2021 Term 4 Holiday Programs (Beecroft)

Summer Holiday Program Descriptions (2021 Term 4 Holiday)

Creativity Program

Creative Drama- books by Julia Donaldson (K-2, 20-21 Dec)

A great story provides a never-ending, rich source of the script for children’s drama programs. Stories allow children to enter their imaginations, become innovators, and fully participate in the crafting of a performance piece.

This holiday, we will take children to immerse into the world of books by Julia Donaldson. Julia Donaldson’s books hold a special place in each kid’s library. Her books are always loved by young kids and parents.  The rhythmic sentences and beautiful illustrations make her books different, which kids love to listen to and read. We feel that her books have a way with kids that grab their ever-fleeting attention and make them want to read and listen. You will be amazed to see how much children get to fully comprehend and enjoy the book through storytelling and acting out in a way that is engaging, fun and unforgettable!

To ensure the high quality of the workshop and learning outcome, we control the class size within a maximum of 8 children. If we have more than 8 children enrolled, we will have 2 facilitators and the same ratio will be maintained. 

Creative Drama- Junior Film Director (Y3-6, 20-21 Dec)

In the Jr Film Director Workshop, students will work in teams to make a short film. The students will start the day by creating a film narrative and storyboard as a group. They will then split up into filming, editing and planning teams. The filming and editing team are responsible for creating the first draft of the film, while the planning team create a pitch and budget for a polished version of the film. By the end of the day, all of the teams share their draft films and pitch their plan to the group.

What we’ll cover: 

• Creating a short film narrative 
• Storyboarding your short film 
• Filming your scenes 
• Editing your scenes 
• Calculating your film budget 
• Presenting your rough cut film and budget

Key skills we’re developing:

• Storytelling
• Teamwork
• Digital literacy
•  Financial literacy
• Time management
• Positivity

Creative Drama - Around the World (K-2 and Y3-6, 22-23 Dec)

In this course students will travel around world using the power of drama.  Immersing themselves into different cultures, locations and climates students will use their senses to explore the beauty of the world. Through improvisation, storytelling and script work students will re-enact key historical moments and submerge themselves in France, London and the North Pole. Throughout this course students will work in groups and perform, enhancing their collaboration and public speaking skills.

Guided and supported by experienced drama tutors, students will learn valuable drama techniques and enhance communication skills while have lots of fun in role-playing and acting!

To ensure the high quality of the workshop and learning outcome, we control the class size within a maximum of 8 children. If we have more than 8 children enrolled, we will have 2 facilitators and the same ratio will be maintained. 

Why is learning drama important for children's development of essential skills? Check out this helpful article here.

Creative Writing Workshop (K-2 and Y3-6)

Each K-2 Creative Writing Session will be based from a shared reading picture book or text for students to draw inspiration from. Students will then participate in a range of interactive and hands-on activities that will build their content knowledge and skills in relation to narrative texts. After this, students will then learn about the narrative writing process, exploring the structure and language features associated with a successful narrative text. Students will then be guided through the planning, writing and editing process, where joint construction and constructive feedback will be provided allowing students to achieve their best.

Unleash your inner writer (for Y3-6): The kids will unlock their inner author and become expert storytellers, writers, and Literary experts. They will learn several writing tips and tricks from some of the best writers in the world, from this century and the last. We will read and decipher as a group all types of literary work. This includes everything from novels to poetry and speeches, even fairytales. After learning from some of the greats, students will then be given the opportunity to draft and create their own stories individually and in pairs. They’ll be able to deconstruct, rewrite, and even change some of their favourite novels, fairytales and movie plots.

Junior Journalist Workshop (Y3-6, 19-20 Jan)

What exactly is Journalism, Investigative reporting, breaking news? 

How do you know you’ve investigated properly or not? 

When do you know the story is complete or the mystery is solved? 

Join us in this fun and fascinating workshop to take your communication, analytical and critical thinking skills to next level!  Throughout this learning day the kids will learn how to craft investigative question, learn how to retell stories, become experts in the 5w’s who, what, when, where, and why, solve a real-life diamonds heist, learn how to spot clues in all sorts of journalistic stories and so much more.

