kidzark sac

a service, action in community group from sota working with children from kidzark

[kidzark]

SESSION 13

by Ashley Ho

Today was our very last session with Kidzark, and it was brimming with tears and yet bittersweetness. We had a little National Education session, along with a singalong and a short quiz. The kids were extremely attentive today, probably because they were aware that this would be the last session.

I think it was really sweet that they made a big poster for us, with individual notes that thanked us for our times with them. At the end of the session, we also presented them with a gift hamper of art materials, and amidst the ecstasy and joy in receiving, there was also tears from sending us away, and us saying goodbye to them.

This journey has been a mostly enjoyable one for me, even with its ups and downs, and my many regrets in not getting to know them better. I feel that we could have taken more time to plan our activities to achieve a more concentrated goal.

Today I leave with two final questions: Who will these kids grow up to be? Would we have impacted them in any way at all?

[kidzark]

SESSION 11

by Ashley Ho

This week, we made box monsters from recycled boxes. I think that this has been one of the best indoor sessions we have had. The kids in my group were really cooperative, and all worked together well to create a dragon-box-monster. Not only that, but I was really impressed that they listened to task delegation, and even offered to help one another. They made different body parts for the monster, and even though there was a slight disagreement about whether they wanted a “good” or an “evil” monster, they unanimously agreed to make the inside of the box “good” and the outside “evil”. (I think that’s the opposite of those kids!)

However, this was only for the first group, as the second group was a lot more uncooperative although they were of an older age group. A group of girls were really quite arrogant and had an extremely severe superiority complex, not allowing anyone else to do any work, even fighting against each other in their own group. In the end, their box monster had about 3 mouths, 4 noses and two tails.

I think this is proof of hierarchy even at a young age, and however impressed I was with the younger age group, the older group’s behaviour was really quite shocking and I was thoroughly appalled. Ultimately, the younger group’s energy and cooperation was inspiring and made my entire day.

[kidzark]

SESSION 7

by Ashley Ho

Since we did not have much time to plan for this week’s session again, we had to carry on with origami, where I was grouped with about 7 kids with Regene, and we folded planes, boats, penguins, and also cute birds. The children lost their attention span eventually though, and we had to try very hard to keep the engaged. Initially, they were interested in folding a bird, until it got a little more difficult, and they gave up trying to learn. This was quite discouraging for both Regene and I, but we tried to keep them engaged with more origami, to little avail. At last, we let them fold their own things while we supervised them.

On the other hand, there was a boy who kept begging me to help him fold his plane, and I felt really bad for him as it was obvious that none of his peers really wanted to learn with him, and yet taunted him for trying to learn and being interested. Honestly, I was quite annoyed with this, but I ignored the rest of the boys and concentrated on just teaching those wanting to learn. I realise now that I should have tried harder to include the rest of the boys, and at least got them involved in watching or doing something else.

I think that this session was not the most successful as we weren’t very prepared, and we only realised at a later time that origami is not the best activity to do with restless and physically-driven 8-year old boys. We will definitely keep this in mind when planning the next session.

[kidzark]

SESSION 8

by Ashley Ho

This session was another of paperwork and scissors. Because the outdoor group was acting out scenes from Frozen, we decided to have a theme corresponding to theirs– all snow. The kids were actually really excited to hear about Frozen, before the words “Frozen”, “Elsa”, and “OLAF” were out, the kids were already cheering happily, jubilant that even we, comparatively older people, knew about Frozen.

We decided to make snowflakes, low-budget, easy-to-make, and open to creativity. This consisted of folding the paper into a cone-shaped triangle, cutting the edges and then cutting small shapes into into the sides of the paper. I was extremely impressed with some of the children, whose cuttings were even more intricate than mine. They obviously had an artistic strain in them, really engaged in cutting the paper.

Most of the kids were genuinely interested in making these snowflakes, but had trouble doing it. After helping them to cut a few edges, they got the hang of it, and were really ecstatic that they had caught up with their peers and made their own snowflakes. After that, some even asked for more paper to cut, and it really touched me that such simple activities from a pair or scissors and normal, white A4 paper could make so many children so happy.

Overall, this session was marginally better than the last one, seeing as we were getting used to knowing what we could do indoors. With this adaptation, we could draw and limit our boundaries more accurately, while still striving to keep the children engaged. This session has really reminded me of simple pleasures from childhood, such that such small acts of art with such limited materials can bring so much joy to these children, despite their disadvantaged backgrounds. This is inspiring to me, reminding me that if these children can take these small things to heart, and not for granted, letting these things bring them happiness, I should be able to, too.

