Fun with Snap Game & Memory Game

Date: 27^th May 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Fun with Snap Game & Memory Game

Inside the dinosaur fun kits, there were some dinosaur cards in it. There were more than 10 dinosaur’s pictures on it with 2 cards for each dinosaur.

The game suggested in the book was – Snap. I divided the children into 2 big groups with about 8 in each group. Then they took turns to play the “Snap” game. However, it seems the chances of getting the 2 same cards are pretty low. The children were very anxious and excited as they wanted to be the one who called out “snap”.

I thought of another game that we could play with the card. It’s “Memory Game”. Since each dinosaur’s pictures have 2 cards, I could use it to see if the children are attentive to it. The children were divided into 2 big groups again with about 8 each time.

Some of them could remember the cards that their friends had flipped open while some were just trying their luck. Anyhow, the children had fun playing it especially when they managed to open the 2 cards with the same dinosaur.

Fossil Making with Flour

Date: 26^th May 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Fossil Making with Flour

I brought in the dinosaur fun kit into the class today. In this fun kit, there’s a book that introduced dinosaur as well as to teach the children in making fossil out from clay. However, I’m not going to make the fossil out from the clay provided, yet, I’m using flour. I got the recipe from online and hopefully it works.

The materials that I needed were as followed:

-          2 cups of flour

-          1 cup of salt

-          1 cup of water

I showed the children how I mixed all the materials together. However, the dough turned out to be quite sticky. Therefore, I had to put in a little bit more flour. The children had already got some toy dinosaur in hand to be printed on the dough.

We did try out some yet, it didn’t work out nicely. The dough is too soft and the toy dinosaur had too much dough on it. Suddenly, I thought, maybe I could put some flour on the toy dinosaur before printing it onto the dough. It does look better.

We only managed to do 6 fossil printing as there’s not more dough as some of the toy dinosaur were quite big.

We put it on a piece of cardboard to be air dry completely. I told the children not to touch it and could only observe it on the next day.

Book Sharing: Prehistoric Actual Size

Date: 23^rd May 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Book Sharing: Prehistoric Actual Size

Before sharing the book with the children, I introduced another meat eating dinosaur – Deinonychus. We had some brief reading of its facts from the chart we got.

Prehistoric Actual Size by Steve Jenkins

In this book, the children could actually imagine the actual size of the creatures when the dinosaur ruled the Earth.

There are very limited dinosaur toys in the class. The children wanted to exchange their animal toys with another class who has a lot of dinosaur toys. Therefore, a few children helped to sort out the animals toys and went to exchange the dinosaur toys.

I gave them 15 minutes to play with the dinosaur toys that they had just exchanged. They were delighted and enjoyed it.

Reading – Keeping Up to Date (1000 sentences of Today’s English) by Scott Ballantyne

-          1. Making Friends

-          2. Going Places

Compare Allosaurus with Tyrannosaurus

Date: 22^nd May 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Compare Allosaurus with Tyrannosaurus

I listed down the facts about Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus for the children to make comparison such as size, weight, diet etc.

	Allosaurus	Tyrannosaurus
Meaning	Other lizard; strange lizard	Tyrant lizard
Group	Theropods	Theropods
Diet	Carnivorous	Meat
Size	12m long, 3m high	13m long, 5m high
Weight	1.1 – 1.9 tons	5.5 tons

From the table above, the children could tell some of the facts are the same while some of the facts are different. We also compare which dinosaur is much heavier or taller.

Then I brought in the concept of which number is bigger or smaller. I even used numbers of sweets to give a simple example for those who can’t understand the concept. 

Allosaurus – The Nightmare Dinosaur

Date: 21^st May 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Allosaurus – The Nightmare Dinosaur

In the Theropds family, there’s another dinosaur which is quite similar to Tyrannosaurus – Allosaurus.

Facts about Allosaurus:-

-          the largest and the one of the most common flesh-eating dinosaurs in North America during the late Jurrasic

-          Lightweight skull bones

-          Large, curved teeth with serrations on both sides

-          Powerful arm and legs

-          Probably hunted as a group

-          Large males may have used the small horns above their eyes in mating battles

Some of the children had not completed the tracing of the T-Rex head yesterday, therefore, I let them continue with it while the rest of them colour the T-Rex that I had prepared for them. On the paper itself, they have to fill in the blanks accordingly.

The sentences are as followed:-

This is a __________________. (Ans: Tyrannosaurus Rex)

It is a _________ - eater. (Ans: meat)

Is Tyrannosaurus a Hunter or Scavenger?

Date: 20^th May 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Is Tyrannosaurus a Hunter or Scavenger?

“Scavenger” appeared in the movie – “Walking With Dinosaur”. Therefore, I took this opportunity to explain to the children the difference between a hunter and a scavenger. However, it took them a while to understand my explanation and at the same time, we also used the current animals that the children know to see if they could tell me if they were hunter or scavenger.

As a conclusion, the children said that Tyrannosaurus is a hunter and a scavenger as well.

