Yip's Children's Choir
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1 YIP’SYIP’S Canada Canada Markham Campus • Thornhill Campus • Unionville Campus • Somerset Academy • Music Centre Markham Campus • Thornhill Campus • Unionville Campus • Somerset Academy • Music Centre Montessori• Montessori & Elementary & Elementary Education Choir• & Music CentreMusical Theatre • Choir & Musical TheatreChamber Orchestra School for Strings • Chinese SchoolChinese School Music• Camps Centre • York School forArt Strings & Dance • York Children’s Orchestra High School Camps • Other Programs 3 Introduction Yip’s Canada was founded in October 1990 by Dr. Wai Hong Yip, a renowned music educator, composer & conductor. Its subsidiaries include Yip’s Children’s Choral and Performing Arts Centre, Yip’s Music and Montessori School, Yip’s Chinese School, Yip’s Music Centre, Yip’s Children’s Choir, Yip’s Music Festival, Yip’s School for Strings and Yip’s Chamber Orchestra. The goal of our preschool programs is to promote formal music and art education for children by practicing Dr. Yip’s philosophy of “Learning is playing, playing is learning,” which offers a variety of musical and artistic training for all participants. Music, Art, Body Movement, Computer and Mind Enlightenment activities are taught in Early Childhood Music Education, enabling children to explore a variety of elements and to cultivate their creativity through observation and imagination. The preschool programs are based on the Montessori curriculum, teaching method and teaching apparatus. Formal music education and Chinese language are included as part of the school curriculum. Our elementary affiliate - Somerset Academy is a non-profit, co-educational and non- denominational school governed by the Ontario Ministry of Education. The school offers a unique curriculum that promotes academic, language (English, French, and Chinese), athletic and performing arts excellence for school age children grade 1 to 8. The school, located on a 2.7-acre site, has a library, computer lab, art studio and gymnasium. Based on the success of its Chinese education in Cantonese and Mandarin, Yip’s Chinese School has enhanced its Chinese classes to include mathematics, English and French. All courses are designed for students ages three and above and are conducted by qualified and experienced teachers. Music learning and performing are included to stimulate creativity, memory, organizational ability, focus span, reasoning and listening skills. The choral, instrumental, and musical theatre courses, which include frequent performances as part of its essential learning, are designed to encourage full development of a child’s musical and artistic potential. These concerts provide opportunities for children to reveal their performance talents, establish self-confidence and enhance self-esteem. 4 Katherine Kwok, Chief Administrative Officer Katherine Kwok is the co-founder and director of Yip’s Canada. She has over 25 years of professional experience in children’s music education. Prior to coming to Canada, Katherine was the Training Officer of the Hong Kong Yip’s Children’s Choral & Performing Arts Centre, Conductor of the Hong Kong Children’s Choir and Yip’s Children’s Choir. She has also led the Yip’s choral group in numerous performances in Greater Toronto Area and facilitated international music and cultural exchanges. Since 1992, Katherine Kwok has organized Yip’s Music Festival, with the mission of Celebrating Today’s Talent Nurturing Tomorrow’s Stars. This annual music festival provides performance and competition opportunities for thousands of young instrumentalists from across the Greater Toronto Area. She also encourages Chinese language and cultural heritage among young people in Canada by organizing the Chinese Literacy Competition. Under Katherine’s leadership, Yip’s Canada won the 2006 Best Community Service Award presented by the Association of Chinese Canadian Entrepreneurs in association with The Center of Entrepreneurship, Centennial College, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ming Pao Daily News. The School has also won the Business Excellence Awards in High Quality & Service presented by the Markham Board of Trade in 2006. Top Choice Media selected Yip’s Canada as the recipient of the 2011 Top Music Center Award and 2012 to 2015 Top Montessori School. These awards represent a “Mark of Excellence” by today’s leadings businesses and professionals, representing the trust and loyalty they have earned from the people they serve. “In the past years, we have been striving for the excellence in Academic, Language, Music and Performing Arts. In education and music training, it is teamwork that drives results. Our principals, teachers, and staff have contributed a tremendous effort and time to help to achieve