Learn to sing the Song of the Sea

Date: 29th April 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Learn to sing the Song of the Sea

The children seem to be quite interested with the song they heard from the movie - Song of the Sea. Therefore, I checked the lyrics and found out that it's quite easy for the children to follow. As a result, I printed out the lyrics and we went through the lyrics and songs for a few times. Some of them even started to add in some action. Sueanne said she wanted to sing with actions.

I explained the meaning of the words in the lyrics for the children to think of an action for it. We shall continue with the action and songs tomorrow.

The song: Song of the Sea

The lyrics for Song of the Sea:

Between the here, between the now
Between the north, between the south
Between the west, between the east
Between the time, between the place

From the shell
The song of the sea
Neither quiet nor calm
Searching for love again

My love

Between the winds, between the waves
Between the sands, between the shores
From the shell
A song of the sea
Neither quiet nor calm
Searching for love again
Between the stones, between the storms
Between the belief, between the seas

Movie Sharing - Song of the Sea (Part III)

Date: 28th April 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Movie Sharing - Song of the Sea (Part III)

Today, we continued with the rest of the movie and finished it. The children liked the movie very much.

Then, since we have another 20 minutes left, I gave each of them some A4 paper to draw anything that they like about the movie. It can be the character, or even the scenery of it.

Some of the children drew the main characters while some drew the house that appeared in the movie.

Movie Sharing - Song of the Sea (Part II)

Date: 27th April 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Movie Sharing - Song of the Sea (Part II)

While I was on leave last Friday, the relief teacher played them a movie - Song of the Sea. It's an Irish animated movie. The children had already watched it for about 45 minutes. Therefore, today, we continued with the movie for another 30 minutes. Due to some of the children were leaving early, as a result, we have to continue with the movie tomorrow.

Sharing their Big Book

Date: 23rd April 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Sharing their Big Book

Today, I got the groups to come out and share their pages with their friends. Then, they will take turns to teach their friends to read the words on their page.

I managed to capture only one video for these groups.

Then, since the children are interested to learn about beautician, therefore, I played them a video (we only watched for about 10 minutes) on how a beautician do facial treatment for a customer. The children kept asking questions like below:

Children: What is the red round thing for? (It's the facial sponge)
Children: What is that? (referring to the cream that lady applied)
Children: Why her hair like that? (The children noticed the hairband on the customer's head. The beautician used a hairband to avoid the hair from covering the face)
Children: Got change water? (I told the children that beautician will change the water after using it to clean the customer's face. They doubt it as they didn't see her changing it.)

Video Sharing: How to do a facial

I might show them about manicure and pedicure if we got the time.

I will be attending a course tomorrow. Therefore, there's no blog update for 24th April, 2015 (Friday)

Big Book Project (Part II)

Date: 22nd April 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Big Book Project (Part II)

As most of the children didn't get to colour their picture yesterday, therefore, today, I let them complete their work while I work on the title of the book.

Earlier, the children had chosen - Occupations that I Learned, as their cover page. Therefore, I used some plain paper to cut out the shape of those alphabets of "occupations" and get some of them to colour it for me. Then, I tried to arrange the word accordingly on the paper that I have prepared.

Hopefully by tomorrow, I could get the children to share their page with their fellow classmates.

Big Book Project

Date: 21^st April 2015

Day: Tuesday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Occupations

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Big Book Project

The children were quite excited about the big book project. I prepare some pictures for each type of work with words as well. I put all the pictures in a big tray. I only separated the words in categories.

Each group of children will look at their words and they have to search for the related pictures. After that, they will paste it all into the paper that I have prepared for them. Some of the groups could carry out the activity individually, while some needed guidance.

These are some of the work done by the children:

Done by Aiden, Jing Heng and Lucas

Done by Qiao Yi, Xiao Xuan and Sueanne

Done by Xin Yee, Yong Jun, Shang En and Eugene

Done by Chloe and Zhi Yi

Done by Devon and Zi Yue

Done by Yee Shuen, Yi Ern and Leow Xun

Book Sharing – The Beauty Saloon of the Sheep Village

Date: 20^th April 2015

Day: Monday

Time: 4:30-5:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Occupations

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Book Sharing – The Beauty Saloon of the Sheep Village

The pictures for the big book project are not completed. Therefore, I have to carry out another activity for today.

