ELEGANCE, charm and excitement pervaded the atmosphere within the walls of the Industrial Site Day Care Facility at Ruimveldt yesterday, as 27 cuties, all dandily dressed and psychologically prepared, proudly came together for their annual graduation ceremony.The boys wore light brown trousers, orange shirts white ties and black footwear; while the girls, each majestically adorned with silver crowns, were dressed in beautifully designed peach maxi dresses with white sashes and matching white shoes and stockings.

During a well planned and delivered programme, which opened with a prayer, the children regaled their parents, teachers, and other special invitees to inspiring and heart-warming displays of dance; reciting of poems; acrostic puzzles; an elegant segment of modelling, and lusty singing of songs,(including the traditional graduation song).

The Group Leader’s Report was presented by Ms. Simone Cassius, while certificates were presented to the graduating class by D. Charles.

The day care facility is an arm of the Georgetown Municipality, and is operated under Director Ms. Paulette Bollers and a staff of 12. The 70 children on roll comprise babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers organized in Groups One and Two. Group 2 Pre-schoolers range between the ages of 2yrs, 6 months and 3 years, 9 months.
The children of Pre-School 2 constituted yesterday’s graduating class, under Supervisor Ms. Paulette Beaton.

Presenting her Group Report for the year August 2014 – July 2015, Ms. Simone Cassius said that, over the last year, the group operated under three themes: First-term theme focused on ‘Myself, my Family’; second-term theme on ‘My Daycare’, and third term theme on ‘Things around Me’.

Cassius said the aim of the child care programme is to promote and provide opportunities for social, physical, intellectual, creative, emotional and spiritual development of the child to become a productive citizen.

Throughout the year, the children participated in indoor and outdoor activities. Addressing the parents and guardians, who beamed with justified pride and joy, Cassius gave them an insight into the activities in which their children were involved over the last year, stating: “The staff of this group has worked hard with your child/children to ensure they gain the necessary competencies and master the developmental skills mentioned previously.”

She said that at the learning institution, staff used to play to accomplish the developmental goals, since play is the vehicle through which young children learn.

Over the period, the children were engaged in activities such as collage (using shapes to create pictures), sorting colours, matching cards, stringing of beads, tracing and identifying things, to name a few. Such activities aided their cognitive and fine motor muscle development, she said.

Meanwhile, taking on a very flavoured and colourful approach to learning were language development activities which included story-telling; picture study; rhymes and songs.

Physical development, which constituted another part of the curriculum, was done with the use of ring games, ball games, and physical exercise to name a few.

Rolling out a rather fun-filled and exciting calendar of activities embarked on for the reporting period, Ms. Cassius mentioned that kids were taken on visits to the Zoological Park, the Museum; the National Cultural Centre; the National Stadium at Providence and, (more recently) the Independence Park. They visited other day care facilities and nursery schools, toured developmental sites, held Christmas Party, Mash Jump Up and Classroom Valentines celebration.

The group leader assured parents that these visits, tours and other innovative activities were very important and beneficial to the children, since they had fun, developed enquiring and probing minds, and learnt a lot.

With an air of pride and satisfaction, Ms. Cassius informed the parents assembled that the caregivers of the graduating group had accomplished all the goals set for the children’s development.

“We are pleased to say that Pre-Schoolers 2 children can identify numerals, shapes, colours, their names, the letters of the alphabet, their sounds. And as was evident at the graduation ceremony, they have learnt to memorize and recite, or sing before an audience the poems and/or songs taught them by the teachers.

And bidding the graduating class an emotional farewell, Ms. Cassius, who said she was confident that their transition to nursery school would be smooth, declared: “We, the Nursery Assistants, bid our graduating class of 2015 God’s blessings as you head for higher learning. Love you all!”

By Shirley Thomas