[kidzark]

SESSION 5

by Ashley Ho

Since this was the last session of the term, we decided to do something bigger, and collaborate with the indoor team to have a joint activity. Following up on the previous theme of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, we decided to spend the entire hour having a station-based bear mask-making activity. I am genuinely proud of all our efforts into this activity, which resulted in good preparation. We had sufficient paper plates, an unlimited amount of rubber bands, cut-out noses, eyebrows, ears and many accessories that were hand-cut.

We split the activity into three stations, and the kids into three groups as well– so we could rotate between cutting out the eyes, drawing the mouth and pasting on the ears, and also putting on accessories. I was in charge of the accessory section, and so spent most of the time helping the kids cut out accessories of different sizes and colours, according to what they wanted.

They were extremely captivated by the tiny cut-out accessories that we cut for them, constructed similar to that of consumer culture. They were also very happy with their masks, later going around wearing their masks happily, and boys being boys, tried to fight each other while growling like actual bears. There wasn’t much interaction this time, but the creativity of the kids certainly made up for it, what with their enthusiastic drawing and pasting of accessories.

At the end of the session, we decided that we wouldn’t be doing any more of these mass activities, as it just took up way too much time and took a lot of preparation, and we decided that individual attention can be better given when in smaller groups. Nevertheless, this was a fruitful experience and I am sure it taught all of us how to deal with a larger number of children all at once.

[kidzark]

SESSION 4

by Ashley Ho

Goldilocks and the Three Bears was the fairytale of this session. Due to the fact that the story usually has a rather morally unrighteous ending, such that Goldilocks runs away from the three bears in cowardice, we altered the ending, so that she would apologise to the bear family, and they would forgive her and even invite her in. The rationale behind this was to inculcate morals of forgiveness and bravery to do the right thing in the children.

Isabelle and Grace were the narrators this time, with Megan as the baby bear and I was Goldilocks, for some reason. The acting was, as usual, quite successful, as it was merely miming, with the narrators speaking the dialogues for us. The children laughed at our ridiculous acting, falling over in chairs and making extremely amusing faces. I think that when we acted, our main aim was always to evoke laughter from the kids, so I would say that we were quite successful. The props once again contributed to the storyline, and we had Goldilocks’ ‘luscious hair’ and the three bears’ masks.

Later, we played a variation of Simon Says, called Little Bear says. The team took turns being Little Bear with the mask, and giving the kids instructions. We later found out that restless children are not favourable to play instruction games with, what with their hyperactivity, chattering and also peer pressure, which led them to do the “wrong” actions when they saw their friends also doing it, even when they were not moving without us saying “Little Bear says” initially. I think this helped me realise how we all start being influenced by our peers since a tender age, especially when there is a superiority complex involved.

This session also really opened my eyes to the children’s disadvantaged backgrounds, as standing by the sidelines observing them during the games really drew attention to their behaviours. It was evident that there were some kids who were left out, some lacking the attention they needed from adults around, and worst of all, some even subjected to domestic abuse, and even self-harm. There was a girl whose ears were scarred, hypothetically by repeatedly being pulled by the ear. When I asked her about it, she simply waved it away and said it was nothing. This was really heartbreaking, as she has learned to hide her emotions and pain from such a young age. There was a little boy who, from the past few sessions I observed, always slapped himself whenever he felt like he was doing something wrong. This hit close to home and I always tried to stop him gently when he tried to hurt himself again.

Overall, although the activities were not as engaging as before this week, due to lack of preparation and not enough teamwork, I felt that this slight lack of energy gave me the opportunity to learn more about the children, especially those that I found needed more help and care. For the next few sessions, I plan to really get closer to the children and help them more.

[kidzark]

SESSION 3

by Ashley Ho

I think we were very well-prepared this session, full on with a story, questions and answers, as well as a bean planting activity. Again, we were split into two groups, and so were the children. This time, we acted out Jack and the Beanstalk, with Regene and Jessica as narrators, Jack as Yuhua, Megan as the Golden Hen, and I was Milky White, the cow, as well as the beanstalk, because our group’s rationale is that beanstalks have to be of human nature, able to grow, and lastly, and most importantly, tall, hence I took on the role of a photosynthesising vegetable. I think that the children really enjoyed this story, as it was mystical and extremely comedic, especially enhanced by the giant’s horrendous-looking mask, which excited the children very much. I think that putting our artistic skills to use in both acting and visual arts is one of our stronger points, although I am in neither art forms. This has taught us more about collaboration as well.