I wanted to share this book with the children but couldn’t find the chance. Coincident that the children mentioned about beautician, therefore, I brought this big book to share with the children today. It’s in Mandarin, I did the translation myself.

The Beauty Saloon of the Sheep Village

This story happened in the sheep village where all the sheep are white in colour. Suddenly one day, came a beautician who persuaded the sheep to change the colour of their fur or even to straighten it.

At first, not many sheep would like to do so. However, after time past, more and more sheep started to believe that changing their colours or even their texture of their fur is the latest fashion. One day, a beauty pageant contest was being organized. All the colourful sheep are not satisfied with the end result of the contest and started to have an argument by the lakeside. At that moment, came along a line of white sheep from another village. The colourful sheep sudden realized how beautiful white colour looks. Then, they started to laugh at themselves when they saw the shadow of themselves in the water.

Finally, they changed back their colour into white again. They believe, white is still the best colour for them.   

Hopefully we could start off with the big book project tomorrow.

Earth Day on 22nd April

Date: 17th April 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Earth Day on 22nd April 

Next Wednesday, it's Earth Day. The school will organise a trip to the recycling centre to teach the children about loving the Earth.

Therefore, today, we went through some basic information about why we needed to plant trees and the important of growing trees on earth.

Teacher: Why do we need to plant trees?
Children: So no flood.
Teacher: How can the trees help to prevent flood?
Children: Don't know....we learn it in our Mandarin class in the morning....

So I have to explain the usage of a tree and how a tree grows. I find it this year, the children managed to share more information compare to them when they were five years old. I guess they are more mature this year with this topic which we always brought it around April.

Besides Earth Day, 23rd April is the World Book Day. This time, I suggested that we also do a book. It can either be a big book or a small book. The children wanted a big book instead of a small one. I suggested that we use our theme to do a big book of it. They agreed.

After a round of voting, the children decided that this would be their title - The Occupations that I Learned.

Then, we summarized the occupations that we had done so far. After some consideration, I listed about 6 of them for the children to work on it - doctor, fire fighter, chef, teacher, veterinarian and clothes designer. The children group themselves in 6 groups and draw lots.

Next week, we shall work on our big book project.

Role Play - Chef (part II)

Date: 16th April 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Role Play - Chef (part II)

Today, the children had experienced of not getting the activity carried out yesterday, they were more co-operative in their attitude. Therefore, I allowed them to have the role play session today.

This round, I get those who had only been a customer only for the previous role play session to choose the role that they wanted to be.

From this 2nd role play session, the children were more attentive to things that they could say and do. They enjoyed it very much.

Review of the role play and discuss

Date: 15th April 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Review of the role play and discuss

The children were not very co-operative today. Therefore, I cancelled their 2nd round of role play session today.

We did some reading and we had a reviewed of the role play the children had yesterday.

From the role play session yesterday, I noticed that the chef will serve food instead of the waiter or waitress. Besides that, there's no role for a cashier when one of the children asked where he should pay his money.

Therefore, we did some adjustment on the role. I added in a cashier and reminded the children that a waiter or waitress have to get the food from the chef and served it to the customers. Chef will stay in the kitchen all the time.

Role Play - In a restaurant

Date: 14th April 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Role Play - In a restaurant

A chef usually works in a restaurant. Therefore, we set our role play today as in a restaurant instead of just in the kitchen.

Before we start, we delegate some roles for the children to choose from. These were some of the roles for the children to pick:-
- chef ( 3 person)
- waiter/waitress (3 person)
- customers (10 person)
Note: some were absent during the role play session. As a result, there's only about 16 of them today. 

These three groups of children will take their turns to become different role in the restaurant. It's kind of messy for the first time as some of them don't know how to serve while some don't know what to do. Anyhow, it's a good experience. We shall try the role play session again this week.

