Introduction to Food Pyramid

Date: 29^th April 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Yummy, Yummy Food

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Introduction to Food Pyramid

I introduced the food pyramid today. We went through parts by parts to look at the food that we can eat the most to the food that we should eat the least.

The children try to name the names of the food they can see in each part of the food pyramid. We shall see if we could do an extension activity about this food pyramid.

I also introduced them to answer accordingly.

Question: Do you like to eat rice?

Answer: Yes, I do. / No, I do not.

I asked each child a question and they can choose to answer either “Yes, I do.” or “No, I do not.”

At first, all the children answer me only “Yes, I do.”

I wanted them to practice to answer “No, I do not.” Therefore, I asked each of them to tell me which food that they don’t like to eat or drink so that they could make use of the negative response.

Introduction to Food

Date: 28^th April 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Yummy, Yummy Food

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Introduction to Food

“Yummy, Yummy Food” is the topic name that the children had chosen.

Teacher: Why do you need to eat food? [None of the children could really answer that, so I changed my question.]

Teacher: When will you feel like to eat food? What happen if you don’t eat food?

Pin Jee: Hungry. [He said that in Mandarin.]

Thong Xuan: Your hand will be thin.

Teacher: Yes, we need to eat food as we will feel hungry. Food will give us energy so that we could be strong and healthy.

We went through some food that we can eat such as bread, egg, pizza etc and drink such as milk, coffee, tea, water etc.

So the children took turn to tell me what they like to eat and drink.

Then I also introduced the name for the 3 meals that we all have everyday – breakfast, lunch and dinner.

At the same time, I also introduced the place to cook at home – the kitchen. Pin Jee has a picture dictionary about “kitchen”. Therefore, we went through the things that we can find in the kitchen such as stove, refrigerator, sink etc. 

Summary for Underwater World

Date: 25^th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Summary for Underwater World

Today, we shall summarize all the art work and the worksheets that the children had done so far. The children were happy to look back at their own art work and started to tell story about it to their fellow classmates.

Now, they could name most of the underwater sea creatures that we had gone through.

I shall distribute all the art work and worksheet together with the summary of the theme lesson by end of next week.

Earth Day Activity (Part III)

Date: 24^th April 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Earth Day Activity (Part III)

After the children had done with their tree art for Earth Day, I prepared some simple sentences for the children to read about and to be pasted onto the art itself as well.

The simple sentences are as followed:

Earth Day 2014

This is a tree.

It makes the Earth green.

Plant more trees.

Then the children cut out the outline according to their own preference and pasted it onto their tree art. Some of them will only cut a square, while some of them would make some design. This would be up to them.

Then Ayden brought a book about food and he wished that I could share it in the class. The title of the book is “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle.

These two days would be a transition period to our new topic – Yummy, Yummy Food. We shall summarize all the art work and worksheets for Underwater World. We shall start officially on the new topic by next week. 

Earth Day Activity (Part II)

Date: 23^rd April 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Earth Day Activity (Part II)

Before continuing with the art work we half completed yesterday, we refreshed back the reason why we celebrated “Earth Day” such as the green leaves from the tree makes the Earth looked green.

Then all the children moved outside to complete their art work. Before we begin, we went to the backyard to pick some small leaves to be used for the art work. Once everyone was ready, we moved back to the front porch and faced the tree when doing the art work.

The children needed to paint the back of the leave and printed it onto their brown tree trunk. 

The children also did some clean up work by brushing the floor as the green paint had stained it. The children kept asking if it’s their turn and also complained when their friends didn’t want to pass the brush to them.

Earth Day Activity & World Book Day

Date: 22^nd April 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Earth Day Activity & World Book Day

In conjunction with World Book Day tomorrow, the children had brought their books to share. They wanted me to read them the story though it had been briefly told by their Mandarin Theme teacher in the morning.

Therefore, I used about 15 minutes to share 2 books with them. The first book that I shared was brought by Ayden – Octopus Friends. Then the second book was brought by Jadyen – Look out Below!