Apart from that, we later moved on to the bean planting process. This was rather well-prepared with plastic cups, green beans, cotton wool and water. We also made a poster, highlighting the different stages of planting the seeds, as well as showing different methodology to keep the beans alive and help them germinate. The children had a lot of fun planting their beans, and I noticed that majority of them had a sense of protection over their ungerminated plants, which was rather adorable. This also showed that our project was successful– giving them a sense of responsibility over something they had power over the lives of. Many of them were curious about the process of plant growth, which was very encouraging for us, and we answered their eager questions with equally ecstatic knowledge that we’d learned in primary school years ago.

Furthermore, they continued to be very amused by the cow costume that I was wearing, seemingly forgetting my name and replacing my identity with that of cattle. I  found it very adorable and played along with their moos, and their jubilant smiles were enough for the existential embarrassment that is embedded with the role of acting like a cow.

Although there was still a minority of students not wanting to be involved in the quizzes, we managed to engage all of them in bean-planting as it was a sit-down activity, which I realised that some of the children are more inclined towards. Ultimately, I feel that this session really helped the kids open up to us, even more than “teacher”s, as they call us, but even more as older friends they can look up to in certain aspects.

[kidzark]

SESSION 2

by Ashley Ho

Today marks the first day of my journey with the disadvantaged children SAC, since I was transferred from the mental health SAC due to some complications. This is not the first time I have been in this SAC, due to last year's experience with the disadvantaged children's SAC last year, albeit not in North View Primary's Kidzark, but in Farrer Park Primary's childcare programme.

I have to admit that I felt left out at first— not knowing anyone else apart from Megan and Jessica, as well as never having the opportunity to go through the planning that had taken place the past few weeks. Not only that, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do, or what the group had already done. Nonetheless, I listened to the discussions and slowly got the hang of things. I am grateful for the welcoming and accommodating atmosphere of my group after warming up to them on the bus, as they gave me the role of Little Red Riding Hood’s mother to play in the storytelling. I found out that we are going to be doing storytelling of fairytales and folk tales to the children, in addition to playing games related to the story-related theme of the week. I think that this is an interesting idea that not only will captivate the children, and take them back to the more carefree and imaginative years of their early childhood, but also teach them important life lessons such as teamwork and creativity through the activities planned. This proved to be a success once we reached the school.

The school was foreign to me initially, due to the fact that I was the only one who had never been there before, as the rest had already had one session the week before. Thankfully, the team showed me around, and I was very impressed by the prepared scripts and intricate props that Jessica made. During the storytelling, the children were relatively attentive, being an extremely reactive audience, laughing at the the right times. This really boosted our self-esteems and helped us to shamelessly act out our parts, just to see their happiness. This later proved to be a subtly negative point, causing some complaints from upper primary classes, and we had to constantly remind the children to keep their voices down. I felt that this was quite difficult to do, as they were extremely hyperactive and excited. However, with the teachers' help, we managed to successfully calm them down enough to play the games, which included Squirrel, What Time Is It Mr Wolf?, and Splat.

Eventually, we had to swap groups with the indoor group, and thus had a new bunch of children. Due to the noise disturbances we were creating, we moved to the basketball court for the storytelling and games for this group. This was the group of older children, and I really felt the excitement and enthusiasm from them, though they were still obedient and attentive to us. We had a quiz session after the storytelling, and I realised just how competitive we all are, especially evident from a young age. During the games, the kids were really sticky to some of us, and I got a group hug from some of them, which was very heartwarming to see that we were starting to influence them a little.

At the end of the day, the exhaustion and shameless acts to make the children happy were all worth it. I found the same enjoyment in helping the kids as I did last year, which was both nostalgic and refreshing. It was a good start to a hopeful year of SAC, and thus far begins my journey with the disadvantaged children SAC.

[kidzark]

SESSION 4

by Cherie Tan

During this session, we asked the kids to write or draw on a piece of paper about what they wanted to be in the future. This would let us know more about them and at the same time they can also think about their aspirations. It was interesting to see to writing down what they wanted to be in the future, and it also reminded me of myself in my primary school years. Although it was a nice activity, I think they got a little bored towards the end, and would probably prefer a more active hands on activity. 

