Arrowstar Kindergarten

ARROWSTAR FRAMEWORK

What are the essential things that can be learned? Arrowstar team consists of experienced educators, who balance and integrate all the learning processes so it will not overwhelm the students. 
Arrowstar emphasizes 21st century skills. Our curriculum integrates all the learning processes with the play based method, so it will help the children to enjoy the learning process and at the same time achieve the goals that are set for them.

LAYER 1 : FIRM SYSTEM AND STRONG COMMUNITY

LAYER 2 : LEARNING PROCESS

LAYER 3 : LEARNING AREA

Children’s muscles are still developing at this stage, hence, they need to exercise their small and large muscles so that they can master simple movements such as walking, running, moving objects, holding a spoon, eating, making shapes, playing with the lego, holding a pencil, writing and so on. Arrowstar is ready to train the children to master the basic life skills as well as implementing the discipline they need, such as tidying up their bags and shoes, throwing rubbish, carrying stuff,  tying up their shoes, and so on. Toilet training could be a challenge at this age. Our trained teachers will work together with you in providing a consistent support for your child. The main goal for these activities is to mold children’s character so they can be resilient, independent, understand and obey the rules.

As language is one of the main tools to communicate, mastering languages becomes a crucial skill for everyone. The four basic skills that everyone should master in learning a language are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Though writing seems like the end of the other skills, we still need to teach the four skills at the same time. Nevertheless we need to adjust the goals for each skill, based on the children’s growth and readiness.
Learning the language should be non-threatening. Our goal is to make language and literacy learning fun and meaningful. That is why we are using songs, rhymes, stories, and other play based activities to introduce letters and sounds to the children. They will play with the letters using all the tools we provide in the learning area.
We don’t stop here;  there is another  world beyond these words, such as art in poetry, emotions conveyed in a story, and many more. We wish Arrowstar students will learn to enjoy Language and literacy as early as possible. They are able to play with silly words, make up stories, and  express their feelings in a relaxed and comfortable manner. Language  art in the forms of poetry, songs, and stories are the highest order of thinking skills and these are irreplaceable.

   Letters and Sound
       The first step of learning a language is from listening. For younger kids, we will start by introducing them to phonemic awareness and then continue to the letters’ correspondence. Then children will learn to connect the letters’ sound to its name and form.
   Reading
       Once they are done connecting the letters sounds, they are ready to make the sounds into simple words. From words, they continue reading simple sentences. As they develop their reading skills, the teachers  will challenge them to upgrade their skills by giving them more complex sentences and short simple paragraphs.
       By the end of their kindergarten, our goal is  to make them read  independently and enjoy reading.  As Jim Rohn said, “Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary,” we find it is crucial for the kids to love reading. The love of reading will help them greatly in the  future.
   Writing
     As children progress in fine motor development, enjoyable writing experiences are specifically incorporated into daily learning to propel their motivation to write.
     As the children improve their language skill, this can be carried on to  writing.  In school they become more aware of the writing symbols, such as punctuation, rules in using the letters, and many more. This process will prepare the children to be good writers that will benefit them in the next level of their education.
     At Arrowstar, meaningful learning experiences will be provided to the students as they develop their language skills.

Our children are part of the world. They need to understand who they are, where they come from and how the people interact with each other. Children need to understand some basic rules as the common-sense in order to have the proper way to communicate with others. We believe Global Awareness will give children important lessons to exercise their soft skills. As later on they need to intercorporate their knowledge into the skill for  their future.

   Understanding about themselves, their family, extended family and many more
       Family is the smallest unit in the society. The children need to learn that each of them is part of a family. Each of them has parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties, and other family members. They need to learn that they belong to a family and they are loved and accepted the way they are. From this understanding, children will grow their respect and love for other family members.
   Understanding and following the rules
       As the children grow up, they are going to develop a lot of “Why” questions. It is because there are so many rules and some of them are unwritten ones, children will wonder why they need to obey the rules. Here in Arrowstar, we will make the children understand why there are certain rules and why these rules need to be followed and obey. So the children are willing to follow the rules happily.
   Cultural awareness
       We believe children need to be culturally proficient and respectful to others. Children learn and make sense about culture, race, and diversity through observation. Open, appropriate and honest discussion, will bring understanding for the children. When children understand about differences among people, it gives children the acceptance of others and eventually they learn to respect others. When they respect others, they can treat people well and appropriately.
   Good behavior
       Arrowstar sees obedience is the fruit of the proper understanding and awareness about God’s word, people, nature, and environment. We want the obedience to come from the children’s heart. When they set their heart to God, they have the same mind set and worldview. That way, the children will obey the rules happily and they do it for God.

