Peaceful Giant – Anchisaurus

Date: 29^th April 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Peaceful Giant – Anchisaurus

Before moving too deep into a particular dinosaur, I introduced the periodical era of the dinosaur. Though it might be quite difficult for the children to visualize it, however, it’s still necessary for me to introduce the name of the period such as Triassic Period, Jurassic Period etc.

Today, we started with peaceful giant – Anchisaurus.

Anchisaurus

-          It is the smallest prosauropods

-          It is about 8 feet (2.5m) long

-          It is a herbivore

-          Its special features: long neck, strong thumb claw

Introduction to Dinosaur

Date: 28^th April 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Introduction to Dinosaur

Earlier, the children had already decided the name for their theme – dinosaur. They voted for a few title and “Walking with Dinosaur” was the most voted.

Today, I did some simple introduction about dinosaur. Hopefully the content is not that complicated for the children to understand.

I only pointed two points here today:

-          In Greek, dinosaur is called “terrible lizard”. With the word lizard, the children could imagine that the dinosaur has 4 legs with a tail.

-          Dinosaur is probably divided into plant-eater and meat-eater.

In order for the children to understand what is plant-eater and meat-eater.

Teacher: Can you name me some plant-eater animal that you know?

Children: cow……sheep……goat…….horse……

Teacher: Can you name me some meat-eater animal that you know?

Children: Cheetah…..lion……tiger……jaguar…….

I let the children did some dinosaur drawing. Some of them could draw quite well.

Final activities for Underwater World

Date: 25^th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Final activities for Underwater World

As I promised the children that I will play them the video about the giant squid. Earlier, they had watched it for a few minutes.

So since this would be our final activity for “Underwater World”, therefore, I choose to let them watched it today.

Video sharing : Giant Squid

In the video, the children could see that the size of the squid could be as big as an adult. The diver were trying to place a camera at the back of the squid in order to trace and track to see if there’s any other bigger squid that were living at the bottom of the sea.

During one of the mission, the squid caught hold of the diver’s head. Luckily that diver managed to struggle and got the squid to let go.

The children concluded that it’s dangerous to mess with big squid as it will suck their head with its powerful tentacles.

Transition Period to A New Topic

Date: 24^th April 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Transition Period to A New Topic

These two days would be a transition period to the new topic. The children helped out to sort out all the art work and worksheets that they had done for the theme – Underwater World.

The children were amazed by their own art work. You could hear them said: “Wow, this is beautiful!” “Wow, this is my shark, arghh!” They were eager to share it with their fellow friends.

I shall distribute these worksheets together with the summary of the theme lesson by end of next week. 

World Book Day Activities

Date: 23^rd April 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

World Book Day Activities

Today is World Book Day. The children had brought their storybooks here and wish to share with their fellow classmates. I asked the children if they could come out to read out their books but they were too shy. Therefore, I went through all the books and read those if I could as some of the books are dictionary or facts books.

These were the books that I had shared in the class for our “World Book Day”.

Those books were brought by the following children:

Aiden - Dinosaur

Xiang Qin – Mirror Mirror

Xin Yi - Benny Bear the Litterbug

Kern Ee – Dinosaur Shapes & Tug, tug

Zhi Yi – The Lion King

Yi Jie – My Book

Harraz – Visual Dictionary

Kwan Ming – Extreme Animal Dictionary

Earth Day Activity – Planting Onion

Date: 22^nd April 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Earth Day Activity – Planting Onion

In conjunction with World Book Day tomorrow, we started the book sharing session from today onwards as the children were eager to share their books with their fellow classmates. Today, I chose 3 children to share their book with their classmates – Kwan Ming, Derek and Teng Hong.

Kwan Ming and Derek’s book are the same – Underwater Sea while Teng Hong shared a book about dinosaur.

Kwan Ming picked his favourite page of the book. It's a picture of a Colossal Squid fighting with a Sperm Whale.

Derek said his favourite page in the book is the Great White Shark.

Teng Hong shared his dinosaur book with his friends.

After showing the children about the simple planting at home from online, today, we shall try to do some simple planting. I prepared some recycle plastic water bottles and soil. Some children brought some onions to be planted in. The children were divided into 9 groups with 2 children in each group. Then we all went to the garden to put in the soil and the onions. It shall take them about 1-2 weeks for observing the growth of the onion plant. 

