Jelly Mould Transportation - Part II

Date: 29^th March 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Jelly Mould Transportation (part II)

The jelly that we made yesterday had hardened. Let see if we can use the mould to cut out the transportation shape. All the children were very excited when they saw me bringing in the pot of jelly and bowl. All the children waited for their turns to try out the shape. We have a yacht, post van, train, ambulance, helicopter and a rocket. Everyone is so eager to choose the shapes that they want. Unfortunately, the jelly was too soft and when we tried to pick up the jelly it can’t form the shape. However, the children still enjoy eating the jelly though.

Review of the activities:

Teacher: Is our jelly successful? (some said yes, some shook their head, obviously they might not understand what is successful)

Teacher: Did the jelly show the shape of the transportation we want?

Children: No.

Teacher: So, this is considered not successful.

Teacher: Did you still enjoy it?

Yi Jie: Yes, the jelly is tasty. (He even showing his thumb up when he said that)

Jun Qian: It’s too sour.

Phoeon: I don’t like it, it’s very sweet.

Kwan Ming: Very sour. Not nice. (Shaking his head when he said that)

Kern Ee: I like it. It’s delicious.

Wei Lok: It’s tasty. I like it.

(Even though they kept complaining it is sour, yet the children still ask for second round. They even licked the bowl until it’s clean.)

Story sharing session – Here Comes Jessie

Jessie is a jeep who has a driver named Wendy. Wendy drives Jessie by bringing stuff around in the safari park. One day, Wendy drove the vet to see the mother monkey who had just gave birth to a baby monkey. Then shortly after, Wendy went off with Jessie to get some hay and blankets for the donkeys. Suddenly they received a call from the zoo keeper that the baby monkey was missing. Wendy drove Jessie around the safari park to look for the baby monkey. Everyone is worried except for Jessie. Apparently, baby monkey is sleeping soundly inside Jessie. Everyone is glad that baby monkey was safe with Jessie. 

Jelly Mould Transportation (part I)

Date: 28^th March 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Jelly Mould Transportation (part I)

Jing Yi’s mother borrowed us some cookie mould with assorted transportation and animal shape. It’s wonderful. So the children had tried with bread for their morning Chinese session by using the animal mould. This time round, we decided to try using agar-agar jelly and see if the mould will work the same as on the bread.

Today, we had all the ingredients and materials for making the agar-agar jelly. While waiting for the water to boil, we had a story telling session.

Tubby and Speedy

Tubby is a tractor who moves very slow while Speedy is a race car who moves very fast. Speedy is very arrogant and always tease Tubby. One time, it started to rain for day and night. All the roads are very slippery. Yet, Speedy still moves as fast as usual. He didn’t care about the muddy water landed on the farm animal. However, Speedy moves too fast and he landed in the pond. He was drenched and farmer Bell has to get Tubby to tow him out from the water. Now, Tubby hooted at Speedy as he is moving faster than him.

When the water was boiled, we added in the agar-agar and we used a mixture of tropical fruit and mango as our flavour. The children took turns to stir the agar-agar jelly. Some of them are quite brave while some didn’t dare to move near. After some encouragement, everyone had their turn to stir the agar-agar. Tomorrow we shall try to make the mould of the transportation.

See, I can do it!

I'm not afraid, I also can do it!

Tomorrow we shall try to make the mould of the transportation. Hopefully it works. 

I know how a truck looks like

Date: 27^th March 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – I know how does a truck looks like!

Story sharing – “Thomas and a Dragon”

This story is about Thomas (a train) going to the harbour to get a special load which is a paper dragon for the carnival. On the other side, Percy (a train) was stuck at the siding before the station due to some technical problem with the line. Percy was forced to stay over night there and got a shock when he saw the dragon being pushed passed him. He didn’t dare to look at it. Later in the morning when he saw Thomas, he told Thomas how frightened he was to see the dragon. Thomas didn’t laugh at him but praising him that he is brave to tell out what he is scared of. The story is to encourage children to tell out when they are afraid of something and not to keep to themselves. 

Today Derek brought a tow truck. During circle time, I got the children to share about what they know about a tow truck.

Teacher: Do you know what vehicles is this?