Revision on the things we learned from "Chef"

Date: 13th April 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Revision on the things we learned from "Chef"

From the movie, the children understand that a chef works in a restaurant. Besides cooking, the chef also needs to guide his staff and workers to work peacefully and harmony in the kitchen.

Then, the children mentioned about few vocabulary for chef - chef, food truck, restaurant

I asked the children if they know what a menu is. They said no. Then, I reminded the children to flash back the picture of the food truck. There was a blackboard on the truck itself where Carl will write down the menu for the day. Then, suddenly, the children realized the usage of the blackboard on the truck.

From here, I get the children to name me food that they thing they could put it on a menu. Some said, fried chicken, while some said spaghetti.

We might carry out the role play for chef tomorrow if the time permits.

Movie - Chef (part IV)

Date: 10th April 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Movie - Chef (part IV)

Today, we finished off the last 10 minutes of the movie.

Carl brought Percy back to his ex-wife place and told Percy that he needed to go back to school. After some consideration, Carl agreed that Percy could help out at the food truck during weekends or school holiday. Ramsey Michel came to try his food and he loves it. He offered Carl to work at a restaurant belongs to him and he could cook whatever food that he enjoyed. Carl took up the offer and after 6 months, he also patched up with ex-wife and he is quite successful in his career.

After that movie, I get the children to share their thoughts or their favourite part of the movie that they like:-

Chloe: When they get together. Carl Casper cooked the food looks delicious.
Jing Heng: I like the food truck because he buys the things to move it inside the food truck. A lot of customers come.
Zi Yue: I like the food truck because he writes on the blackboard. Everybody can see.
Yee Shuen: I like the bread. It looks delicious.
Aiden: When they get together. I'm happy for them.
Zhi Yi: I like the food truck. The food is yummy.
Li Chiuan: I like the food because the food is very delicious. The food truck looks nice. They washed the food truck.

Movie- Chef (part III)

Date: 9th April 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Movie- Chef (part III)

Today, we continued for another 25 minutes of the movie.

Chef Carl had got the food truck cleaned up together with his son, Percy. After they went shopping for all the tools and utensils that they needed for the food truck, they find it difficult to move into the food truck by them. Fortunately, Marvin (Carl's colleague at the previous restaurant) came to lend them a hand. He managed to get help from those Spanish workers to lend a hand on those heavy kitchen equipment into the food truck. There, they promised to cook some delicious Cuban sandwich for the crowd. An incident happened when Percy burnt the sandwich and given a comment that it's free for the crowd, it doesn't matter.

Carl took Percy to the side to explain to him about respect on food and his dream career as a chef. Then, Percy changed his attitude towards cooking and enjoyed it. They traveled from place to place to set up their food truck while picking up fresh ingredients along the way.

This gives the children an idea about being a chef as not just good at cooking, he or she needed to learn about food. A chef needs to be hardworking and enjoying himself or herself in the kitchen.

Movie - Chef (part II)

Date: 8th April 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Movie - Chef (part II)

Today, we continue with the movie.

Carl Casper, the chef, was being criticized by a food critic - Ramsey Michel on his food. He got irritated and got into a fight with his boss, Mr Riva, the restaurant owner. Due to the pressure from the media such as the internet, Carl decided to look for an alternative to work on his career - food truck business which he doesn't really agree from the very beginning.

Together with his son, Percy, they all flew to Miami to meet up with his ex-wife, Inez, ex-husband to discuss about the food truck business.

We stopped at the point where they started to clean up the food truck. We shall continue with it tomorrow.

Movie - Chef

Date: 7th April 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Movie - Chef

Today, I shared a movie with the children - Chef.

Story plot:-
It's about a chef who loses his job at a restaurant and started a food truck business in a effort to reclaim his creative promise, while piercing back together his estranged family.

The children commented that the food in the movie looks delicious We only managed to watch for about 20 minutes, we shall continue with the movie tomorrow.

Cook

Date: 6th April 2015
Day: Monday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Cook

Before we moved in to our new sub topic - cook, Suzanne wanted to share her personal details with her fellow classmates. Then, after that, we went through all the vocabulary that we had done so far.