Introduction to Earth Day

Date: 21^st April 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Introduction to Earth Day

22^nd April 2014, which is tomorrow, is Earth Day. Therefore, I wish to take this opportunity to introduce “Earth Day” to the children.

The theme of Earth Day for year 2014 is Green Cities. So we had some brainstorming session about green cities.

Teacher: We live in the city. (I drew a picture of tall buildings with houses.) How could we make the city looks green?

Kwan Ming: We paint it green.

Teacher: Paint it green? Hmm….any other ideas?

Kern Ee: Flower.

Derek: Grass.

Kwan Ming: Tree.

Teacher: Yes, we can plant more plants around us so the cities would look green. We can do it at home as well.

Then I showed the children some pictures of how other people used recycle materials to do simple planting at home. 

Drawing of squid

Date: 18^th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Drawing of squid

I went through the parts of the squid with the children. At the same time, the children also tried to remember the shape, the facts and the features that we had done yesterday.

Then the children requested if they could draw the squid on a piece of paper. Therefore, I gave each a piece of paper and at the same time, I also drew a picture of the squid that I remembered on the board for the children’s reference.

While the children were drawing, I get some of them to do individual reading.

Squid

Date: 17^th April 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Squid

The children were interested in squid and cuttlefish. Therefore, I used about 15 minutes to go through some facts about squid with the children that I can find online.

Video Sharing - Ten Facts about Squid

Then I also showed them a short clip about the giant squid. Unfortunately, the time doesn’t allow, so I told the children that we shall watch it the next day.

I have a squid in the freezer. Before the end of the class, I let the children observed the squid. The children could see the tentacles, the suction cups, the eyes as well as the shape of the squid. 

More facts about Jellyfish & worksheet

Date: 16^th April 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

More facts about Jellyfish & worksheet

I was on leave yesterday, therefore, there’s no blog update for 15^th April, 2014.

Today, we continued with the questions and answers about jellyfish. Before we go deeper, I revised with the children about the facts we talked about on Monday. Then with some of the information and facts added today, the children can get the clearer picture about the jellyfish.

Worksheet: Maze & Drawing the missing jellyfish

Worksheet #1: Maze

The children needed to avoid the jellyfish and find their way out of the maze.

Worksheet #2: Missing jellyfish

Mother jellyfish has 8 babies; however, there were only 6. Therefore, the children needed to draw the 2 missing babies. Most of the children could get the missing numbers correctly except some of them drew too many. 

Facts about Jellyfish & voting for new theme topic

Date: 14^th April 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Facts about Jellyfish & voting for new theme topic

Today, we went through some questions and answers about jellyfish. Through the answers, the children could understand more about jellyfish.

The children did mention sometime ago that they wanted to do some other new theme topic. Therefore, I used about 15 minutes from the class today to discuss which topic they are interested in.

The children suggested 5 topics:

-          dinosaurs

-          insects

-          transportation

-          food

-          storybook

Each children were given 3 voting chances and out of surprise, 3 topics had the same voting number – dinosaurs, insects and transportation.

Therefore, another round of voting was done. This time round, dinosaurs got the most voting compared to the other 2 topic. As a result, our next theme would be “Dinosaurs”.

Children could start to collect related books, storybooks, CDs or any materials related to dinosaurs to share with their fellow classmates.

Indoor Game – Octopus Tagging

Date: 11^th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

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 seaweed and squad down

-          All seaweeds can also grab other fish and turned them into seaweeds. [The children requested if they could turn into sea anemone instead of seaweeds, I agreed.]

-          The last person who is not being caught will be the next octopus

We had this game played for 3 rounds. Most of the children could obey the basic safety by not pushing or pulling each other. They enjoyed the game. 

Took a photo before we start. Li Chuan is the "octopus"

"Run for your life, fishes. The octopus is coming!"
Look at those fishes running away!

Yi Jie is the octopus this time. Caught a fish!

Look at those fishes that turned into sea anemone!
"Oops, where shall we run?" Kern Ee was thinking. 

Jia Xuan is the octopus this time. Run fishes!

Worksheet – Identify the Differences

Date: 10^th April 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

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 on Fun Facts about Octopus

Date: 9^th April 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Review on Fun Facts about Octopus

We had a review about the fun facts that the children had seen from the video yesterday.

The children could tell most of the facts that they had seen and some even reminded me about those I had left out.

Teacher: Do you remember how to say ‘octopus’ in plural form? Such as 2, 3, or more…?

