I learn this from cookie making

Date: 31^st January 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

What did I learn from the cookie making session?

All the children were still very excited about the cookie making we did yesterday. Besides that, we didn’t get a chance to sit down to talk about the event yesterday. So today, I used some time to have a circle time to find out what have everyone learned from this cookie making session.

Teacher: What do you think about the cookie making we did yesterday? 

Phoeon: Very happy.

Wei Lok: Very good.

Wei Ni: Very excited.

Bee Chien: Very excited

Yu Xi: Very good.

Note: Other children didn’t what to say so they just looked at me and grin.

Teacher: Now you have some idea about cookie making, maybe you can help your mom to do it next time. Will you help?

Children: Yes, yes.

Teacher: Besides, cookie making, there’s a lot of work that mom and dad will do at home before Chinese New Year. How can you help your mom?

Children: Clean the window, clean the table, clean the toilet, clean the floor.

Bee Chien: Yes, I know. I can clean my toys.

I asked the children to observe the things or area in the house where they can help to clean up. 

Story Reading – Little Quack

This story is about numbers counting and also about courage to try new things. It is a simple and interesting story about 5 little ducklings whose first time leaving their nest and finding courage to step into the water.

Mr Wolf, what time is it?

This is a game teaching the children about asking the question in full and answer it correctly. Besides knowing how to tell the time, the children also learned about breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everyone has a good time playing the game.

At last ..cookie making day is here!

Date: 30^th January 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

Cookie Making session

After a long wait, finally this day arrived. It’s our cookie making day for our Chinese New Year theme. The children were so excited looking at all the ingredients and utensils that I have prepared on the table. Before we start, we went through all the ingredients together by touching and smelling it.

This is the ingredients that we need to make the hazelnut rosettes.

120g butter

50g castor sugar

30g ground hazelnut

120g plain flour

½ tsp vanilla

50g chocolate chips

Method:

1  1. Cream butter and castor sugar in a mixer till light and fluffy. Add vanilla and mix well.

2  2.  Mix in ground hazelnut and plain flour till well combined.

3  3. Put mixture into a hand fluted tube or you can also use a piping bag fitted with fluted tube to form flower   

        shape. Top each rosette with a chocolate chip as decoration.

4  4. Bake in pre-heated oven at 170°C for about 20 minutes till lightly brown and firm to touch. Remove and cool.

The children were very excited to try every step from the flour sifting to the shaping of the shape. However, the shapes that the children make were too thin. Therefore the cookies were burned before the expected cooking time is up.  The whole process took more than an hour to complete. As a result, all the cookies that were baked were packed into their Tupperware and to be given to the children on the next day. Each of them will get around 4 cookies. Hopefully they enjoy the process of the cookie making. 

Preparation for cookie making

Date: 29^th January 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

Preparation for the cookie making

We revised all the vocabulary that we had learned so far.

The charity bazaar is coming next Tuesday, so we had a discussion if the cookie that we are going to make tomorrow is for charity bazaar or just to bring home to eat. So I let the children think for a while before we cast the vote. However, 9 out of 15 children wish to bring the cookie home and only 6 out of 15 children wish the cookies to be sold at the charity bazaar. Therefore, we decided that the cookies are not to be sold at the charity bazaar.

We went through all the ingredients and the methods of how to make the cookies.

Just right before we end the day, we did some colouring work for the preparation of making a simple Chinese New Year card. 

Preparation for Charity Bazaar - 5th Feb 2013

Date: 25^th January 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

Preparation for the charity bazaar

This coming 5^th February 2013, we are having our Chinese New Year charity bazaar. Pomegranate is one of the organizer for this event. Therefore we have to get ready the coupon for selling by next week. So today, we postpone the cookie making session to next week and we prepare the coupon.

First, I break the class into 2 big groups. The 5 years old children basically helped out to stamp the school stamp on each of the coupon. They waited for their turn patiently and tried their best to put the stamp correctly.

While the 6 years old children divided into three groups. There’s one group of three children helped out to write “RM 1” on the coupon while the rest of the class divided themselves into 2 groups for cutting the coupon. In between, they switched role when they were tired.

Finally we all managed to get all the coupons cut out just right before it’s time to go home.

We hope all parents could give full support in this event to make it into a success.

I want to make cookies too

Date: 23^rd January 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

I want to make cookies too…

Cookies are usually one of the food that every family will prepare. Either you can buy it or make it on your own. I believe that children would love to land their hand in cookie making. Today, we had a discussion on the cookie making. The discussion was as followed:

I showed them a recipe book to start off with.

