Quality education in Fiji

The Early Childhood Education project focus on working with children 3 - 4 years of age and is located in Silana. Children from three villages attend sessions three days a week, currently a total of 21 children attend the “Learning Through Play”. 

What is learning through play?

Learning through play is the activity of educating or instructing an approach where play is the valued mode of learning – where children can explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways. Through play, children can develop social and cognitive skills, mature emotionally, and gain the self-confidence to engage in new experiences and environments.

The week is planned for a Monday a theme is chosen and all the lessons are broken down into 30 mins slots. The lessons focus on  Prime Developmental Goals:

• Personal, Social-Emotional Development.- Making relationships self -confidence and self-awareness, managing feelings and behaviour 
• Physical Development - Moving and handling, health and self-care
• Communication and Language - Listening and attention, understanding, speaking

Over the last six months the program has been running we have taught over 348  hours of fun interactive sessions covering many topics through “theme week”. Each week our team plans their lessons around a specific theme this has covered many topics like the ocean/body parts /healthy eating and so many more. Each session is broken down into 8 half-hour blocks, each block is dedicated to prime development goals or specific development goals and the theme of the week is used to create activities ensuring it incorporates the learning goals.

The last half an hour of each session is all about free play. Free play is important

It teaches children how to entertain themselves and helps them learn to think independently and develop decision-making skills. It provides opportunities for children to discover what interests them and what they are good at. Volunteers have been building and creating toys for these sessions and the children have enjoyed being able to play with them and have fun with their friends interacting and using their imagination.

Your ongoing support is much appreciated.  Your donations help purchase resources and supplies to ensure young children have a range of opportunities for development.