Children: Octopi…..octopodes…..octopuses.

Teacher: How many tentacles does an octopus have?

Children: 8.

Teacher: There are suction cups in each tentacle. How many rows each? Do you remember?

Kern Ee: 2 rows.

Teacher: All varieties of octopuses are venomous. Do you remember what is venomous?

Derek: Poisonous.

Teacher: Which octopus are the most venomous one?

Derek: Blue ringed octopus.

Teacher: How many human beings can the blue ringed octopus kill in a few minutes?

Teng Hong: Eer….6…

Teacher: A little more..twenty…

Teng Hong: 26

Teacher: Octopus is good at something..?

Derek: Can see.

Teacher: Yes, it has a good eyesight. What can’t an octopus do?

Kwan Ming: Can’t hear.

Teacher: Poor hearing.

Teacher: What else did we missed out?

Harraz: Squeeze through a hole.

Teacher: Do you know how the octopus can go through that?

Kern Ee: No bone.

Teacher: Do you all have bones?

Children: Yes.

Teacher: Can you squeeze yourself through a small hole?

Children: No.

Teacher: The tentacles will grow back once it drops. Let say the octopus is yellow, when it moves towards a green colour thing, what will happen?

Kwan Ming: Change colour.

Teacher: Do you remember what other sea creatures will also change colour?

Children: Seahorse…..jellyfish….

Teacher: When an octopus sees a shark coming, what will the octopus do?

Jing Heng: Splash like that. (He did an action showing how the octopus eject the ink.)

Teacher: What is that?

Aiden: Ink.

Teacher: What’s the colour?

Children: Black.

Teacher: How do we call a female octopus? [There was a silence across the floor.]

Teacher: What do we call the female chicken.

Kwan Ming: Hen.

I think that’s all we had for our review this time. The children had learned the fun facts of the octopus.

At the same time, these vocabularies are also introduced:

octopus

blue ringed octopus

venomous

suction cups

Fun Facts about Octopus

Date: 8^th April 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Fun Facts about Octopus

The children spelled the word “octopus” on the board before I introduced the parts of the octopus to the children.

Then we watched a short video on the fun facts about octopus. Then I also showed them a video about the blue ringed octopus.

Video Sharing: Fun Facts about Octopus

Video Sharing: blue ringed octopus

Worksheet: Join the dots alphabetically

Date: 7^th April 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Worksheet: Join the dots alphabetically

Previously, we did this kind of worksheet before. Therefore, I just did a short revision of getting the children to sing the ABC song and I wrote all the 26 alphabets on the board before getting them to start to do the worksheet.

However, most of the children could handle this worksheet except for some who couldn’t find the next alphabet or accidentally join the dots wrongly. 

Listen, Understand & Act it Out

Date: 4^th April 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Underwater World

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Listen, Understand & Act it Out

Looking at the book that we read yesterday, I have an idea in mind to see if the children could do it. I’m not sure if the children could, anyhow, we just gave it a try.

I divided the children to four groups according to their seating on the floor. There’s about 5 children in a group with mixture of age except for one of the group were all 5 years old girls.

I shall read them a line from the book – “Sea Creatures”, the children have to discuss and present it with their own understanding or creativity. I purposely didn’t want to demonstrate any as to see how the children could present it.

These were some of the lines that I read to them for them to present:

-          Some creatures are long.

-          Some creatures are fat.

-          Some creatures are spiny.

-          Some have eight arms.

-          Some have only five.

Some of the actions were not done or presented clearly. For that reason, then only I demonstrated to them how they could present it.

Every two groups took turn to compete and see which group was better. Some of the groups were quite co-operative and they will somehow try to see if they could change their way of presentation while some started to argue with each other. Though the situation turned out to be a little sour among the children, however, it’s still fun to see how they work together to get a task done.

"Some creatures are fat."
(Derek, Kern Ee, Kwan Ming, Bo En & Yi Jie)

"Some creatures are long."
(Phey Zheng, Teng Hong, Aiden, Chloe & Zhi Yi)

"Some creatures are spiny."
(Qiao Yi, Jia Xuan, Yee Shuen, Shang En & Xiao Xuan)

Do we look like a star fish?

A starfish!
Wow, the kids are so creative! They thought it out themselves without much of my help!
(Xiang Qin, Xin Yee,Li Chuan, Jing Heng & Elvina)