What is silver in colour?

Date: 30^th October 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

What is silver in colour?

Before we start off with silver colour, we practice the “Rainbow Song”. This time round, the children could actually follow a few lines of the lyrics. Wow, they are getting better and better. I think we can add in more of the lines by end of the week.

I brought in some silver glittering dust to show to the children and wanted to see if they could think of anything about silver from it.

Teacher: Look at this silver glittering dust. What does it looks like to you?

Children: Silver…..elephant….

Teacher: Elephant? I thought elephant is grey. (Laughing from the ground)

Teacher: Does it looks like the stars in the sky?

Children: No…star is yellow in colour…..Star looks like this (drawing the shape of the star with their finger)

Teacher: Really? Star is yellow in colour? Hmm…

So, I suggested that children looked out the night sky tonight to see if they could find any stars. Share it with the class tomorrow. 

Worksheet - Colour Pattern (Part II)

Date: 29^th October 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet - Colour Pattern (Part II)

Most of the children had not completed their colour pattern yesterday. Besides that, there were some absentees who were present today. Therefore, we continue with the worksheet.

After a round of practice yesterday, the children seem to be able to handle this worksheet much better today. Most of the children were able to complete it today.

Before we end our class today, we went through the lyrics of the “Rainbow Song”. I played the song and get the children to sing along. The lively and happy rhythm makes the children wanted to dance too. I guess they love the song.

We shall move to silver tomorrow. I got the children to have a brainstorming session about things in silver that they know. Immediately Kwan Ming pointed to Teng Hong’s necklace and said that it is silver in colour.

Children were to observe things around them which is silver in colour. We shall have some activities or art work about silver colour this week.

Worksheet - Colour Pattern

Date: 28^th October 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet - Colour Pattern

Before we moved on to another colour, I wanted to see if the children could still remember the names of the colours. Therefore, I prepared a colour pattern worksheet for them to try it out.

This time, the children needs to read the name of the colours and tell me what should come next.

Sample of the exercise as followed:

red

green

green

red

green

green

Only a small group of children could tell me correctly. Some of them will tell me other colours from this group. When I read “red, green, green, red, green, green” and some of them will answer me “blue”, “orange” etc. I guess I have to do more oral practise on colour pattern.

Then we read through the lyrics for the “Rainbow Song” by Pamela Piersyn. The lyrics are as followed:

Chorus: I can name the colours in the rainbow

Red, Orange, Yellow and Green,

Blue, Indigo and Violet are seen.

Repeat Chorus

In the rainbow.

I can find the colours in the rainbow

Well, there’s a red stop sign at the end of my street,

My orange bicycle with the horn, beep, beep

Yellow butterfly landing on me

And green, green grass, under my feet

There’s a big, blue sky up above my head

Indigo’s the colour of my Daddy corvette

Violet flowers grow in Mama’s flower bed

These are the colours

There’s seven, yeah, in the rainbow

Repeat Chorus

I can name the colours in the rainbow

I can find the colours in the rainbow

I just love the colours in the rainbow!

Random Work

Date: 25^th October 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Random Work

Today, I only have half an hour with the Starfruit class from 4:30pm – 5pm. There’s some distribution of things to each child, therefore, there’s no actual lesson today.

However, before I ended the class, I played a Rainbow song for the children. As it’s the first time hearing it, therefore, they seem not interested with it. I shall play the song more often so that the children could get familiar with it. 

Art Work - Change it to a Postcard (Part III)

Date: 23^rd October 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art Work - Change it to a Postcard (Part III)

Today, we continued a little bit more with our postcard art work. Before that, Kern Ee brought 2 beautiful postcards that his aunt gave him. It’s a postcard with China scenery as background. On the other hand, there’s also a China stamp pasted on it. I passed the postcard around for the children to have a look.

The children had written “To: Dad and Mum” and “From : (the kid’s name)” on the postcard. It looks a little bare. So I got them to write a message. The children were quite creative by telling me to write “I love you”, “I kiss you”, “I hug you” etc. We chose the most common one to write which is “I love you”. Some even told me to write “you” by just putting a “u”. I guess they must have seen that on advertisement or other cards.

After giving simple instruction and guidance on how to write it on the card, the children gave me back the postcard with the message within 5 minutes. That’s pretty fast.

