Blog created on 300308 at Vivien's house.
At 12.36PM. This blog is for our Literature Project. :D
Pray that we'll get an A1 for this! :D

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1st July 2008

Dear Mr. Mah Bow Tan,

Suggestions on how to improve playgrounds in Tampines

I am a student from Pasir Ris Secondary School an I am writing this letter to give suggestions on how to improve the current playgrounds in Tampines to meet the special needs of children. Under your expert leadership, Tampines has been a very busy neighborhood.

My school made a project for our literature lesson. The project is that we have to make a model of a playground fitting a specific theme. The overall theme was that the playground is for children with special needs. My group’s project was to create a playground design basically for children with emotional scar. The playground my group design had 4 levels and it is supposed to be an indoor playground. The first floor was a cozy corner. The second floor is a room filled with musical instruments. The third floor had a merry-go-round and a flying fox. And finally, the fourth floor had a small corner filler with plastic balls for the children and a long slide that is in a spiral going around the playground. The playground was made so that the children can let go of their emotions and relax.


I have only done this much. I have no idea what else to say about the playgrounds in Tampines. I don't want to put my address. Sorry.
-Saira

Simei Road
Block 158, #02-246
Singapore 520158

1st July 2008

Dear Mr. Mah Bow Tan,

Suggestions on how to improve playgrounds in the neighborhood

I am a student from Pasir Ris Secondary School and I am writing this letter to give some feedbacks and suggestions on how to improve our current playgrounds in the neighborhood to meet the special needs of children. Under your expert leadership, Tampines has been a very busy neighborhood with a very good standard of living for residents. Residents here are united and therefore, we should also spare thought for disabled children by reconstructing playgrounds that meet the special needs of these type of children too, not just for normal children.

My group members and I did a project which was about designing a playground to meet the special needs of some children. Basically, our theme was “children with emotional scars” and we designed a playground and did the model which consists of the usual things in a playground but with some modification on it. Our findings are that these children should be able to have a playground specially to meet their needs as this may help them to gain confidence and boost their low self esteem in life. This project has led me to reflect on the playground in my neighborhood as most of the playgrounds don’t meet the special needs of children which are handicapped or have other emotional needs. It is a disadvantage as it is not fair for the children as they may not be able to play all the things in the playground.

Therefore, playgrounds in our neighborhood should be improved by making it more need-sensitive. You should really consider this suggestion as this way, these children will be able to enjoy and have fun like normal kids so that they will not feel left out. The playgrounds can be improved by including other new features such as cushions or small mats on the floor so that the children will not get hurt or injured easily.

Thank you for taking you time off from your busy schedule to read this letter. I hope you would consider the advantages of improving the playgrounds.

Yours sincerely,
Zafirah.

PASIR RIS SECONDARY SCHOOL
390 TAMPINES STREET 21

Block 297 Bedok South Avenue 3
#02-04 Bedok Court
Singapore 469297

SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVEMENTS OF PLAYGROUNDS.

Dear Mr. Mah Bow Tan,

I’m writing this letter in hope of providing some suggestions to improve the playgrounds in Tampines after getting feedbacks from the neighborhood. All had heard of your gregarious ways of handling problems that had cropped up in the years of your leadership. I believe by providing you with the necessary information about the playgrounds, and by giving some suggestions on it may help you better in this matter.

Let me start first by introducing you what our previous project was all about. We had to design different playgrounds for different groups of children that have different needs. There’s a playground for children that have emotional scars, children that have been abused before, handicapped children and more. For our group, we did a playground that is designed for children with emotional scars. They are a group of children that had undergone an abusive environment, or an environment without any care or love. We found out that these children likes to relax in their free time, and being children, loves to play in playgrounds too. According to our research, an environment that seems friendly and colorful is the perfect environment for these children with emotional scars to be in, thus, we had built our playground in such a way that we hope it could spread optimistic messages to those children.

These findings had led our team to reflect about the playgrounds in our estate, mainly Tampines. We believe that there are a certain amount of children that will have different needs from other normal ones. Though the playgrounds of Tampines are all nicely-built with grand designs, however, it doesn’t meet the needs of certain children. Other normal children could find the joy and happiness in the playgrounds but for those with problems, they just can’t seem to enjoy themselves as much. But, by renovating those playgrounds to those that could reach the requirements or the needs to these special children, they could now have as much fun as normal children, and they could hang out together too.

We had received several feedbacks on the playgrounds in Tampines these past few months, and upon investigations, we realized that the main problem; children not being able to have fun in the playgrounds. This is a worrying matter that is increasing everyday. More and more children are with problems nowadays and they can’t seem to find a place that could understand how they feel and how they behave in the way they do. Parents are concerned that their children couldn’t enjoy themselves and being unhappy about it. This may lead to the children feeling neglected by the society and thus, becomes inferior.

After several discussions, we have come up with ways to savage the situation. Firstly, we could renovate those playgrounds into a style that suits those children. By doing so, we could ensure that they are now feeling much accepted into the society and could live their lives happily. The playground could now be their hang-out place, and even become their favorite place to be too. Secondly, we could build some posts with optimistic messages to cheer the children up, and ensuring that they are not alone in this world, there are helping hands through-out the world that are more than willing to help them in their situation.