this excellence. Performing arts help children learn self-discipline and team work, handle challenges, and enhance their social skills and self-confidence. To provide higher quality and better service for education, I will continue to listen more to our children and our parents.” -- Katherine Kwok Best Community Service Business Excellence Top Music School Top Montessori School 5 Katherine Kwok, Chief Administrative Officer Yip’s Music & Montessori Schools “Pursuit of Academic, Language and Performing Arts Excellence” Our school’s education goals are to develop independence, inner discipline and to foster a sense of competence through a prepared learning environment. The Yip’s Music & Montessori approach to education is to create a partnership between the home and the school in order to promote the development of the child’s whole personality. PRACTICAL LIFE ACTIVITIES “Help me do it myself” -- Dr. Maria Montessori Acquiring life skills is an integral part of a healthy childhood development. This area is supplied with a variety of materials for young children to master skills required to take care for themselves and the environment. The children will experience real life situations and activities promoting gross motor skills, three-finger grasp, eye-hand coordination, high level of concentration and instill inner-discipline, self-discipline, mannerisms, care of self and of the environment. The real life activities taught in this area help the children develop more independently and confidently. SENSORIAL ACTIVITIES “A child sees through his hands” -- Dr. Maria Montessori The purpose of sensorial materials is to refine and develop the child’s senses. The senses play an important role throughout our lives. Dr. Maria Montessori observed that children between the ages 3 to 6 years have natural inclination to use their senses to discover the environment. Through sensorial materials, children will discover color, size, shape, taste, smell, sound, sight, touch, discrimination and classification. Sensorial activities give clarity of vision eventually leading to fundamental abstractions and the child’s motor coordination is more refined. LANGUAGE ART “A mind once stretched with a new idea, is forever enriched” -- Dr. Maria Montessori The child’s sensitive period for language development is enhanced in many ways. We begin by introducing the sounds of alphabets, then to phonetic word building then to reading. Once the child is comfortably reading phonetic words and sentences he/she then continues to more complex reading. Children are encouraged to express themselves through everyday conversation in the classroom. Pencil control for writing is prepared through working with various materials. MATHEMATICS “The right angle to solve a mathematical problem is the ‘try angle’ “ --Dr. Maria Montessori The world of mathematics is introduced on a sensorial, concrete basis. Understanding quantity is the first mathematical problem a child is faced with, therefore, quantity and number recognition are the first mathematical concepts acquired through various materials. There are concrete materials for understanding the four operations (addition, multiplication, subtraction and division) and additional materials are introduced to progressively lead the child to work in the abstract. CULTURE “Allow me to discover and I’ll remember forever” -- Dr. Maria Montessori The culture area of the classroom includes geography, history, nature, cultural studies, sciences, and experimentations. Discovery, classification, and awareness of the world around us are emphasized in this area. 6 Yip’s Music & Montessori Schools CHINESE PROGRAM (Cantonese & Mandarin) Our Chinese program is aimed to provide a well-rounded, thorough approach to learning Chinese while also cultivating knowledge and appreciation for the culture it expresses. Through a variety of short stories, novels, plays, poetry, art and cultural activities, students learn to listen, speak, read and write. FRENCH PROGRAM Our French program is introduced to our SK students. The Core French program offers students a valuable educational experience and the opprtunity to develop a basic usable command of the French Language. The cuuiculum empahsizes the development of oral communication skills with gradual introduction to reading and writing. READING PROGRAM Reading is an important skill that needs to be developed in children. When reading a story, our aim is not only for the child to read fluently but also to understand the concept or the meaning of the story. The teacher works individually with each child and assist them in reading short stories. After reading the book, the teacher may ask questions to ensure develop comprehension skills. PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAM Our aim of performing arts education is to