Teacher: Do you know what this is? (Everyone looked at the front cover of the book and shake their head)

Teacher: This is a recipe book. Do you know why we need to have a recipe book?

Bee Chien: To tell us how to make cookies.

Teacher: Yes, that’s right. The recipe book will tell us what kind of ingredients to use and the method of how to make it.

(Among the recipe in the book, I have chosen Hazelnut Rosettes as the cookie that we are going to bake next week).

We went through the ingredients together. Besides that, we also discussed about the things that we need.

Teacher: Now, we know about the ingredients, we shall need to use a weigh machine to measure all the ingredients correctly. Then, are we going to use our hand to mix everything together?

Children: No.

Teacher: Then, what shall we use? (No one could give an answer for that)

Teacher: We call it a mixer. (Coincidently the recipe book that I’m showing them has a picture of a hand mixer and a stand mixer)

Children: Oh, my house also got that. But not this colour.

Teacher: Yes, it comes in different colour. Then after we have mix in all the ingredients with the mixer, where shall we put it? (no answer from them, so I drew a picture of an oven)

Jun Qian: I know. It’s an oven.

Teacher: Yes, it is. We also need a tray to put the cookies on it before sending it to the oven.

We also revised the Traditional Chinese New Year Rhymes & the sing the song “Happy Happy CNY” before we called it a day.  

Fun with origami - part IV

Date: 22^nd January 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

Fun with origami – Part IV

I returned the pig origami to each of the children and get them to paste it on the worksheet that I had prepared for them. They need to write the word “pig” on the blanks given which it is a nursery rhyme – “This little pig went to market”

The nursery rhyme goes like this:

This little pig went to market

This little pig stayed at home

This little pig had roast beef

This little pig had none

This little pig said wee, wee, wee

And ran all the way back home

We recited the nursery rhyme for 3 times before we moved on to the next activities.

Biscuits/Cookies

As the Chinese New Year is around the corner, I believe that parents had already started to buy cookies or biscuits to celebrate this wonderful event. So I used this chance to ask the children which type of cookies do they like.

Phoeon: Peanut cookies

Bee Chien: Chocolate cookies

Wei Lok: Strawberries cookies

Yi Han: kosong cookies (I did ask her again whether she means butter cookies, she said “no, kosong cookies”, so I let it be)

Yu Xi: Pineapple cookies

Derek: Blueberries cookies

Kern Ee: I have mango, papaya at home.

Teacher: Kern Ee, we are discussing about cookies. But those are fruits.

(Yet, Kern Ee still continue to give examples of food instead of cookies’ name)

Coincidently that I have some strawberry cookies in hand, I brought it in to show it to the children. They are very eager to try it. So I set a rule that they have to ask in a polite way then only they can have it. They have to say, “Please can I have one?” So the children enjoyed the cookies except for Yu Xi, Yu Xin, Jia Jia & Wei Ni as some of them were sick and some of them can’t take eggs. So the homework for the children is to find out what’s the name of their favourite cookies or biscuits for Chinese New Year.

Fun with origami - part III

Date: 21^st January 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

Fun with origami – Part III

After 2 rounds of paper origami that we did last week, the children would be more skillful this time. This time round, the children were more confident in folding the origami on their own and they managed to complete the pig origami within half an hour. That is a very great improvement. They were quite pleased with themselves. We shall do a worksheet on the pig origami the next day.

There’s an additional shape that I introduced today: diamond

Since the children managed to complete the origami in such short time, I played a video clip of the “Happy Happy CNY” song for them to listen to. Just right before the children went off for the day, we went through the lyrics again.

The lyric of the song is as followed:

It’s arrived the new sunshine

Let the old days say goodbye

Reunion night such a great time

Home sweet home so nice

Flying high into the sky

Reaching every golden mine

Let the wishes be your guide

Brings you joys and peace of mind

Chorus:

Happy happy CNY

Happy happy you and I

Let us celebrate every moment day and night

This year will be doing fine

Everything will be alright

Wish you Happy New Year

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Fun with origami (part II)

Date: 18th January 2013
Day: Friday
Time: 4:30 - 5:30 pm
Teacher: Teacher Yeong
Class: Pomegranate

Fun with origami (part II)
Today, we continued with the origami making. Today, we did the dog origami. This time round, the children were more skillful. I gave each of them a rectangular colour paper and required them to cut it into a triangle just like the one we started yesterday. At least most of them can do it without much assistance this time. The dog origami was a little complicated than the rabbit. Yet, all of the children managed to complete it and they were happy playing with it as well. I allowed them to bring home and play with it.

