Happy House Nursery School

Written by Sue Hayward | 27 May 2011

Due to a very generous anonymous donation we are delighted to say on the 3rd of January 2010 we opened the Happy House Nursery School. Our Happy House Kids attend plus children from the local community. It is a lovely bright, vibrant, light and airy place. The children are so happy to be learning through play and actually doing things. In Kenya it seems the policy to have children chant and all sit still while a teacher writes on the blackboard, or works with one child. In Happy House Nursery the children are busy, they are encouraged to express themselves. Those children who need more attention are given extra projects to keep them busy and interested. The walls are covered with the work the children have done. Drawings, paintings, little paper dolls where they have cut material to stick on to make the picture. Each class has a certain book to read each week then activities are planned around the story. One class was reading Hannah's Surprise, where she takes a basket of fruit, which she carries on her head to a friends house. As she walked different fruits were taken by different animals. The children were given paper plates to cut out and colour the fruits, they all then proudly walked with it on their head. We bought the different fruits for the children to taste. They drew animals, learnt the colours, so much from just one story. Many of you who are teachers in other countries will look at this as perfectly normal but here it is streets ahead of other schools and their methods of teaching.

Children from the age of 3 are having computer lessons every day. We encourage the children to drink water throughout the day for hydration. We have lots of movement activities, we move to different areas for different lessons, to make the day varied and interesting.

As I have said many many times over the past 11 years that I have been working in Watamu, 'Education is the road out of poverty for children.' I now feel we are able to give the Happy House Kids the best start possible in life.

If you have educational DVD's or computer software such as Learning Ladders that you children no longer need please send them to us to help our children.

 Our address is:-

Sue Hayward's Happy House P.O. Box 796, Watamu. Kenya. East Africa.