Book Making Project - Part IV

Date: 25th September 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Book Making Project - Part IV

Today, the children continue with the book making. I suggested that they pasted the (a) line first before sorting out the (b) line.

Most of the children could get the (a) line correctly as it only needed to refer to the picture on that page. However, only a small number of children could understand of getting the (b) correctly. Most of them got it all wrong. I have to guide some of them one by one to redo their lines.

Samples of the lines being pasted accordingly in the booklet:

There were few of them needed to continue with their work on next Monday. Some of them could start to decorate their front page of their book on next Monday.

Book Making Project - Part III

Date: 23rd September 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Book Making Project - Part III

The lines were customized according to each individual booklet. Anyhow, the common lines were:

a) Brown bear, 
    Brown bear, 
    What do you see?

b) I can see a red bird looking at me. 

By referring to each individual booklet, I prepared the lines accordingly.

Before I distributed out the lines to the children, we went through the spelling of each animals. This is to help them to recognise the lines by their own. However, most of the prefer to ask instead of searching for the answer at first, yet, after a few guidance, the children started to look for the answers on their own. I noticed that they children would feel satisfying when they knew that they found the correct answer by themselves.

None of the children managed to complete the project today. We might need to continue with it on Friday.

24th September, 2015 (Thursday) is Hari Raya Haji. Therefore, the school will be closed for holiday. Class will resume on Friday. As a result, there will be no blog tomorrow. 

Book Making Project - Part II

Date: 22nd September 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Book Making Project - Part II

Now, most of the children had coloured their animals. I gave each of them a booklet that I have bound. I get the children to number the pages from 1-10, so that they could paste their pictures in it accordingly.

After that, the children started to cut out the pictures and pasted into their booklet according to the numbers that they have labelled. Most of them could do it properly while only a few of them left out some pages and pasted their pictures wrongly.

Tomorrow I shall prepare the lines for each of them to paste it onto their pages accordingly.

Book Making Project - Part I

Date: 21st September 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Book Making Project - Part I

I have printed out all the animals that the children had suggested. Today, I get them to colour their animals in different colours. The rules here was that, each animals will only get to have one colour by itself. They could choose any colour for their animals. It doesn't have to follow the colour that they saw in nature.

Some children were quite creative in choosing colours while some were quite confused with such instructions and they started to argue that lion shouldn't look green, rabbit shouldn't look blue etc. It took them a while to accept the colour of the animals that they saw in Eric Carle's book.

Once the children had coloured their animals, they have to rearrange the sequence of their animals in the book. I helped them to label the numbers next to their animals for the next step.

Video: Brown bear, brown bear, What do you see?

Date: 18th September 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Video: Brown bear, brown bear, What do you see?

I wanted to share the book by Eric Carle - Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see? Unfortunately, I couldn't locate the book in the school. Suddenly, I remember about a video clip that I saw from youtube that I could share with the kids. Therefore, today, I played the video clip twice. Some of the children already started to sing along with it. With its' simple and repeating lines, the children could understand the video clip easily.

Video sharing: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?

After that, the children tried to recall all the animals that they saw from the video. Then, I suggested if we could do a book on our own by referring to this one. The children agreed. They suggested about 10 types of animals that they wish to put into their book.

The animals that they had suggested were as followed:
lion, cat, horse, dolphin, elephant, fish, bear, dog, rabbit & frog

I told the children that I shall print out all the animals that they had suggested here for them to colour it on next Monday.

Coating Chocolate

Date: 17th September 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Coating Chocolate

Only a few children remembered to bring fruits to school. These were the fruits brought by the children:

Dexter brought some apples (sliced)
Shang Feng brought 2 green apples
Huey Teng brought 1 green apple
Alice brought some bananas
Wei Xiang brought some bananas

I brought in some baking chocolate to show the children before cooking it in front of them. Then, one by one came out to dip their cut fruits into the melted chocolate. I also prepared some icy cold water for them to get their chocolate to cool down immediately. Unfortunately, the water was not cold enough to freeze the chocolate coating.