Children: Yes. Tow truck.

Teacher: You are right. It’s a tow truck. What does a tow truck do?

Children: Tow car.

Teacher: Why do we need to call a tow truck to tow our car?

Children: Car spoilt already.

Teacher: Yes. When our car is spoilt, we need to call a tow truck to drive us back to the workshop.

Children: Mcqueen’s friend is a tow truck. (children were referring to the character in the movie – “The Cars”. )

Teacher: What’s the name of the tow truck then?

Children: Mater. (Wow, they know! Means that they do listen to the conversation, that’s a good sign!)

I also gave other example of trucks that we can see on the road such as garbage truck, trucks that carries heavy loads etc.

Then I got the children to come out with a look of the truck by using their toys or blocks. At first, everyone is looking for a truck. Then later, I hinted them that I want them to build a truck or show how does a truck looks like. Then only they started to look for blocks and lego for wheels. This is a picture of the truck that the children made: 

Not bad, it’s very creative. Then I let the children played the caboose game for 15 minutes before we called it a day. 

I shall repair the Train & Worksheet

Date: 26^th March 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Train Repair & Worksheet

Yesterday, the ex-student who had just graduated from the school last year came back to attend “Ex-student Reunion Day”. So the children also played in our classrooms. By the time I got into the room yesterday, the children told me the following matters:

Children: Teacher, look! Our train is broken.

Teacher: Why you didn’t take good care of it?

Children: No, the 7 years old children broken it.

Teacher: What shall we do with those broken trains?

Children: We throw it away.

Teacher: Throw it away? Isn’t it a waste?

Children: Teacher Chia wants the soft drink can. Can we give it to her?

Teacher: But I wanted to keep it for your parents to see during the Parents’ Day.

Children: But it’s broken.

Teacher: Let see what we can do about it. Let me think first.

Then I told the children we shall discuss it the next day to see if we should throw it or keep it.

However, when I looked at their train today, I told the children, we can fix it. So each group of children took back their train and waited. I went around and checked and discussed with them how to fix their train. Everyone is happy that they can play with their train once again.

After that, we continue with the number – Trace and Match exercise that we didn’t complete yesterday. Most of the children can understand the exercise today and I only gave a few hint, they managed to complete it by their own. I believe practice makes perfect. 

I can count & Worksheet

Date: 25^th March 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – I can count & Worksheet

Some of the children were still very unfamiliar with the wording of the numbers. They know how to count by looking at the numbers. But when I gave them the wording of the numbers, they didn’t know what it is. So today, we had a small activities for them to get familiarize with the wording of the numbers. I had prepared some small card writing from one to ten. The children paired themselves with a partner. Then they took turn to pick a card from me. After that, by looking at the wording written on the card, they have to pick the numbers of toys accordingly and place it in front of them. We had this for 2 rounds. Most of the children managed to get the correct number, yet some need help. 

Lastly, a worksheet on Trace and Match about numbers were given to the children. The worksheet was not completed. We shall carry on with it tomorrow. 

Review of Transportation Vocabulary & Worksheet

Date: 22^nd March 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Review of Transportation Vocabulary & Worksheet

Today, we had a review of all the vocabulary that we had went through since we started the transportation topic.

passenger	bus stop	bus driver	ticket	seat
ride	train station	train engine	tank car	box car
hopper car	flat car	caboose

Then we had a discussion of what is next land transportation the children are more interested to learn about. Most of them voted lorry. So we shall have some activities on lorry next week. After the lesson on lorry, we shall move on to either sky transportation or water transportation. If we have sufficient time, we might also touch a little on community helper transportation such as ambulance, fire engine and police car.

Then we did a matching worksheet of the land transportation.

Just right before we end our session for today, we did a revision of the wording of numbers such as one, two, three, four etc until ten. Many of the children had forgotten about the spelling of the wording of numbers, so I shall prepare more practice of this next week.

Train Making - Part II

Date: 21^st March 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Train Making (part II)

When I stepped into the class today, all the children complained that their train had fallen apart. It’s also our purpose of the class today to discuss other alternatives to put all the parts of the trains together and hopefully when they pushed it around the classroom, it won’t fall apart.