• Learn what journalism is and what its uses are after which they will become their own journalists in writing and public speaking broadcast journalism. They will then read some current news stories after which they will then draft their own.
• Next, they will go through a series of tasks that involve fact collecting, critical problem-solving, and learning not just what questions they should ask, but how to ask them. They will work together in pairs to complete each task.
• Third, they’ll interview each other and play various games which will help them in the last task of the day. While they decipher clues through each lesson.
• We will be solving exciting cases together as a team of young investigative journalists!
• After they solve it, they will then be rewarded private investigator badges.

Book Club (K-2 and Y3-6)

We will dive deep into the fascinating and educational world of books, while at the same time sharpen those crucial literary analysis skills reading comprehension skills, group discussion and teamworking skills and much more. Each day of the holiday program will consist of lessons and tasks on vital reading skill, writing skills, critical thinking techniques, and the ability to ask questions which every student need for success. Achieving this will require ample reading time for the fun content and of course amazingly fun games and actives to make Summer Holidays, Reading, and Education fun. Games will include “If that character was you what would you do differently”, “Jeopardy and Debate Games regarding the text”, “NASA Exploration”, “Analyse That”, “Mystery solving”, “Name that Culture” and so much more. Student will be challenged on their literature analysis, work in teams with some of the best debate games on the books they read, expand on their character development expertise by asking “What would I do if I was in that situation” and lastly, they will expand on their writing skills by reworking/rewriting chapters as well as answering questions for the best literature comprehension skills.

Additionally, in this advanced reading analysis and text comprehension program, students will have the opportunity to explore a wider range of books than they would have in the classroom. Students will love the vast array of books from Science Technology, Space Adventure and Exploration, History and Thrilling Mystery novels.

STEAM Programs

LEGO Wedo 2.0 for K-2

In these two half-day workshops, students will be introduced to many interesting real world topics or problems, and be inspired by how Robotics and Machines could be designed and coded to help us in many aspects of our lives. Students will be encouraged and guided to design, build, program and test the LEGO Robotics models. 

LEGO WeDo - Introduction to Robotics  (K-2, 20-21 Dec)

Learning experience:

• Introduces building and coding using the Motor Power Block to make the motor turn at different speeds.
• Introduces building and coding using the Motion Sensor
• Introduces building and coding using the motor further, making it turn for a set amount of time and then change direction.
• Introduces building and coding using the Light Block.

This workshop will be running on two half-day sessions and students will be involved in making different LEGO robotic models in each session. 

LEGO WeDo - Machine to the Rescue! (K-2, 10-11 Jan)

Serious weather-related hazards can destroy areas very quickly and violently. When that happens, animals and people can be in danger. Do you know that helicopters can be very useful rescuers? Students will find out how helicopters bring animals and people out of danger and bring in supplies to those in need, then we will build and program a rescue helicopter together!

At the second session, students will be investigate a smart machine which could prevent flood from happenining. Then we will be building this smart device which can sense, detect and activate its emergency protocol. 

LEGO WeDo - Space Exploration (K-2, 12-13 Jan)

Lunar Landing? Mission to Mars? Let's build a Space Rover to turn this mission possible! The students will build a robot that can not only drive, turn and move on a surface, but also has some powerful features such as collecting rock sample from Mars, and  drilling a hole in the ground! 

Students will be inspired and encouraged to design their own smart Space Rover to undertake all these incredible tasks! 

LEGO WeDo - "I like to Move it, Move it!" (K-2, 19-20 Jan)

Do you know the modern warehouse (such as Amazon) is operated by a few smart Robots? They can carry heavy loads, remove items from robotic shelf and pull carts through fulfillment centers autonomously. Students will be inspired by Amazon's Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs), and will be supported and encouraged to design and build a device for lifting, moving, and/or packing a pre-determined set of objects. 

Engineering and Robotics using Micro:Bit forY3-6

The BBC micro:bit is a pocket-sized computer that introduces you to how software and hardware work together. It has an LED light display, buttons, sensors and many input/output features that, when programmed, let it interact with you and your world.

