Sea Turtle

Date: 27th March 2015

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm

Class: Starfruit

Theme: Beautiful Ocean

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Sea Turtle

I found a book on sea turtle. The story is about a girl named Rou Rou who went to the East Coast of Malaysia to search for sea turtle. It also mentioned some facts and details about the sea turtle such as numbers of eggs it will lay, the threats faced by the baby sea turtle etc.

There’s a point where it mentioned about the food that sea turtle eats – jellyfish. The jellyfish art that we did by using the plastic bag is still in the class. Therefore, I take this opportunity to get the children to visualize the threat faced by the sea turtle. I gave quite some hints about the materials that we used to do the jellyfish (a shopping plastic bag). Yet, the children still couldn’t get what I want. It’s alright!

Then, I reveal the answer. The children started to see the point. When I mentioned that sea turtle loves to eat jellyfish but unfortunately, they ate plastic bag which looks like a jellyfish. Some children started to mention about stomachache. Hopefully by using this opportunity to educate children not to simply throw rubbish into the sea. It will kill the sea creatures.

Our “Beautiful Ocean” theme has come to an end. The children had already chosen their new thematic topic – food. Parents could start to work with your kids to read on some information, books or even explore them to food to help them to understand and get involved in the class more. 

Eel

Date: 26th March 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Eel

We had covered quite some common sea creatures in our thematic class. The children said they wanted to know a little about eel and sea turtle. Therefore, I got some reading materials about eel and sea turtle. However, the children agreed that they shall choose a new theme after the sea turtle. I got the children to think about it and let me know on the next day.

I got some facts read up about eel that I found online and I shared it with the children.

Some facts that I had mentioned in the class:-

- eel is a fish. It has gill and fins
- eel likes to hide among the rocks and caves
- eel will travel 4,000 miles away to breed
- an electric eel can generate up to 500 votes (in order to get the children to understand the concept of it, I take an example of a 40 volts light bulbs and get the children to count how many light bulbs can an electric eel light up)

Some of the children requested if they could continue with the colouring of the stingray that they did half way on Tuesday, I agreed.

Art and Craft - Stingray Origami

Date: 24th March 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art and Craft - Stingray Origami

I found a very easy origami of stingray for the children to try it out. The children could actually followed the steps in a big group until a certain steps where they started to ask for help. Therefore, I have to guide them individually.

I followed the steps given in the website link: How to fold a Stingray

For those who had done their stingray, they could start to add on eyes and the mouth for it.

Note: I will be following 6 years old class to a field trip tomorrow. Therefore, there will be no class and no blog update for 25th March 2015 (Wednesday).

Stingray

Date: 23rd March 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Stingray

Today, we learned something about stingray. I played the children a video about stingray. From there, we learned that:-
- stingray's eyes are on the top while its mouth is at the other side of the body
- stingray is flat
- stingray has a tail which sting
- stingray lives in salt and fresh water

The video was played twice for the children to follow it more closely.

Video Sharing: -10 Little Facts about Stingray

We shall carry out an origami activity for stingray tomorrow. Hopefully that the children could follow the steps.

Art Work - Seahorse

Date: 19th March 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art Work - Seahorse

Today, I get the children to do tear and paste art work. I have pre-cut some stripes of colour paper and some of the children had helped me yesterday to cut some as well. I have also printed out the outline of a sea horse for the children to work on it.

Then each child were given some varieties of colour paper stripes to tear. After that, they will paste the colour paper onto their seahorse picture to make it colourful. If other parts of the picture which was not pasted with colour paper, the children could colour it with colour pencil.

Note: All the children from Starfruit class is going to watch a musical show in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow. Therefore, there will be no blog update for 20th March 2015 (Friday).

Father Seahorse Gave Birth to Babies

Date: 18th March 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Father Seahorse Gave Birth to Babies

In the children's concept, they believe that female creatures will give birth to babies. However, when we read a story about father seahorse giving birth, the children were amazed. By using this opportunity, I also introduced the word - male & female.

From the story, we also learned that the mother seahorse will lay the eggs into the father seahorse's pouch. Once the baby seahorse has hatched, the father seahorse needed to bend and straighten itself so that he could let the baby seahorse comes out from the pouch.

Video :-Wild Kratts - Seahorse Rodeo

This video clip showed the facts and creatures power the seahorse and the children were amazed with it.

Worksheet - Starfish Facts

Date: 17th March 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet - Starfish Facts

I prepared some sentences for the children to match. They will be using glue to paste the answer to the particular sentences.

