Story book Sharing - The Train is on the Move!

Date: 28^th June 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Story Book Sharing – The Train is on the move!

Today, I picked a story book to share with the children. This is a book in Mandarin but I tried my best to translate the sentences into English. The name of the book is directly translated –“The Train is On the Move!”

This is a story about a boy called Tom. He lives in a dull and grey city. He always wishes that there’s some wonderful and exciting things would happen. One morning, Tom was looking at his round biscuits and reminded him about a train. Therefore, he took his train to school. During the art class, he was playing with his train and then unconsciously, he fell into a dream.

In his dream, he was in his train going through some green crocodiles’ bridge and then he came to a garden of red flower. After that, the train passed by a golden beach. Down in the blue sea he went and he saw many blue fishes. Later, he came to a white snowy place with snow man and the train went through a tunnel. In the tunnel, there’s a lot of black monster. Suddenly, Tom dropped off the train and his classmates tried to wake him up. He quickly drew all the things his sees inside his dream. There were such colourful pictures.

Game – Red, Blue, Green

The children had played this game before. Only this time, I added some other details for the children to practice to say the names of colours. The rules this time is that the children need to listen to the calling of the colour of yellow. Once they heard their classmates touched their head and said “yellow”, the child had to stand up and chase after the person who touched his/her head.

It took the children a while to get used to say out the words of colours. But I believe with a few practise, they could do it better.

We are moving in to yellow colour. Hopefully the children could actually bring something or share something they have in yellow.

Sunlight has colours too!

Date: 27^th June 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Sunlight has colours too!

Today, I shared a scientific book with the children. This book is in Mandarin but I translated it into simple English for the children to understand. It’s a book about colours from the sunlight. Even though it kept mentioning that sunlight has colours yet the children still argued that there’s only yellow colour in the sunlight.

There’s a simple experiment shown in the book. So I quickly prepared a cardboard as shown, a cup of water and a piece of white paper.  I put the glass of water near to where the sunlight shines into the class. The cardboard was placed in front of the water while the piece of white paper was placed under the cup of water.

Since I had tried this with the other class, so this time, I tried to move the cardboard a little to see if we could see the colours more obviously.

Fortunately, the children could actually see the some red, blue or green colour from the reflection of the sunlight through the water.

Then before we ended our class, we sang a song, “The Colour Song”.

The lyrics of the song are as followed:

The Colour Song (sang in the tune of ABC song)

Red and orange, green and blue,

Shinny yellow, purple too.

All the colours that we know, live inside a rainbow,

Red and orange, green and blue,

Shinny yellow, purple too. 

I remember the colours!

Date: 21^st June 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

I remember the colours!

Today, we started off with the verbal revision on the pictures and vocabulary for the things in green. The children somehow still need some time to figure out the names of the objects. So I decided to postpone the activities that I had prepared earlier and changed it to “I remember the colours” game.

This game, I used the “When I see…” poem to play with the children. Before we start the game, we went through the whole poem again. Then I got everyone to walk in a big circle.

When I read a line, the children will have to remember what action to do according to the poem. At first, the children were a little confused of which action to do. After a few rounds, they managed to catch it and they even read the line out loudly.

"When I see blue, I touch my shoe"

"When I see red, I put my hand on my head"

Things in Green

Date: 20^th June 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Things in Green

Today, I introduced some pictures with words that related to green colour. I had chosen the following words for the children to play with it.

grasshopper	ladyfinger	peas	broccoli
tortoise	leaf	lettuce	frog

I laminated the pictures of the above words so that they children could do matching on the board. When the children looked at the picture, they could call out the name of it. However, it took them a while to actually match the words with the picture.

I let the children took turn to match the words to the picture on the board. Then we read through it. For the next few days, I shall only concentrate on “grasshopper, peas, broccoli and tortoise” as the children had difficulty to remember all the 8 words.

Before we end our class today, the children lined up one by one to read through the 4 words as mentioned above. We shall have some activities for the children to relate the words to the pictures. 

My Green Thing

Date: 19^th June 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

My Green Thing

I would like to find out how much green thing can the children tell me. So I prepared some green colour paper and some white colour paper. The children had to draw out the things that they know in green in the green colour paper. Then they cut it out and pasted it on the white colour paper. After that, they would share what they had drawn.