Anyhow, the children still enjoyed it very much!

(Due to the worsen condition of haze in Klang on Monday night, the school announced for closure on Tuesday. Besides that, 16th September, Malaysia Day, is a public holiday. Therefore, there's no blog update for these 2 days.)

Brown Activity

Date: 14th September 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Brown Activity

The children were quite interested to carry out an activity related to chocolate especially after watching the movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

My initial plan for today was to carry out an activity for the children to make their own chocolate bowl. Unfortunately, the balloons that we had in hand didn't come in handy for such activity. Therefore, I have to change my plans. Instead of making chocolate bowl, I only coated some apples with the baking chocolate that I have cooked for the children to get a taste of it.

The children love it. I believe it's because of the chocolate. Then, they suggested if we could coat some more of such delicious dessert.

Then, we have a short discussion about it and decided we might be able to use apples, bananas and kiwi fruits to do it. I divided the groups with the plans that they could carry out the activity and eat the dessert they prepared on their own.

We will carry out this activity on this coming Thursday as the children might need time to get their parents to prepare the fruits for them.

Discussion & Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Part IV)

Date: 11th September 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Discussion & Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Part IV)

Since the movie left only about 10 minutes, I told the children that we shall put it as our last activity for the day.

We had some discussion and summary of the movie that we had watched. Today, it seems the children could express their thoughts and feelings much better compared to yesterday.

"I won't leave papa and mama"
"I want the chocolate factory"
"I don't want the chocolate factory. I want my father and mother"

These were some of their sharing about the movie.

We had some reading done before continuing with the movies.

The last part of the movie was when Willy doubted that his father loves him. He wanted Charlie to accompany him to visit his father. Finally, Willy's accepted the fact that his father loves him very much. Instead of asking Charlie to leave his family before, Willy joined in as a family member. Now, Willy has a family.

Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Part III)

Date: 10th September 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Part III)

I thought we could complete the movie today, unfortunately, with too many intervals in between for the children to ask questions, we only manage to watch for about 40 minutes today. There will be another about 10 minutes, we have to continue tomorrow.

Today, the children get to see that another boy got punished. There were quite amazed that he had shrunk into such a small size and started to worry what shall Willy Wonka do to help him. Then, when they knew that Charlie won the final prize, they started to cheer again and forgotten about the punishment earlier.

When Willy Wonka stated his terms and condition for Charlie to accept the prize, Charlie rejected it.

We paused from that part and get the children to have a short discussion and also for them to voice out their voice if the same situation happens to them.

Some of them could express their thoughts quite clearly while some were still confused on the content that we were discussing. I told them that they could think over it tonight and maybe they could express their thoughts tomorrow.

Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Part II)

Date: 9th September 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Part II)

Today, I played the movie for about 45 minutes with some intervals for explanation.

The children were surprised to see such colourful and interesting chocolate factory. They kept asking if anything would happen to Charlie when they saw the other 3 children had got themselves into trouble. One of the boys had fallen into the pond of chocolate. One of the girls had eaten the gums that provide taste of meals yet she turned violet. Another spoilt girl who were being thrown into a hole as the squirrel thought that she was a bad nut.

The children were quite worried if the 3 of them would be safe. I told them that the children would be safe but they will learn their lessons after this.

We shall continue with the movie tomorrow for the final part of it.

Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Date: 8th September 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Before showing the show to the children, we had some revision on things in brown. They were still quite insisted with the answer - chocolate. Therefore, I introduced them to the movie - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. None of the children had any idea what the story is about.

Today, we managed to watch for about 15 minutes.

This is a story about Charlie, a boy from a poor family, who is interested to visit the Chocolate Factory in the town that he is staying. Charlie stays in a small hut with his father and mother and his 4 grandparents. His father used to work in toothpaste factory but unfortunately, he was retrenched due to the introduction of machinery. 

