Little Entrepreneurs on their Start Small Dream Big mission

On 15 June 2016, we joined parents and preschoolers of ELFA Child Care at their Family Carnival cum Father’s Day Celebration in support of the Start Small Dream Big project. The latter is an initiative by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) to inculcate the value of community service in young children. As part of the ELFA carnival, the preschoolers had the opportunity to operate stalls together with their peers. The do-it-yourself (DIY) stalls included food stands like Healthy Cereal With Milk and Chocolate-covered Bananas/Apples With Nuts, as well as craft booths like Pouch and Design Your Own Candle Holder. There was also an Animal Beanbag Toss game. 

​Specially prepared banners and posters were put up all around the school before the event so as to allow the children to communicate to the parents what were the activities planned for that day.

Do-It-Yourself: Fanciful Banana Boat

Do-It-Yourself: Healthy Cereal

Children were having fun creating healthy food on their own.

Do-It-Yourself: Pouch

With the markers and paints provided, the children unleashed their creativity as they delved into designing their own pouch or bag at this booth.The preschoolers have also prepared handmade items to be sold, such as paintings, pencil holders, keychains and magnets. Each was a one-of-a-kind item. Parents had purchased coupons to be used in the carnival and showed their support by participating in the aforementioned activities and purchasing the handmade items. The net proceeds from the carnival would be donated to ARC Children’s Centre, which provides children with cancer or other life-threatening illnesses with a joyful and healthy environment. The preschoolers excitedly promoted their booths, attending to the parents who came to show support as customers. They appeared confident in how to run the business and impressed the parents with their superb mathematical skills when they communicated how much money to collect for each item!

Joyfully tending their booth together

Posters of merchandise on sale were put up around the school

We had the opportunity to speak to Peter, who was supporting the Design Our Own Candle Holder booth along with his son, Philip, who is in K2 this year. Peter said that his son has been looking forward to the carnival as well as Father’s Day Celebration, and had reminded him that he should come to the carnival.

Philip and his father Peter working together to make their candle holder

Another parent, Cheryl, said that she supports such events and thought that it was “very noble of the school to do something like that” for charity. The Family Carnival and Father's Day Celebration presented an excellent opportunity for parental engagement, while at the same time contributing to a good cause. Cheryl thought that it was good to expose children to such initiatives at a young age.

The Family Carnival started in the morning and continued well after lunch. A portion of the day was dedicated to celebrating Father’s Day, with performances by the preschoolers and a No-Cook Healthy Breakfast competition.

The children presented what they have prepared for the celebration, performing for their parents who were among the audience Fathers and their children worked together to prepare healthy and nutritious no-cook breakfast. Many came up with innovative twists to their breakfast and presented them in creative ways!

Preparing a no-cook breakfast

From the carnival activities to the celebration of Father’s Day, ELFA had given its children and their parents an eventful and meaningful day. We hope these memories would be valued and  cherished by all, especially since the day was for a good cause.