A time designed to meet the needs of each family, offering a safe and meaningful place for children to be after school ends… That is be.Living’s Extended Period, a program carefully thought out by our teaching teams, both in Early Childhood Education and Elementary School, which places our school as a support network for children and families in our community.
“Nowadays, many families have long working hours. The Extended Period helps them reconcile work and family demands, playing a crucial role in their lives. We offer care and supervision, providing a safe, welcoming and structured environment for the child to be in during the day. While meeting the development and planning needs of families, we also promote an engaging and practical educational approach for the children,” explains Pamela Mattos, Year 4 assistant teacher, who together with the entire team of afternoon assistant teachers is responsible for organizing, planning and implementing the new Extended Period in Elementary School.
The Extended Period takes place in English, so the English teachers are responsible for all the planning. According to Pamela, the children who are here at school during this period enjoy the benefit of an extended English course load. “The main objective of the extended period in Elementary School is to enrich and broaden children’s vocabulary in English, through experiences with a variety of games and activities that not only provide fun, but also encourage a more playful exploration of second language vocabulary, recognizing the importance of mastering the second language. There are multiple educational and fun activities that make learning more enjoyable and captivating.”
Although the Extended Period is planned on a weekly basis by teachers and assistant teachers, the involvement of the entire school community, especially the children, is fundamental to the program’s success. This year, with the aim of further integrating the children into this process and developing a sense of belonging in them, the teachers proposed that the children think about and choose a name to give to this time they spend at school. So, after collective reflection, the extended Elementary School period was named T.O.P.S. – Time of Playing and Sharing!
“The children are already very used to the democratic processes they experience at school, such as assemblies. So we made a ballot box available for the children to put in the name of their choice and after two weeks we decided to hold a vote. There were many good suggestions, which made it difficult to choose. Before the vote, we had a chat in order to understand what happened during the extended period, what its purpose was and why they liked it so much. Through these conversations, we built a Word Cloud that captured terms such as “creativity, fun, joy and games”. We then asked the question: “What do we do during the Extended Period?”. And the answers gradually translated the identity of what we experienced in our afternoons. We kept narrowing down the name options until we arrived at T.O.P.S.”
The new name reflects the essence of our proposal at be.Living: to provide a pleasant time for the children to not only play, but also enjoy good times with friends in their second language, even practicing autonomy by suggesting topics and activities. “We usually start from a collective interest, carefully observing where the children’s attention is directed at the moment, and develop the activities from there. We occupy the entire school grounds with proposals that provide an immersion in interactive experiences through online games, role-playing games (RPG), escape rooms, street games, Acamerê, as well as artistic activities such as drawing, painting, crafts and loom techniques. By striking a balance between games and artistic activities, we have transitioned from a disjointed series of activities to a more interconnected structure, creating a sequence of games and play that engage with each other.”
The teacher explains that although these activities are interwoven more closely with the academic curriculum, T.O.P.S. goes far beyond a simple extension of the school day. “It’s a time for children to explore, learn and connect in ways that transcend the boundaries of regular classes. An example of this is our theme of inspiration for the Natural Sciences research developed for the MAC (Arts and Sciences Exhibition): Biomimetics, which is nothing more than the observation of strategies used in nature to develop solutions with the aim of applying them to other areas of knowledge. We’re exploring and playing with the elements of nature. We’ve already used the frottage technique with dried leaves, created a beehive thinking about the representativeness of the collective, made bracelets using paper looms after studying the importance and strength of spider web fiber to create sustainable and biodegradable clothing. In a playful and engaging way, we tackle complex subjects that enrich the lessons and vice versa.”
Similarly, in Early Childhood Education, the Extended Period is also an immersion in the English language and also has a lighter nature, considering that the children have already spent the whole morning at school.
Coordinator Camila Maia explains that the Extended Period has the possibility of meeting the individual needs of young children even more. “Some children sleep after lunch, others do extracurricular activities such as capoeira, tennis, judo, ballet, musicalization and yoga. There is a group that stays with the teachers and participates in what they have planned. Generally, these activities are more recreational in nature, with proposals linked to art and lots of free play, as well as the development of projects that take into account everyone’s needs, considering that this is a multi-age group. A project is currently underway to take care of the little house where the school’s compost bin is located. The children are researching how to build the walls and renovate this little house. But as this is not a fixed group, i.e. it is not always the same children who are there every day, the projects that take place during the Extended Period are more relaxed.”
Camila points out that the program welcomes both families who need their children to stay at school longer because of their jobs, and those who choose to leave their children at school longer. “Many families prefer their children to stay at school rather than at home because they have access to different experiences with people who have specialized training for children. They are immersed in a bilingual environment with the possibility of exploring the space in a routine that has a lighter, slower and careful rhythm in order to meet their specific needs in terms of sleeping, eating, leisure and learning.”
