MGM FIRST STEPS SCHOOL

INNOVATION

Children often walk into pre-school with some apprehension and anxiety and it is the foremost role of the teacher to make them feel comfortable and at home in the school environment.

The biggest challenge for any teacher is capturing each student’s attention, and conveying ideas effectively to create a lasting impression. A great strategy to meet this challenge and engage the children is to implement creative and innovative teaching methods that make the classroom experience much more immersive and hands-on.

At MGM First Steps School we strongly believe in teaching with innovative interventions and take this teaching methodology ahead in the following different ways:

1. Creative Teaching

We take the help of different teaching aids and tools to stimulate creativity. Teachers Include playful games or forms of visual exercises such as salt tray, sorting colourful objects etc. that excite the young minds of our children and capture their interest. Children are encouraged to explore different ideas through discovery based learning and to form their own world view.

2. Audio & Video Tools

It is a common practice amongst our teachers to incorporate audio-visual materials to supplement textbooks during sessions. These could be rhymes, movies, pictures, or other mind mapping and brain mapping tools. Such tools help the imagination of children to thrive and grow. With this method of delivery, they not only develop their ability to listen but also understand the concepts in more depth.

3. Learning outside the Classroom

Some lessons are best learnt, when they are taught outside the classroom. We organize field trips that are relevant to the lessons or just simply take students for a nature walk outside the classroom. Our curriculum includes experiencing nature through a study of patterns, parts of a plant, shapes, colours, counting dry leaves, collecting stones to teach the concept of big/small, touching the tree bark to understand rough touch and soft touch. Nature is the best place to teach children in an interactive and immersive way.

4. Role Play

Teaching through role-play is a great way to make children step out of their comfort zone and develop their interpersonal skills. This method comes in handy, especially when you are teaching language or talking about any events. Children naturally like to mimic what they see and therefore this is a great way to help them imbibe important lessons in their sub-conscious mind. We include role plays on safety measures, good habits, rainbow & Cinderella etc.

5. Storyboard Teaching

Storyboarding is a great way to teach which requires step-by-step memorization or visualization of highly-conceptual ideas. We encourage the use of storyboards as a form of communication and let the students tell a story in pictures using their imagination in form of picture talk. To teach Phonics, Vowels, Blends and Digraphs we use stories to build the conceptual understanding of every child.

6. Puzzles and Games

Learning is fun when puzzles and games are part of education. Children may not require taking conscious effort when their lessons are introduced through games. Puzzles and games help children to think creatively and face challenges. We have a specialized Math lab setup for building numeracy skills in a fun way. The usage of colourful building blocks helps the children in learning about different shapes and names with excellent recall.

7. Introduce Lessons through a Story or activity

Just think, why do you watch movies with so much interest? You like to watch movies because there is always an interesting story and plot to keep you engaged. In a similar way, learning sessions become more interesting when you introduce them through a story. Our teachers design creative lesson plans in a way that even Math lessons are related to interesting stories making this teaching methodology highly effective.

8. Project-based learning

Project based learning is the most preferred way when it comes to preschool teaching strategies. It is because the more the children get exposed to a defined theme of learning, the more quickly they grasp new concepts. Alongside, they learn how to communicate, behave and react within a group. Some examples of project based learning are introduction of books and how paper is made; types of soil, forest, pet animals, jungle etc.

9. Story Telling

Story-telling and rhyming sessions are very popular methods that are included in preschool teaching strategies.
Apart from strengthening the basic skills of listening and expressing through body gestures, storytelling also helps in many other ways. Through storytelling, the kids not only get to explore their vision, curiosity, imagination but also learn about life experiences. It also allows them to express their emotions and feelings.Children get to know about cultures, values, and traditions.

10. Cultivating the right Attitude

We teach children the importance of habits, rules, and discipline in the preschool learning methods which help them to lay a foundation for a strong character. It also give them an understanding of the real world and how it works. The younger the kids, the easier it is for the educator to teach them about social and interpersonal skills because at their tender age they absorb any kind of new information and habits easily.

11. Healthy competition

We acknowledge that our children need to be more adaptive to the competitive realities. Healthy competition is encouraged in preschool learning experiences also. The educators convey the message that while winning feels great, but failing at something is also a part of life. Often, the child is helped to look at his/her own improvement over a period of time and understand the joy of competing with self and becoming a better version of one’s own self.