[kidzark]

SESSION 10

by Felicia Lee

As the kids like plays and story telling and considering that world cup was going on, we decided to carry out the Tortoise and the Hare skit and medal making. The aim was to develop creativity and boost their self-confidence. We told them that they are all winners and to be proud of who they are. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the first batch was the upper primary instead. We were somewhat worried as we were not sure if they would enjoy what we had in store, being a little older. They were not as receptive for the skit but for the medal making they were much more motivated as they were very enthusiastic about the world cup. Even though they did not exactly follow our instructions they had fun and that made us happier compared to at first. The second batch was the lower primary and everything was fine except for the fact that that they took more materials than required. Some did not even follow our instructions and wanted to keep the materials for other uses and others wanted more medals. They would beg for more even though we said no and they would not give back the extra materials and would not listen to us when we told them to follow instructions. When other kids saw this they started doing them too and all this made me rather shocked angry and disappointed and annoyed. I was also disappointed in myself for not being able to control them and for the fact that I was feeling conflicted between making them happy and making them do what we say. But most of the children were very happy with their medals and being called winners and they stuck on their medals as soon as they were done and were running around happily saying that they were winners. This made me very happy and the fact that they gained self-confidence through this made me feel proud of them.

[kidzark]

SESSION 11

by Wen Xuan

For today's session, we prepared a box monster making activity. The aim was to develop teamwork and confidence as well as   creativity. There were many unseen circumstances and it was rather chaotic just now due to the fact that there wasn't any agreement within the groups, they refused to share and collaborate so we took quite a long time to get them to settle down and work on the box monster. Nevertheless all groups completed their box monsters and we all felt accomplished. 

[kidzark]

SESSION 7

by Amber Lieu

Activity: Origami (date: idk when just insert a random date here)  We had a change of group , however, its going as smoothly as the previous group and thus, I think that who is in the group is not important as long as  we plan our activity well. We decided to do origami again after the good feedback we got from the students. We kept the instructions clear and easy to follow. Although there were certain steps that theye were unable to follow, they still enjoyed the process of making the origami and taking home their creations. 

[kidzark]

SESSION 2

by Hazel Phua

We were at the venue and we acted the story of Red Riding Hood. The kids were quite entertained and liked the story telling. Personally, it was my first time acting for people and it was not as scary as I thought, especially when everybody is acting together. I think that this play also allowed us to bond closer together and understand each other more. After story telling, we played “What time is it Mr. Wolf?” (a game similar to ‘A,E,I,O,U’). The kids enjoyed the game and were very enthusiastic. They ran all over the place and we had to chase after some of them to tell them to go back, which was very tiring. Then, we played “Splat” which was the kids’ favourite game. Sometimes we had to give chance to them and let them be happy, and we had to always act that we are actually slow in reaction which I found a little hard. (I always look very fake :<) I felt that this session allowed us to bond with each other and the kids, and they no longer treated us like strangers in the first session.

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SESSION 13 VIDEO

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SESSION 8

by Song Yu Hua

For today’s SAC session, as we wanted to have the same theme as the outdoor class, which was on the movie “Frozen”. And so for our group, in relation to the theme, we wanted to teach the children how to cut and also design their own snowflakes as our movie was “Frozen”.

Before the session, we prepared a " How to cut a  paper snowflake " for the children to understand and to also find it easier do them. In the beginning of the session, we tried to explain how to fold and cut the paper but to our misery, the first few problems we encountered was getting them to pay attention to our instructions. It was because the children, who were all as enthusiastic as were, were all very excited about learning and also about the movie “Frozen”, that they were very distracted and singing the "Frozen" song away as they all knew about this movie which was currently released last Christmas. Whereas on the other hand, the boys in both the classes we taught were annoyed and told the girls who were singing "disgusting". After hearing small elementary school students using such strong and harsh words towards one another all of us there were very shock and devastated.

So we as a whole decided, in order to resolve the problem, all eight of us decided to split ourselves in groups of twos to teach them as we felt that they could understand in smaller groups. And we thought that maybe if we teach them in smaller groups it would be much easier to handle the noise level in the classroom. 

While we were teaching them, to all our surprises, many the children were silently cutting their paper while the others were asking us on how to cut and asking us on the ways of making different shapes to make the snowflakes even more beautiful. Although it seemed really impossible for the children themselves to cut the paper, my friend, Jessica tried to teach them how to cut and what were some designs in which they would be interested in. With a doubt, some of them were already trying to cut the paper out and to me personally it was quite miraculous to see these children doing it for themselves. :) 

Although these children were struggling and sort of whining in the beginning of the session , and asking for help as they found everything a little for them, they I and maybe most of our group mates could see that most of the students were trying their very best. The most essential thing which I believe is that they enjoyed themselves to the fullest whenever our group come.  