The front cover of the reference book of Dinosaur that I used has a very clear picture of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It’s a pop out design where I can placed a paper on it and used a colour pencil to trace. It will form a very attractive picture of the T-Rex. The children saw the picture that I did and they asked if they could have a copy.

Therefore, I gave each a child a piece of paper and they needed to choose a colour of their preference and they started to trace the picture of the T-Rex one by one. 

Comparison of Tyrannosaurus Rex with other things

Date: 19^th May 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Comparison of Tyrannosaurus Rex with other things

We revised about the facts that we learned last Friday about Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I found a website of BBC Earth where we could actually compare the height, length and weight of Tyrannosaurus Rex with other animals or vehicles. 

The website: http://www.walkingwithdinosaurs.com/dinosaurs/detail/tyrannosaurus/

The children were excited to know that they could make guesses when comparing the Tyrannosaurus Rex. They even got more excited when they knew that their guesses were correct.

Reading – Keeping Up to Date (1000 sentences of Today’s English) by Scott Ballantyne

-          1. Making Friends

-          2. Around Town

Parts of Tyrannosaurus Rex

Date: 16^th May 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Parts of Tyrannosaurus Rex

 I used the above picture to teach some vocabulary about Tyrannosaurus Rex. Basically, we covered the following things with the children.

-          Large eyes

-          Large, powerful jaws with long, sharp conical teeth

-          Two-fingered hands with sharp claws – very short arms

-          Long stiff tail

-          Long, powerful leg

With this picture drawn on the whiteboard, I let the children observe and try to draw Tyrannosaurus Rex on a piece of white paper. However, only a few of them could do it. The rest of the children still needed help in observing the creature. I believe with more exposure and observation, the children could at least draw the creature out one day.

Tyrannosaurus

Date: 15^th May 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Tyrannosaurus

As I had promised the children that I would go into Tyrannosaurus after Brachiosaurus. Therefore, today we went through some simple detail about Tyrannosaurus.

Some simple facts that we went through today:-

-          Tyrannosaurus is also called T-Rex

-          Tyrannosaurus means the “king of the tyrant lizard”

-          Tyrannosaurus is about 3-4 metres tall and about 11-12 metres long

-          Elephant (4.5 metres tall) and Brachiosaurus (13 metres tall) are much taller than Tyrannosaurus

-          Sperm Whale (20 metres long) is much longer than a Tyrannosaurus

-          Tyrannosaurus is a meat-eater

I also got some children with different height to pretend to be the Tyrannosaurus, elephant and Brachiosaurus in order for the children to understand where does the Tyrannosaurus stands.

Then we continued with the movie – “Walking with Dinosaur” that we had stopped yesterday. In this last part of the movie, it shows that Patchi managed to fight away the T-Rex. The children even cheered for Patchi’s braveness. Wow, the movie really stirs up the spirit.

Therefore, I asked the children to share some thoughts about the movie that they had watched. With some guidance, the children managed to tell me that Patchi is the leader; Patchi is very brave and fight away the dinosaur; Sowler is bad; Sowler brought the group to the ice; Patchi saved them from falling into the water etc. 

Movie Sharing – Walking with Dinosaur

Date: 14^th May 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Movie Sharing – Walking with Dinosaur

I was on an emergency leave on Monday. Therefore, Cikgu Tee played the movie for the children to watch on “Walking with Dinosaur”. This movie shows about Pachyrhinosaurus.

Besides that, 13^th May was Wesak Day holiday, therefore, there’s no blog update for Tuesday.

Today, the children continued to watch the movie from where they had left out on Monday. The children got quite excited when they know that T-Rex would appear in the movie. There’s a part where one of the Pachyrhinosaurus – Pachi, was being hit by a tree while fighting with its brother, Sowler. Some of the children even tried to cheer for Pachi to stand up again when they saw the scavengers were here to eat him. They were happy to know that when Pachi managed to get on its feet and move on with its herd.

Due to insufficient time, we have to stop again this and shall continue with it tomorrow.

I used a few minutes time to show the children of a clip that I excerpt it from “Jurassic Park” about Brachiosaurus. Though it’s from a movie, yet, I would like the children to see the comparison of its height between the Brachiosaurus and a human.

Brachiosaurus video sharing from you tube- Brachiosaurus in "Jurassic Park"

Mother’s Day Book Sharing – Dino Mom is not at home

Date: 9^th May 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Mother’s Day Book Sharing – Dino Mom is not at home

This coming Sunday would be Mother’s Day. This year, the children had done quite a lot during their Mandarin class about Mother’s Day. As a result, I choose to share a book with the children and only had some discussion about the book without any art work to be done.

Book Sharing – Dino Mom is not at home by Chin Siew Moy

This is a story about a 8-year-old little girl who enjoys many “privileges” at home. She can do whatever she likes at home such as act up, cry, laugh or even keep a pet. Her dad is very gentle and kind, and loves her dearly. Everything seems fine, except that she has a Dino Mom at home. She realized that she would be the remote control of tuning her Mom into either a Dino Mom or Kitty Mom.

