Brown Colour Worksheet

Date: 27^th September 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Brown Colour Worksheet

Today, I prepared a brown colour worksheet for them to do. It’s a colour recognition worksheet. The children need to recognize the spelling of “brown” and circle the word “brown” correctly.

Most of the children could actually understand and work on it while some need individual guidance.

The children didn’t get the chance to do the voting for the new colour today. We shall do it on Monday. 

Chocolate Milk Jelly Pudding (part III)

Date: 26^th September 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Chocolate Milk Jelly Pudding (part III)

Today, we shall taste the chocolate milk jelly pudding that we did yesterday. Before we moved in to that, I got the children to do some stretching actions first.

I found this lovely poem from internet. I got the children to do the action together. It’s fun!

The poem is as followed:

Poem: Brown bear, Brown bear

Brown bear, brown bear,

Turn around,

Brown bear, brown bear,

Touch the ground.

Brown bear, brown bear,

Reach up high,

Brown bear, brown bear,

Touch the sky.

Brown bear, brown bear,

Bend down low.

Brown bear, brown bear,

Touch your toes.

We did a few rounds of this and the children had quite some fun. 

Then they queued up to go to the hall down stair to taste the jelly pudding. I used a toothpick to take out all the jelly pudding and placed it on the plate. The jelly pudding looks attractive to the kids. They can’t wait to lay their hands on one of it. Each took one first then fortunately there’s enough share for second round. The children were thrilled with it. It’s a wonderful snack for them. 

Cute and attractive shapes for the kids to choose.

We shall do a summary on brown colour tomorrow and most probably we shall move on to other colour. The children will do a voting tomorrow. 

Chocolate Milk Jelly Pudding (Part II)

Date: 25^th September 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Chocolate Milk Jelly Pudding (part II)

Today, the children got quite excited about the jelly pudding making as they already knew it since yesterday. They kept reminding me about it.

So we started off in a different manner today. I prepared a little extra of cold water to dissolve the jelly pudding powder and some sugar before putting it into the hot water. However, the mixture still forms curd. The children asked the same question again and they gave the same comment as yesterday. How cute!

This time I tried to put the mixture gradually into the hot water.

Children: Teacher, teacher, it melt! (They said that in Mandarin)

Teacher: Yes, it did. But I think it didn’t melt totally.

Kwan Ming: Still looks like bird nest. (Hahahaha…)

Anyhow, this time I mixed in the chocolate milk quickly before the water dries up and stir it for a while. I sieved up those mixture that couldn’t dissolve properly. Then the excited moment is here for the children to scoop up the mixture and put it into the mould. The children excitedly choosing the shape that they wanted.

Jiun Jie carefully poured the mixture into the mould.

Qi Jie is still thinking which to choose.

Will our chocolate milk jelly pudding taste nice? We shall taste it tomorrow. 

Chocolate Milk Jelly Pudding (part I)

Date: 24^th September 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Chocolate Milk Jelly Pudding (part I)

Happily I had prepared all the ingredients for making the chocolate milk jelly pudding. The ingredients that I had prepared were as followed:

1)      1 packet of jelly pudding powder

2)      4 packets of chocolate milk of 125ml each pack

3)      Some sugar

4)      Estimated about 450ml of water

It’s been a while since the last time I made jelly pudding. I heated up the water without the chocolate milk and poured in all the jelly pudding powder. However, the mixture forms curd (white in colour). It didn't dissolve evenly.

Children: Teacher, what is that?

Teacher: The powder couldn't dissolve evenly.

Children: What is dissolve?

Teacher: Melt. It has to mix well with the water. What shall we do now? (I throw the questions to the children to find out if they know what to do with that mixture?)

Children: Use the spoon…..stir stir…..oh no….it’s like bird nest…..it looks like chicken…..

Teacher: Oh dear, I think it’s not successful.

Children: Why? No jelly?

I had to call it off as the jelly powder couldn't dissolve properly and it already getting harden. So we shall do it again in a different manner tomorrow to see if we could successfully make the jelly.

The children were a little disappointed but at the same time, they were also looking forward to the jelly making tomorrow.

Drawing a Tree (part III)

Date: 23^rd September 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Drawing a Tree (Part III)

The children’s tree art had already dried up. So I used some time for the children to have a look at their fellow classmates’ drawing. Some followed the instruction I gave by using their finger tips to draw the leaves while some had it their way. It came out some quite unique and the children came out to do some explanation about their drawings.

Book Sharing – The Two Tree 《两棵树》

I can’t find the English version of this book, therefore, I used the Mandarin version of it and tell the story in English. This is an interesting book telling about friendship.

