On 15 April 2019, PCF Sparkletots @ Bishan North Blk 409 kick-start the project by having our parents and teachers dramatize from Dr. Seuss’s The Foot Book. Children were excited to see them acting and getting wacky with different types of feet. What thrilled them most was dancing bare-footed on the ‘dance floor’ and to their surprise, their little footsteps have sparkled the shoes underneath the ‘dance floor’ when it was unveiled.
We hope through this project, we will be able to inculcate good values in our children by encouraging them and families to give back to community through small act of kindness such as donating a pair of unwanted shoes to people in need to spark joy.
Throughout the project, we incorporated good values such as kindness and compassion into the lessons. We planned activities that engaged children meaningfully too. Children brought their favourite shoe and talked about it during the Show & Tell.
There were discussions involved where many shared their personal experiences and thoughts of how they felt about losing their shoes and walking without it. In addition, we talked about how people in poor countries actually lived without shoes and shared ideas on how we can help those without shoes. All these create awareness in children about the importance of donating and have the children encourage their families to support in the Shoes Donation Drive.
From 31 July - 8 August, we organised a Shoes Donation Drive by encouraging our parents along with their children to donate unwanted shoes into our shoes collection boxes.
It was also extended to our neighbouring blocks 405 and 408. Flyers were distributed and posters were placed at town council noticeboard to inform residents of our shoes collection date. Prior to that, our children did ‘thank you’ cards to show their appreciation for the kind people who donated. On 6 August 2019, we went on door-to-door shoes collection with our children. It was a first time for everyone. We were extremely excited especially the children who looked forward meeting the residents in our community. It was not an easy task going from one unit to another collecting shoes. However with a mission in our mind, we were able to overcome it.
Children were proud to come back with a big bag of shoes. It was a great experience and exposure to our children. Children learnt to interact with people in our community and experience how caring for others can make a difference. The joy is priceless. After which, we organised, sort and counted the total pairs of donated shoes. The responses were overwhelming.
Within a week, we have collected a total of 189 pairs of shoes! We were delighted at the enthusiastic support of our families, residents and our children who brought in their shoes and learnt to part with their possession.
As part of our project, we invited our beneficiary, Salvation Army to share on how donation is done, as well as on their humanitarian works. Children were curious to see how much waste was thrown away by people around the world. They learnt by donating almost good items like shoes, we can actually save the earth and help the poor too.
To extend our children’s effort in this project, they were guided to express their creativity by adding designs on donated shoes to make them as though a brand new pair of shoes. Doodle art has always been our children favourite art style in our centre. They doodled on shoes template and their works were amazing! Children demonstrated how colours, lines and shapes bring their ideas to life.
Similarly our little ones from Toddlers did their own creation on shoes boxes and had fun wearing them.
We worked in small groups with children from Pre-nursery to K2, to redesign the donated shoes. Children were encouraged to add glitter, fabrics, felts, beads, gemstones, metal studs etc. on shoes. The shoes were beautifully done.
Pre-nursery
Nursery
Kindergarten 1
Kindergarten 2
Last but not least, children were given star card template to decorate and wrote personalised messages to the lucky new shoes owner.
Ta..da..here’s our new shoes with the customised packaging!
On 28 August 2019, our children, parents and teachers were delighted to welcome truck from the Salvation Army. Parents and children took turns to deliver the shoes donations in the truck. It was a special moment because the shoes collected is the result of collaborative effort. The value of this activity gets children to learn ways of giving to charity and how such small act of kindness by us can result in a big impact on others.
For “Start Small Dream Big” project this year, our mission Sparkle Shoes Spark Joy through donation, our children have learnt priceless good values. They have also applied many concepts learnt in school and expanded their knowledge through real-life learning experiences.
Finally, we want to extend a huge
Thank You to children, parents, residents, teachers etc. who donated, and The Salvation Army for their participation to make this effort a monumental success! Thank you all!
