Salam and hello everyone.
We've moved from the 10th floor; sharing premises with a kindergarten to our own place still at Block 8 but now on the ground floor in a shop lot. We remain true to our vision of providing a place where the Mentari kids can have a fun learning experience while becoming independent learners. we were very lucky to find a place that had tiled floors and walls with a dream location that was right in front of a drink stall owned by a parent of a Mentari Project pioneer student.
Here are some pictures of the Mentari Project Learning Activity Centre.
Shelves courtesy of Mr KS Lau who donated them.
Our picture wall of past activities as arranged by the kids themselves
(Yes, we need stronger adhesive!)
Our main classroom where we will conduct our weekly classes.
Finally our mini library / reading corner.
Sadly the weather took its toll on our banner. Therefore there aren't any pictures from the front of the center.
It is still a work in progress but at least it's a good start. Anyone who would like to contribute to make this place a better place for kids to come and study and hangout can just come over at No. 3 Block 8, Ground floor (B8-G-03) PJS 5/4 Desa Mentari or contact us at mentariproject@gmail.com.
We had our first class on Saturday 16 Jan for the Year 4, 5 and 6. We started with a short BM Comprehension Mini Test and English Quiz for baseline and diagnostic measures and continued with an ice-breaking cum grammar session with the 'Tall, Taller, Tallest" game. Next time we'll follow up with exercises on comparatives and written sentences using the comparatives.
We want to kids to listen actively and check their vocab in both BM and English so we played the Echo game which had the kids give the name of an animal. The child next to them will translate it into BM and then name another animal. The most unique animals named were "hyena aka dubuk (Irwan checked the dictionary for all of us for that one), dolphin,owl and kangaroo". Next time, we'll have categories and sentences.
The main activity for the kids was one that combined a written task (writing a thank you note ) with creative thinking (designing a card) using both BM and English. The kids worked in groups and came up with different cards to thank our benefactors - those who donated furniture and materials and sponsored the centre and all our activities.
The kids who finished early then gravitated naturally to playing board word games or reading the books at the mini-library. All in all in was a fun first session. Here's hoping that today's Sunday class with the older kids be an even better one.
Special Thanks to Paulynn and Fei Yi for entering the fray with great enthusiam and gusto! Aidil, Syafiqah, Nad and even Hanif were the seniors who came to help out their juniors and they did a great job. Thanks kids!