Story Sharing – Fuzzy Little Tomcat

Kwan Ming found this simple storybook from the school library and wanted to share it with the children. Tomcat is a grey cat. It is a little cat who wishes to catch mice and birds. Yet, because it is too little, nothing is successful for it. A big dog saw and laughed at Tomcat.

However, Tomcat found a thing that he could do and can’t be done by the big dog where Tomcat can jump up the high wall with just one leap. There Tomcat took a nap and dreamed that he could catch mice and birds when he grows up.

Then the children took their turns to touch at the grey furry texture on the front page of the book. From here, the children could study the grey colour again.

Starfruit class’ children are going for a field trip tomorrow (24^th October 2013). Therefore, there’s no blog update for tomorrow. 

Art Work - Change to Postcard (Part II)

Date: 22^nd October 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art Work - Change it to a Postcard (Part II)

Today, Teng Hong brought a postcard to show it to his classmate. Now, the children had a better idea of an actual postcard. So I followed the format of the back of a postcard and guide the children from the whiteboard. Most of the children could actually follow exactly while some did it differently. Most of the children don’t know their house address, therefore, I just write a fake address for the children to copy.

Once the children had written down all the necessary things needed in the postcard, they have to come to me to ask for a stamp. I printed the stamp from the internet. The children have to learn to ask it properly, otherwise, no stamp for him or her. Most of the children could actually follow and learned to say it properly and managed to get their stamp.

Everyone is happy to see that their postcard is done.

Here are some of the scenes and some of the postcards done by the children. 

Xin Yi is trying her very best to write something on the postcard. (Wordings were given on the whiteboard)

Emerson thinking hard if he has done it right. 

Wen Xuan: What else should I write? Hmm...

Kwan Ming pasted the stamp on his postcard

A sample of the postcard that the children had done. This belongs to Qi Jie. 

Art Work - Change it to a Postcard

Date: 21^st October 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art Work - Change it to a Postcard

Today, I shared all the pictures of the “City under the Grey Sky” that the children had done with them. Most of them remember which one is their picture and happily wanted to tell something about it.

After that, I asked the children what we shall do with this picture.

Teacher: What shall we do with this beautiful picture?

Children: Picture…

Children: Draw something…I wanted to add a car.

Children: Write something.

Teacher: To write something on it is a good idea. We can make it into a postcard.

I had prepared some power point slide to show the children about postcard. I showed them some sample of postcard, how the back of the postcard should should look like, different types of stamp etc.

The children were encouraged to bring a postcard if they have at home and shared it with the class.

Due to insufficient time, we shall continue with this postcard making tomorrow.

City under the Grey Sky

Date: 18^th October 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art Work – Grey Colour (City under the Grey Sky)

We sat around today and I asked the children what would it be under the grey sky?

Children: House…..tree…..grass…

I had prepared a picture of buildings in the city. I showed it to the children. Some immediately said it’s a city. Then I distributed each a piece of the picture of buildings in the city with a bigger piece of paper. The children needed to paste the picture of the buildings in the city onto the bigger piece of paper. As shown as below:

After that, the children coloured their city in all sorts of colour that they like. Once they were done, one by one they came to me to paint their grey sky. I mixed some white and black paint together and got the grey colour.

Each of the children has to close their hand to make a fist. Then, I coloured the bottom of their fist with the grey colour. They used that to rub against the paper to create a grey sky above those buildings in the city.

These are some of the pictures done by the children: 

Li Heng's painting 

Kern Ee's city under the grey sky

Emerson said there's a rainbow under the grey sky

Qi Jie's city under the grey sky

Storybook Sharing - Cave Baby

Date: 17^th October 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Storybook Sharing – Cave Baby

“Cave Baby” is a book by Julia Donaldson and Emily Gravett. This is a lovely story about a cave baby who scribbled his mom’s drawing on the wall and got warning from his dad about a mammoth would come and throw him to the big brown bear.

On the night, a grey mammoth did come and picked the baby from his crib and sent him off through the forest where the cave baby saw tiger, hyena, hare and ended at a cave. The cave baby was so worried that it might be the bear’s cave. However, it’s the mammoth’s cave and the mammoth wanted the cave baby to paint on their bare wall. The cave baby had so much fun as he could paint freely.

When the grey mammoth sent the cave baby back to his cave, the baby sleeps well with all the dreams about all those colourful animals that he had just drawn on the wall.

As the story goes, the children themselves also worried that the mammoth would throw the cave baby to the big brown bear.

