Final Activity - Sushi Rice Making

Date: 9th October 2014
Day: Thursday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Final Activity - Sushi Rice Making

Early this morning, I had already get the rice cooked as we needed the rice to be cold by the time we used it. On the other hand, I have also pre-cooked some fresh sweet corns. 

At 10 o'clock, I brought in all the ingredients that we needed into the class. The children were very excited and kept looking at the ingredients and wished to start as soon as possible. 

First, I took out all the rice from the rice cooker and put it in a big bowl so that we could mix in the ingredients that we needed. Then, I get some of the children to help out to shred the carrots. Once it was done, I mixed in the carrots, sweet corns, Kewpie mayonnaise spread and some Kewpie roasted sesame sauce. The children helped to mix all the ingredients together by taking turns. 

I seasoned the rice to its best taste before putting it into a small bowl for each child. At the same time, I also cut the seaweed sheet into half for the children to wrap up the rice. The children requested to put in some cucumber, therefore, I sliced some Japanese cucumber for the children to wrap it with the sushi rice.

The children said it's delicious and they kept asking for more seaweed. 

Introduction of Ingredients & Voting for new topic

Date: 8th October 2014
Day: Wednesday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Introduction of Ingredients & Voting for new topic

I would like to introduce the ingredients to the children before the activity tomorrow.

Basically, we needed the following ingredients for making the sushi rice:-

-1) Japanese rice
-2) a carrot
-3) some fresh sweet corns
-4) a packet of seaweed (those that used for wrapping sushi)
-5) a small bottle of roasted sesame sauce
-6) a small bottle of sandwich spread

I briefly went through the steps for the making of the sushi rice to the children so that they could have some idea about it tomorrow:-

Steps of making sushi rice:-
-1) Cook the Japanese rice
-2) Cook the fresh sweet corns
-3) Sliced the carrot
-4) Mixed all the above ingredients together with the sandwich spread & roasted sesame sauce

Since the theme is coming to an end soon, we needed to choose another small topic to start off with. We only have about 6-8 weeks time only. Therefore, we needed a topic that we could do for that duration. I guided the children to vote for the topic.

The children suggested the following topic:-
-transportation
-animals
-colours
-family
-storybooks
-in a house

After a round of explanation and discussion, the children started to vote for their favourite topic. Finally, the children chose - "In a House" as their next topic. I believe this was being influenced by the reading passage that we did earlier about - "In the Home". Hopefully the children would enjoy the new topic. We shall start on next Monday.

Role Play - Shopping (Part IV)

Date: 7th October 2014
Day: Tuesday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Role Play - Shopping (Part IV)

There are about another 6-7 children who didn't get to take turns last Friday. Therefore, today, we continue with our role play activity today. 

I only observed from nearby and I noticed that the children could start to do some simple sum. Only that they didn't know exactly how much to return the change. Therefore, I only guided them from there. 

Just before the class ended today, I reminded the children about the activity - sushi rice making that we shall carry out on Thursday. 

Role Play - Supermarket (Part III)

Date: 3rd October 2014
Day: Friday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Role Play - Supermarket (Part III)

Initially, there's no class for today as most of the teachers had gone to participate in the activity for the  Ninth Day Celebration. However, one of the teacher manage to handle the other class temporarily so that I could carry out the role play with the Pomegranate class today.

Today, there's 3 roles which the children needed to take their turn - cashier (2), shopkeeper (1) and customers (the rest of the group). We followed the name list and each time we would select 3 children to play the role. Each round will take about 5 minutes so that we could be able to get everyone involved. Unfortunately, there's still a small group of children couldn't get their chance to play the role. We might have to continue with it next week.

I just stood nearby to observe how the children carry out the activity. They had lots of fun.

Our theme - Yummy Food is coming to an end soon. We shall carry out an activity that could include most of the food group that appears on the food pyramid. After a short discussion with the children, they decided that they would like to make - sushi rice. I shall prepare all the ingredients next week.

Note: 6th October, 2014 (Monday) is a public holiday. Therefore, there will be no blog update for that day.

Role Play - Supermarket (Part II)

Date: 1st October 2014
Day: Wednesday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Role Play - Supermarket (Part II)

The children were so eager to start off with the role play. As they are not very familiar with the counting and money, I acted as the cashier today. I got another volunteer to be the shopkeeper while the rest of them were customers. 