It’s very interesting to find out that most of the children loves things like lollipop, sweets etc. You can find that in their sharing session. However, some do come out with something extraordinary. Let’s see what did the children shared about their pictures.

Teacher: What had you drawn here? What is this?

Ei Jay: Lollipop, tree, car, leaf, flower. (he had drawn quite a number of things on his paper)

Xin Yi: Apple, grape, lollipop, ice-cream, carrot. (Is carrot green in colour? She nodded with a smile.)

Wei Jun: Lollipops. (he said that in Mandarin. What are these? He just shook his head.)

Jiun Jie: Car, lollipop, ice-cream, grape, apple.

Yee Jie: Lollipop, balloon, tree, leaf, grape, grass.

Li Heng: Lollipop, car, balloon, tire.

Qi Jie: Lollipop (many of it), clock, balloon (he said one of it had burst, so funny), flowers and leaf, sun. (Is the sun green? He nodded with a big smile.)

Golden Hoo: Ball, balloon, apple, flower, lollipop.

Wen Xuan: grapes, ball, water bottle, car. (Car has no wheels. She said stop, the car stop. I see.)

Zhen Yu: Pizza. (Is there other things?) No, pizza. (He said that with a big smile on his face.)

Blowing the colours

Date: 17^th June 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art and Craft – Blowing the colours

Looking at children’s art is an interesting work. I had not actually do any water paint art work with Starfruit class before. I would love to see their creativity and imagination in colours. Therefore, today, I prepared some water paint and straw for the children to do an art work.

I got three water paint colours prepared, blue, green and red. I gave each child a piece of paper and a straw. Once I put the 3 colours on their paper, the children somehow knew how to start with it. Only that, some of the children started to use the straw to do colouring instead of using it to blow it. Some even got saliva on their papers. Anyhow, after about 15 minutes, I could see that most of them had almost complete what they wanted to do.

We quickly cleaned up the place and I got them to share their picture with their classmate. Most of the children were quite shy and said it very softly.

Teacher: What does your picture looks like?

Teng Hong: A dragon.

Yee Jie: A chameleon.

Li Heng: I don’t know. (Ei Jay said it looks like fish)

Ei Jay: Fish. Many fish.

Wen Xuan: Snake.

Qi Jie: Tree.

Phey Zheng: I don’t know.

Jiun Jie: Tiger (he said it in Mandarin) (Oh, it’s tiger in English)

Xin Yi: Heart. Blue heart.

Wei Yi: Fish.

Zhen Yu: Fish.

Wei Zun: (he just stared at me)

Bo En: Dragon boat (he said that in Mandarin) (It’s dragon boat in English)

"I got a heart!"

"I can blow"

Father's Day - Poem & Green Worksheet

Date: 14^th June 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Father’s Day – Poem & Green Worksheet

We revised the Father's Day poem with action twice before we start with the worksheet. Today, I prepared a worksheet on "Green" for the children to do. The five years old children had just completed their A-Z writing about a week ago, therefore, before we start with the worksheet, I get each of the children to come and write an alphabet for the spelling of "green" some can do it without guidance, some need help. But due to the song I thought earlier -"There's a colour we all know", the children knew how to spell "Green".

The worksheet required the children to draw something in green and colour it. Most of the children could draw something in green such as a tree, leaf, green apple, etc. Some even drew a caterpillar and said it was in green. The children were very eager to tell me what they had drawn. 

I wonder if the children would remember to say the poem for their father on Father's Day. Hereby, I wish Happy Father's Day to all children’s father. 

Father's Day Poem (part II)

Date: 12^th June 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Father’s Day – Poem (part II)

We did half of the Father’s Day poem yesterday, therefore, today we continued with the other half of it. This is I read the poem to the children and see if they could suggest any actions for me. Some of the children could catch the meaning of the lines and did give me some actions and we adapted it into our poem when we read it.

Book Sharing – Colour

This book is in Mandarin and it was actually brought by one of the 6 years old children. I borrowed the book to share it with our Starfruit children.

In this book, it actually introduced each individual colours and given a lot of related items with the colours. For example, in the page of red colour, the children could name me a few items such as crabs, tomatoes, strawberries that they saw in the page.

We went through red, green, blue and orange. Since we had learned a rhyme about colours, so I practiced the lines with the children.

Teacher: What colour is this?

Children: Red

Teacher: When I see red…

Children: I put my hand on my head. (with their action of putting the hand on their head)

Teacher: When I see blue..