As I promised them yesterday that we shall do an art work for Earth Day. I had prepared some brown water paint for them to do hand printing as the tree trunk. All the children started to giggle when I started to paint their palm, fingers and hand before printing it onto a piece of white paper.

My initial planning was to bring the children out to look at the tree to put the green colour as leaves onto their tree trunk. Unfortunately, it started to rain and due to insufficient time, we shall continue the art work tomorrow.

Introduction to Earth Day

Date: 21^st April 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Introduction to Earth Day

In conjunction with Earth Day on 22^nd April, which is tomorrow, therefore, today we had some discussion and brainstorming session about Earth Day. Though it might be a little abstract for the children to understand the concept of “Earth”, however, the children tried their best to answer with all the hints that I had given.

Teacher: The theme of Earth Day is “Green Cities”. What makes our city green?

Children: Green house…green car… (I guess they don’t understand what I mean.)

So I drew a picture of a city with buildings and houses but no trees.

Teacher: Look at the picture. What is missing? There’s only houses and building.

Children: The road.

Teacher: What makes this place looks green? [Silence across the room. No one seems to notice anything else. Suddenly……]

Thong Xuan: Tree.

Pin Jee: Leaf.

Teacher: Yes, the green leaves on the tree make the city looks green. Look out of the classroom window. Can you see the tall trees there? [The children looked out of the window for a moment and excitedly said that they saw the trees. They said the trees are green. ]

Then I gave a short explanation about the important of tree to us. It’s kind of abstract again yet hopefully the children could understand it in the future.

We shall do an art work about tree for Earth Day tomorrow. 

Worksheet – Filling in the missing numbers

Date: 18^th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet – Filling in the missing numbers

The children are going to move in to a new topic by next week. Therefore, I hope we could complete the worksheet by end of the week.

I chose mathematics & logical worksheet for them to do today.

The first worksheet requires the children to fill in the missing numbers from 1-10. They could do it easily.

Then the second worksheet requires the children to count the numbers of spots on the snail and they have to write the number in the box. Most of them could do it by themselves while some needed some guidance.

Finally the last worksheet requires the children to break the code of message. This worksheet seems a little difficult for some of the children to understand and to complete. Some needed individual guidance.

Review about the facts of a squid & Drawing

Date: 17^th April 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Review about the facts of a squid & Drawing

We had a round of review about the facts of a squid that we went through yesterday. With some hints given, the children were able to tell out the facts that they remember. It’s a good try.

I have a squid in the freezer. So I thaw it before showing it to the children. After observing the squid, they try to draw it out on a piece of paper. Though it’s difficult for some of them to visualize it, however, with some guidance on the shapes and facts they saw earlier helped them to draw the squid themselves. 

Facts about squid

Date: 16^th April 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Facts about squid

The children were interested in squid and cuttlefish. Therefore, I used about half an hour to go through some facts about squid with the children that I can find online.

These are some facts about the squid:

-          The shape of the squid is like a torpedo

-          The squid has 8 tentacles with suction cups; it also has 2 long tentacles to capture its prey

-          They swim faster than other invertebrates

-          It has 2 large eyes

-          Female squid is larger than male squid (Pin Jee said the female squid needs to carry a lot of babies. He must have remember it from the crab.)

-          The squid can swim backwards

-          Female squid lays thousands of eggs

-          Squid eats fish, smaller squid and crustaceans

-          Squid can lives about one to two years

-          Just like octopus, squid can also eject black ink

I did individual vocabulary reading while the rest of the children did some free reading on their own.

I was on leave yesterday therefore, there’s no blog update for 15^th April,2014.  

Indoor Game – Octopus Tagging

Date: 11^th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Indoor Game – Octopus Tagging

I came across this interesting game online and since the children are studying about octopus, it’s suitable for them to try it out.

Before we start, I gave them some instruction and rules of the games:

-          I drew the area that the children can run about

-          I shall select an octopus to start off with by standing in the middle of the hall

-          All the rest of the children will be fish and they shall stand at the end of the hall

-          Once the fish is caught by the octopus when trying to swim across the ocean, they will turn into sea anemone and squad down

-          All sea anemones can also grab other fish and turned them into sea anemones.

