English Activity Chest

Age range: 2 years 8 months – 7 years
(classes determined by students' ages)
Class size: 15 students
Teachers: 1 teacher and 1 teaching assistant

Parent information and support:

• Home contact books enable us to send information to and receive information from parents regularly.
• Parents receive information about what their child is studying in each theme.
• All students receive a diploma and written report at the end of every term.
• There are opportunities for parent conferences at the end of every term.
• Parent evaluations at the end of every term enable us to take parents' opinions into consideration when planning future programmes.

Our Programme:

• This is a fun-filled programme in which students develop their English skills through a variety of exciting and stimulating experiences and activities.
  
• An interesting and stimulating programme for students with English as a first, second or third language.
  
• Plus, this programme also includes a short Mandarin lesson each week, giving students the opportunity to learn Mandarin through theme-related activities.
  
• The Mandarin teacher is a native Mandarin speaker.

English Language Development:

• Through carefully selected themes that appeal to children's interests.
  
• Through appealing stories which encourage our students to listen carefully, predict outcomes, suggest possible endings, discuss the characters and retell the story.
  
• Through interesting non-fiction books we explore how non-fiction books work as well as using them to develop our theme-work.
  
• Through engaging and interactive activities which explore all aspects of the theme.
  
• Lots of opportunities for shared reading and writing.
  
• Vocabulary, grammar and phonics are introduced and developed through the context of the theme.

Activity and Movement:

• Enables our students to discover their abilities and improve their self-confidence in communicating through movement, music, cooking, drama, the use of puppets, physical games and role play.
  
• In music our students experience singing, rhythm, beat, fast, slow, loud, quiet, time and movement.
  
• Our Activity Chest students participate in cooking classes that include mixing, chopping, spreading, scooping, experimenting and tasting. This is an excellent and interesting medium through which we are able to introduce some of the many maths and science concepts which will be needed for future life skills. Before each cooking class a list of ingredients is sent home to parents for their approval.

Art and Craft:

• Our art and craft activities allow our students to participate and experiment with various mediums such as paint, clay, collage, 3-D modelling and textures.
  
• This is in an environment where the emphasis is placed more on taking part rather than the finished product.

Computers:

• Using a variety of programmes, students build confidence and develop skills through guided activities.
  
• The programmes include: maths activities such as sorting and counting; language development and reading programmes; following directions and sequencing; building up phonetic knowledge stage by stage using phonics programmes.

Mandarin:

• Studied through the same theme approach using songs, rhymes, role play and activities.
  
• Our students have an interactive approach to using and understanding this important language of the future.

Environmental awareness:

• In our garden our students are introduced to the concept of caring for the environment by taking responsibility for plants.
  
• They are also introduced to the concept of protecting the environment.

Mini - English Activity Chest

• Everything is the same as for English Activity Chest, except that Mandarin is not included.

• The classes are shorter than English Activity Chest – 2 hours instead of 3 hours.

• Computer lessons alternate with "activity and movement" lessons.