

Language:

This term we encourage children to learn different languages from each country where the child from, we are learning about the greetings and songs such as (English, Portuguese, Cambodia, Tetun, France, Germany, Bahasa Indonesia, and Vietnam)

We also introduce our mat time in the Portuguese language once a week. Children start to learn about greeting, the human body, memory games and singing different songs.  

Cooking Programme:

We also cooperated with parents, Mrs Akiko and Mrs Manae in this term.  Mrs Akiko is one of our old student's moms from Japan. We worked together with them and teach our children of making the Japanese traditional food called "SUSHI" This project helped our children to enrich their knowledge, and most of our children enjoyed and practised a lot making sushi. The main point of this project is to help our children to know the different identities around the world, as our first term topic is about culture and identity.

Mathematical and Science:

Children are naturally curious and begin to explore the world around them. They are naturally born scientists, investigating, questioning, exploring and experimenting. This term we have stimulated our children's thinking and involving ideas and understanding, of how the world works, through all the different experiments. We have been focused on hands-on experiments such as volcano eruption, slimes, magic colours, travelling water and bubbles. We are looking forward to having the new experiments in the next term.

Early mathematical learning is a gradual process of moving from concrete to abstract understanding. We believe mathematical learning comes alive when it’s grounded in our children's interests, abilities, proposes, and cultural understanding. This term we are focused on numeracy, patterns, measuring, sorting, counting, grouping, and shapes. We encourage our children to think mathematically, through estimating, connecting, problem-solving, and playing with abilities.

Physical Movement Programme (PMP)

Skateboard

this year we added our new physical movement activity called "skateboarding" Our children had been practising balancing themself on the skate. Most of our children already know how to ride skates. We are looking forward to working together with our professional player Maun Jino to help our children to learn new skills such as turning the skate and another style of the playing the skate.

Physical Movement Programme

We also have been, practising a lot of, our physical movement program with our PMP teacher Pedro. Every Monday, we have learnt a lot of gross motor skills, coordination, concentration, eye tracking skills, team working, and self-balancing throughout the different games, such as the musical chair, soccer, running race, balloon race, parachute, Duck-Duck-Goose, Brain Gym, Circus dance, Yoga and etc.

Place-Based Education (P.B.E) Exploring our Community.

Excursion

On Wednesday 16^th and Thursday 17^th of February, 2023 we had our excursion to the Tais Market in Colmera. During the visited the children were all naturally curious to find out about the various kinds of traditional costume and equipment, which is on display and for sale at the Market. Salenda (scarf), Belak and Morten (necklace), Xapeu (hat), Pasta (bag), Babadok (drum), Surik (sword) Kaebauk (Crown).

This experience strengthens our learner’s identity and reinforces a sense of

belonging and pride in their local environment. Today children were fully immersed

in learning more about the culture of Timor-Leste, by exploring the Tais

Market. This experience links into our curriculum of place-based learning and our topic for this term is learning about the different “Cultures” in our classroom and therefore building a stronger “Identity”.

We believe in connecting the classroom to communities and learning through being

involved. Immersing children into a richly diverse world gives children a strong

sense of their identity through community and their place in it.

Transition to School Programme (5-year-olds)

Our teaching and learning programme follows the Jolly Phonics Programme. We have been using this programme for over 5 years consistently and it delivers good solid results, as all our children learn to read and write before starting primary school. This consists of children learning the alphabet letter sounds and actions, through singing and moving. This term our children have been learning to practice the first 12 alphabet sounds s, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, and h. We have been practising a lot of games and reading rainbow sight words.

Teacher’s professional day

Planning and preparation for term 1.

• Planning lessons prepared, classroom set up and decoration.

Teacher capacity building will be held on the 3^rd – 5^th of April 2023.

The topic of capacity building will be:

• Good learning story writing refresher.
• Play-based learning refresher.
• Positive behaviour reinforcements

Written Children Learning Stories

Our teachers have been practising for two years + to write children Learning Stories! This year our teachers have improved their writing skills. We noticed a big developmental shift in their computer skills, and ability to think about the new learning that teachers noticed, recognized, responded to and recorded.