STEAM doesn’t mean putting these disciplines into an abbreviation. Learning STEAM for kindergarten doesn’t mean learning each discipline individually. In fact the key for successful STEAM learning is integration between these disciplines. The purpose of having STEAM as part of our curriculum, is to develop children’s inquiry and critical thinking. While they learn STEAM, they also learn to solve problems and develop the resilience they need to overcome the problem in the future.

   Science
       Learning science for kindergarten mostly means observing, predicting, measuring, discussing, experimenting and drawing simple conclusions. They will not do complex science. Instead they will learn from things that are related to their daily lives. While science is everywhere, there are a lot of reasons why science can be fun for them.
   Technology
       Technology can be in the form of the simplest tool made by man, such as levers,  pulley, wheels, ramp, and scissors. Children will learn how to use technology in their everyday lives by solving problems. For example, they might need to decide, which is the most effective tool to move bricks to another side.
   Engineering
       As the children observe how to use the technology, their understanding about it also broadens. Once they understand how to use a simple technology, then they will be asked to combine two or more tools to make a better design in solving a problem. So they can start to become an engineer as soon as possible.
   Art
       Will be discussed in the Creative Expressive section.
   Math
       Math is everywhere around us. It starts with the very simple things, such as counting, sorting and matching objects, classifying objects based on a simple to more complicated classification, patterning, learning about time, and so on. Here in Arrowstar, we make everything fun for math. We teach math through meaningful activities that are related to children’s daily experience.

   Counting
       Toddlers start counting from 1-3. They learn counting by counting claps, jumps, and other physical activities. Toddlers really love these kinds of activities and are very excited to count everything they can find as soon as they start to count. Once they reach kindergarten, the children will be able to count up to fifty and possibly to one hundred.
   Numbers
       Once they grasp the concept of counting we will start introducing numbers to the children. Since numbers are abstract for young learners, we need to set a strong numbers concept before we teach numbers.
   Shapes and Objects
       Objects around us have different kinds of shapes. Children learn about shapes and objects through observation. They see, touch and feel the shapes. Learning the shapes will benefit the children in the way that it helps them to organize visual information. It becomes the basic skill for the children to learn symbols such as numbers and letters.
   Time
       Learning about time can be difficult for children, but it doesn’t mean they can’t. Reading time helps the children become more aware about their surroundings. As the children grow older, they will understand the sense of time from their daily routines.  Reading time will also help them in numbers, such as counting, multiplication and so on.
   Computational Thinking
       
Computational thinking is a skill to solve problems using appropriate  means or tools necessary. For older children they will not just learn counting. They will continue to learn other skills such as sorting, classifying, and patterning. They will learn addition and subtraction too. We want the children to integrate these skills and apply them in their daily activities.

   Sorting
   Classifying
   Pattern

Art is a fantastic tool to encourage children’s creativity.  We want the children to be able to creatively and freely express their ideas. In Arrowstar, art is not only about producing something  in the art studio. We want to see every child’s artistic side and develop their confidence and acknowledge that they are loved and created according to God’s image.

   Drawing

   Coloring

   Painting

   Printing

   Forming Shapes

   Drama or Role Play

   Music and Movement

   Singing

   Rhyming

   Following the movement

   Dancing

LAYER 4 : BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

The bible said in Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Biblical worldview is the core of Arrowstar Framework. Biblical worldview will be integrated to all the learning activities. It is not particularly being taught in specific time, instead we can see the biblical worldview in every learning process. 
We start it with simple activities such as simple prayers, music and movement, rhymes, bible stories, devotion, and many more. The children are led to get to know who God is. We will talk about God in every way we can, during bible story, devotion and most of all when the children have questions about God.

LAYER 5 : ARROWSTAR LOGO

Arrowstar logo reflects our students. We believe each student is God’s precious gift to his parents, entrusted to our hands, the Christian educators. It is our responsibility, along with the parents, to do the best we can to connect each student to His Creator and guide him in growing in love towards his God.
Each student is God’s image bearer, and therefore, he is full of potential, creativity, and talents, who seeks opportunities to grow in all areas of development.
In Christ, each student is God’s light to the world. Each one has his role as a tool to accomplish His purposes on earth. Therefore, each student deserves only the best whole education. Everyone is worth the teacher’s time, energy, attention, and all

While studying with these outcomes, students learn to be:
(Inspired by 2 Peter 1 : 5-9)