Teacher: What did you all use to stick the parts of the train together?

Children: Glue

Children: Sticky tape

Teacher: Did it stick?

Children: No.

Children: Use super glue.

Teacher: You have to be very careful with super glue. It might stick your finger together if you are careless.

Children: I know. I know. We can use the pipe cleaner.

Teacher: That’s a good idea. (I showed them a pipe cleaner.)

Teacher: But how can I use the pipe cleaner here.

Children: Make holes.

Teacher: What do you call that?

Children: Ehh…..super man hahaha (they started to talk about something else)

Teacher: It is called a puncher. (I showed them a hole puncher)

So I got the children to go back to their group and I go around from group to group to punch holes for them and demonstrate how to tie the pipe cleaner. Finally, the children’s train can move around without falling apart. They were very happy with it. 

Train Making (part I)

Date: 20^th March 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Train Making

The children were very excited as they know that they were going to make the train today. We sat down in a corner to go through all the materials we have: all sizes of boxes, tissue rolls, egg cartons, soft drinks can etc. Everyone is eyeing on the materials to see which one to choose later.

Before we start, I let the children drew lots. This is to give chance for them to work with everyone and not with the same friend all the time. I divided them into 4 groups with about 3 children in each group. It’s a mixture of 5 years old and 6 years old.

They were so eager to start by looking at the boxes and discussed how to start. Only a one or two children still couldn’t get the idea of a group making only one train and they seems to walk around trying to create one for their own. After a short talk with them, they seem to move back to their group and work together. 

The children tried all kinds of ways, glue or even using the sticky tape also can’t get their parts of trains together. It seems will get lose. We shall have a review and later discussion tomorrow on how to get the parts of the train together.

At the beginning most of the children were quite lost of how to start. But after they have observed others, they seem to have some idea what to do with the materials. I’m glad that after a while they manage to form ideas by putting things together. Working in a group helps them to stimulate better idea to form it.

However only 3 groups of children managed to complete their train while one of the group was not successful. We shall continue tomorrow. 

Caboose Game

Date: 19^th March 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Caboose Game

Today, the children were very excited as they were ready to play the Caboose Game that I had introduced yesterday. After we had revised the type of freight train that I had made into a poster, I got the children to get ready for the outdoor game. This time, I set some rules for the children before they begin. Eventually, the children can follow most of the rules I set.

The game lasted for 3 rounds where children took their turn to become the train engine and the caboose. Unfortunately, some matters happened in between so we have to call off the game earlier.

We are ready for the Caboose Game!

Review of the game:

Teacher: Did you enjoy the game?

Children: Yes, we enjoy the game.

Teacher: Did all of you follow the train engine?

(Most of them nodded their head, only a few shook their head)

Teacher: Why you didn’t follow the train engine? He/She will protect you from the caboose?

Children: He/She runs too fast.

Children: I don’t know where my train is.

Teacher: The train engine has to make sure your line is following behind you. This is call co-operation.

I used this chance to remind them about co-operation. Without co-operation, teamwork will not be successful. I also reminded them that the train making tomorrow will be based on team work as well. So make sure they remember this. On the other hand, those children who had not bring any materials for the train making; kindly remember to bring it tomorrow. 

Transportation Worksheet & Games

Date: 18^th March 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Transportation Worksheet & Game

We started off with the revision of the type of freight train that I had introduced last Friday- hopper car, box car, tank car, flat car and caboose. Jun Qian also brought a hopper car toy to show it to his friends. There’s also some coal inside the hopper car. The children had a better idea of a hopper car.

Then we did a transportation worksheet on colours. Most of the children can recognize the name of the colours while some do need some guidance.

Caboose Game

This game is similar to Hen and Eagle game. I divided the children into 3 groups with about 4 children each. One person will be the caboose, who acts just like the character of the Eagle. The first person will be the train engine, act like the character of the mother hen, that has to protect the back portion of his/her train and avoid being caught by the caboose. The person who was being caught will be the caboose.

At first all the children were very alert and stay away from the caboose. After a while, when the caboose started to chase after them, they all started to break off their line and run around.

I guess we can have this game again tomorrow if time is permitted so that the children have a better idea how it should be played. 

