Who has gone with the wind?

Date: 30^th May 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Colours – Who has gone with the wind?

Today, we started off with colours. We started off with the colours they know from the rainbow.

Teacher: How many colours are there in the rainbow?

Children: Seven.

Teacher: Great! Can you name all the colours?

Children: Yes. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple and …purple. (The children were laughing and not know why got 2 purple there.)

Teacher: The last two colours are Indigo and Violet. (Coincidently there’s a picture of a rainbow coloured by the previous class children on the wall. So I immediately point to the colours and get them to read it out. When we reached to indigo and violet, Jia Jia said it looked like brown. )

I guess we shall find out what’s that indigo and violet really looks like in the future.

Then we played a game called “Who has gone with the wind?” This is adapted from a game where kids usually played in Mandarin. So before we started with the game, I asked the children to observe the colours they have on their T-shirt and shorts then later looked at their friends’.

This is how we start:

Teacher: Gone with the wind.

Children: Who has gone with the wind?

Teacher: The person who has a red colour on his body.

(Then those children who had red on either their T-shirt or short, they have to stand up and switched their seats with their friends. At first, the children took a while to look at their T-shirt or shorts but later on, they started to observe their friends’ and tell them to move of they didn’t. )

We are ready!

Oh, I'm in red! I have gone with the wind. 

White! I have to move.

Storybook sharing – Colour My World

Yu Xi brought this book to share with her classmates. It’s a book by Barney sharing her day of colours with the children. In the book, it introduced red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. 

Transition to the New Topic

Date: 29^th May 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Transition Period to the new topic

We were ending the transportation topic, yet still some children were still interested with the topic. The hot topic for the boys will still be race car, aeroplane etc. Jun Qian brought a stunt plane model to show to his friends today.

Teacher: Do you know the name of this kind of plane?

(The children just looked at each other and can’t tell the name)

Teacher: When will you see this kind of plane?

Jun Qian: War. I saw it at the tv at home.

Teacher: Yes, in the olden time, people used this kind of plane to drop bomb.

Jun Qian: Yes, yes, to put the bomb.

Teacher: This is called stunt plane. How many people can sit in this kind of plane?

Yi Han: Two to five.

Teacher: Look carefully. (The children stood up to have a good look)

Jun Qian: Only one people. (I nodded)

Since there was some construction work happened near the school and the children saw the bulldozer. But Wei Lok said it’s a backhoe. A few children had some argument over the name of the vehicles until I give it a stop by telling them a story about this vehicle.

Story Sharing - Don and the Bigger Digger

Don is a small digger who was called to Barn School to dig on a sandpit. Bigger Digger was bigger than Don yet he was arrogant also. Out of a surprised that Don managed to dig a tin trunk that belongs to Farmer Day’s family from the sandpit and the children cheered. Bigger Digger had to keep quiet and stand aside.

Story Sharing - Monty on the Move

Monty was a racing motorbike. He enjoyed the race and the cheering of the crowds. Unfortunately, his wheels couldn’t move one day and had to be sent to the theme park. Monty was upset that he had to stand still and get rusty. However, children like to climb on him when they saw it. So the mechanics decided to put him on the merry-go-round so that children could enjoy riding in it. Monty was happy that he was on the move and not stand still anymore.

We are moving in to the new theme tomorrow. Children are encouraged to bring any books related to colours. Eventhough colours are pretty simple for the children, yet I hope they will still enjoy the topic.  

Choosing a New Topic

Date: 28^th May 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Choosing New Topic

The transportation theme is coming to an end soon this week. Today, we recapped all the vocabulary that we had learned so far. Then we started to discuss about the new topic that we are about to start.

The list below shows the discussion and voting numbers for each topic.

Topic Suggested	Suggested by	Vote
1) Family	Phoeon	6
2) Food	Wei Lok	5
3) Body	Zhen Yuan	0
4) Occupation	Yi Han	2
5) Colour / Rainbow	Yu Xi	11
6) Space	Derek	4
7) Water	Yu Xi	2
8) Nature	Yu Xi	0
9) Plants	Phoeon	4
10) Storybook	Yu Xin	0
11) Pet Animal	Wei Lok / Yu Xi	2
12) Insects	Yi Han	2
13) Reptiles	Yi Jie	1

Each child was given 3 chances to vote for the topic that they wanted. Therefore, some children didn’t vote for the topic that they suggested. As a result after all the voting and discussion, the children finally decided that they wanted to do colour/rainbow as their next topic.