This is a very imaginative story about colours.

Things in Grey

Date: 16^th October 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Things in Grey

With the list that the children had mentioned yesterday, I prepared a power point just like what I did for “white” colour.

The words that I had included in the power point were as followed:

grey sky	cat	dog	elephant	hippopotamus
horse	rat	wolf	koala bear	seal
owl	dolphin	whale	stingray	pussy willow

Then the children reminded me that I have to include rhinoceros and donkey into the slide. Wow, the children had a good memory of what their friend had said the other day. We read through all the things in the power point and moved on with the drawing session.

This time, I let the children draw immediately after looking at the power point when their memory is still fresh about it. However, some of them still couldn’t actually draw anything. Hopefully with some encouragement and some motivation, they could actually start to draw something out of it. 

New Chapter of colour - Grey

Date: 14^th October 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

New Chapter of Colour – Grey

We had done quite some activities for white. Therefore, we moved on to another colour. Since we had done white and black earlier, this time, we mixed these two colours and we got grey. Grey is quite a common colour that the children always see around them.

We had a brainstorming session before moving deeper.

Teacher: Can you name me some animals that you think is grey in colour?

Yee Jie: Elephant.

Ei Jay: Hippo.

Jiun Jie: Rhino (he said that in Mandarin)

Kern Ee: Goat, donkey

Kwan Ming: Seal.

Zhen Yuan: Dolphin, fish.

Besides that I also listed down some animals such as rabbit, cat and dog.

Some children were absent last Friday when we had the game. Therefore, today I let them played again. However, we set some clearer rules for the children to follow and it turned out that the flow of the games had much improved. 

The Snowman (Part II)

Date: 11^th October 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Animation – The Snowman (Part II)

The children were still talking about “The Snowman” when I stepped into the class today. So I got them to share their favourite part of the story with their fellow classmates.

Kwan Ming: I like the animals. (What kind of animals?) Seal, polar bear, reindeer, sea lion, whale.

Yee Jie: The snowman and the animals.

Kern Ee: He make a snowball and throw it to the window. The snowman can walk. The snowman can fly. He wants to find his friends. He dance. The snowman walks in the house. He walks into the house. His friend showed him. They are having a party. The snowman is white.

Yu Xin: The boy helps the snowman to take off his clothes. Very funny. (She said this in Mandarin.)

Xin Yi: The snowman and the boy fly to the house.

Wen Xuan: Fox…(She was trying hard to explain and finally she told me in Mandarin that the snowman and the boy went into the woods and saw the animals) Penguin.

Zhen Yuan: The motorbike ran into the woods and go in the house. He stepped on the roller skate and the TV and the clothes.

Emerson: He went into the woods and he see the penguins.

Bo En: Motorbike….fly.

Phey Zheng: A ship. (He actually said pirate ship yet his classmates clarified that it’s just a ship)

Game: Choose the Correct Colour

I prepared some orange and white ping pong balls and 4 spoons. I placed some orange and white ping pong balls in a bowl. Then I divided the children into 4 groups where about 5 people in a group. After that, the first 2 group of children will have to pick the white colour ping pong ball with the spoon and pass it to the opposite group of children and vice versa.

Most of the children could recognized the correct coloured ping pong balls except for one or two who picked up the wrong colour. 

The Snowman

Date: 10^th October 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Animation – The Snowman

The Snowman is a children’s picture book without words by English author, Raymond Briggs. I wanted to introduce this interesting book to the children because of the snowman that appears in “You are My Best Friend”. I found a 26 minutes animated version of this story.

The Snowman is a story about a boy who builds a snowman on a winter day. That night, the snowman came alive. The boy took the snowman into the house to look at all those things in the house including visiting the boy’s parents who were still fast asleep. Then the two of them venture outside and went on a ride on a motorbike. They went through the woods and scared off a lot of animals like the rabbit, the owl, the fox and horse.

Then the snowman took the boy for a flight and they reached to the arctic and flew into the aurora and they reached their destination. They went into a snow-covered forest and attended a snowman’s party. They even met the Father Christmas and his reindeer. The boy was given a scarf with a snowman pattern on it. After that, they flew back home.

When the boy woke up the next morning when the sun was up, the boy found out that the snowman had melted. The boy reached his pocket and found that there’s a snowman scarf in it. As the credits play, the boy mourns the loss of his new friend.