Children: I touch my shoe (with the action of touching their toes pretending to be shoes)

Teacher: When I see green…

Children: I wash my face so clean (this one I need to give hints as the children were not that familiar with it, however, they know the action very well by washing their face)

Teacher: When orange is found …

Children: …(this one is actually “I put my hand on the ground”, the children were not that familiar with this as well. So they just stared at me.)

We can practice more for the children to read the rhyme more fluently.

Dear parents, there’s no blog update for Thursday, 13^th June, 2013 as I will be following a school field trip. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Father's Day Poem

Date: 11^th June 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Father’s Day – Poem

We revised our colours rhymes, “When I see.. ” for the children. This time, they could do it even much further. It’s a good start. At the same time, I also prepared a small poster of all the wordings and put it at a corner, I noticed that children could actually read it on their own. Wow, it’s amazing how children had improved.

Since father’s day is coming this Sunday, I have a simple poem for them to share it with their father.

The poem is as followed:

Daddy, I love you,

For all that you do.

I’ll kiss you and hug you

‘Cause you love me, too.

You feed me and need me

To teach you to play,

So smile ‘cause I love you

On this Father’s Day

I only practiced the first four lines of the poem with the children. Some of them managed to follow half of it. Then I add in some hands action so that they could relate it much better. I find it quite helpful.

Hopefully the children could get the other half practice the next day.

Story book sharing – Colours in the Jungle

This is a book about colours brought by one of the children from Pomegranate class. I borrowed it to share with our Starfruit class children. They enjoyed looking at the special features of the texture in the book that goes with the colours.

Game (adapted from “Duck, duck, goose” games)

I modified a little of this game and make it simple for the children to play. I got everyone to sit in a circle facing inward and only one child is standing outside of the circle. That child will walk around his friends until he suddenly tapped on one’s head and said:”father”. Then the child who had been tapped will stand up and chase after that child. So the one being chased had to quickly sit down at that empty space.

We played for a few round before we called it a day. 

Little Yellow, Little Blue

Date: 10^th June 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Little Yellow, Little Blue

We revised the songs and rhymes that we sang last week. The children are getting better and better in the lyrics and the words. Then we go into the colour mixture.

Teacher: Did you find out which 2 colours mix together we shall get green?

Teng Hong: Black and white.

Yee Jie: Yellow and red.

Teacher: Why not we mix the colours and see if we can get green colour or not?

The school had run out of black colour. So we can’t do the black and white. Therefore, I started with yellow and red. Before the children see the changes of the colours, they still insisted that it will turn green. By the time they saw the colour turned into orange, there’s a “wow” across the room. The children said: “It’s not green, it’s orange.”

Then I hinted them there’s yellow in green. Yee Jie suggested we try yellow and blue. So I mixed the yellow and blue colour together and it turned out to be green! The children were so happy to see the green colour.

After that, there’s some red and blue left, so we mixed that colour to see what colour it turned out. Apparently, it turned out to be quite a dark purple. Yet, some of the children argued it looks like brown.

This is how our colour mixture looks like. 

Before the class ends, I showed them a video clip about “Little Yellow, Little Blue” by Leo Lionni. The children were so excited when they saw the yellow mixed together with the blue and it turned into green. 

Art and Craft - Frog (Part II)

Date: 7^th June 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art and Craft – Frog (part II)

Today, we continued with the frog art that we didn’t get to complete yesterday. There were 3 children frog’s art not done. As a result, while getting each of the children to look for their frog and pasted a straw behind it, I also passed the 3 children all the pieces of the frog for them to cut it out again.

This time, I noticed that the 3 children were more careful with their cutting as they also wanted the frog to look like their friends’. So after they have completed cutting out all the shapes they needed, they glued it slowly and finally they got to stick the straw behind the frog’s head. Now, the children could hold the frog easily and play with their friends.

I'm sure my frog is a pretty one!

Look at our frog, we can hop, hop, hop now!

Some of the children were hopping like a frog. Some of them make the sound of the frog. Suddenly, the room is filled with a lot of frogs.

Before we end the class, I got the children to read through a nursery rhyme about frog. The children had to hold the frog while saying this.

Five Little Froggies

Five little froggies sitting on the well,

One looked up and down he fell,

Froggie jumped high, froggie jumped low,

Four little froggies danced to and fro.

