Behind the scenes leading to our annual concert
Every year, we end the year with our annual concert put together by the children for their friends and family. It is a time of balancing concert item practice, work and play for the children. Our children manage to do this year after year and we always marvel at how fast they learn dance steps and the ability to listen to music. It is a busy term for the guides as well as they balance work, concert practices and report writing- here’s a shout-out to our team who year-on-year does such a great job in handling Term 4 with all its demands! The aim of our annual concert is not the end result, but the enjoyment and responsibility involved in the whole process.
Freedom of choice in item selection
From the onset, we ask the children to choose the items that they would like to participate in after showing them all the items that the guides have come up with. The children choose the items and have a week to try them out and confirm their decision. Once they have confirmed their decision, they learn to honour their choice by practising their chosen item with their friends. In practising the item together, the children learn to work with one another and to balance their work in the shorter work time that is available. We usually start our annual concert practices in week 2 or 3 of Term 4.
The amazing results that children are capable of!
Our children are capable of great things! We have enclosed 2 items from our 2018 concert to demonstrate what the children learnt in a span of about 6 weeks.
Below is an item that Ms Christine put together; with some help from Ms Kelly in the execution of her idea.
In the video on the left, our 5-, 6-, 7- and 9-year olds perform together a traditional Filipino folk dance called “Tinikling” or popularly known as the “Bamboo Dance”. Enjoy!
In the video on the right, is an item put together by Ms Swati Aggarwal titled “Jai Ho Dance” and is performed by 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8- and 9-year olds! By far, this is our first item performed by children from a wide range of ages. It takes skill co-ordinating a dance on this scale.
Enjoy the 2018 videos of our annual concert!
We hope that parents are not too disappointed if our children “freeze” on stage. The process that they have gone through to get to this concert day is already a great learning experience! They may freeze today but there are other concerts to come. So, for today, we applaud their courage to just get up on stage. We want our children and our parents to enjoy the concert with all its imperfections and flaws, for finally, that is what makes for a memorable and endearing concert.
Sheila is a Montessori guide with Lodestar Montessori School. She counts herself blessed to have discovered Montessori and doubly blessed to be working at Lodestar Montessori School where she is given the liberty to put into practice what she has been taught in her training. She enjoys interacting with the children as well as seeing them grow in their formative years. In her free time, she enjoys a good movie or a good book. Her favourite way to relax is being on a beautiful beach with family and good friends. One day, she hopes that Lodestar Montessori would open a school next to a beach!