Even though the story ended sadly, however, the children still enjoy watching the humorous part of the story.

We shall have a discussion about the story tomorrow.

Sharing Session about White colour

Date: 9^th October 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Sharing session about white colour

In the storybook, “You are my Best Friend” described white colour as cold as the snow, yet it also taste as sweet as white cotton candy. Besides that, white is also as light as those clouds that appears in the sky.

I got the children to think and imagine how they feel about the white colour.

Kwan Ming: Very cold.

Teacher: Like the snow? (He nodded.)

Zhen Yu: Tofu.

Ei Jay: White T-shirt.

Teacher: Try to imagine with feelings. How does white looks like?

Emerson: Cotton candy (he said that in Mandarin.)

Teacher: How does it taste?

Emerson: Sour. (Ah?? Are you sure is not sweet?)

Emerson: Oh, not sour. Sweet.

Teacher: Imagine that our classrooms are filled with white and no other colours. How you feel? (I believe the children still trying very hard to imagine that)

Kern Ee: Sugar….sour…ar, no…sweet

Yee Jie: Cold….like ice-cream.

Kwan Ming: Smoke…very smelly. (I think he is talking about haze)

Wen Xuan: Like clouds.

I had a 30 minutes video about “The Snowman” for the children to watch. Yet the discussion took us quite some time. As a result, we can only arrange to watch it tomorrow. 

Story Sharing Part II & Milk Experiment

Date: 8^th October 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Book Sharing – You are my best friend 《你是我最好的朋友》 – Part II & Milk Experiment

Today, we continued with the story. This time we managed to complete the rest of the colours, blue, green, white and black. Momo said he loves white the most because Nana is willing to introduce the colourful world to him.

Then I prepared all the necessary things for the milk experiment again.

These are the things that I had prepared:

1)      a small packet of milk (must be full cream as I need to fat in it)

2)      some food colouring (preferably colourful colour such as green, red, orange or blue)

3)      some dishwasher

4)      some cotton bud

5)      a shallow dish

First, we poured the milk into the shallow dish. Then, put in some food colouring, I chose 3 colours. After that I dipped the cotton bud with some dishwasher and placed it firmly on one of the colours. As the fat in the milk reacts towards the dishwasher, the colours seem to move away. The children were amazed with the reaction. That’s the reason why when we have grease in our hand, the soap can wash it away easily.

Then I got everyone to try it out by holding the cotton bud and placed it on the surface on the colour. 

Pour the food colouring into the milk.

Placed a cotton bud with dishwasher to see the reaction. 

Story Sharing - You are my Best Friend

Date: 7^th October 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Book Sharing – You are my best friend 《你是我最好的朋友》

This storybook is by Bisseuil, R. He is a French author. This book has been translated to Mandarin. The story is about a little white mouse, named Nana, who wanted to befriend with an elephant. However, in the mouse society, everyone knows that elephant is scared of a mouse.

In such a coincidence that Nana found an elephant name Momo who were not scared of her. This is because Momo is a blind elephant who can’t see. Nana pity Momo and wanted to introduce the colourful world to Momo. That’s how they started their friendship as Nana described the colourful world to Momo. Those colours that Nana introduced were red, yellow, blue, green, white and black.

From the interesting description of the colours makes the children’s imagination goes further. Even though I read the story in Mandarin, however, the discussion in between stories were done in English. Today we only could cover 2 colours, red and yellow. We shall continue with the story the next day.

I prepared some milk and food colouring to do an experiment. However, the milk had gone bad. Therefore, the experiment was a failure. I shall get a packet of fresh milk to redo the experiment again tomorrow.

Painting on water (part II)

Date: 4^th October 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Painting on water (part II)

Today, I prepared all the necessary things for painting on water. Each child will get a small bowl of water with a brush. Then the 6 colours that I prepared will be shared among 4 to 5 children. Before the children started, we went through all the steps and reminder again such as having steady hand, don’t stir the water etc.

Once everyone was ready, we started. This activity requires some patience. Some of the children managed to actually forms some simple pattern, while some already started to stir the colours into the water and it all turn out to be dirty water with all the paint mixed together.

Therefore, only a few children managed to get their pictures done. It’s a good experience for children to practice their steadiness and patience. I shall consider if to do one to one guidance on Monday again on this activity. 

Getting started!

Teng Hong started with red. 

Wen Xuan's painting

Emerson's design

Kern Ee's painting