Early Childhood Development Initiative

Even with the global pandemic, Ba Futuru Pre-School Teachers have continued providing learning through play opportunities with their students. In Timor-Leste, the government enacted a State of Emergency in March, which temporarily closed schools. Ba Futuru’s Pre-School followed suit of the rest of the world, and moved their classes to online learning. Every week, teachers sent videos to students that focused on home-based play learning. Students loved the videos, as they were personalized videos from their teachers. About a flower experiment (as seen here), one parent said, “Thank you so much! The flower in water experiment was a hit. We had to do 5 or 6 flower opening up experiments and each time it was accompanied with ohhs and aahhhsss”

Ba Futuru preschool is bustling with children busy learning and teaching smiling and engaging them with fun activities. Term one has started with enrolments at a total of 37, with many children having recently graduated. We plan to increase this number over the next term.

 We started the year combining the two classes together at times for blended learning. We have been working on our Montessori maths program, with science experiments and inquiry-based learning. We also have been using a lot of the dramatic play, music, stories and physical movement providing both fun and insightful opportunities for learning and sharing together.

Both the teachers and children are excited for the excursions this term that focus on exploring places and people that create the local environment helping to establish identity, how we look after the natural environment, and the different occupations that contribute to making our society dynamic and resilient. Our upcoming exploration may involve coffee makers, carpenters, local fishermen and a beach clean-up in Beto Tasi, the fire station, and the local art gallery space.