The chocolate factory owner's announced about inviting 5 lucky children who found a golden ticket which hidden in their Wonka's chocolate bar. Charlie would get a bar of Wonka's chocolate on his birthday. Unfortunately, he had no luck until one day he found money lying on the street. He used the money to buy himself a bar of chocolate. To his surprise there's a golden ticket in it. 

At this time, the children were thrilled to know that Charlie got the golden ticket. They even applause with joy. At this moment, I realised that the children could understand the story line quite well.

We have to continue with the movie tomorrow.

More purple colour

Date: 7th September 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

More purple colour

We had the sweet potato feast last Friday. The headmistress got us some dragon fruit for the children to try today before we moved on to another colour. At first only a small group of children were eager to try while others just looked on.

We have 2 dragon fruit today. I let the children observed it before cutting it into pieces. Most of them came to take a piece while I have to encourage some of them to try it.

The children still remember that we accidentally mixed blue and red which turn out to be brown. Therefore, the children shared their thoughts about brown.

Without much thought, chocolates comes to their mind. I guided them to name me something else, yet, most of them mentioned about chocolates instead. I guess that would be their favourite dessert after all.

After some while, they managed to come out with examples of brown such as bear, ciku (a kind of local fruit in Malaysia), lion etc.

I found a movie that related to chocolate and I would like the children to watch it.

Cooking Sweet Potatoes

Date: 4th September 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Cooking Sweet Potatoes

Angela's mum got us some sweet potatoes today. Therefore, we arranged a session to cook it.

The children took one sweet potato from the basket and clean it. We shall just put the sweet potatoes into the boiling water without peeling off its skin. While waiting for the water to get boil, we did some reading.

At first, I told the children that the cooking of the sweet potatoes might take about 10 minutes, however, it was not well cook. Therefore, I extended the time and finally at 20 minutes, the sweet potatoes were cooked. Everyone of them got a small piece of sweet potatoes. Though the skin is purple in colour, yet the flesh is orange in colour. The children were still very happy and enjoy eating the sweet potatoes.

Thank you Angela's mum for such sweet treats!

Purple Colour Art (Part II)

Date: 3rd September 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Purple Colour Art (Part II)

As the children had done the printing of the egg carton cup of purple to their grapes art, I added in some drawing of leaves for them. Then, they will colour it with green colour. My initial plan was to get the children to draw some outline of the grapes that they had printed yesterday, however, it didn't make much difference and I called it off.

Therefore, the children only colour their leaves. Then, we have another about 20 minutes left, I get the children to make some sentences about the grapes art that they had done.

Here were some of the sentences made by the children with very little guidance:

Germaine: I like grapes.
Alice: I like to eat grapes.
Jie Min: I love grapes.
Umeko: Grapes are sweet.
Yun Han: Grapes are red.
Umeko: Grapes are delicious.
Alice: Grapes are purple.
Germaine: The little grapes look like a ball.

In our last theme - Yummy Food, the children had learned the food chant. I guide the children to make some chanting pattern according to that.

This is what the children had done:

Grapes, grapes, I love grapes. (Germaine)
Grapes, grapes,they were sweet. (Alice)
Grapes, grapes, grapes are delicious. (Umeko)
Grapes, grapes, grapes are juicy. (Jie Min)
Purple, purple, grapes are purple. (done by myself)

Purple colour art

Date: 2nd September 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Purple colour art

We had a short discussion about the art work that we could do. The children asked if we could cook the sweet potatoes. I told them that it might be a little difficult to find purple colour sweet potatoes now but we could do an art work on purple.

I brought in some egg cartons today. I have cut out some cups out of it. The children were quite sure that once we mixed blue and red together we shall get purple. However, I did a mistake by putting in more red than blue. The result turn out to be kind of brown instead of purple. Some of them suggested that I shall add in more blue. Yet, blue doens't seems to rectify the colour tone of it.