There’s two trees, one shorter than the other, were good friends. They always compare and tried their best to beat each other by comparing the numbers of leaves, the numbers of birds, who had the greenest leaves etc. When comes to argument, they didn't want to give in sometimes.

Unfortunately, someone bought over the garden and built a wall in between the two trees. The bigger tree seems lost and lonely and it started to wither. The smaller tree somehow tried to console its friend not to give up. After some very long lonely days, suddenly, the bigger tree saw a green leaves coming from the other side of the wall. The smaller tree was trying hard to grow taller to reach the other side of the wall. This actually motivated the bigger tree to grow again. Finally, both trees meet again as they grew taller than the wall and they cherished this friendship even deeper. They stretched their branches and twigs to each other so that it tangled till no one could separate them anymore.

Sharing session of the story

Teacher: We have to love our friends.

Kwan Ming: Ee….I don’t want to love.

Teacher: Why not?

Kwan Ming: No, no, no love.

Teacher: Do you all like to come to school? Why?

Kwan Ming: Yes, got lots of toys.

Emerson: Got playground.

Jiun Jie: I can play.

Derek: Toys. Play toys.

Teacher: Let say one day, if you come to school and there’s only you alone without anyone else. Would you still like to come to school. (The children started to shake their head.) I thought you all like to play with toys. Why not?

Kwan Ming: Because no friends.

Teacher: You can play alone in the playground or all the toys.

Children: No, no fun. No one to play.

Teacher: Friends are important. So we have to be good and friendly to our friends. We have to love our friends.

Throughout the sharing session, Kwan Ming stressed that it’s “like” , not “love.” He is so cute!

Drawing a Tree (Part II)

Date: 20^th September 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Drawing a Tree (Part II)

Today, we moved out to the outdoor to do our activity.

First, I brought the children to observe the trees at the garden next to our school. The children got a chance to look carefully at the tree and see how the leaves grow. The children also noticed the grass and mud below the tree. We revised the parts of the tree again before moving to our art work. 

Wen Xuan: This is a tree.

Children: Yes, I can see the twig!

The tree besides the school.

Then, I got all the children to sit at the space in front of the garden. I prepared some green colour water paint for the children to decorate their hand printed tree trunk with leaves. I suggested using finger tip printing. However, some of the children end up using their finger to colour their tree. 

Kern Ee: My tree has a lot of leaves!

Drawing a Tree

Date: 19^th September 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Drawing a Tree

The children related brown colour to tree naturally. Therefore, we had a discussion about the parts of the tree. I drew a picture of the tree trunk with some branches on the white board.

Teacher: Let’s draw a tree here. Alright, do you know the name of this part of the tree? (pointing to the trunk)

Emerson: Log.

Li Heng: Log.

Teacher: Log is when we cut it from the trunk. This is called a trunk.

(Then, I named the branches.)

Teacher: What about this? (I pointed to the small branches from the big branches)

Children: Twig. (Wow, they still remember this from their Phonics class)

Teacher: You are right! Let say if we want to use our body to paint a tree trunk, which part of the body will you use?

Kwan Ming: Here. (he is pointing to his body)

Yee Jie: Stomach. (He pulled up his shirt.)

Teacher: Do you want me to paint your body with the water paint? (Immediately, they shook their head. Then I stretch my body and waved to them to give them hints.)

Kwan Ming: Oh, I know. Hand.

Teacher: Yes, our hand and fingers which looks like a trunk and branches.

Therefore, we started our water painting. I coloured the children’s hand palm until their elbow. They started to laugh as they feel tickle. Anyhow, we managed to complete all the hand print for today. We shall go out to observe a real tree before putting all the leaves and other things on the picture. 

Sharing Session & Games

Date: 18^th September 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Sharing Session & Games

I have collected all the pictures that the children had drawn yesterday. So I used some time today for them to share about the things that they had drawn. Most of them could actually tell the things in English. They had improved a lot.

These are some of the pictures that they had drawn. 

Ryan Tan's drawing

Kwan Ming's drawing

Game: Hot Potato

I adapted this game from the internet. Instead of using a potato, I have a lo han fruit in hand. The lo han fruit is also brown in colour. Therefore, I used it instead of potato.

The children sat in a circle. Then I gave them the lo han fruit to pretend that it’s a hot potato. The children were very co-operative that they really pretended that it’s a very hot potato when we started to sing a song. They quickly passed it to the next person sitting next to them. Then, I used a pot to make a banging sound to give them a signal for them to roll the “hot potato” to the person in front of them. We did this a few rounds as some of them got a little confused of what to do when they heard the “bang” sound.