I distributed the money randomly to each of them while kept some small change at the cashier. Each child will only allow to buy 2 items each time or less so that the flow would be much better. 

From this activity, the children get to learn to count with simple numbers. They were still quite confused when I didn't give them back any change. I do believe, after a few rounds, they will somehow get the concept of it. 

The children were doing shopping.

Chloe is counting her items.

Jing Heng also doing his counting with his fingers.

Jia Xuan paying for her goods.

Yee Shuen is happy that she got the payment right.

Role Play - Supermarket (Part I)

Date: 30th September 2014
Day: Tuesday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Role Play - Supermarket (Part I)

Today, we needed to prepare some "money".  I used the A4 paper and divided it into eight equal pieces and cut it out. There were 11 of them this week. Therefore, I divided the children into 3 big groups. I needed more children in colouring blue for RM1, as a result, there were 5 in that group. Then 3 to colour red for RM10 and another 3 to colour green for RM5. 

At the same time, some children brought us some empty boxes and plastic cover of food item. I stuffed the plastic cover with some old newspaper so that it looked more solid and labelled all with prices. 

The children were excited looking at those items that they had prepared for the role play. We shall try it out tomorrow. 

Note: This coming Thursday is Double Ninth Festival which the school will organise some activities for the children to participate. The activity will take place in the morning for two days, Thursday & Friday. As a result, the English thematic class will be cancelled on those days. 

Where do we buy food from?

Date: 29th September 2014
Day: Monday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Where do we buy food from?

10:00-10:30am - snack time

My intention was to bring in a role play for the children for this theme. Therefore, we had a brainstorming session on where do we buy food from. 

Teacher: Where do you think we can get food from?
Children: Supermarket.
Children: Pasar Malam (night market). 
Teacher: Yes, we can also get it from the morning market. We shall set up a supermarket and some role plays. What do you think we could do?
Children: Buy things...Food....

Then from the discussion, I managed to sort out some role play for the children to do - cashier, shopkeeper and customers. 

I have some empty biscuits, cereals boxes to show to the children that we could use it as our stock. We concentrated on food. Therefore, the children were requested to bring empty boxes of food to school so that we could set up our supermarket. 

On the other hand, we also needed some "money". I used this opportunity to introduce RM1, RM5 & RM10 to the children. At once, the children could differentiate the distinctive colours - blue (RM1), green (RM5) & red (RM10). I shall cut out some rectangular paper for the children tomorrow to colour it accordingly. 

10 minutes Ice Cream

Date: 26th September 2014
Day: Friday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

10 minutes Ice Cream

The children were alerted and excited when they saw me bringing in all the ingredients that we needed for today's activity. 

I introduced some of the ingredients before we start. The steps and procedure basically is as followed:

1) Pour in the whipping cream into the smaller container.
2) Add in the egg yolk.
3) Add in the sugar.
4) Add in a little chocolate powder

Then I close the container tight and passed it to everyone to have a good shake of it before placing it into the bigger container. Then I added in the ice cube and the salt. 2 children volunteer to provide their towel for wrapping around the container. I stabled the towel by putting a rubber band around it. 

Now, the action started. The children needed to roll the container as fast as they could across the hall. The container has some weight in it where the children find it difficult to roll. I have to give some help in this. After about 10 minutes, somehow, the ice cream mixture was still very watery. It was not set yet. Therefore, we added in some more ice cube and salt. We rolled it a little harder and faster this time. But I could see that the children were quite tired rolling it.

This time, when we checked the ice cream, it had set. The children were cheering and waited with their cups. Each got to try a little bit of it and they claimed that the ice cream tasted delicious. 

Preparation of the calcium activity

Date: 25th September 2014
Day: Thursday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Preparation of the calcium activity

10:00-10:30am - snack time (the children had their music class today)

Since we only had about half an hour left for today, we went through the process and the ingredients of the 10 minutes ice cream that we shall carry out tomorrow. 

Basically, we needed the following ingredients:

1) 200ml whipping cream
2) 1-2 egg yolks
3) 2-3 tablespoon of sugar 
4) chocolate powder (the children prefer this)

At the same time we also needed 1-2 bags of ice cube, a small container, a bigger container that can be fitted in by the small container, plenty of salt just in case, towel and rubber bands. 