I’m sure that your experience in leadership could help to save this situation that is occurring everyday. I thank you for taking your time off your busy schedule to read this letter.

Yours truly,
Novrianti.

(proposal)

Blk 235 Pasir Ris St 21
#07-59
Singapore 510235

1st July 2008

Mr Mah Bow Tan
Minister of National Development, Member of Tampines GRC

Dear Sir,

Re: Feedback about the playgrounds in Tampines and suggestions to improve them.

Tampines have been a great place for many residents all these years; clean environment, happy and friendly people. All under your magnificent leadership, bring it to greater heights. However, I would like to propose to you in renovating the playgrounds around Tampines by providing you with feedback and suggestions on these playgrounds.

Recently, my classmates and I have been told to do a project on designing a playground for emotionally scared children. We did research and found out that children with emotional scars needs a different playground from normal carefree children. Due to having emotional scars, these children are most likely to get scared or afraid easily. They live their lives with something that affects them greatly. Therefore, my classmates and I decided that in order for these children to face the world, they will need to plug up the courage and face the world. To give them encouragement and hope, my classmates and I designed a playground that can help these children facing life in a different way and not running away from it.

Playgrounds at my neighborhood are pretty much commonly found in Tampines too. It is easy to predict what we can find in any playground due to its common features. This makes kids get pretty much tired of all the same facilities over the years. However, it is still a good facility in entertaining children after so many years.

In Tampines, new playgrounds in this area are very colourful, presentable and big in space ,however, as it get under different conditions of weathers everyday, many could not work for long. They will turn old and fragile which may be dangerous to be played on. Renewing the playground is what is commonly done which is very good. But these renewed playgrounds may not help the emotionally scared children. They are fun but there is no place to vent their anger or help them overcome their fears. I suggest that something must be done to help them as they are part of our society.

Suggestions are that there can be a place whereby they can vent their anger by punching or banging on to soft walls which can be facilitated by the playground. There can be a place where they can blow in to instruments to let out all their fears and angers. For example, like slamming on a drum. A place for them to relax would be pleasant in the playground too. At this place, they can just relax and not think about the unhappy things that happened to them. Peaceful music can be played at the background to maximize the effect on getting them more relaxed. There can be some exhilarating games that can let them feel free and easy. Like the omega for example, however, safety precautious must be taken to ensure safety at all times.

These children need to get help as they cannot stay in the dark for the rest of their lives. They need to know that there are people caring for them and loving them. I hope you can look into this matter and help these emotionally scared children. I thank you for using your time on reading this proposal and hope for the better for these children.

Yours sincerely,

Vivien

Blk 611 Bedok Reservoir Road
#04-1136
Singapore 470611

SUGGESTIONS OF IMPROVEMENTS OF PLAYGROUNDS

Dear Mr. Mah Bow Tan,

I’m writing this letter in hope to provide some feedback about the playgrounds in Tampines, and even suggestions to improve them. Many had heard of your gregarious ways of handling all sort of problems that had occur during your years of leadership. Regarding the playgrounds in Tampines, I think it’s appropriate for me to give you some feedback and suggestions for some ways of improving the playgrounds around the neighborhood.

Firstly, let me introduce to you about the project had been doing for the past few weeks. Out literature project is based on special groups of children and designing a playground that is suitable for those children. For us, the group of children that we are designing de playground for are those with emotional scars, for some that had been mentally abused too. We did research and found out that those children need a different playground that is different normal children. Some of these children are those had been mentally abused by their parents or relatives. These children are afraid of the environment, they have the feeling that they are not protected, thus getting scared easily.

Results that my classmates had found out, we decided to design out playground to allow the children to be away from all those stress and pressure and forget their troubles. Our playground has different floors with each of their different theme. We have music therapy, to allow those children to relieve their stress. We also have a room with colorful plastic balls to let those children know that their world is not black and white, they live with many colors, many emotions. Playground in Tampines are all nicely done up, but they do not provide what children with emotionally scars need, and perhaps for children that are physically handicapped.

I suggest that we should not neglect those children with emotional scars or other needs, since the current playgrounds in Tampines are nicely done, we should consider renovating it to become a suitable playground for these children. It’s to let the children to enjoy like any other normal children.

I thank you for taking time off you busy schedule to read this letter I hope that you will consider my suggestions to improve the playgrounds in Tampines.

Yours truly,
Melody (2)

Right now, we have completed the paintings of the floors and some
of the musical instruments mentioned in the previous post which are
the drum, guitar, trumpet etc.

The ladders which are made up of chopsticks and toothpicks are also
done. We are now starting on the merry-go-round, trying to stick all
the straws together with the plastic cover from a container. So far, I
think our playground is looking great.

I think we are really on task as we are almost done with everything,
both the exterior and interior parts of our 3D-Model Playground.
Everyone's doing something which shows that we are contributing
and working together to try and finish it by today.

-Zafirah (4)