Principal Ms Kan Mai Ling Milly
Spring fades out and Summer comes. This is also the time when school is busy preparing a graduation ceremony when blooms are everywhere. Before the summer vacation each year, I will wave goodbye to the K3 students, watching them getting ready to go to primary school with reluctance! It reminds me their lovely face when they first entered school. Now the students not only grow taller, but also become mature and sensible.
Young children always remind me of seedling. I have taken part in tree planting activities before. Planting the seedling carefully in the soil, hoping that they would grow into big trees one day. For young trees to thrive, in addition to proper caring, weeding, fertilizing, and pruning are indispensable. In addition, I also recall the parables of the Bible about sow. Those fall on good will bring forth fruit. Our kindergarten provides an ideal environment for the students to grow. Meanwhile, the teachers, like gardeners, taking good care of the saplings, and let them become a fruitful tree.
Time flies, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of Tseung Kwan O Methodist Kindergarten. The kindergarten has grown from a sapling to a tree and is beginning to see its fruits. On the 20th anniversary reunion day earlier, I met many of our graduates, many of whom are now secondary school students or even university students. I hope they can discover and develop their talents in different fields and contribute to the society.
Thanks to our Heavenly Father’s care and protection over the past 20 years, the kindergarten has been developing steadily. May the love and grace of our Heavenly Father continue to nourish our family so that our children can grow up in a garden full of love!
Children all over the world like listening stories and playing games. A high-quality picture book, no matter the plot, text and illustrations, or even the cover and back cover, contains a lot of information. Not only to help children’s cognitive development, but also to stimulate children’s unlimited creativity and imagination. Over the years, we have attached great importance to the use of picture books to stimulate children’s learning motivation. Through beautiful picture books, students can learn more than academic subjects like language, mathematics or science, as well as life education and art education.
Starting from January 2017, our kindergarten arranged a week of diversified activities. Teachers use “Inquiry-based teaching approach” to design diversified activities with picture books, such as role playing, so that children could play as the characters of the picture books. Teachers also designed games for children to explore the plot of the story using their senses of sight, hearing, touch and taste to enhance their enjoyment and memory.
During the activity, the teacher guided the children to understand the content of the story by using “6W” thinking mode: Who, When, Where, What, Why and How. Children would list out the characters, situations, problems, actions and solutions of the story. It provides opportunities for children to actively participate in learning. Besides, teachers also use “4E” inquiry-based learning: Explain, Experiences, Emotions and Evaluate, so that children can express their own opinions actively.
We share our teaching values with the parents by letting parents know that children are interested in participating in activities, communicating, creating and learning together. We hope that the inquiry-based picture book teaching approach can be the key to open the door of learning for children. We also hope that parents can experience the fun and joy of learning with their children!
The picture book story created by our teachers and students for the first time has finally been published! In the diversified activities week in June 2015, students and teachers created picture book together. Children expressed their opinions and gave full play to their creativity and imagination to create six wonderful stories. Use painting, cutting, pasting, three-dimensional creation and other artistic skills, children made good use of their talents to create pictures. I saw the children work from the desk to the ground. I felt their enthusiasm for learning, communicating, and creating with all their heart. We are very excited and grateful to be able to compile all these stories into a book.
Don’t despise those stories in picture book, although the content is simple, there are always some moral lessons in end. We can see the love between a baby and the father, the importance of friendships, the creativity of a kitten, or the spirit of never give up and so on.
It is a great honor for the teachers and students to be guided by the experienced artist, Mr. Simon Chiu. We hope readers will enjoy each story created by children
It is grateful that we received the grant from the Quality Education Fund to carry out life education – “Life motivation by my Heart”. Back in August 2013, we were honored to invite Mr. Ng Sze Yuan, the founder of Soul-Mate, to train our teachers through discussing the concept of good character and good quality of life for the preparation of life education in the new semester. Mr Ng also chose his book “It’s Never too Late to Say Love” (《說愛永不嫌晚》) as gift to us. The touching articles rekindled our passion for life and made us reflect on how to make children experience love in the kindergarten.
Learning should be free and unrestricted. Students can learn from formal courses in school, also in daily life. Parents and teachers are responsible for the students learn what is love. In the past year, we have arranged various activities to integrate life education into our school life. One of the activities that impressed me the most was the visit to the nursing home with our students. Parents prepared fruits, cookies, sweaters, scarves, and other different gifts, and packed into bags for the students to give to the elderly as gift. Through the activities, I was pleased and proud to see the students learn to share and care for their elders. They sang and performed with their hearts to bring blessings to others. It is more blessed to give than to receive. On campus, we will provide more opportunities for students to experience love. Being happy, positive, enterprising and loving children wherever they are, and build a harmonious and loving family.