We learn a few shape's name today : rectangle, triangle, square

We were supposed to watch a video clip of the chinese new year song, however, there's an interruption on the internet so we have to postpone it till Monday. Same goes with the photos.

Fun with origami

Date: 17th January 2013
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Fun with origami
The purpose of introducing origami is to add more content to the Chinese New Year scrapbook. Besides that, the children can practise their motor skill and also their ability to follow instructions. The initial plan was to do 3 animal origamis today which is the rabbit, dog and the pig. Unfortunately, we can only complete the rabbit. I didn't expect that the children need so much assistance. Most of the children can follow the instruction and only one of them got the instruction wrongly.

We did the rabbit origami. There's only about 6 steps. However, the children took a while to understand all the steps. When some of them managed to get the meaning of it, they tried to help out the others. This is a good chance for the children to show their ability to help out those who in need. We shall continue with the origami tomorrow.

I shall try to upload the photos by tomorrow as well.

I found a English Chinese New Year song which I wanted to share with the children. So just right before the class end today, we read through the lyrics. We shall have a look at the video clip tomorrow.

Chinese Zodiac Maze - I can solve it..

Date: 16th January 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Class: Pomegranate

Chinese Zodiac Maze – I can solve it

All the children returned the worksheet that I gave them yesterday to ask about their parents’ Chinese Zodiac sign. Most of them followed the instruction and asked the question in English and they returned the complete worksheet. Only a few of them forgot to bring back the worksheet. They were reminded to bring back the worksheet once they have completed the task.

Today, I gave a maze for the children to try. It’s quite a simple and straight forward one. Therefore, most of them can complete it without much help. I think it does boost up their confidence as they were very happy that they could solve it especially the 5 years old children.

However, when I gave the “Chinese Zodiac Word Search” worksheet, the children finds it difficult especially the 5 years old children. Since the 6 years old children manage to find most of the words, I leave it to them to look for the rest of the words and concentrate in helping the 5 years old children to solve the word search. They were happy at the end when they managed to find all the names of the 12 Chinese Zodiac in the puzzle.

Chinese New Year Scrapbook

Date: 15th January 2013
Day: Tuesday
Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm
Teacher: Teacher Yeong
Class: Pomegranate

Chinese New Year Scrapbook
I planned to start a Chinese New Year scrapbook by collecting all the related information about Chinese New Year that we did together in the class. So today, we started by getting the children to fill up information about themselves, such as their name and age. I also got them to draw a picture of themselves. Some of the children can really draw.

Besides that, I also give out a worksheet for the children to practice to ask "What is...?". The children will need to ask this question to their mother and father about their Chinese Zodiac sign. Hopefully that the children can return the worksheet after they had practiced it at home with the answer.

We have a new child who joined in for full day class today, Wei Ni. So I didn't go in to deep in into any other topics but just to introduce briefly what we had introduced about Chinese New Year and also about the Chinese Zodiac Sign.

I also shared a Chinese New Year Rhyme that I found. The rhymes is as below:

You'll will find whenever the New Year comes,
The Kitchen God will want some plums.
The girls will want some flowers new,
The boys will want firecrackers, too.
A new felt cap will please papa,
And a sugar cake for dear mama.

I learn to ask....

Date: 14th January 2013
Day: Monday
Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

I will speak politely
As I stepped into the class this afternoon, the children told me that Derek said something inappropriate. As Chinese New Year is just around the corner, we did some discussion on what to say. Politeness is very important as it's believe that everyone should speak in good words during this festival. So I reminded the children that we have to have courteosy in our words when we speak.

Revision on storybook - "Chinese New Year"
We did a revision on the storybook that we read last Friday to see if the children can remember most of the storyline in it. As we go through the book in brief, these are the words that I picked for the children to relate it to the festival:
     shirt, skirt, pants, dress, decorate, celebrate, lion dance troupe, pussy willow, eve, reunion dinner,  feast, visit

I learn to ask...
On the other hand, I also bring this part in as I wanted the kids to ask and answer in full sentences. We picked the Chinese Zodiac Sign as an example for this exercise.

Teacher: How do you ask a question when you wish to know a new friend's name?
Jia Jia: Your name is what?
Bee Chien: Your name is who?
Teacher: Don't you think there's something not right about the question?
Everyone was looking at the board puzzling what was wrong with it. Suddenly Phoeon said,"I know. What is your name?"
Teacher: Yes, that's the correct way of asking it.