We went through the songs we sang for transportation and the children played the caboose game today. We shall go through all the activities that the children can do before we end the transportation theme this week. 

Role Play - Flight Attendant

Date: 27^th May 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, happy Transrportation – Role Play

Today, we continued a little bit further about aeroplane.

Teacher: Who is the person called who flies an air craft?

Children: Don’t know…driver….hahaha…. (the children can say that in Mandarin)

Teacher: I want it in English. ..(still no answer from the floor) It’s called a pilot.

Children: Pirate? (They sound like that)

Teacher: Not pirate. It’s pilot. (I wrote both of the spelling on the board). Pilot is a person who flies an air craft, no matter it’s an aeroplane or helicopter. In an aeroplane, usually there are 2 pilots, a pilot and a co-pilot. Aeroplanes can fly several hundreds of people and they need someone else to serve the food. Who do we called them?

Children: Food people. Hahaha. …(Those who had been on an aeroplane seems to know that someone serves food or drinks to them)

Teacher: They are called flight attendant. They served food and drinks to passengers.

Then we had a role play for flight attendant. Firstly, we got Phoeon and Jia Jia to be the first 2 flight attendant to serve the passengers. Then it followed by Wei Lok and Zhen Yuan. After that it was Yi Han and Yu Xi. Lastly, it’s Yi Jie and Kern Ee. They have to ask each of the passengers, “Do you want some …(it can be orange juice, coffee, tea or even food etc). The passengers will choose to say, “Yes, please.” Or “No, thanks” The 3 group of children went well.

Video Clip – A Day life of a Flight Attendant

This video clip shows a day life of a flight attendant who was flying from Hong Kong to Sydney. 

Transportation Worksheet

Date: 23rd May 2013
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, happy Transrportation - Worksheet

Today, we continued with the transportation worksheet that I had prepared for the children. Today, they need to compine two individual words to form a new word. Example: tug + boat = tugboat. This worksheet seems easy for the 6 years old kids but some of the 5 years old kids can't seems to complete it. Even with some guidance, it looks pretty hard for them.

While the children were doing the worksheet, I called one by one to revise on the vocabulary that we had gone through throughout the theme. Some of them need more practise.

It's Wesak holiday tomorrow. Happy Wesak Day. We shall see the kids on next Monday again!

Field Trip - Train Ride & Visit to the Jetty

Date: 22^nd May 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, happy Transportation – Field Trip – A train ride to Port Klang & Visit to the Jetty

It’s a sunny Wednesday morning. All the Pomegranate class’ children were every excited waiting for the clock to strike 9:30am so that they could leave for the train station. Finally about 10 minutes later, we all arrived at the train station. One by one, the children took turn to buy the ticket. We also observed all the items we can find at the train station such as the notice, the clock that showed when the train is coming etc. 

The train arrived at Telok Gadong station at about 10:30am. The children got up the train slowly. They were looking out of the window. At one of the train stop, the children suddenly shouted that they saw flat car, hopper car and a caboose. They are so lucky!

At last, we reached the Port Klang station about 10 minutes later. We brought the children to the Pulau Ketam Jetty. The children were divided into 3 groups accompanied by 3 teachers each time to bring them out to have a closer look at the jetty and boats. 

I believe it’s a tired yet happy day for the children when they could actually see all the things they learn from books appear in front of them. We left the jetty around 11:45am and head back to the school with satisfaction.

Our class in the afternoon was as usual. Since the memory is still fresh in the children’s mind, I quickly got them to recall and draw what they saw on a piece of paper. With the train ticket that we got back for each of them, they pasted it on the same piece of paper as well. 

The Wright Brothers

Date: 21^st May 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, happy Transportation – The Wright Brothers

Tomorrow, the Pomegranate class' children are going to take the commuter train to Port Klang to have a look at the boat. So I used some time to arrange the partners of the children and reminded them some basic rules such as obeying instruction from the teacher, no pushing when going up the train etc. The children were so excited and couldn’t stop talking about it.

The children were too excited that we had to take a short break so that they could calm down and move on with our lesson today.

Teacher: Do you know who invented air plane?

(Some shook their head, some just keep quiet.)

Bee Chien: Yes, I know. But I forgot.

