2020 National Preschool Teaching Aid Competition – Creative Tabletop Activity

This competition aims to encourage early childhood educators, students, parents and members of the public in Singapore to design creative tabletop activity as teaching aids for teaching and learning the Chinese language. We hope that participants can create and make good use of table activities to motivate and promote children's love in learning Chinese.

Main objectives:

1. To enhance the ability to integrate both creativity and practicality in designing Chinese language teaching aids for children.
2. To generate teaching ideas and teaching aids that encourage children's interest in learning Chinese.
3. To provide a learning platform for the community to interact and create interesting and engaging Chinese teaching aids.
4. To develop localized teaching aids to promote Singapore culture.

1. Main Organizer: Singapore Centre for Chinese Language
2. Supporting Organizations: Singapore University of Social Sciences, National Institute of Early Childhood Development, National Institute of Education, PAP Community Foundation, Kinderland, E-Bridge Pre-school, Thumbs Up Little Junior and National Library Board.

Tabletop activity generally refers to a game that can be played on a table or on any plane. It can be in the form of a board game, a card game, a dice game, and a pen and paper game, etc. The theme of a tabletop activity can be a strategy game, a brain game, a reasoning game, a role-playing game, etc. This competition aims to develop teaching aids targeted at pre-school children in Singapore. The entry requirements are as follows:

1. Category: Select any one of the six learning areas in Nurturing Early Learners (NEL) Framework. Teaching aids are designed for preschoolers to learn the Chinese language.
2. Materials used: Participants can create tabletop activities (teaching aids) from materials that are readily available in our daily lives. The game must be played on a table or on any plane.
3. Entry (the "Work") should have a complete game structure and rules, such as: game setting, game flow, game result, and suggested Q & A during gameplay.
4. The components of the tabletop activity should comprise a game mode, game rules, fun elements and the result.
   1. The game mode of the tabletop activity sets the gameplay in which the players would have to abide by.
   2. Conditions and rules are to prevent unfair occurrence that may lead to disputes. Some rules can also increase the difficulty level of the game, which makes the game more challenging.
   3. The purpose of inducing fun elements into the game is to provide enjoyment for players so that they can learn through play.
   4. The tabletop activity is targeted at preschoolers and must attune to their interest level. All the images, characters and storylines should align to child development.

This competition is open to individuals or groups of early childhood educators, early childhood education tertiary students, parents or members of the public in Singapore. For group registration, the number of participants per group shall not exceed six people. Each individual can enter a maximum of two entries in this competition, not limited to individual or group entries.

a. Competition launch date: 1 June 2019 (Saturday)

c. Release of the first round competition result: Qualifying individuals or groups will be notified via email or phone by 26 August 2020 (Wednesday).

Note: Please have a duplicate of your prototype work as your entry will not be returned. The shortlisted individuals or groups will need to create a video of four to five minutes to introduce the entry. The video has to be submitted by 31 August 2020 (Monday).

d. Finals:

a. Submission of Entry requirements:

b. Stages of evaluation:

c. Judging criteria

* Please note that all rewards will be given in the form of vouchers.  

1. The entry should be original with Singapore context. The content should be creative and developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.
2. All entries must be original work of the participants, and should not be plagiarized, previously published or awarded locally or internationally. Any work found not to be original shall be disqualified and will face legal responsibilities (please see Annex 3).
3. Please note that all selected entries will NOT be returned and participants are reminded to make a back-up copy of their entries.
4. By accepting the prize, where permitted by law, the award winner grants the organizer to print, publish, broadcast and use the Works. The award-winning works will be included in the publications related to "2020 National Preschool Teaching Aid Competition – Creative Tabletop Activity". Please sign and return the declaration form in Annex 4.
5. While the authorship rights remain with the award winners of the competition, all other rights will belong to SCCL.  SCCL reserves the rights to rewrite, publish, copy and distribute the winning entries or parts of the content at any time and in any places, without getting consent from or paying any fee to the authors.
6. The registration form must be duly and correctly completed. Each team must not exceed 6 participants and a core contact person is to be specified.
7. There should not be any disclosure of the participant's identity in any forms indicated in the entry description and the Work itself. Offenders will be disqualified from the competition.
8. The creation process of the tabletop activity should be described within 8 steps. Each step must be accompanied by a photo. There must be no image of children or adults in the photos.
9. Please ensure that the prototype Work is complete and properly packed if submission is by express delivery. The core contact person of the team will be notified by email or phone after the entry has been received.
10. All participants of selected entries must be present on the Competition Day. Participants can claim back their non-selected prototype Work on the same day. Unclaimed prototype Works will be destroyed after the stipulated date.
11. The organizer reserves the right to amend and publish information pertaining to the competition on the SCCL website at any time. The participants will not be notified individually.

Organizer: Singapore Centre for Chinese Language
Email: ecced.events@sccl.sg
Phone：6467 5667

Q: If we submit a team entry, how do we fill out the registration form and the declaration form?
A: Please fill in the name, organization, contact information of all team members, and specify a core contact person.

Q: After the winners have been announced, will the organizer randomly modify the rules of the tabletop activity, or publish its content with an irrelevant genre?

A: It is the philosophy of the organizer to publish high quality teaching aids. We respect the design philosophy and creativity behind every entry. Therefore, only necessary modification will be adopted to the teaching aid to enrich its content and fun elements, and make it easy to replicate (do-it-yourself) for both teachers and parents.