Here's the activities that we did. We all sat in the circle. The 1st question and answer game is to ask about a person's name. Then it followed by asking about each other's Chinese Zodiac sign. Most of the children can go it without any guidance. Only one or two of the 5 years old children need to be given hint then only they manage to carry on with the practice. This would be one of the task that I would give to the children to ask the parents about their Chinese Zodiac Sign. I would appreciate if parents could co-operate and answer in full sentence or encourage your child to ask in English and not just merely getting an answer for it.

Fun with the Chinese Zodiac Sign

Date: 11th January 2013
Day: Friday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm

We started off our lesson today with a story reading session. I found a short story book about Chinese New Year. It's a simple and short for children to understand what people do before and on Chinese New Year. The children enjoyed the story too.

After that, we had a short activities by using the Chinese Zodiac Sign. I got the children to arrange the sequence of the 12 animals. Most of them managed to get it correctly while some look on. The sequence of the 12 animals are as followed:

Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig

I prepared the cards with all the animals and named it. 12 children were involved in this game. As we have altogether 14 children, so 2 of them have to take turn to play. Each of them needs to pick an animal and then rearranged themselves according to the sequence. I only give a hint how to start, the children seems to remember the sequence and they were also cooperative enough to remind each other who should be the next person. It's fun to see them working together. We only managed to have 2 rounds of the games as time was up for the day. I promised that we shall play that again in the future if we got the time.

The 12 Chinese Zodiac Sign

Date: 10th January 2013
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30 - 5:30pm

We revised through the list of words that we had gone through during our snake topic. Besides that, the children wanted to listen to the "Nian" monster's story again. I didn't retell the story but getting the children to fill in the gap. They can remember most of the part of the story.

Then we went into the discussion about the 12 Chinese Zodiac Sign.

Teacher: What do you know about the Chinese Zodiac Sign?
Children: (they looked a little puzzled and not sure what to reply)
Teacher: This year 2013 is the year of snake
Jia Jia: Oh, I know. I'm a pig.
Teacher: Jia Jia was born in the year of pig. How about the rest of you?
Yu Xi: I'm a dog.
Kwan Ming: I'm a mouse. (I corrected that it's a rat)
Kern Ee: Me too. I'm a mouse.

There were also some other replies from the floor but the children were mostly born in the mixture of pig, dog and rat. There's a few version of the story about the Chinese Zodiac Sign. However, I chose this one to tell to the children with some help of the picture that I had prepared.

This is the version of the story that I had told the children:

Long long time ago, Jade emperor wanted a way to measure time and year. Therefore, he decided to inform all the animals to have a race across the flowing river. The first 12 animals who successfully made it to the other side of the river bank will have a place in the Zodiac sign for the year.

All the animals waited at the other side of the river bank. There's this rat and a cat also wish to take part but they were poor swimmer. So the rat suggested that they climbed up to the ox and asked him for help to cross the river. The kind ox agreed. So the rat and the cat crossed the river on the back of the ox. But the tricky rat pushed the cat into the river just right before they could reached the other side of the river. The tricky rat jumped in front of the ox making him to be the 1st to be named of the year. The ox is named for the 2nd year.

Then the tiger struggled its way and managed to be the 3rd animal to arrive. The rabbit didn't know how to swim but it is clever. It hopped on the log that it could find in the river. The rabbit was the 4th. At the same time, down came the dragon. The Jade Emperor was curioused and asked: "You can fly, why are you so late?" The dragon replied: "On my way here, I heard some villages were having draught and I made some rain for them." The Jade Emperor was happy and made the dragon the 5th animal.

From far, the hooves of the horse can be heard. The Jade Emperor was expecting to see a horse. However, when the horse reached the river bank, suddenly a snake sneaked out from the horse leg and frightened it to back off. The snake took the 6th place followed by the horse. Then not long later, came the goat, monkey and a rooster on a raft. The Jade Emperor named the goat to be the 8th followed by the monkey and the rooster.

The dog arrived shortly. The Jade Emperor asked;" Why are you so late?" "The river was so clean so I took a bath on my way here," replied the dog. The Jade Emperor named the 11th place for the dog. Last came the pig. "I found a lot of food on my way here and had a good sleep too. Am I late?" the pig asked. Jade Emperor was impressed that the pig still made his way here and named him the 12th place. Now the cat only managed to get itself out of the river. As all the 12 animals had arrived, there's no place for the cat. The cat was so furious and being enemy with the rat.