-          The last person who is not being caught will be the next octopus

I demonstrate the first round to let them know how to be an octopus and what will happen when they were caught. We had this game played for another 2 rounds. Most of the children could obey the basic safety by not pushing or pulling each other. They enjoyed the game. 

The children pretended to be fish. They were excited for the game to start.

Oh, Yi Fai is the octopus. Run fishes before it catches you!

Kai Heng is the next octopus. The children looked at him before the game start.

Look at those "sea anemone" laughing away at those running fishes. 

Worksheet – Identify the Differences

Date: 10^th April 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet – Identify the Differences

There were 2 octopuses in this worksheet. However, one of it doesn’t look the same. There were 7 differences that the children needed to observe and point it out.

After some encouragement, some of the children could try and do it on their own while some still needed guidance.

I drew the picture that appeared in their worksheet on the whiteboard. Once everyone had observed and identified, 7 children were asked to come out to circle the differences and we discussed. 

Review about the fun facts of the octopus & Worksheet

Date: 9^th April 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Review about the fun facts of the octopus & Worksheet

Today I went through with the children about the fun facts of the octopus that they had watched yesterday. Some of the facts, I needed to give hints while some were given by the children themselves.

These are the facts that the children had mentioned:

-          Octopus has 8 tentacles, with 2 rows of suction cups on each tentacles

-          Octopuses are venomous. Blue ringed octopus is the most venomous among all of the varieties, it can kill 26 human being in a few minutes

-          Octopus has 3 hearts

-          Octopus’ blood is blue

-          Octopus can swim backward easily

-          Octopus can squeeze through a small hole as it has no bones

-          Octopus is a shy sea creatures

-          Octopus will eject black ink when a predators came near

-          Octopus will change colour according to the surroundings

-          Female octopus is called hen, it lay thousands of eggs

Worksheet: Draw the Octopus’ leg

This worksheet required the children to draw the missing legs for the octopus. The children had to count while drawing the legs. 

Fun Facts about Octopus

Date: 8^th April 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Fun Facts about Octopus

The children spelled the word “octopus” on the board before I introduced the parts of the octopus to the children.

Then we watched a short video on the fun facts about octopus. Then I also showed them a video about the blue ringed octopus.

Video Sharing: Fun Facts about Octopus

Video Sharing: blue ringed octopus

Worksheet: Looking for Mistakes

Date: 7^th April 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet: Looking for Mistakes

After reading a short and simple storybook which not related to the underwater theme, the children did a worksheet on searching for mistake.

There were 6 mistakes in the picture where the children needed to point it out and circle it. After that, I got the children to colour all the pictures that they had circled.

While the children were doing their worksheet, I got some to do some individual reading on vocabulary.

Listen & Follow

Date: 4th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Listen & Follow

Today, I plan to carry on an activity related to the book that I shared with the children yesterday. However, the children couldn't get the idea of what I needed but at least they tried.

I divided the children into 2 groups where it was about 6 in a group. The children needed to act out according to the lines that I read. 

They were in discussion on how to present it.

"Some creatures are spiny."

"Some creatures are fat."

Couldn't decide what to do?

The children did when I read: Some creatures are long.

The other group did the same thing.

Form a starfish after I gave some clue to them.

The children tried to form a starfish by their own.

Book Sharing: Sea Creatures by Pamelo Chanko

Date: 3^rd April 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:00-5:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Book Sharing: Sea Creatures by Pamelo Chanko

This is not a storybook. Yet it’s a book about how to describe the sea creatures. The sentences are very simple and short. However, some of the parts I still needed to do some extra explanation.

The lines in the book are as followed:

-          Some creatures are long.

-          Some creatures are fat.

-          Some creatures are spiny.

-          Some creatures are flat.

-          Some can glide, and some can dive.

-          Some have eight arms.

-          Some have only five.

-          Some are bumpy, and some are hairy.

-          Some are bright, and some are scary.