Trehaus School believes that little learners have the potential to be ready for tomorrow’s challenges. Co-Principal ANGELA ROSE CASTANEDA shares how they provide an engaging, stimulating and purposeful environment for preschool students to have fun when learning. Plus, how parents can be closely involved, too.
Tell us about the Trehaus preschool approach to early childhood education.
The foundation of our teaching pedagogy and ethos is our belief that every child has the potential to become a changemaker and to be ready for tomorrow’s challenges. We believe in giving preschool students the core skill set and qualities needed most for this through core fundamentals, community connection, free play, and personal and social development.
What does the Trehaus curriculum look like?
It comprises of Little Projects, Little Learners and Little Academic.
Little Projects is our proprietary project-based learning curriculum. It is research-informed, play-based and child-led. Children cultivate 21st-century skills that they can apply to their academic learning. Projects are taught by our teachers from rich and varied backgrounds to provide the best curriculum and experience for our preschool students.
Little Projects runs alongside Little Learners, a vigorous bilingual core fundamental programme. It’s more structured and our children learn together in small groups.
Little Learners and Little Academic include sessions from our Xiao Zuo Zhe (Little Journalist) and Little Mathematician programmes. Our teachers provide children with a meaningful context to develop knowledge and skills in Mandarin and English language and numeracy concepts.
Tell us a bit more about…
Little Projects
Our projects include six modules inspired by the key roles of the future economy. We use a project-based approach as we believe that the learning is in the doing.
Each quarter, our children embark on a new project, which unfolds over a 10-week journey. During this time, they immerse themselves in hands-on experiences tailored to develop specific soft skills and future competencies.
Here’s a look at the key abilities they develop:
- Little Entrepreneur: problem-solving, resourcefulness, idea-selling, creative thinking, entrepreneurial skills
- Little Creative: creative expression, respecting perspectives, experimenting, appreciation, thinking divergently, empathy
- Little CEO: leadership and team management, executive function, attention to detail, decision Making, effective communication, resilience
- Little Chef: culinary expertise and cultural appreciation, healthy habits and nutrition, endurance, food safety awareness
- Little Engineer: coding skills, original thinking, design thinking, engineering and robotics
- Little Philanthropist: giving back and helping others, Inclusivity, value-based social responsibility, environmental consciousness
Little Learners
The Little Journalist aims to expose children to the knowledge of English language and literacy by nourishing children’s love for books. Through multi-sensory learning experiences that integrate all aspects of literacy, this eventually prepares them to become avid readers and writers.
Learning experiences in the Xiao Zuo Zhe curriculum starts with Chinese nursery rhymes, music and poems to open up their world of learning Mandarin. Xiao Zuo Zhe adopts the multimodal approach that responds to children with different learning styles. This guarantees that preschool students will listen, speak, read and write Mandarin confidently in their everyday lives.
The Little Mathematician provides authentic, fun and hands-on learning experiences to support children in developing a solid foundation in math and logical thinking. Children will find math approachable, applicable and relevant to deepening their understanding of the world through abstract thinking.
Little Academic
This is a Primary One preparation programme conducted in small groups. Introduced to children between 5 to 6 years old, it gives preschool students the best preparation for formal learning in Primary One. This will help them acquire and apply enhanced literacy, mathematics and Chinese skills.
Beyond building confidence in academic tasks, engaging learning experiences help reinforce communication, self-management, and social interaction. These experiences foster the behaviours and attitudes essential for Primary One. At the same time, it develops a deep love of learning, which is crucial as they transition into a formal classroom environment.
What initiatives have preschool students created through Little Projects?
For one of their Little CEO projects, the children worked as a team to make a positive impact as stewards of the environment. From tree-hugging to route mapping, they took the lead in discovering the beauty and wonders of the natural world.
As part of their Little Chef project, the children explored various foods and dining etiquettes from different cultures. This enabled them to increase their social awareness of how people eat and live around the globe.
Our students explored and experimented with ramps, objects that roll, playground prototypes, and constructed their own inventions that will improve their classroom life through a Little Engineer project.
We hear that Trehaus supports parents with a Business Club and cafe.
Your kid’s childhood flies by in the blink of an eye; at Trehaus preschool, you get to be a part of it. The Business Club membership is an add-on plan for Trehaus preschool parents. Having your workplace and your child’s school next to each other is efficiency at its best – you get to be part of your preschool child’s learning journey while at work. Pop in between meetings to see your little one along our corridors or have lunch with them at Trehaus preschool’s cafe.
The Work+Crèche programme under our Business Club is another option for parents with babies from the ages of four to 18 months. Rather than a ‘drop-off’, parents can ‘drop in’ at the crèche between meetings to enjoy precious moments with their baby. Parents can work at our Business Club with the assurance that their child is in the capable hands of our certified crèche carers.
Why should parents visit Trehaus preschool?
Trehaus preschool is a Silicon Valley-inspired preschool. We focus on building character and future skills such as creativity, empathy and grit in children. We’re an ECDA-licensed preschool for children from 18 months to 6 years old, with up to 120 children on our premises.
Our small group classes have a ratio of one teacher to five students. This allows teachers to notice and address every child’s questions and offer tailored assistance more effectively. The preschool students are largely grouped by age and abilities. When learning together, children gain a true understanding of working as a team to problem-solve together.
We enable parents to be present for their child’s learning journey through on-site facilities for our parent community. Come explore our space and speak with our team to find out more. You can book a tour through our website trehausschool.com or send an email to hello@trehaus.co.
trehausschool.com
109 North Bridge Road, #07-21 to #07-33
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