Since the children suggested to put in more blue. I quickly get a clean bowl and added in blue water paint first before adding any red. Finally, this time, we managed to get the purple colour mix. The children were thrilled with it. They have learned something today.

With each of them holding the egg carton cup, they dipped it into the purple paint and printed it onto the piece of drawing paper that I have prepared for them.

This is an end result for the art work today.

Purple Colour

Date: 1st September 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Purple Colour

I have told the children last week that we shall move on to purple once we had done blue. Therefore, today, I played them a song on "purple". It might take them a while to get familiar with those lyrics.

Anyhow, from the video, the children noticed some items in purple. They shared it out during the brainstorming session.

Teacher: Can you name me things in purple colour?
Angela: grapes
Alice: sweet potato, violet, dragon fruit (some answers were given with guidance)
Germaine: morning glory
Jie Min: eggplant

After that, I also mentioned a few things such as yam, mangosteen etc.

Video Sharing: colour PURPLE purple song for kindergarten

At the same time while playing the purple colour song, we also revised other colour song so that the children were more familiarize with them.

Sharing their Blue Art Work

Date: 28th August 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Sharing their Blue Art Work

Some of the children would imagine that the blue colour that they had colour was sky. Therefore, they added in details like house, car, clouds, birds, even a giant in it.

Then, those who assumed the blue art was an ocean, they will add in details such as sea creatures, rocks at the sea floor etc.

Here were some of the pictures done by the children:

National Day Theme

Date: 27th August 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

National Day Theme

I believe it's not easy for the children to express themselves in English about National Day. However, the conversation that took place today were quite fruitful for the children. I felt great about it!

We started off by observing the colours on Malaysia flags. Without much hesitation, the children realized that the 3 primary colours were on it and there's white colour as well. I briefly mentioned about the meaning of the colours, some of the kids could tell me in Mandarin but not in English. Yet, I felt contented with that as they could have some short interaction on this topic.

Then, we talked about the 14 points on the yellow star. Some of the kids could tell me a few name of the states in Malaysia. A good start! Yet, some still confuse with the concept of state and country. Some even mentioned names of other countries instead of the name of states in Malaysia. I guess, it will take them some time to really understand this concept.

As we still have about 30 minutes left, I suggested that we use beautiful colours to draw out a poster to celebrate our 58th National Day, the children agreed. I took a blank drawing paper and drew 3 words on it - I Love (a heart shape) Malaysia. Each of them take turns to use different colours to colour the 3 words that I have drawn. Then, we took a group photo together.

Happy 58th National Day.

Note: 31st August 2015 is National day and it falls on next Monday, therefore, it's a public holiday in Malaysia. No blog update for Monday.

Adding Details to their Blue Art

Date: 26th August 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Adding Details to their Blue Art

The children had drawn the details on the waste paper yesterday while waiting for their blue paper to get dry. Now, the blue colour had dried, they could start to cut their details out and paste it onto their art work. Some of them even started to add in colours to their pictures.

Most of the children could manage to complete their own masterpiece while some needed some help in giving ideas to them.

National Day is around the corner, we shall take some time tomorrow to learn some information about our country - Malaysia.

Colour the paper blue

Date: 25th August 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 3:00-4:00pm
Class: Starfruit
Theme: Rainbow Colours
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Colour the paper blue

The children were questioning about the colours of the sky and sea yesterday. Therefore, I quickly arranged an activity for them to have more impression about blue colour.

I prepared some blank drawing paper and some blue water colour. The children take turns to colour their paper blue. As there were quite a number of them, I can only allowed 2 children to do the colouring at the same time. Therefore, it took us about 45 minutes to get all the children to paint their paper.

While waiting for the paper to get dry, I wanted the children to decide if the blue that they had coloured would be a sky or an ocean. I gave them some waste paper to draw some details that they would like to add in to their blue colour art when it gets dry.

I could see that some were drawing sea creatures, while some were drawing pictures of houses and trees. Hopefully when the children were ready, they could share their art work with their friends.