Mota (teacher) has increased her written ability in English and computer skills. She also has done great observation, notice, recognised, responded to and recorded the new learning and help children to gain more new learning skills. 

A big thanks to our Ba Futuru families, teachers and children for the fantastic collaboration, and support in teaching and learning this year. It’s such a very significant impact on children learning.

This term 4 we are focused on learning the space and environment. Children are learning about where we live, the country, the village and the names of the 8 planets. Through the excitement, theme children enhance their skills in Math, science, literacy, creativity, leadership, culture and how to look after the earth. This year we have 16 children who graduate.

Here are the success activities:

1. The term 3 and 4 we have been doing an excursion to Tasi-Tolu to see the pelican and seagulls. The children are excited to travel around the lake to see the birds and do a cleaning up on the beach side.
2. We organized the potluck lunch together with the parents.
3. We have organized a parents-teachers Conference to discuss children's progress and development, and the activities for the end-of-year concert and graduation ceremony.
4. On 01/12 2022 we Celebrated our End of year concert, fundraising and Graduation ceremony.

=========Thank you=========

Currently, Ba Futuru’s preschool has 42 children. There are 9 children who are full-time students and s6 children are from Ba Futuru’s neighbourhoods in Seroja communities. In this term, we have 5 children who are new so we welcomed our new families and children and settled back into our preschool routines. Our new children have been exploring our fun and educational environment with curiosity and are beginning to develop a sense of well-being and belonging in their new surroundings. Our children have been exploring outside learning with many different play areas.

 Reinforcements of positive behaviours in the classroom. We delivered a comprehensive programme on how children can practice their positive behaviours with their teachers and peers. Children learnt about emotions through being able to label emotions and self-regulate in appropriate ways. We revisited our good friend programme, which reminds children how to play like a good friend. Ba Futuru Preschool Attributes. We have 10 attributes that nurture skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviours.

This term, our teaching and learning programme has been focusing on 3 attributes are; Guardian of the earth, Creativity, and Teamwork. I believe our children have a good understanding of these attributes as children are able to nominate their peers who they see doing things in these three areas. We have been practising once every week taking care of our garden and picking up the rubbish around our Ba Futuru environment.

Transition to School Programme (5-year-olds)

 Our teaching and learning programme follows the Jolly Phonics Programme. We have been using this programme for over 5 years consistently and it delivers good solid results, as all our children learn to read and write before starting primary school. This consists of children learning the alphabet letter sounds and actions, through singing and moving. This term our children have been learning by practising our jolly phonics Group 3-4 there are 18 alphabet sounds such as Group 3: g, o,u, l, f, b. Group 4: ai, j, oa, ie, ee, or. Moreover, we have been practising forming the letters correctly on the air, black and white board, then on paper and creating the craft relatedly to each letter. On other hand, Children also practice their reading skills through learning of sounding out each letters sounds and also early reading books for 5 minutes each day, one on one with a teacher.

 Montessori and Play-Based Learning Maths Programme

 We continue to explore different ways of learning maths. Our children are all at different levels of maths learning, therefore we cater lesson plans to the individual’s skill level. Currently, we are focusing on one-to-one correspondence, measurements, shapes, colours, addition, substruction and classification. Children enjoy learning our fun math games inside the classroom and outside the classroom.

 Place-Based Education (P.B.E) Exploring our Community.

Place-based learning engages children in our community, including our physical environment, local culture, history, or people. With place-based learning, children get to see the results of their work in their community.

 What’s happening in our larger Dili community? These experiences enrich our children, through gaining knowledge about the place where they live. We use these experiences as a foundation for learning more about language, art, maths, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.

This term our excursion took us to the fire station which is very closed to our preschool.  We are invited every year and it has become an annual excursion.

 Our children get the opportunity every year to experience it. The children were very excited to try on the firefighters' helmets and boots. The firefighters explained why it's important to have the correct uniform and fire gear to keep them safe from being burned. They gave us a tour of their fire truck, pointing out the different things, water hose, water tank and ladders. Then we had the opportunity to hold the big firefighters’ hose and to spray the water, like a real firefighter! Having a career as a Firefighter and helping the community is one of our children’s aspirations when they grow up! Needless to say, they were extremely happy to participate in this trip.