Some of the children mentioned that a person who cooks is a cooker. Therefore, I take this opportunity to explain what the difference between a cook and a cooker.

Teacher: If you were a cook, what would you like to cook?
Aiden: burger
Yi Ern: french fries
Zi Yue: mee sua soup
Lucas:
Leow Xun: sushi
Chloe: nugget
Suzanne: pizza
Xiao Xuan: nugget
Sueanne: pizza
Xiang Qin: pizza
Zhi Yi: Bah Kut Teh
Yee Shuen: fried chicken
Qiao Yi: chicken
Devon: burger
Shang En: pizza
Xin Yee: spagetti
Jing Heng: nugget
Yong Jun: burger

Lastly, the children used 10 minutes to continue with their clothes designing that they had not completed for the past few days before we call it a day.

Sketches & Runway

Date: 3rd April 2015
Day: Friday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Sketches & Runway

Today, I shared a video clip of how a clothes designer draws their design. The children find it quite interesting.

Video #1: Easy fashion design drawing

Then, after that, I asked the children to tell me how a clothes designer could share his or her new design with other people. Some said to put it on the wall, some said to take a picture of it etc. None of them mentioned about fashion show. Therefore, I played another video to show them the way of a clothes designer would share his or her design with the public.

Video #2:Levi's Kids Fashion Show

Then, the children continued with their own clothes designing picture. Some of them had completed it by today while some still have quite a lot of touch up.

We are clothes designer

Date: 2nd April 2015
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

We are clothes designer

I shared a video of a clothes designer with the children before moving into another activity today.

Video: - A day in a life of a clothes designer

Today, I distributed the drawings of different type of clothing for the children to work on it. It might take them a while. I get the children to tell me the name of clothes they had chosen before walking away with the drawings.

Most of them did some simple drawing today and they shall continue with it tomorrow.

Mr Peabody's Apples

Date: 1st April 2015
Day: Wednesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Mr Peabody's Apples

There was an issue going on when I stepped into the class today. A boy was telling me that there's no more toilet paper while he was still sitting on the toilet bowl as I stepped into the class. Therefore, I went to get him a roll of tissue. As I stepped in back to the class, he was already out of the toilet, then I asked if he had cleaned himself, he said yes. However, one of his friend suddenly started to accuse him of not cleaning himself and spread the rumours around until both of them got into an argument. 

Suddenly I thought of a book that I wish to share with the children now. I wanted to share it during our sub-topic - teacher but didn't get a chance to do so. 

The story is as followed (adapted from Amazon.com):-
"Mr. Peabodyís Apples takes place in 1949 in Happville, USA. Mr. Peabody is the beloved elementary school teacher and baseball coach, who one day finds himself ostracized when rumors spread through the small town. Mr. Peabody silences the gossip with an unforgettable and poignant lesson about how we must choose our words carefully to avoid causing harm to others.

Madonna dedicates Mr. Peabody's Apples to teachers everywhere." 

The children were shocked when I came to the part where Mr Peabody wanted Tommy to pick up all the feathers that had been blown away. The children themselves shocked their head and said it's impossible. This suddenly makes them realize the harm that had been done cannot be mended again. Hopefully with the story, the children could always be more cautious of the words that they say or use in the future. 

We left a little time before we called it a day, the children chose the type of clothes that they wanted to design. As a result, I need to prepare 6 T-shirt drawings, 9 dress drawings and 3 long pants drawings for our next lesson. 

Clothes Designer

Date: 31st March 2015
Day: Tuesday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Occupations
Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Clothes Designer

The children had an argument today as some of them wanted to continue with 'occupations' and some wanted to change topic. Therefore, after I gave the explanation and suggestion, the children voted for it. Finally, most of the children decided to stay with the current topic and they even added on some other occupations such as make-up artist, beautician and cook.

From our previous list that we had discussed, after learning about 'teacher', we shall move on to 'clothes designer'.

Before getting into more details, today, we learn about the names of clothes such as T-shirt, dress, shorts, trousers, skirt etc.

We shall do more about it this week.