At Aster Elementary, origami or paper folding is a unique and valuable addition to the curriculum. It is not only fun doing, but it is also a valuable method for developing vital skills during their school years. It helps children to develop patience, concentration power, and self-esteem. Origami helps children to understand the importance of cooperative learning. Transforming a flat piece of paper into a three-dimensional figure is a unique exercise that develops special reasoning in children. Through hands-on activities, children learn the concept of symmetry and to manipulate basic geometric shapes such as squares, rectangles, and triangles which improves their maths skills. It is also a great module for community building in the school. Folding a thousand cranes, hanging them in the school library exemplifies the power of collaboration and the satisfying achievement of a group objective.
We have introduced cooking as a module at Aster because we strongly believe that cooking with children in schools promote the lifetime skill of healthy eating at a young age.
A kitchen is a learning lab for children that can involve all of their senses. While kneading, tossing, pouring, smelling, cutting, and feeling foods they have fun and learn without being aware of it.
The best way to give nutrition knowledge is through experiential learning or hands-on activities associated with food preparation that involves handling food and cooking equipment.
In the cooking module at Aster, our students learn lifetime skills through practicing basic math skills such as counting, weighing, measuring, tracking time; they also gain social skills by working together and communicating in the kitchen.
It also help students in acceptance of responsibility. Each child has a task to complete to contribute to the meal preparation and cleanup.
We believe that school gardens are a wonderful way to use the schoolyard as a classroom, reconnect students with the natural world and the true source of their food, and teach them valuable gardening and agriculture concepts and skills that integrate with several subjects, such as math, science, art, health and physical education, and social studies, as well as several educational goals, including personal and social responsibility.
In this module we have introduced garden-based teaching methodologies that addresses different learning styles and intelligences. This comprises from planning and planting to tending and harvesting teaches in a practical and visible way the values of responsibility, caretaking, patience, and hard work. As a hands-on student to classroom work, our garden provides a fun and engaging way to teach almost any subject, bringing lessons to life through direct experience and kinesthetic participation.
At Aster, we aim to prepare our children for the future in the best possible way. Therefore, we have introduced entrepreneurship module for our students from Grade 1 onwards as it is a critical part of ensuring success in a rapidly changing world.
This module teaches children the basics of entrepreneurship, business, and finance in a hands-on manner. This project based learning (PBL) program gives children the opportunity to learn first-hand how to start and operate their own business. Working individually, the young entrepreneurs start, fund, and run their own company.
It is designed to better prepare students for the future of work by building enterprise skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, financial and digital literacy, teamwork, creativity and communication. It trains our students to become more optimistic and solution-focused.
Life SkillsAt Aster, we believe that in a constantly changing environment, having life skills is an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life. The dramatic changes in global economies over the past five years have been matched with the transformation in technology and these are all impacting on education, the workplace, and our home life.
Life skills provide children with important tools for development, such as independent thinking, how to socialize and make new friends, and how to take action in situations where their parents or teachers may not be around to help or intervene (dealing with a bully or personal insecurities and fears, for example.)
In our life skills module at Aster, we focus on teaching happiness skills, strength skills, resolution skills, emotional skills, skills for being present, interaction skills, relationship skills, self-management skills as well as empathy skills.
STEAMAt Aster, we strongly believe that educating students in STEAM subjects prepare them for life, regardless of the profession they choose to follow. STEAM teach students how to think critically and how to solve problems — skills that can be used throughout life to help them get through tough times and take advantage of opportunities whenever they appear.
An important part of STEAM educational approach at Aster is that students are not just taught the subject matter but they are taught how to learn, how to ask questions, how to experiment and how to create.
Drama ClubDrama gives children opportunities to explore, discuss and deal with difficult issues and express their emotions in a supportive environment. It enables them to explore their own cultural values and those of others, past and present. It encourages them to think and act creatively, thus developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills that can be applied in all areas of learning. Through drama, students at Aster, are encouraged to take responsible roles and make choices – to participate in and guide their own learning.
Drama strategies at Aster are used as everyday teaching tools for a wide range of subjects. They can illuminate the human dimension of subject areas, such as how climate change may impact on individuals and communities. At Aster, we use drama when working on cross-curricular themes as it naturally bridges subject areas. For example if students take on the roles of archaeologists in Egypt, drama can link history, geography, and art as well as the mathematics of pyramids and the science of building them.