However, all the children enjoyed passing the “hot potato” around. 

New Colour Theme - Brown

Date: 17^th September 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

New Colour Theme – Brown

As a new colour theme, we did a brainstorming session about things in brown. Surprisingly, this time, the children were very active in giving their answers.

Teacher: Please name me things that are brown in colour.

Kwan Ming: car, mane (he described it in Mandarin), orang utan, donkey, tree, mud, bear, mooncake

Qi Jie: crayons

Phey Zheng: monkey

Xin Yi: spoon, clock

Zhen Yu: shoes, hat

Zhen Yuan: coco ball (I think it’s a snack), truck

Wei Yee: chair, house, potato

Ei Jay: T-shirt, cow, horse, peanut

Wen Xuan: chocolate, wood (she mentioned this in Mandarin), doll

Kern Ee: table, colour pencil

Emerson: log, basket, flute, door, box

Yee Jie: coco crunch (a kind of snack), Milo (a kind of cocoa drink)

Then I distributed everyone each a piece of paper for them to draw the picture of brown colour things on it. Some of them drew a lot while some only drew a few. I believe through this activity, the children can actually observe and visualize things and put it on the paper. 

Vote for New Colour Theme

Date: 13^th September 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Voting for new colour theme

Our black colour is already coming to an end with our black colour worksheet today. The children needed to identify which object they were supposed to colour it black. It’s a pretty easy worksheet as most of the items in it we had already gone through with the children during our discussion about black colour.

This time round, I suggested that the children vote for their next colour. Some of them voiced out those colours we had already gone through while some given me some new colours. Finally, the three colours that they children had voiced out so far were white, brown and pink.

Each person had only one chance to choose the colours that they want to learn about.

Only Wen Xuan and Yee Jie voted for white. Most of the children voted for brown and only left very few vote for pink. Therefore, the next colour that we are going to do is brown.

Children are encouraged to bring any brown items things from home to share with their fellow classmates next week. 

Pattern - Part II

Date: 12^th September 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Patterns (Part II)

I used white colour paper and black colour paper to prepare a pattern worksheet for the children to try it on. There are three different shapes, circle, square and triangle which have black and white colour. The children need to identify the shape and the colour as well.

I started off with a group of three children to give guidance to how to complete the worksheet. Some children could actually observe and complete it on their own while some needed to read the shapes together. However, all the children managed to complete their worksheet in the same day as well. 

Yee Jie: I'm pasting the shape.

Wei Yee: What should I write?

Ryan: This is my pattern worksheet!

The children voiced out if we could change to other colours. So there’s another black colour recognition worksheet to be completed by tomorrow. This time, I let the children vote for the next colour that they want to have. I told the children to go home and think about it and we shall discuss it the next day. 

Pattern - Part I

Date: 11^th September 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Patterns (Part I)

Story book sharing – Colours

This is an interesting book about a little mouse went in to a room and discovered some colour water paint. It started to paint it on a piece of paper. There’s no word for all the pages in this book and it allowed the children to explore their imagination about the storyline.

Since we are doing colours, I brought in the session about patterns. I started by drawing shapes in pattern on the board and get the children to tell me what comes next. At first, some of them didn’t know what to say and just pick a shape from nowhere. Then I got them to actually read out the patterns, such as circle, triangle, square; circle, triangle, square; circle, ………. ; the children needed to fill in “triangle” as the next shape. We had a few rounds of such practice and the children got more excited when they could get the answer correct.

I shall prepare some worksheet for such pattern practice tomorrow.

Spider Art Work (part III)

Date: 10^th September 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Spider Art Work (part III)

With the same steps as yesterday, most of the children managed to complete their art work today.

Then, the children happily played with their spider. Some of them make their spider crawl around their friends’ body, some of them make their spider crawl around the table and while some make their spider crawl around the classrooms.

Happily playing with their spider

I got something else to show them today. Teacher Cheah helped me to buy a bamboo charcoal bread from the night market yesterday. Before I showed it to the children, I get them to brainstorm anything food that they had came across which is black in colour.

Teacher: Had you tried eating any food that is black in colour?

Kwan Ming: Eel.

Yee Jie: Catfish.

Ei Jay: Tire. (I reminded him that we are talking about food.)

Emerson: Coca-cola. (He said that with a grin on his face.)

Yee Jie: Dark chocolate.

Jiun Jie: Yes, chocolate.

Kwan Ming: Black berries.

Teacher: What’s the colour of the bread that you usually eat?