Micro:bit - Introduction to Electronics and Coding (Y3-6, 20-21 Dec)

Learning Experience: 

- Introduction to Micro:bit through multiple mini projects.

- Make your own Light Saber controlled by Mirco:Bit and LEDs

Micro:bit - Amazing Senses (Y3-6, 10-11 Jan)

A sensor is a device that detects, or senses, a signal. Modern technology could not exist without sensors. Engineers use electronic sensors to enrich features and functions of their products and make them really smart. 

Learning Experience:

- Understand what sensors are, why sensors are used.

- Understand how to use sensors to help machines to sense the surrounding world through Micro:ibit projects

Micro:bit - Smart Robot Car (Y3-6, 24-25 Jan)

Build and code a Smart Robot Car powered by BBC Mircro:Bit. With serveral lines of code in Microsoft MakeCode, we can control servo motors, LEDs, and get input from various sensors. In Micro:Bit robotics, we will build and code the Micro:bit to control the smart robot car, and create robots with different driving features, from automatic following, obstacle avoidance, bluetooth / IR remote control, and cool lighting patterns.

Learning Expenrice:

- Understand and identify components required for the robot car

- Build and code your Mirco:Bit powered Smart Robot Car

- Code to control the movement of the motors in the robot car

- Understand how Ultrasonic sensor works and apply the leanring in designing and coding the colision avoidance feature 

- Enchance the features of the robot with automatic following, line tracing etc.

STEM Club - Explore and Design (for K-2 and Y3-6)

NPE STEM Club programs aim to spark children’s interests, ignite their passions, and develop investigative mindsets in STEM topics. The STEM Club offers programs that enrich and broaden beyond the curriculum, giving young people the chance to explore subjects like Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths in a fun and relax environment. 

Our experienced and friendly learning facilitators will support students’ learning through 5Es STEM instructional model: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate and Evaluate. Compared to traditional teaching models, the 5E learning cycle results in greater benefits concerning students’ ability for scientific inquiry. We incorporate our Design Thinking model in the phase of Design challenge. Students will be guided through the Design Thinking process and apply their STEM knowledge to complete their design.

This summer we will be exploring and investigating various science topics such as:

- Energy ("May the force be with you", "It's electrifying", "Matilda's floating feat")

- Earth and Space ("Junior Rocket Scientist")

- Sustainability and Design Thinking ("Design a self-sustaining home")

Teaching Team 

The teachers/learning facilitators at New Path Education are professional, experienced, well qualified and trained within their professions and have great passion and enthusiasm to build up children's essential skills in a creative, innovative and engaging way. All NPE learning facilitators have WWCC and have rich experience in teaching, tutoring children at different age groups. All NPE's programs are pedagogically guided, mentored and reviewed by teachers or educational researchers to ensure their highest quality in content and learning outcome.  Get to know more about our wonderful team of talents @ NPE here!

Program Schedule 

The educational program starts at 9:30 am and finishes at 4 pm. Supervision is provided before and after the program. Parents can drop off from 9-9:30am and pick up from 4-5pm. During the day there will be multiple breaks (morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea) and children will be able to access the fenced playing area during the recess. 

What to bring? 

We will provide all laptops/Tablets, Robotics kits so all your kids need to bring are:

• Lunch (lunch order is also available), morning tea and afternoon tea (we have a fridge, microwave on site)
• Water bottle
• Children are to wear comfortable clothes with closed shoes. Please note that enclosed shoes are mandatory for safety reasons.

Parking

Limited visitor parking spaces are available on site. Enter the car park (at rear) from Copeland Rd, Beecroft. The boom gate will be open when the car approaches. Please respect the local residents of Uniting Copeland Gardens by following the speed limit (8km/h) after you enter the car park and leave promptly after you drop off and check in your children. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

COVID safety plan 

Our holiday program complies with and follows the NSW COVID safety plan and procedures strictly. Upon arrival, please scan the QR Code for your children to check in and enter the premise. Full refund available if the program is cancelled by NPE due to COVID Lockdown.