The Bible reminds us, ” Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) I hope that parents and teachers can take good care of their children and teach them with a warm heart. Last but not least, I wish all children under the encouragement of parents and teachers, not only love themselves, but also love their parents, family, teachers and friends, as well as the nature.
Thank Our Heavenly Father for leading the development of Tseung Kwan O Methodist Kindergarten for the past 15 years. May His love and grace continue to bless the school and the community. What would it look like if we put together all the pieces of the past 15 years? Most of you have probably played a jigsaw puzzle, for me, it is like a child’s growth process. What does that mean? The pieces of a jigsaw puzzle appear chaotic before they are finished. Some people even ignore the importance of a few small pieces of the puzzle.
I have been working in the early childhood education for many years. Over the years, I have learned that all aspects of children’s growth are important, including their emotional management and interpersonal communication skills. There are also academic subjects, such as English, music, art, and physical ability. In order to help the children develop healthily, we use a variety of materials, such as the JELIC, story books, Montessori education and so on.
For the future, we will continue to uphold the value of the past 15 years as well as the mission of The Methodist Church, Hong Kong: “Develop whole-person education based on Christian principles; Nurture wholesome life through preaching of the Gospel.”
We hope that every child will: learn about the Christian faith, develop the gifts and abilities of the Heavenly Father, and develop and grow morally, academically, physically, socially, aesthetically, and spiritually. Parents should realize that their children are special, beautiful, and intelligent in the eyes of the Heavenly Father. Our staff, including the resident social worker and religious officer, is committed to creating a happy, positive, lively, and creative environment for our students.
The special theme of life education of our school this year is “Power of life starts from heart”, we are very grateful for the funding by Quality Education Fund to carry out the activities, including morning assembly, birthday party, visiting the food bank and elderly home, participating in parent-child flag selling and change donation and other activities which help the children to learn faith, hope and love. They will respect each other and live a good life wherever they are. The Bible reminds us, ” Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23) I hope all staff, parents, and students of Tseung Kwan O Methodist Kindergarten have good hearts and are determined to create beautiful pictures in their lives.
Thanks to God’s grace and guidance, I was given the opportunity to serve as principal of Tseung Kwan O Methodist Kindergarten. I am not only a principal, but also a mother and a daughter. Having multiple roles enables me to approach life from different perspectives. Being a mother myself, I understand how parents care about their children and how they cherish them. I have two children myself. When they were young, I was also worried about their conduct and studies. I gave up my full-time job so that I could concentrate on caring and teaching them. As the principal of a kindergarten, I am aware of the heavy workload and pressure on teachers. Therefore, I hope to establish mutual trust and love in the kindergarten, a place where teachers teach students with love, students love their teachers and parents appreciate teachers’ efforts.
I’ve heard the saying that “Raising children is art, not science.” Science is all about repetition and consistency. If the professor uses the method to get the same result, the student should use the same method to get the same result. But parenting is different. Each child has a unique personality and a different family background. Therefore, there is no universal teaching model for all. With the progress of times, parenting methods are improved and updated continuously, and it has become an art. Children can be described as art works that shaped carefully by their parents.
There is an old saying in Hong Kong: “Father teaches son, the son teaches his own son.” It shows that the traditional way of raising children in the past is generally imitating the previous generation. Today, however, this is no longer the case. If parents use the same way of scolding and scolding to educate their children today, their children may shout more, or complain about abuse, or even run away from home. Being a parent is tough these days!
Many parents have read a lot of parenting books or get a lot of parenting knowledge from the Internet since they are pregnant. In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all method of raising children, because every child is different, but there are common principles: Children need love, security, encouragement, and affirmation. Parents should remember not to compare their children with others.
Raising a child is like planting a tree. As long as you provide a suitable environment and let nature take its course. Families nowadays have a small number of children, if parents are too protective, it would make the children unable to grow up properly
Providing appropriate care, encouragement and recognition in accordance with their children’s personalities at each stage of development, the children will grow up healthily. Remember to let go but not leave, to let go but not indulge.
The Bible (Matthew 6:26) reminds us “the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” Are our children not more valuable than the birds? Do not worry about raising our children, ask the Heavenly Father to give us wisdom and love to bring up the next generation so that they may grow in wisdom and stature, and love of God and man will grow together.
On behalf of all the staff, I wish every parent and child a healthy body and mind, and overflowing with God’s grace!