The sentences that I have prepared are as followed: -
- Starfish can also be called sea stars.
- Starfish moves slowly with its tube feet.
- Starfish lives in salty water.

I pasted half of the sentences on the colouring paper that the children were working on yesterday. Those underlines phrases were given to the children. After reading those phrases, the children tried to match it with the sentences on their paper.

This is how the worksheet looks like:-

Features of the Starfish

Date: 16th March 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Features of the Starfish

Today, we revised again on the features or facts about the starfish.

I summarized some of the facts about starfish. These were the facts that being introduced about the starfish:-
- starfish move with its tube feet
- starfish can also be called as sea stars
- starfish lives in salty water
- starfish moves slowly
- starfish can grow back its arm

I drew an outline picture of a starfish on the A4 paper for the children to colour it with.

Starfish lives in salty water

Date: 13th March 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Starfish lives in salty water

I played them a video today about starfish.

Video: 11 facts about starfish

From the video the children learn that starfish basically has the following features:-

- starfish can also called sea stars
- starfish moves slowly
- starfish has tube feet
- starfish can grow back their arms or even their entire body
- starfish lives in salty water only

The children kept asking what does salty water means. Even though I gave example of the taste, some of them seems to look puzzle. Therefore, I quickly prepared some salt water from the kitchen and bring it back to the class. Each child was given a small spoon of the salt water. Then, they will taste it all at the same time. Some said it's nice, some said it's very salty (in Mandarin), some said they wanted to drink water.

I added some salt into a cup of water.

The children were getting ready with their small spoon of the salty water.

Now they were drinking it.

Kian Han said:"Ee, why it taste like that?"

By using this opportunity, I get them to remember the taste from the small spoon and from their water bottle. From here, I get to let them know the differences between salty water and fresh water.

Fidgety Fish and Friends

Date: 12th March 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Fidgety Fish and Friends

I have another interesting book in hand to share with the children. It's - Fidgety Fish and Friends by Ruth Galloway, written by Paul Bright.

There's a lot of sea creatures mentioned in this colourful and interesting book. The children were thrilled when they saw those sea creatures that they could name of. I wanted to teach some about starfish. There's a shinny and awesome starfish in the book. How lovely.

Casually, I just talk about starfish with the children. Some how, the unique shape of the sea creatures captured their attention and interest to know more about it.

We shall move in to starfish soon. Hopefully the children could share any books or video about it.

Book Sharing & Worksheet

Date: 11th March 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Book Sharing & Worksheet

Today, I got a book to share with the children - Whale Gets Stuck!

Whale Gets Stuck! by Charles Fuge & Karen Hayles

This interesting story set place in the cold Arctic during the midsummer. A whale and a fish love the open sea. The whale loves to jump out of the water and dive back in. Unfortunately, this time, when the whale jumped out of the water, it landed on an ice floe. All the animals such as walrus, seals, dolphins, narwhal, birds etc came to lend a hand to get the whale back into the water. However, all the plans failed. Finally, the hot sun and the heat of the animals that lay on the ice floe melted the ice and all of them plunged back into the water including the whale. The fish was so happy to see his friend again.

Some of the children had not completed their worksheet from yesterday, therefore, I gave them time today to finish it.

Worksheet on Beautiful Ocean

Date: 10th March 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet on Beautiful Ocean

In order for the children to learn some vocabulary about the beautiful ocean, I picked the names of sea creatures from Eric Carle's book - A House for Hermit Crab.

In the worksheet, I introduced the following vocabulary for the children to do the cut and paste activity today. The vocabulary is as followed:

- sea urchin, sea anemone, shark, whale, starfish, jellyfish, hermit crab, coral

Revision

Date: 9th March 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Revision

I read 2 books to the children last Friday. Therefore, today, we just went through the sea creatures that we could see from the book itself. Then, we did some rounds on words recognition besides getting the children to re-tell the story in their own words.

We read a book about the description of different shape and sizes of the sea creatures. By using the description in in, I get the children to work in group to present it out with their body language.

These were some of the pictures taken:-

Some fish are long.

Some fish are fat.

Some fish are spiny.

Some fish are spiny.

Some fish are furry.

Some fish has five arms. (This was done after some guidance)

Book Sharing - Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson & A house for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

Date: 6th March 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Book Sharing - Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson & A house for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

As the crab theme is coming to an end soon, I wish to share these two wonderful picture book with the children. Though I only have "Sharing a Shell" by Julia Donaldson in Mandarin version, yet, I managed to get all the lines in English online.