Kwan Ming: Brown.

Zhen Yuan: White.

(Most of the children said either white or brown.)

Then I brought in the bamboo charcoal bread. The children eyes gone big and said the bread is black. I asked if they would dare to try. Most of the children were eager to say that they wanted to try except for one who immediately said no.

Once everyone had washed their hand, they had a share of the bamboo charcoal bread that I divided quarterly for them and they even asked for second round. The children commented that it tasted a little sweet but not too sweet. They even said they would like to have some more. 

Teng Hong: Hmm, nice...not so sweet!

Zhen Cheng: Yummy!

Wei Yee: Look, I'm eating a black bread!

Spider Art Work (part II)

Date: 9^th September 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Spider Art Work (part II)

We continued with our spider art work today. Most of the children had cut out the head and the abdomen of the spider. I had also prepared the legs for the children to cut out. Once the children had cut out the legs, they only got 4 of it. Then I throw the question back to the children, asking them how many legs do a spider has. Most of them can answer the question correctly. However, they looked at the four legs puzzled. It took some of them a while to think of a solution to make it into eight while most of them needed to give hints.

Once they had placed the head and the legs onto the spider’s abdomen, they started to work on the eyes and the red marks on the back of the spider. It’s not easy for the children to follow exactly the same red markings as they saw on the black widow, so I allowed them to cut out any shapes they like to put it on the back. Some cut square, some cut diamond shape while some in rectangular.

After that, I placed a yarn on the back of the head for the children to hold it and play with their spider. 

I only managed to handle about half of the class to complete their art work today. Therefore, I shall continue with some of them the next day. 

Spider Art Work (part I)

Date: 6^th September 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Spider Art Work (part I)

We revised the “Incy Wincy Spider” rhyme and the spider song we sang yesterday. The children were more familiar with the words this time rather than just murmured the words out.

Before head on with our spider art, I played them a video about how the spider spins their prey. The video showed the children how the prey got stuck at the web and the spider quickly ran over it to catch hold of it. Then it started to spin web all over the prey and took it away to a side to enjoy its meal.

Then I also showed a few pictures of the black widow to the children as that’s the art work that we need to do. 

Teacher: How many legs do a spider has?

Children: Four…..six…..eight… (They had given a few answers about it)

Teacher: Spider has eight legs. Let’s count and see. Spider are divided into two parts, the head and the abdomen. What other things that you can see from the black widow?

Children: Red colour… (There are some distinctive red marks on the back of the abdomen of a black widow.)

After watching the video and by looking at the picture, I do believe that the children had some idea about the look of a black widow. So I started of by giving each of a child, 2 different sizes of circle for them to cut it out. Then once they were done with the circle, I gave them some lines to cut for the spider’s legs.

Due to insufficient time left for today, we shall continue with the art work on Monday.

Incy Wincy Spider

Date: 5^th September 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Incy Wincy Spider

When come to black, spider comes to my mind. Then “Incy Wincy Spider” appears in my head. I believe most of the children had read or sing this nursery rhyme before. Even though their pronunciation of each word is not that cleared but I can actually tell that they had heard it before.

With the finger movement, the children started to sing the nursery rhyme:

Incy Wincy Spider

Climbed up the water spout

Down came the rain

And washed the spider out

Out came the sunshine

And dried up all the rain

And the incy wincy spider

Climbed up the spout again.

Then I also found an interesting song about spider from the internet and I wish to share with the children.

Spin the spider, spin (Tune: Farmer in the Dell)

Spin the spider, spin

Spin the spider, spin

Round and round and up and down

Spin the spider, spin

I asked the children to think of what other things that the spider can do so that we could fit it into the song.

The children gave a few suggestions such as: run, crawl, eat. We fit it into the song and do it with action. I also added one as “dance”.  Besides this, the children also shared some knowledge that they know about the spider such as how the spider hunt their prey, how the spider eat their prey etc.

We shall do the spider art the next day.

Oh, Think that you can Think!

Date: 4^th September 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Oh, Think that you can Think!

Actually some time ago, I had read this story by Dr Seuss to the class. I remembered that time, the whole class listened to the story very quietly. There were some added children this time to the group, so I used this time to read them the story again.

As I expected, with all the exploration to colours and the language, the children started to notice other things in the same page as I read the story to them. They started to tell out different things in different colours.

This makes the story reading session more interesting. Though the story is a little bit too long for such young age, I do believe that they somehow enjoy the hilarious thought by Dr Seuss and those colourful pages.

We are going to do some art work or things related to black colour tomorrow. Hopefully the children could enjoy it.