All the ingredients will be prepared by the school. The children might volunteer in providing their towels. 

I wish to show them a video of how to do the ice cream, unfortunately, the computer had been occupied. Therefore, I just read them the steps and procedure from the book again.

Reading & Discussion of the next activity

Date: 24th September 2014
Day: Wednesday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Reading & Discussion of the next activity

We continue reading the "Good Enough to Eat" book. This time, we concentrated on minerals, vitamins and also food about protein and calcium. 

Since we talked about calcium, I brought in another book - Food Experiment (in Mandarin) which introduce an experiment related to calcium - 10 minutes ice-cream. We read through the ingredients and steps of how to carry out the activity. We shall carry out this activity on Friday. 

Tomorrow we shall do a language activity related to the scrambled egg yesterday. 

Cooking the Supreme Scrambled Egg

Date: 23rd September 2014
Day: Tuesday
Time: 10-00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Cooking the Supreme Scrambled Egg

The children got excited looking at those ingredients that I brought in to the class. I have the following ingredients:

1) 6 eggs
2) some milk
3) some salt and pepper
4) butter

Before we start cooking, I listed out the steps and numbers of helpers we needed for this activity. Coincidentally, I managed to delegate all the jobs to each child. So the children draw lots for their task. 

The steps and procedure and the person in charges:

1) crack the eggs - Yee Shuen, Chloe, Shang En, Zhi Yi, Xin Yee, Xiang Qin

2) Add the milk - Qiao Yi

3) Put the salt & pepper - Xiao Xuan

4) Whisk the egg mixture - Li Chuan

5) Put the butter in a pan - Aiden

6) Add the egg mixture into the pan - Jing Heng
7) Stir the egg mixture - Jia Xuan

I managed to take pictures of most of the children except for the last 2 task as the pan is getting hot and action needed to be quick. Most of the children did their part and they were eager to taste it. 

Then I brought in a bread toaster. A few children took turn to toast the bread. As we only have 6 slices of bread, everyone has half a share of it. 

Now, the scrambled eggs are done. The bread had been spread with a thin layer of butter, I put the scrambled eggs on top of it before serving it to the children. They all had a wonderful supreme scrambled egg for extra snack time today. 

Food Jigsaw Puzzle

Date: 19th September 2014
Day: Friday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Pomegranate
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Food Jigsaw Puzzle

Previously, the five years old children were being paired in groups with the six years old children to carry out this food jigsaw puzzle activity. However, today the five years old children will have to carry out this activity in a smaller group. There are 2 different types of jigsaw puzzles. One of it is much simple where one could complete it individually. The other one is much more complicated where most of the children would needed to work in pairs or three. 

The children decided which jigsaw puzzle they wanted to work on and they went to the different table accordingly. Most of the children have no difficulty in completing the simple one while some needed some guidance for the more complicated one. 

Note: I will be on medical leave on Monday to follow up check up. Therefore, we shall carry out the supreme scrambled egg activity on Tuesday. 

Read on Supreme Scrambled Eggs

Date: 18th September 2014
Day: Thursday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Read on Supreme Scrambled Eggs

We are still working on protein project this week. Therefore, I found another simple recipe that the children might be able to do it on their own with very little of supervision. With using the same book, "Cooking with Kids" we read through the procedure and steps about how to cook the supreme scrambled eggs. 

Basically the ingredients that we needed were as followed:
1) 6 eggs
2) some milk
3) some salt and pepper
4) some butter

We shall carry out this activity on next Tuesday. 

Some of the children requested to colour their worksheet that they had just completed yesterday. Therefore I allowed them to continue with it. 

Video Sharing & Worksheet on Protein

Date: 17th September 2014
Day: Wednesday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Video Sharing & Worksheet on Protein

As the children were interested to know how the sausages were made, hereby, I showed them a video of how the big factories produce sausages. 

Video #1: How it Made Hot Dogs

At the same time, I also read them a procedure of homemade sausages from a book called "Watch it...Do it - Cooking for Kids made easy". This book guided parents and kids to learn the procedure and steps about cooking. 