Four little froggies sitting on the well

(continue until there’s no more froggie)

Art and Craft - Frog

Date: 6th June 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art and Craft – Frog

                                

Today, we started off by doing the art and craft of a frog. I gave each child a big green circle with 2 medium green circle, 2 smaller size white circle, 2 small size black circle and a pink semi circle. The children had to cut the circle according to the lines.

Most of the children could actually follow the lines. Only a few of them couldn’t get the lines cut accordingly. I consoled the children that it’s alright if their shape is not really that round. We still can carry on with the craft. So they continued.

After most of them had got the circle cut, I gave them a piece of harder circle to paste their frog face on it. For those who could follow the instruction, they managed to get the frog’s face done correctly. For those who couldn't

follow instruction had to re-do their frog’s face.

Finally, all the children showed their finished frog’s face and happily playing with it. We shall paste a straw at the back of the frog’s face so that they children could hold it nicely.

There's a colour we all know - GREEN

Date: 5^th June 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

There’s a colour we all know – GREEN

We went through the song we sang yesterday – “There’s a colour we all know”, the children still remember it. This time, not only getting them to spell out the green, I get them to sing the word “green” that appears in the song. At first, the children didn’t get what I mean, after a few demonstration, they somehow got the idea and managed to do it.

Then I also introduced a rhyming activity where they could say along and do along. The wording of it is as followed:

When I see

When I see red, I put my hand on my head,

When I see blue, I touch my shoe

When I see green, I wash my face so clean,

When I see yellow, I wave to the fellows

When orange is found, I put my hands on the ground,

When I see pink, I think, think, think

This is a very interesting rhyming activity for the children to relate words and the children kind of enjoying the action as well.

Tomorrow we shall do an art work on frog as frog is green. It’s just a simple cutting and paste work. Hopefully the children could manage it.  

Frog is Green

Date: 4^th June 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Frog is GREEN

We revised verbally about the green things that we went through yesterday. Then I introduced a song about green colour. I read through the lyrics with the children and sang one to two times to them. At first, they were listening carefully and tried to follow. We tried a few times and finally the children managed somehow to catch some of the lyrics. It’s a good try!

The lyrics of the song are as followed:

There’s a colour we all know (Tune: Old MacDonald Had a Farm)

There’s a colour we all know

G-R-E-E-N

It’s the colour that means “Go!”

G-R-E-E-N

Oh, grass is green and lettuce is green,

Leaves and spinach and peas are green

There’s a colour we all know

G-R-E-E-N

(I sang most of the words; I get the children to spell the G-R-E-E-N. They can do it quite well. I shall try a little bit more tomorrow.)

Frog Hopping Race

The children mentioned frog is green. So I get them to line up into 3 lines with about 4 children each line. They have to hop like a frog across the room to the other end of the line.

All the children hop as high and as fast as they could! Wow, they are really look like a frog.

We shall do an art and craft about frog tomorrow. Hopefully the colour green will have a deeper impression in their mind! 

We are ready for the Frog Race!

See how high I can jump!

Do I look like a frog that hop?

Explore Green Colour

Date: 3rd June 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Exploring Green Colour

Today it’s our officially first day of the thematic class for 5 years’ old children. It would be filled with activities and hopefully the children would enjoy English through the class in a different approach.

We started off with green colour for this week. So I also throw the question to the children to tell me if they know anything green.

Children: Leaf.

Teacher: What else is in green?

Children: Tree. (Then there’s some silence from the floor, I guess not sure how to tell me those words in English. So I draw a picture of a broccoli to see if they know what it is. It took them quite a while to figure it out)

Children: Broccoli.

Then I got the children to point to anything in green in their classroom. They found a green table, some green toys, some green water bottle, green soft toys etc. Wow, they are amazing in finding things.

Game: Who has gone with the wind?

Do we have the same colour?

Before we start the game, I get the children explored the colours on their clothes. They were so enthusiastic to tell me what’s colour on their T-shirt and shorts. Then we had to practice the phrase before the start the game.

It goes this way,

Teacher: Gone with the wind.

Children: Who has gone with the wind?

However, it took the children a while to understand how to say it. But after a few practices, a few children managed to do it correctly and we started the game. At first, some children were not aware of their colours and had to remind them to move. After a few round of it, most of the children started to be more involved.