Hazel Siromoni
Managing Director, Maple Bear, presents an account of the different innovative pedagogies and programmes at the school
Canadian early childhood practice. The programme is designed to educate the child as a whole – physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. Integration of subjects in thematic way provides a rich and stimulating programme that encourages creativity, imagination and self-expression.
Canadian early childhood practice. The programme is designed to educate the child as a whole – physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. Integration of subjects in thematic way provides a rich and stimulating programme that encourages creativity, imagination and self-expression.
Canadian early childhood practice. The programme is designed to educate the child as a whole – physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially. Integration of subjects in thematic way provides a rich and stimulating programme that encourages creativity, imagination and self-expression.
A priority of the child-centred programme at Maple Bear is Language Arts. Language Arts involves the areas of listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing and representing. Children will be taught how to listen carefully and speak fluently. They will learn how to read and will also develop a love of reading which is a skill for life. Reading is an enabler that opens the door to all learning. Child will, in this way, gain confidence and acquire the skills required to become a lifelong learner. Writing is a process that is on a developmental continuum from the early stages of simply scribbling to being able to write complex sentences and express ideas. Children will be carefully guided and encouraged to make progress along this continuum. Viewing and representing means learning the techniques and conventions of visual language to become more conscious, critical, and appreciative readers of visual media, and ultimately become more effective creators of visual products. In Mathematics, the Maple Bear programme provides children with many opportunities to develop and strengthen their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, and calculating simple addition and subtraction problems. Children will explore and learn about shape, space, measurement, patterning, and data management.
The Maple Bear Science programme has been designed to take into consideration the developmental stages of pre-school children. At this young age, children require many experiences that are essential for enquiry-based learning.
In Social Studies, children will be guided to make sense of the world around them and their community through opportunities to explore, observe, and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
The result of this is for the child on what is taking place in a Maple Bear classroom is:
- English language learning in an immersion environment;
- Inquiry-based teaching-learning is taking place through questioning, observing, investigating and doing;
- Focus on higher order thinking skills – Thinking v/s Memorising; We are encouraging time to practice skills, important occasions to learn to work independently and cooperatively as well as allowing time for reflection.