However, there were a few children who are vegetarian. They can't take any meat. Therefore, I told the children that we shall choose another item to work on for our protein project. They agreed. 

As of today, I also prepared a worksheet for them to work on. The previous protein poster was done in a big group. However, today's worksheet, the children were given the same pictures and they have to cut out the words and match it accordingly. This time, they have to learn to recognize all the words that appear on the poster and match it correctly with the food item's pictures. 

Due to insufficient time, the children only managed to complete pasting all the words accordingly. They wanted to colour the pictures. We shall continue this if we have time tomorrow. 

Reading - Sausages

Date: 15th September 2014
Day: Monday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Reading - Sausages

10:00-10:30am - snack time

I'm not able to carry out too vigorous activity with the children, therefore, this week, we shall concentrate more on reading and worksheet activity. 

Book Sharing - Sausages by Jessica Souhami
This is a story about a poor woodcutter, named John, who found an elf on a tree one day. The elf was stuck on a tree. After helping the elf, it gave John three wishes. John was delighted with such events and got home to tell his wife, Martha. Both of them sat down and think hard of what to wish until John got hungry and wish for some sausages. 

When all of the sudden sausages came down from the sky, Martha got angry and made another wish. She wished that all the sausages would stick on John's nose. The sausage did. No matter how Martha tried to pull the sausages away from John's nose, it was not successful. As a result, Martha has to use the last wish to get the sausages away from John's nose. 

Even though they had used up their three wishes with all the sausages and not other valuable things, yet, they had a wonderful dinner. 

Protein Project Work

Date: 10th - 12th September 2014
Day: Wednesday - Friday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Protein Project Work

This part of the work was being carried out by the relief teacher. 

With the reading that I did with them yesterday, I also prepared some pictures and headlines for the children to do a poster about "Food has Protein". The children needed to choose an item to colour and then pasted them on the poster according to the heading. All the food items were being categorised according to the reading we had yesterday. 

This activity took them about 2 days to complete. Then, with all the shopping malls leaflets we had, I prepared another activity for the children to do with the relief teacher. 

From all the shopping malls' leaflet, the children will choose at least 4 types of food that contains protein to be pasted in their worksheet. 

Which food has protein?

Date: 9th September 2014
Day: Tuesday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Which food has protein?

We moved on to the next food pyramid which is related to food that has protein and calcium. Therefore, we went through some readings about this. From the reading, I managed to summarize a simple categories for the children to understand. 


Protein can be found in our body as well as in food. There are many kinds of food that contains protein. Protein helps to build muscles, cells and organs. I listed down those foods that the children are familiar with. Here are the categories that I made for their understanding:

1) Meat, fish, and poultry - example: beef, fish, chicken
2) Legume - example: dried beans, peas
3) Nut - example: peanut
4) Dairy product - example: milk, yogurt, cheese
5) Other miscellaneous food - example: egg, tofu, other egg substitute food etc. 

Note: I accidentally hurt my back and there's a bone fracture. I will be on leave from today onwards till early next week. All the activities in the thematic class will be conducted by another relief teacher. Sorry for any inconvenience caused. 

Pumpkin Sweet Dumpling

Date: 5th September 2014
Day: Friday
Time: 10:00-11:00am
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Yummy Food
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Pumpkin Sweet Dumpling

Today, I brought in the pumpkin dough. The children were quite excited and kept asking me what they are going to do with it. I said,"We shall make 'tang yuan'."All seems quite puzzled. Not very sure what exactly am I talking about. 

The dough was quite wet, therefore, I added in some more glutinous rice flour to make it dryer so that the children could roll them into small round balls. Once the children got their share of dough, they immediately started off by rolling it into small round balls. Then their memory recalled. They kept saying that they did this before and showing me the expression of how delicious it would be. Hahaha, the children are so cute. 

While waiting for the children to finish all the dough, I started to boil some water with ginger, sugar and some pandan leaves which I picked freshly from our school garden. 

Once the children had completed a small plate of round dough, I put all of it into the boiling water. The children kept commending that the dessert smells nice. 

When the sweet dumpling started to float, it means that it has cooked. I switched off the heat and let it get cold for a while before scooping them up to serve. 

The children enjoyed the pumpkin sweet dumpling. Some of them even asked for second round.