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.