We shall do the train art work on Wednesday. Hopefully all parents can help your child to look up for suitable boxes, toilet rolls, plastic egg cartons etc for creating a train. Thank you.

Types of Freight Train

Date: 15^th March 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30pm- 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Type of Freight Train

The purpose of the class today is to introduce another train song & type of freight train. We started off with the introduction of the song – Chug, Chug, Chug, sang in the tune of Jingle Bell.

The lyrics are as followed:

Chug, chug, chug; Chug, chug, chug,

Chugging down the track.

See our little choo-choo train

Chugging down and back.

We are cars – all lined up,

Chugging just like so.

Hear our whistle toot-toot-toot

As down and back we go.

Story book sharing session – Bulgy Rides again

Phoeon brought a story book for sharing today. It is from the Thomas & friends series. The story is about Bulgy who is a double decker bus. It has been put aside due to his misbehaviour which caused a crash. It has been turned into a hen house. During summer time, Thomas and Emily were sent for repair. There’s not enough of train to pick up passengers. The Fat Controller decided to get Bulgy back on the road. However, Bulgy impatient ruined the whole situation. Bulgy felt sad and decided not to pick anymore passengers but to help the farmers to sell vegetables. He didn't feel jealous anymore seeing Thomas picking up those passengers.

Introduction to different type of Freight Train

There are different types of freight train used for different purposes. This is to give some idea for the children when they design their train next week with their boxes and bottles.

There are hopper car, box car, flat car, tank car and caboose.

Dear parents, kindly collect all kinds of box or bottles materials such as shoe box, or any kind of rectangular box (can be small or big), or vitagen bottle, soft drinks can or whatever materials which are suitable for making a train by next week.

I know how to draw a Train

Date: 14^th March 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Drawing of My Train

The children are very excited when comes to circle time today. Jun Qian brought a track racing toy to show the children of how to move the train by spinning the wheels at one end of the toy. Everyone started to talk about Thomas and friends. So today, we had a short discussion of where did the children go on a train.

Teacher: Did you travel to another city or country in a train?

Jun Qian: Yes, I go from one airport to another airport. We are going to Bali.

Phoeon: I sit in a train to go shopping.

Kern Ee: I shall sit in an aeroplane and boat when we go to Langkawi. (he didn’t mention anything about train. Anyhow, I ask him to take a picture of the boat and aeroplane if he goes to Langkawi again. )

Wei Ni: I have not been on a train.

Then I asked the children to observe the shape of the train. They are quite good in shapes as they said the front part of the train looks like a cylinder or a tube which is quite right. I hint to them and said if it looks like a rectangle. They nod their head. Then I drew a train on the white board. At the same time, I also invited some of the children to draw their train on the white board.

After that, I gave each a piece of paper to everyone. They observe the toy train to draw a picture of the train or by their imagination of a train. Then they should name their train. Most of them picked the names from the Thomas & friends series such as Thomas, Gordon etc.

These are some pictures that the children had drawn:

Derek: The name of the train is just like my name!

Wei Lok: See, there's other cars with my train. 

Zhen Yuan: I have no name for my train!

We need some rectangular boxes or egg carton (prefer plastic) to make the train art. Hopefully parents could help to collect such boxes for the children to bring to school by next week. 

Know about Thomas & friends

Date: 12^th March 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Know about Thomas & friends

Today, we started with the train topic for transportation. Bee Chien brought some train toys and it’s from the Thomas and friends series. Bee Chien was absent today. So I got Jun Qian to introduce Thomas & friends to the children.

Teacher: Jun Qian, can you introduced the number 1-6 trains to all your friends?

Jun Qian: No. 1 is Thomas. No. 2 is Edward.

Teacher: Look, Edward is longer than Thomas. Thomas is a small train.

Jun Qian: No. 3 is Henry. No. 4 is Gordon.

Teacher: Henry is as long as Gordon.

Jun Qian: No. 5 is James. No. 6 is Percy.

Teacher: Percy is the same length as Thomas and James is as long as Edward.

So I used this chance to introduce “long, longer than, the longest”. I also used another example by comparing the height of the children. I picked Jia Jia, Yi Han and Yu Xin to give an example of such comparison by using “tall, taller than, the tallest”.