Teacher: How many people were there?

Bee Chien: Yes, I know. Two.

Teacher: Were they friends?

Bee Chien: No, they were brothers.

Teacher: Yes, they were the Wright Brothers.

(Some children started to say the name in Mandarin. I think the children knew about it only they didn’t know how to say it in English.)

The facts about The Wright Brothers

The Wright Brothers were bicycle-makers before they became fascinated by flying machines. In 1903, after four years of tests, they put a petrol engine and propellers on a glider and made the world’s first powered flight. The place was Kitty Hawk, a windy beach in North Carolina, USA. The date was December 17^th.

At the same time, I played a video clip about the first flight that the Wright Brothers did.

Hopefully all the children enjoyed the train ride tomorrow. Please be punctual to school with the school green T-shirt and appropriate clothes and shoes.

Paper Plane, Paper Plane

Date: 20^th May 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, happy Transportation – Paper Plane, Paper Plane

Jia Hoong brought a die cast aeroplane model to show it to his classmates. It’s a plane model of Virginia Atlantic. By using the plane model, I revised through the name of the parts of the aeroplane. It’s amazing that children can remember all those names.

We can’t play with just one aeroplane model. So I asked if the children would like to fold paper plane. Yi Han and Bee Chien said both of them know how to fold a simple aeroplane. From Yi Han and Bee Chien’s description of their paper plane, I roughly know it’s a different kind of folding. So immediately, I break the class into 2 groups with Yi Han and Bee Chien to be their group leader. 

Bee Chien: This is how you fold it!

Then once everyone got their paper plane done, I suggested a flying competition. Everyone is so excited to try out their paper plane. The children lined up eagerly waiting for their turn to fly their paper plane. After a few rounds of flying their paper plane, they got a tie. There’s no winner or loser. However, everyone is happy with this result. 

Now, everyone is so enthusiastic about the paper plane. I taught them another way of folding the paper plane so it could fly higher. We all sat down in a circle to complete that before we call it a day.

The Difference between a Helicopter & an Aeroplane

Date: 17^th May 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, happy Transportation – The Difference Between a Helicopter & Aeroplane

After the video clip that we saw yesterday, today we discussed about the difference between a helicopter and an aeroplane. Before we start with the comparison of these 2 important air transportations, I went through the name of the parts for both.

Then I listed down four aspects for the children to do comparison:

	Helicopter	Aeroplane
Shape & Design	Oval, no wings, got main rotor, no nose, got landing skids, got tail rotor	Long, got wings, no rotor, got nose, got wheels, got rudder
Speed	Slower than aeroplane	Fast (3,000 km/hr)
Take Off/Landing	Take off/landing vertically	Need a big space to take off/landing
Capacity	2-5 people	Several hundreds passengers

Most of the comparisons details were given by the children except for one or two where they didn’t know how to express their thoughts or how to verse it.

Art & Craft – Collage Work on Plane

The children completed the picture of their plane by adding some cotton balls as clouds. It looks easy but when the cotton got stuck onto the children’s hand, they started to shout for help. Overall they did it quite beautifully. 

Helicopter & Aeroplane

Date: 16^th May 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 4:30 – 5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Happy, happy Transportation – Helicopter & Aeroplane

Kwan Ming brought a small little book about “Plane” where he would like to share with his friend. The content of the book includes counting and some vocabulary that I can teach the children.

The added vocabularies are

taking off

landing

airport

Story Sharing – We Love Hattie

Hattie is the helicopter. His pilot, Roy, flies to Star Island to pick up some roses for the visitors. When Hattie arrived at the airport, the Group Captain and his 2 grandchildren, Posy and Tim, were at the airport too. Tim wanted to take a ride in an aeroplane. The Captain said the aeroplane needs a lot of fuel and space to take off. Then he saw Hattie and suggested to ride on Hattie instead. So Roy, the pilot, took them for a ride around Star Island before heading back to the airport.

Video Clip Sharing

I found a video clip showing how a Boeing 787 taking off and landing. 

I also found another video clip about the taking off and landing of a helicopter. 

From these 2 video clips, the children came to a conclusion that an aeroplane needs a very big space to take off while a helicopter can just take off at an empty land.

We shall discuss more about the different between an aeroplane and helicopter tomorrow. Hopefully the children could learn more about these 2 air transportation.