 Teachers’ Professional Training

 We had a half-day refresher session on our child protection programme, it’s about Keeping safe. We focused on what we want to nurture in our children through teaching skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviour on how to respond to harm and look for assistance.

 The teachers have had a refresher course with Mrs, Nadia and Mr Helio from Ba Futuru staff about the psychosocial Mental Health Support for Children who have Experience Traumatic events. Our teacher learning a lot of strategies and methods how to respond to those children.

Ba Futuru Preschool Quarterly Report 2022 

In January Ba Futuru preschool enrolled 43 children; 39 children are active, and 4 children have moved elsewhere.   

9 children are full time students. 

6 are from theSeroja Community. 

24 are fee-paying children. 

Boys: 20 and Girls: 23.  

We have two classes operating; Sprouts class is for children aged 2-4 and our Explorer class (transition to school)is for children aged 5-6.  

We currently employee, 6 teachers and 1 cleaner/cook. 

Term 1-Settling, Discovering Self and Identity  

We welcomed our new and existing familiesand children and settled back into our preschool routines. Our new children have been exploring our fun and educational environment with curiosity and are beginning to develop a sense of well-being and belonging in their new surroundings. Our children have been exploring self and identity throughsharing family photos, stories and self-portraits and family representations through art. We all learn and share together and build up stronger identities and relationships with each other. 

Self-Regulation. We delivered a comprehensiveprogramme on self-regulation. Children learnt about emotions through being able to label emotions and self-regulate in appropriate ways. We revisited our good friend programme, which reminds children how to play like a good friend. 

Ba Futuru Preschool Attributes.We have 10 attributes that nurture skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviours.  

This term,our teaching and learning programme has focused on 3 attributes.  Friendliness,Team Work, and Resilience. I believe our children have a good understanding about these attributes as children are able to nominate their peers who they see doing things in these three areas. 

Transition to School Programme (5 year olds)  

Our teaching and learning programmefollows the Jolly Phonics Programme.We have been using this programme for over 5 years consistently and it deliversgood solid results, as all our children learn to read and write before starting primary school. Thisconsists of children learning the alphabet letter sounds and actions, through singing and moving.This term our children have been learning to practice the first 12 alphabets soundss, a, t, i, p, n, c, k, e, h, r and m.We also practice to form the letters correctly in the air and then on paper and make a craft dedicated to each letter. 

Children also practice their reading skills through learning to sound out an early reader book for 5 minutes each day, one on one with a teacher.  

Montessori and Play Based LearningMathsProgramme 

We continue to explore different ways of learning maths. Our children are all at different levels of maths learning, therefore we cater lesson plans to the individual’s skill level.Currently we are focusing on one-to-one correspondence, sequencing, unit measurements, shape, addition, patterns, and classification.  

Place Based Education (P.B.E) Exploring ourCommunity.  

What’s happening in our larger Dili community? These experiences enrich our children, through gaining knowledge about the place that they live. We use these experiences as a foundation for learning more about language, art, maths, science, and other subjects across the curriculum.  

Thisterm our excursion took us to the Nun’s Bakery our neighbours.  We are invited every year and it has become an annual excursion. Our children get the opportunity every year to experience a commercial kitchen and its operation.  The nuns choose a different food experience each year for our children to participate in making.  This year it was making a cupcake and decorating it and of course sampling it, YUM, YUM.  Because of COVID, we have limited our excursions to only one a term.   

Teachers’ Professional Training 

We had afull day refresher session on our curriculum framework.  We focused on what we want to nurture in our children through teaching skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, dispositions and behaviour through these 10 areas.Leadership, Friendliness, Team Work, Resilience, Health, Explorer, Guardian of the Earth, Creativity, Empowerment, and Building Relationships.  

We discussed what’s going well in our new documentation and writing a narrative report in the form of a learning story, and what teachers are finding hard about this documentation.  The teachers that are more skilled with writing and using the computer are mentoring the teachers that are still learning these new skills.   

The teachers have had a Montessori Maths refresher course with Mrs,Lolita from Sri Lanka who is Lecture in Montessori.We appreciate her refresher maths courses that she has delivered over the past five years.  

• Ba Futuru Preschool Quarterly Report 2022 - 1 (PDF)