After the story, the children and I had some sharing about their mom at home. Most of the children told me that their moms are Kitty Mom. However, only a few of them told me that sometimes their mom would be Dino Mom and sometimes would turn into a Kitty Mom.

Brachiosaurus Paper Plate Art (Part III)

Date: 8^th May 2014

Day: Thursday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Brachiosaurus Paper Plate Art (Part III)

I prepared some A4 colour paper for the children to choose from. On the other hand, I also prepared three sentences for the children to fill in the blank.

These three sentences were as followed:

This is a __________________. (Ans: Brachiosaurus)

It is a _________________ dinosaur. (Ans: tall)

It is a ___________ - eater. (Ans: plant)

The children took some time to spell the words and fill in the blank accordingly. Most of the children could do it on their own while some needed some individual guidance.

Then after that, the children searched for the Brachiosaurus that they did earlier and pasted it on the A4 colour paper that they had chosen. Then they also pasted the three sentences that I had printed on a piece of small paper for them to be pasted next to the Brachiosaurus art.

The children then could decorate the paper with plants that the Brachiosaurus could eat. Some of them drew some other dinosaur in it as well. 

Brachiosaurus Paper Plate Art

Date: 6^th May 2014

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Brachiosaurus Paper Plate Art

I had shown the children the Brachiosaurus paper plate art that I did earlier. Therefore, the children are looking forward to do this paper plate art.

I prepared the following materials for this art:-

1) one paper plate each

2) some green colour paint (the children requested that their Brachiosaurus to be in green)

First, the children needed to paint the whole paper plate in green. I didn’t expect that this activity will take up the whole 45 minutes even though I had already prepared 5 paint brushes for them to take turns.

The children only managed to colour their paper plate today. We have to continue with tomorrow. 

Brachiosaurus Bone Art

Date: 5^th May 2014

Day: Monday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Brachiosaurus Bone Art

Before we had our activity started today, I wanted to share this with the children.

Five Little Dinosaur by Jean Warren

Five little dinosaurs sitting in a swamp,

The first one said, “Let’s stomp, stomp, stomp.”

The second one said, “Time for lunch!”

The third one said, “Let’s munch, munch, munch.”

The fourth one said, “Let’s stomp some more.”

The fifth one said, “Let’s all roar!” GRRR!

While reading this, I got the children to stand up and do the action, they had lots of fun!

After that, I took out a picture of Brachiosaurus’ bone and asked the children again to see what they could used to make the bones looked more real. Same answer given as last Friday such as painted it, cut it out etc.

I took out some pasta. The children started to ask if I wanted to eat it. Oh, of course not. I explained to them what they could do with the pasta and gave each of them a picture of the Brachiosaurus bone with some pasta and glue.

The children started to work on it and the result looks pretty cool. 

Extension Activity about Brachiosaurus

Date: 2^nd May 2014

Day: Friday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Extension Activity about Brachiosaurus

Today, we revised some facts about Brachiosaurus.

Brachiosaurus :-

-          In Greek name means “arm” and “lizard”

-         It has a long neck

-         It has a small head

-         It’s tail is much shorter compared to others of the same species

-         It walked on four legs

-         It’s a herbivore (plant eater)

The children observe the shape of the Brachiosaurus that I had printed out from the computer as well as its bone. I asked the children to tell me what they can do to make the bones look more real. Some of the children suggested that they painted it, while some wanted to cut it out. I let the children to go back home to observe of any materials that they could used so that we could discuss this on Monday.

I always wanted to try to see if the children could form any animals or creatures by using the toys they have in their class. Therefore, today, I took this opportunity to get the children to form a “Brachiosaurus” by using the blocks and toys they have. I divided the class into 2 big groups which about 9-10 per group. They have to work together as a group to form one. Though at first, some of the children wanted to do it individually. However, after some explanation, only they could start to work in a group.

This is what they did:-

Peaceful Giant – Brachiosaurus

Date: 30^th April 2014

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:00-4:00pm      

Class: Pomegranate      

Theme: Walking with Dinosaur

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Peaceful Giant – Brachiosaurus

Today, we went into another prosauropod’s group – Brachiosaurus, which is the tallest dinosaur.

These are some of the facts about Brachiosaurus:

-          It’s a type of dinosaur known as a Sauropod. Other members of the Sauropod family included the Diplodocus and Apatosaurus.

-          It had a long neck, a small head and a short tail

-          It walked on four legs

-          The length of Brachiosaurus is believed to have been around 26 metres.

-          It is a herbivore

The children don’t understand what the meaning of “the tallest” is. Every one of them said they are the tallest.

Therefore, I picked a tall child – Derek to make comparison with other children. Each of them took their turns to stand next to Derek and found out that they only either reaching his eyes or just shoulder. Now, they roughly understand the idea of “the tallest”.

Tomorrow is Labour Day. As a result, there will be no blog update for 1^st May, 2014.