Although teaching them took a long time, it was the learning journey in which we ourselves as arts students have learnt while teaching the kids about various things. And various things such as making the work we're going to teach sound more intriguing and entertaining for the children to work on.  

[kidzark]

SESSION 5

by Grace Chew

Mask Making

We collaborated with the other group (the indoor group) in doing our activities today. Working in stations, we made bear masks with the kids, and afterwards did some short movement exercises. The bear theme was a development from last week’s “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears”. 

I was in charge of the ears station, along with Yu Hua. We worked together in handing out the ears of the bears they were making and basically briefed them about what to do and how to attach the ears onto the mask.

Because of the larger number of children today, the noise level was very high and it was very chaotic. It was extremely difficult to control the children and it took us much longer than usual to quieten the kids down and make them focus on the activity, as they often were engaged in conversations and doing their own things. It was very tiring doing just that even though we were not doing any physical work. However, I was happy that the children had fun making the masks as well as wearing them and pretending to be bears in the canteen. 

After mask-making, we proceeded on to the movement activity station. I felt that this portion of the session did not go well, as the large group of kids were not very receptive and it was often hard to hear the instructor’s voice due to the high noise level. Also, I felt like the movement activity could have been more prepared and could have been much more organised. 

All in all, I feel like this collaborative work has been challenging, but I am glad that the children got to take away something with them. Even though we worked hard in preparing all the materials and thinking of things to do, I feel that we should plan earlier in the future and find the time to meet and discuss during the week, as our preparations are often rushed, and we have to do some of them on the bus ride to the centre, in panic. That being said, I am glad that we got a chance to work with the other group, and I enjoyed mending a station for the kids. Also, even though it has been very tiring, I am glad that I was able to go back to Kidzark to see the children again today after 2 weeks!  

[kidzark]

SESSION 12

by Isabelle Lee

During today’s SAC session, my group and I agreed to put up another performance as per request from some of the kids. For this particular session, we wanted to plan a story that was more exciting and appealing in order to engage the kids. Hence, we decided on the cartoon, ‘Phineas and Ferb’. Initially, when this cartoon was brought up as a prospective performance topic, we were all quite apprehensive as we were not entirely sure that kids are still interested in this cartoon nowadays. Despite this, our worries were unfounded when we performed it today.

The kids, particularly from the 2nd group, were actually really responsive and enthusiastic when we announced the story we would be performing today. However, for the actual performance, the 1st group of kids was less amused and entertained and a few of them commented that they found it boring. I think it was because for the songs we had prepared to dance along to, we felt embarrassed to really dance in a comical manner or just perform a dance. Before the 2nd group came, this was when our group briefly commented how we needed to just go all out and make an effort to really dance crazily and comically in order put up a fantastic, humorous show for the kids to enjoy. I felt that the feedback we received from the 1st round of kids really enabled us to reflect on what we needed to do and improved our 2nd performance. This was also seen in the kids’ reactions the 2nd time when they responded with laughter and comments, signifying how entertained and amused they were.

After the performance, we conducted some games like “Phineas, Phineas, Ferb” which was essentially the same as “Duck, Duck, Goose” but just altered to fit the context of today’s session. Overall, the game session went smoothly in terms of organizing the kids and getting them to settle down. Nonetheless, there were quite a number of challenges involved during the game. As the game continued, we found that many kids kept shouting to be chosen and some of them would be impatient and unhappy each time they were not chosen. Moreover, lots of them chose their friends again to become the next ‘Ferb’ and were unfair to the rest of the kids. Our group managed to solve this issue though by whispering to the kid that was the current ‘Ferb’ to choose another person who did not have a chance yet and really wanted to try it. In fact, the teacher also helped us in doing so and the student mainly listened to the teacher each time, which ensured that the game was conducted as fairly as possible. After a while, it became chaotic when most of the people chosen were boys. They began chasing each other around instead of supposedly sitting back down until one point, when they were too hyped up and refused to listen, the game had to be stopped and changed to another game.

Generally, today’s session was quite successful where we were able to conduct a performance and a mini game session. Although there seemed to be quite a few challenges at first, I think our group managed to co-operate and give our best effort in the 2nd round of performance, which really paid off, judging from the kids’ reactions. It also helped immensely that in the 1st performance, we did not do as well as it was what motivated us to work harder and give our all for the 2nd performance.