We shall have some other activities about the 12 Chinese Zodiac Sign for the next few days.

Why we called it Chinese New Year...ooh ooh, the "Nian" monster!

Date: 9^th January 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30pm – 5:30pm

After a few days of discussion about snake, we go into the topic on Chinese New Year.

I asked a question: Why do we celebrate Chinese New Year?

Jia Jia: Fire cracker

Yi Han: “pok pok”

I recapped the question about as the children didn’t get to reply accordingly.

Teacher: Why don’t we call it Malay New Year? Or call it Indian New Year? Why must we call it Chinese New Year?

After a few thought, Jia Jia finally replied that because we are Chinese, so the festival is named that way.

Yes, this is a new year for the race of Chinese people. It’s a very important festival for the Chinese. It’s also the beginning of spring where all the plants and crops begin to grow back from the long winter. It is also a festival where all the family members will reunion again. Due to this, we also learn the term of the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter.

The “Nian” Monster

This is a legend story about “Nian” monster and somehow related to some custom when we celebrate Chinese New Year. “Nian” monster used to stay in the hills and forest. It only feeds on animals. However, once it came near to the village and tasted human flesh and felt satisfied with the taste of it. So every year around the same time, the “Nian” monster will come out to hunt on human. The people were so scared but they learned the pattern of the “Nian” monster and asked help from the God. The God told the people that they could use red colour and fire to scare away the monster. Therefore, as the time for the visit of the “Nian” monster, all the villagers painted their door red and prepared the fireworks to scare away the monster. It successfully scared away the “Nian” monster. Everyone was so happy that every year they would do the same to keep the “Nian” monster away.

Snake Vocabulary

Date: 8^th January 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30 pm

After the snake art work we did yesterday, the children were more aware of how to differentiate a snake from a worm. The most obvious part would be the tongue of the snake.

These are some facts and vocabulary that we had gone through during the class about snake:

-          Fact:  Snake is a reptile. Reptile is scaly, spiky, horned, clawed or venomous.

-          Vocabulary: slithering, crawling, burrowing, hissing, biting, forked tongue,

At the same time, I also introduced comparison of adjectives when we compare a snake to a worm. These were the comparison of adjectives that I gave and some of it were given by the children:

-          long x short

-          big x small

-          heavy x light

-          up x down

-          in x out

-          beautiful x ugly

Happy Chinese New Year with Snake Theme

Date: 3^rd & 4^th January 2013

Day: Thursday & Friday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm
Title: Chinese New Year along with Snake Theme

Year 2013 is the year of snake. So I bring along the snake theme into our theme for this Chinese New Year. For the last few days since 2^nd January 2013, we have been studying the snake. At the same time, I had prepared a snake art work for the children. This is to arouse the interest for them to learn more about snake.

3^rd January 2013 (Thursday) – Introduction on Snake

Teacher: What do you think of a snake?

Children: Very long

Children: Scary

Teacher: Why do you think the snake is scary?

Children: It got poison.

Children: It can bite me.

We looked at a picture of a snake from an encyclopedia which introduce about Reptiles. At the same time, I also read them a story about a snake: A Snake Mistake.

A Snake Mistake: It’s a story about farmer Henry who wanted to trick his hen to lay eggs by putting old light bulbs into their nest. However, came along a snake called Jake. It accidentally ate the light bulb. Luckily farmer Henry took Jake to the vet and got the light bulb out.

4^th January 2013 – Snake Art Craft (part I)

We continued with the discussion about the snake. We talked about the outlook of the snake.

Teacher: How does the snake looks like?

Children: It’s long.

Children: Green colour.

Children: Got tongue. (I corrected them as it’s a forked tongue)

Teacher: Can we find the snake in our classroom?//

Children: No. It’s in the garden.

Snake usually will find a hiding place in the garden or in the bushes. So I brought the kids out to the garden to look for a piece of leaf for our art craft. The snake art craft needed the following things:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-          <!--[endif]-->water colour paints

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-          <!--[endif]-->a piece of leaf (prefer a wide and big leaf)

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-          <!--[endif]-->some oval shapes as for the body of the snake

<!--[if !supportLists]-->-          <!--[endif]-->scissors and gums

First, I got the children to paint the leaf and print it on the white paper that I had prepared for each of them. Then after that, they have to paint all the oval shape of the snake with the colour they had chosen.

The art craft hasn’t completed, so we have to continue with it on Monday. 

Leaf printing