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Preschool is full of milestone firsts: the first letters, the first numbers, the first friendships. It is also where children begin learning how to live alongside other people.
They meet people outside their family, learn to work alongside other children, and begin to understand that their actions affect the people around them. Little Footprints Preschool turns these everyday interactions into learning experiences.
At Little Footprints Preschool, children learn about kindness, responsibility and community by meeting seniors, preparing donation hampers, making cards for community helpers, and taking part in neighbourhood activities.
All 47 Little Footprints Preschool centres in Singapore are part of ECDA’s Partner Operator (POP) Scheme, supporting accessible and quality preschool education for families.
Alongside affordability, Little Footprints Preschool places emphasis on empathy, kindness, social responsibility and environmental awareness.
These ideas are part of Babilou Family’s Sustainable Education™ framework, which encourages children to explore sustainability, social responsibility and care for others through everyday learning.
One of the clearest examples is Babilou Cares, an annual community giving and engagement initiative across the Babilou Family network.
Each year, children, families, educators and community partners take part in activities that give children a chance to contribute to the community.
On 17 July 2026, every one of Little Footprint Preschool’s 47 centres across Singapore took part in Babilou Cares.
Children, parents and educators, along with community partners. worked together on projects across four areas: Intergenerational engagement with seniors, food security and donation drives, environmental sustainability and kindness in the community.
With all 47 centres taking part, children could see that their own small contributions were part of something happening across Singapore.
Rather than asking families to contribute money, this year's programme focused on giving their time and effort. Children could take part themselves by preparing hampers, sorting materials, writing cards and helping with community activities.
Families visited seniors at sites run by partners including TOUCH Community Services and NTUC Health.
Children led stretching exercises, joined in sing-alongs, and told stories. They also helped create dementia-friendly cognitive activities.
For young children, ideas such as respect and empathy can be easier to understand when they meet people from another generation. A conversation, a song or a simple activity gives them a chance to listen, interact and build a connection.
For a four-year-old, sitting beside an elderly stranger and making them smile is an afternoon they’ll remember.
Food security was another focus of Babilou Cares 2026.
Little Footprints Preschool centres organised food donation drives, shared information about food sustainability and assembled care hampers with support from partners including Food From The Heart.
These activities introduce children to the idea that communities can work together to make sure people have access to the food they need.
For children, the activities turn food security into something tangible: collecting food, packing hampers and thinking about what another family might need.
For a young child, sustainability is easier to grasp when it involves something they can touch and do.
During Babilou Cares 2026, children and families took part in recyclable sorting games, upcycling workshops, tote bag making and neighbourhood litter picking.
Sorting recyclables helps children think about where different materials belong. Upcycling shows them that an old object can have another use. And when they pick up litter in their neighbourhood, caring for the environment becomes something they can see and do for themselves.
The aim is to make sustainability part of everyday life, rather than something children encounter only during a classroom activity.
The fourth area of Babilou Cares focused on kindness in the community.
Activities included yoga sessions, book donation drives for children's homes, kindness poster making and creating thank-you cards for community helpers.
For preschoolers, these are simple ways to say thank you and think about the people who help their community.
A handmade card may take only a few minutes to make, but it gives a child a chance to think about the person who will receive it.
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Babilou Cares is part of a wider approach to community engagement at Babilou Family.
The initiative is part of Babilou Family's Sustainable Education™ framework, which brings sustainability and social responsibility into children's learning throughout the year.
In 2025, Babilou Cares raised $43,000 to support Ground-Up Initiative (GUI), an organisation focused on reconnecting people with nature, community and themselves.
In 2024, activities held during a closure day in May raised $69,343 for World Vision. The funds supported lunches, medicine, emergency food and vegetable seed packs for children and families in need.
In 2026, the emphasis shifted from money raised to what families and children could do themselves: toys donated, hampers assembled, litter collected and cards written.
It gives the programme a different kind of measure. Instead of asking how much was raised, the question becomes how many people took part and what they did.
The difference becomes clearer when children are involved in the activity themselves.
Talking about kindness is one thing. Helping pack a hamper for another family is something a child can actually experience.
The same is true of sustainability. A child who sorts recyclables, makes a tote bag or picks up litter begins to see how everyday actions affect the spaces shared by everyone.
These are small experiences, but they give children a chance to practise empathy, responsibility and respect outside a worksheet or classroom discussion. Over time, those experiences can become part of how children interact with the people and places around them.
Choosing a preschool means choosing the environment in which a child will spend much of their day. The people around them, the routines they follow and the experiences they have all help shape what they learn.
Literacy and numeracy matter, but so do the everyday habits children develop alongside them: learning to cooperate, listen, help others and take responsibility.
As a Partner Operator preschool, Little Footprints Preschool combines accessible early childhood education with opportunities for children to learn through community activities and experiences that extend outside the classroom.
Alongside the academic foundations they need for school, children get opportunities to see how they fit into the wider community.
Little Footprints Preschool takes a community-based approach to early childhood education, with opportunities for children and families to participate in experiences beyond the preschool setting.
Through initiatives such as Babilou Cares, children encounter people, places and situations that broaden their understanding of community.
For preschoolers, community can start with something as simple as saying thank you, helping someone, sharing food or picking up a piece of litter. These are small actions, but they give children an early sense that they are part of the world around them.
It is a simple idea with a useful lesson for the preschool years: children are already part of a community, and they can play a role in making it a more caring place.
Locate a Little Footprints Preschool near you
This article was brought to you by Little Footprints Preschool
Images courtesy of Little Footprints Preschool
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