At the same time, the words of the numbers were introduced to the children. They took turn to spell out the words of the numbers from 1 – 10. An activity will be conducted according to this on Thursday. I reminded the children to revise it at home. Hopefully parents could guide them to recognize the wordings of the numbers from 1- 10. 

There's no blog update tomorrow. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. I shall update it on Thursday. 

Summary on bus

Date: 11^th March 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Sum up the topics about Bus

Today, we did an imagination sharing session about what we can see from the bus. I let the children think for a while before we start one by one to tell what they can see from the bus. They may use the sentence by saying: I can see….

Zhen Yuan: I can see a taxi.

Phoeon: I can see the road.

Jun Qian: I can see a lorry.

Wei Lok: I can see a car.

Ivy: I can see the rain.

Bee Chien: I can see the tower.

Derek: I can see an ambulance

Kwan Ming: I can see the KLCC building.

Yi Han: I can see an aeroplane.

Yi Jie: I can see flowers.

Jia Jia: I can see a rainbow.

Wei Ni: I can the house.

Kern Ee: I can see a race car.

Yu Xi: I can see a police car.

Yu Xin: I can see durian. (Yu Xi’s explanation is that Yu Xin saw the durian seller at the road side)

Then, we discuss of where to place all the bus that the children had coloured. Finally, we all agreed to paste it on the green felt sheet. It looks nice.

The bus topic is almost coming to an end. Parents can start to read books on trains to your child to increase the chances of sharing information or even stories about trains for our next 2 weeks. 

Transportation Story Sharing

Date: 8^th March 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Story Sharing

Today, I got some of the children to complete their art work. Yi Han, Bee Chien and Ivy have to finish their colouring and cutting out the shape of the bus. On the other hand, Wei Ni has to complete her traffic light art and craft.

Derek and Jun Qian brought a storybook each about Thomas and friends. They wanted to share with the classmates. So our activity today is storybook sharing.

Firstly, we started with Jun Qian who wanted to read the storybook to his classmates. It is “Hello, Thomas”. It’s a short and simple story introducing all the trains in Thomas & friends. All the classmates listen carefully and quietly while Jun Qian was reading the story to them.

Secondly, I read a short story about “The Wheels on the Bus”. The children were attracted to the events that happened in the bus such as the wiper goes swish, swish, swish; the baby cries wah wah wah; the parents said sh, sh, sh, to the baby; the bus door open and shut etc.

Lastly, I read “Thomas and Gordon- off the Rails” to the children. This story was about Gordon who grumbled of pulling trucks and got himself landed in the dirty ditch. Thomas teased him. Thomas then got himself stuck in a pit hole as he didn’t follow instruction at the mine. He was not supposed to cross the danger line but he wanted to have some adventure for the day. However, when Gordon got to know about the incident, he was laughing at it but he still rush to rescue Thomas. Both of them felt disgrace with their silliness but later they understand that they were not supposed to tease at each other. The moral story to the children is united we stand, together we fall. We were not supposed to laugh or tease at any of their friends who need help. 

Art & Craft - Traffic Light

Date: 7^th March 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, Happy Transportation – Art & Craft – Traffic Light

On the road, we often see a lot of signs on the road for driver to follow. Just like our school rules. Traffic light is one of it that gives instruction when comes to a junction.

Teacher: What’s the colour of a traffic light.

Children: Red, yellow and green.

Teacher: What is red for?

Children: Stop.

Teacher: Good. How about green?

Children: To go.

Teacher: What about yellow?

Children: Slow down.

Teacher: Why do we need to have a traffic light?

Children: To give people to stop and go.

Teacher: Yes, traffic light is important when it comes to a junction where cars need to give chance for other to move. 

We sang a song about traffic light – Traffic Light (tune: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

Twinkle, twinkle, traffic light
Standing on the corner bright
Green means go, we all know
Yellow means wait, even if you're late
Red means stop
Twinkle, twinkle, traffic light
Standing on the corner bright

Then children cut out the circle of a red, yellow and green and paste it on the black colour paper to make it into a traffic light. This is to practice their small motor skill. Somehow, the children have improved on their cutting skills.