Kindergarten

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Kindergarten is where imparting education is most challenging. A child starts formal education in this section. Therefore, it is very important to make the child develop a love for school and learning. Every effort has to be taken to make sure that the child is happy and would never want to miss school.

Learning, in kindergarten, has to be mostly through seeing and doing. This is practically their first exposure to everything and we have to be careful that nothing intimidates them. So, we have a special building for them. They have special lunch areas, gardens, playgrounds, cycling tracks and petting zoos. The class size is half the regular class size – there are only 24 children per room. This allows more individual attention. Every activity that they do is in a different room. The atmosphere, seating arrangement and activity in each room is different. So, the children never get bored in school. After every half an hour, they have a change. They are taught reading, writing, listening, drawing, craft, music, dance and games.

Writing rooms have low tables and chairs so that the children can sit comfortably. The drawing and craft rooms are splashed with colour. The story room has a lot of picture stories painted on the walls. A gigantic play structure has also been designed so that the children will get a lot of exercise in the outdoor class. There are see saws, slides, balance beams, hanging bars, cycling tracks and exercise areas for the children.

The petting zoo has many animals like ducks, pigeons, guinea pigs etc. The children overcome their fear of small animals. They pet these animals, watch them being fed and observe their habits. It’s such a great and enjoyable experience for them.

We have planted fruits and vegetables of different kinds in our botanical garden. Children are taken here to see how fruits grow from flowers and how different trees have different characteristics. This is really great for city children – most of them think that produce comes directly from the markets. They really do not get a chance to spend time on a farm.

Children are taught using a lot of modern teaching aids and multimedia presentations. The teacher tells them lots of stories. We focus more on communication skills at this stage. Children have a lot of thoughts and ideas. They have to learn how to express themselves. They are shown lots of experiments in order to understand the world around them. They are also given simple activities to do in class itself. With such techniques, the concepts we are trying to get across make a lot of sense.

The children spend 2 ½ hours in the school everyday. We serve them snacks in this time too. It helps to teach children table manners and improves eating habits. Variety in the food helps to develop taste. Even children of nursery pick up their plate after eating and put it in the bin! They are taught how to eat by themselves and they quite enjoy the experience.

Birthdays are celebrated in the school itself. All the children sing the birthday song, wish the child and give him or her a gift, which is provided by the school. The parents of the birthday child can come to the school to take pictures. Children do not distribute sweets in the school at all. This maintains equality amongst children and eliminates many peer problems later on.

Kindergarten at Millennium is a really fun place to be!