Playgroup Session in Brunei at La Vida

La Vida has started its playgroup sessions in May and has opened up more slots to welcome more children with special needs. The playgroup session now runs not only on Fridays from 3.30pm to 5.00pm but on Thursdays and Saturdays as well though I am unsure of the time. Click here for contact details of La Vida.

This makes La Vida, the first of its kind in Brunei to offer playgroup sessions which help children with their early years development through games and activities as well as social interaction with other children. The children are accompanied by their parents where they participate in the activities together. It is one of the objectives of La Vida to motivate and inspire parents to help and learn together with their children, strengthening their parent-child relationships.

Adopting Malaysian Care's playgroup session, the session is comprised of some of the following activities: gross motor, songs, music and movement, story time, art and craft and free play. I usually help out with the gross motor, and art and craft. Just last week, we made party hats out of manila cards and stuck pretty stickers on them. :)

Parents and their children in music and movement


My drawing of grapes which looks like purple longans


Tearing and pasting in art and craft with origami paper - giraffe


Tearing and pasting in art and craft with origami paper- apple

Tearing and pasting in art and craft with origami paper - orange

We prepare a sample for the children to follow - orange

Drawing


Addition of pasted papaya art work at the front of the counter


Tearing and pasting using crepe paper - papaya

The Hopscotch Twister

On a particular Friday when I volunteered at the La Vida Parent's Resource Centre & Toy Library, I was asked to clean this new toy that we got. We clean all the toys before we use them and after they are returned to us. With anti-bacterial cleaning agent on a towel, we wipe the toys.

Anyway, this week, I was impressed by this new toy we got. It's the Twister Hopscotch, which we use for our gross motor section of our weekly playgroup session. It's fun, safe and convenient! I didn't read the rules but let my imagination run wild over ways of playing this game. Talk about modern hopscotch.

Spin-the-needle board with colour codes and action icons.


The rings for laying on the floor




Very easy to set up, just snap both the rings on the sections that fit


Tada!


Tada again!


I can feel the fun just by looking at the box. It cost about SGD45 in Brunei. On Amazon, it's US18.99


Set the patterns you like easily


Some bits of the rule


Volunteers setting up the rings for gross motor activities

La Vida Parent's Resource Centre & Toy Library

La Vida is a parent's resource centre and toy library, where I volunteer about two Fridays a month. The center's mission is to care and give compassion to the community. The resources are available for loans to children with special needs and/or those who are financial needy. It is a non-profit company and the funds come from sponsorships.

The centre is opened on Fridays and Saturdays from 9.30am to 12.30pm and from 2.30pm to 5.30pm. It is located at #11, 1st Floor, Block D, Melabau Complex, K.g Serusop. The complex is a maroon-tiled building located at the roundabout along the street connecting Jln Serusop and Jln Berakas, not far from the mosque in Kg Serusop. The centre can be contacted at 2336391.

The resources come in the form of books, cds and toys. The toys on loan are all specially chosen for the child's mental, emotional and physical development. They have toys for gross motor skills, eye-hand coordination, speech and language, early mathematics, matching and sorting, imaginary play and also includes puzzles and jigsaws.

On a particular week, I was assigned to make the toys more educational for the children. Besides the lending services, the centre also think of more ways to play these toys. Here are some stacking toys which I was asked to design some activities on sheets of paper. After discussing with another volunteer, we came up with all sorts of grids on the paper for stacking, matching of colours, shapes and sizes and for learning counting. Each has varying levels of difficulty. Only one side of the blocks has nozzle to fit into the holes of the other blocks to hold them together. The colours of the grids are not filled in at the time these pictures are taken.

Stacks of coloured blocks


Grids still incomplete


Building blocks to match the shapes of the grids


List of activities with decorative symbols to make it more attractive


There are a combination of activities here. Matching of shapes and sizes (same blocks in different sizes and lengths)


Learning counting; how many blocks would make up the height of each bar.


This grid is for colour matching.


For stacking and matching colours