Our Activities
Le Petit Chaperon Rouge offers various activities for children enrolled in our programs.
Story Time
By opening the book, a whole world is created before the eyes of the child. His imagination is put in front of the stage allowing him to associate abstract ideas and concepts. Thanks to this workshop, it is the taste for reading that is stimulated and the enthusiasm for discovering vocabulary on each page. The association of letters and words offers the child a rich experience to become familiar with the French language. The story gives him the power to appropriate the character’s experience which makes him enter into empathy and makes him discuss subjects important to him (sphincteric cleanliness, sharing, aggressiveness, happiness), but also address sensitive subjects (separation, moving, war, pollution). This approach offers the child an airlock to express his emotions, to put the right words there and to give him back the power to act and resolve his own internal conflicts.
Yoga
Very popular for some time, the yoga workshop is suitable for children. With stories told to him or characters to imitate, the child discovers the limits and strengths of his body. Yoga allows him to connect to his internal world, to understand how his movements work and above all to relax! By performing these stretching exercises and learning to breathe calmly, the child is enriched with a capacity for self-regulation that he can use at any time throughout his entire life. Yoga also allows the learning of skills such as the location in the space of one’s body and the coordination of movements. A coordinated body leads to the development of mathematical skills in parallel. Did you know that a child moving on all fours by alternating his movements predisposes his school level in mathematics? In addition to this, yoga also helps develop concentration skills and supports the healthy growth of self-esteem. This allows you to start off on the right foot for cognitive learning!
Our yoga activities are offered by Appleseed Yoga!
Music
Do, Ré, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si… each of these musical notes assembled in a precise order with a determined rhythm offers melodious, soothing or exciting sounds! Music resonates within us, makes us vibrate through our sensations and channels our emotions. It is a real mediator from our internal world to our external world, because it alone allows us to create melodious notes and also to leave space-time for our body to express itself. Creativity is at the heart of this activity, and we know that art supports the development of a culture, develops a sense of belonging, supports our civilization. Music also has the gift of developing language skills. Indeed, it functions substantially as a set of letters/notes which form words which themselves form sentences/melody. The child decodes this parallel communication system and the music does not stop there! Cognitive skills are also included such as memorization: according to Naitre et Grandir, a famous Canadian information site for parents, explains that ”The practice of musical activities (eg: singing a nursery rhyme, tapping rhythms on a drum, listening to different music) stimulates different areas of the brain, which promotes multiple learnings. Musical activities exercise, among other things, your toddler’s listening, memory, attention, thought organization and ability to control certain behaviours.”1
Sciences
With concrete material, the child discovers at his own pace many experiences at his fingertips. Being able to manipulate gives him a sense of control over his environment and allows his mind to understand abstract concepts through play. This makes learning much more effective than through paper and pencil. . Thus, his neural patterns are activated and ready to record the information of these discoveries. It is then that the child naturally follows the process of an experience. He begins by observing the material, its environment and can raise questions. He then continues his research by submitting proposals that he will be able to try for himself and it is thanks to his trials – errors – successes that he will be able to gain confidence in himself and in his environment. The discovery of the phenomenon of cause and effect requires confronting errors and it is then that the brain develops. The child then develops his reasoning skills and his previous errors offer him the opportunity to grow his experiences and make them more complex. Mathematical, geometric, scientific and chemical concepts are approached and enriched through each of its hypotheses.
Our science activities are offered by Explorum!
Theater
Pretending, imitating, taking oneself for… this is part of the child’s dramatic play and is enhanced during theater workshops. The goal? Develop your self-knowledge! By embodying different characters who have experienced familiar or unfamiliar events for the child, characters experiencing universal emotions cause the child to develop his empathy. Indeed, he learns to put himself in the place of the other, to play happy or sad events to explore the cathartic function. Catharsis is found in children’s play, this phenomenon makes it possible to play traumatic or painful events to release the mind on fears, sadness or any painful experience that has not found peace within oneself. This is how the child can express his emotions, but also find the right words about his state of being. The theater workshops also support the development of language and memorization which are essential skills for school learning. Beyond his personal enrichment, the child also deploys his social skills and learns many rules of etiquette. At the same time, he develops his free will and can express his point of view concerning each of the characters he embodies. Confidence and self-esteem are increased, which makes him more confident to present himself in front of an audience and express himself. To hold this performance, it is a whole team work! Each child discovers their strengths and weaknesses and, like any properly functioning system, each character balances the shortcomings of others by sharing their resources.