Book Sharing #1- Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson

This is a story about a crab who found an empty shell. Then a sea anemone and a bristle worms came and shared the shell with the crab. Three of them happily staying as friends until one day, the crab started to complain about how heavy his friends had became. The sea anemone and the crab went separated but both of them were not happy. Finally, the bristle worms found another bigger and clean shell. The bristle worm asked both of them to join him again in the new home. At last, three of them were moving around in the rock pool happily together again. 



Book Sharing #2 - A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

This story is about a hermit crab who found a new shell as its home. Along his venture around the sea floor throughout the year, he picked up an item for each month. He had picked up a sea anemone, a sea snail, a starfish, a sea urchin, a crusty coral, a lantern fish and some pebbles. When the hermit crab outgrown his shells, he has to leave it to another smaller hermit crab to take care of his friends. The hermit crab will search for another new shell with another group of new friends when he go wander along the sea floor. 

Game - Crab Walking

Date: 5th March 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Game - Crab Walking

Today, we have about 15 children. Therefore, I divided the class into 3 groups with about 5 in a group. I brought 2 boxes of toys instead of one. Anyhow, the children who stood in between the 2 groups could choose to pick up toys from either one of the boxes.

We had three rounds of the games to see which group could do the best. Most of the children could follow and obey the rules and regulations while some still carry out the activity on their own way.

Finally, we have 3 groups which won the same points. Therefore, the winners received 2 sweets each while the loser will only get to choose one sweet. The children had some fun today!

A picture taken before the game started. 

Two boxes of toys were placed in the middle of the room.

The children needed to walk side way like a crab to pick up a toy before reaching the finishing line. 

Angela: Look, I'm a crab. 

Jun Yi: Do I look like a crab walking?

Alice and Germaine trying their best to walk side way as fast as they could.

Hui Ting & Shyi Yee: Crab, crab, I'm a side walking crab. 

Kheng Yee: Hee, hee, I'm a crab!

Art and Craft - crab (palm printing) & Game- Part II

Date: 4th March 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 3:00-5:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art and Craft - crab (palm printing) & Game- Part II

The children continued with the art work that they had done half way yesterday. I gave the children about half an hour time to add on any details that they wanted.

Some of the children would just add in anything they like while some will refer to reference books on the picture of a crab.

Game- Crab Walking 
I divided the class into 2 big groups today. There were about 7 in a group. Then, I put a box of toy in the middle of the room.

The rules of the game are as followed:
1) The children needed to walk side way like a crab until they reach the box of toy.
2) Pick up a toy and continued until they reach a table with a basket.
3) Place the toy into the basket.

Any of the children who didn't follow the rules will be asked to re-do the whole process again. This is to train the children to follow and obey an instruction.

We shall play this game tomorrow again with rewards.

Art and Craft: Crab (palm printing) - part I

Date: 3rd March 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art and Craft: Crab (palm printing) - part I

Today, we did a palm printing art for our theme - crab. I prepared some red paint and paper. This time, the children themselves painted one of their palm while I helped them to paint the other palm of theirs. At least they get to learn to use the paintbrush.

Shyi Yee & Jie Min

Dexter & Angela

Kian Han & Kai Yuan 

These were some of the art work done by the children today:-

art work by Germaine 

art work by Kheng Yee

More on crab & book sharing

Date: 2nd March 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

More on crab & book sharing

Today, we learned a little bit more about crab. Some of the crab will carry their eggs and let it flow along with the sea currents while some will carry its young until they were able to be on their own.

I showed the children some pictures of the mother crab who carried their young crabs with them. Once the young crab could be on their own, they have to hide themselves in some empty shells or near the rocks as fish or baby dragonfly loves to feed on them.

We also learned to differentiate between the male and female crab by looking at the shape of their stomach. Hopefully we could get a real crab to observe it.

Book Sharing - Hermit Crab's friend

This simple reading book introduces hermit crab. Hermit crab needed a shell as its house or protection from enemy who loves to eat them such as the octopus or fish. The sea anemone is a friend to the hermit crab. It will stick on to the hermit crab and share food with it. It'll also protect hermit crab from being attacked.

Once, there was an octopus that saw the hermit crab and wanted to eat it. The sea anemone stink the octopus and make it numb. Unfortunately, at this time came by a sperm whale who loves to eat octopus. The octopus became its food.

Crab

Date: 26th February 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Beautiful Ocean
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Crab

Today, we learned another new sea creature- crab. We went through some basic facts and information about the crab such as their habitat, their body parts, their food etc from book.

Basically, we will focus on crab next week. Children could bring any books or reading materials that related to crab to school to share with their fellow friends.

Note: The school will be closed for holiday on 27th February 2015 (Friday), therefore, there's no blog updates for tomorrow.