Pack Those Cookies & Vote for New Topic

Date: 29th January 2016
Day: Friday
Time: 4:30-5:30 pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Pack Those Cookies & Vote for New Topic

Now, the cookies are ready for packing. Before that, we needed to find out how many cookies can the children bring home today. We counted the numbers of children in the class, there are 16 of them. Therefore, I told the children that we shall group the cookies in 16.

After counting all the cookies, there are 3 big groups, the children are very excited to know that they could bring at least 3 cookies home today. I called them out one by one and get them to choose one cookie from each group and put it into the plastic bag that I have prepared.

As we looked at the dates, Chinese New Year is pretty close and our topic would come to an end soon. Therefore, I suggested that we should choose a new topic for us to start once we come back from Chinese New Year holiday later.

The children suggested 4 topics -

About Myself (body), Transportation, Clothing, Food.

I explained briefly the content of each topic here with some help of drawings. Then, the children start to vote for their favourite topic. Each can vote twice. Finally, "food" is the topic that got the most votes. I believe food would be a fun topic to learn and play!

Baking Almond Cookies

Date: 28th January 2016
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Baking Almond Cookies

Finally, the day has arrived and the children were very excited asking about the baking process and the name of the cookies.

Before we started, I introduced all the ingredients that we needed and I have weighed it accordingly. My initial plan was to allowed the children to help me to add in the ingredients step by step. However, there were some miscommunication that the amount of butter that I have in hand was not sufficient to mix 2 big portion. As a result, I have to redo all the weighing work again and reduced it back to one portion only.

The recipe is as followed:

Ingredients A:
1) Butter 180g
2) Castor sugar 90g
3) Salt 1/8 tbp

Ingredients B:
1) Flour 135g
2) Rice flour 90g
3) Ground almond 90g

Decorations:
Almond flakes or nibs

Method:
1) Cream the butter and castor sugar until light and fluffy.
2) Add in salt and mix well.
3) Fold in mixture B and mix it into soft dough









After I have mixed the butter, sugar and salt, I get the children to take turn to help me to mix the mixture B into soft dough.

I demonstrated to the children how to press and roll the soft dough into a ball before pressing it lightly to form an oval shape. Some of the children could do it individually while some needed some guidance. After doing it for a while, some commented that it seems they are playing with play dough. I didn't manage to take any pictures after that as my hands were very oily.

Tomorrow the children will count and see how many cookies they could bring home tomorrow.

Discussion on the process of cookies making

Date: 27th January 2016
Day: Wednesday
Time: 4:30-5:30 pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Discussion on the process of cookies making

As I have mentioned to the children yesterday that we shall try to bake some cookies this week. I have search through some simple recipe and found this one - Almond Cookies.

I went through the ingredients with the children as well as the process of it. I'm not sure how much they could understand. Anyhow, we shall carry out the baking process tomorrow and hopefully the children could see it for themselves.

Basically, we needed butter, castor sugar, salt, ground almonds, plain flour, rice flour and some almond flakes or nibs.

We have another 20 minutes left for today, the children continue with the colouring task from yesterday.

Colouring

Date: 26th January 2016
Day: Tuesday
Time: 4:30-5:30 pm
(Wushu Class: 4:00-5:00 pm)
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Colouring

As the children were having Wushu class today, therefore, I have prepared some simple task for them to complete. We were working on a Chinese New Year book and we have been collecting some worksheet for it. Therefore, I have printed out the front page for the children to colour it. However, they didn't manage to complete the picture and shall continue when there's a chance in the future.

Pomegranate is Tasty!!

Date: 22nd January 2016
Day: Friday
Time: 4:30-5:30 pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Pomegranate is Tasty!!

The children gathered around the table to look at the pomegranates when I brought it into the class. Some said they saw it before while some just looked at it curiously. As I just took the pomegranate out from the refrigerator, it's quite cold. Therefore, I read them a short story before we started to eat the pomegranate.

Here are some pictures taken during the activity:

Hopefully after eating the pomegranate, they would remember the name of their class.
Next Monday is Thaipusam public holiday, the school will be closed. We shall see everyone back on Tuesday.

Things in Red

Date: 21st January 2016
Day: Thursday
Time: 4:30-5:30 pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Things in Red

We talked about Nian monster yesterday. Today, we just had some reviewed of the Nian monster story. The children could still remember the 3 things that the Nian monster is afraid of - red, fire and fire cracker.

Therefore, today, I let the children tell me things that is red in colour. Here are the answers given:

Leow Xun: cherry, rainbow (red), crab, red pants, watermelon
Lik Shin: red book, red table, blood
Jia Mao: red ball
Sueanne: firecrackers, strawberry, pomegranate, red pepper
Mei Jia: apple, red chair, angpao packet
Rachel: apple, red T-shirt, red skirt, red box, red house, red lipstick, red bag
Zi Yue: strawberry, chili, red notice board
Suzanne: red flower (hibiscus), red sticker

Since Sueanne mentioned about pomegranate, then, I asked the children if they know the name of their class. Surprisingly, only a few of them knew. Some doesn't know what a pomegranate is. Coincidence I have some at home, I promised the children that we shall have some tomorrow.

The story of the Nian Monster

Date: 20th January 2016
Day: Wednesday
Time: 4:30-5:30 pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

The story of the Nian Monster

The children were told about the Nian monster by their Mandarin teacher in the morning. However, I think it would be different if they listen to the story in English. I found a simple version of the story for the children to watch.

Video watching: The Story of Nian - A Chinese New Year story

After watching it, the children would start to describe the content of the story in English. At least they try. Since they saw the drawing of the Nian monster in the story, I requested the children to draw it out again on the board to see if they could notice the details of the Nian monster.

Here were some pictures taken during the activity:

Leow Xun drew the horn on the Nian monster

Sueanne added in the eyes. 

Mei Jia drew a smiley mouth for it.

Jia Mao added in some teeth.

Suzanne added in the body for it. 

Lik Shin added in the hands for the Nian monster.

Deshayne added in the ears for it.

Rachel added in the tail.

Leow Xun said have to draw some scale on its body.

Sueanne added in some legs for it.

Lucas said have to draw a stomach for it.

This is the Nian monster by Pomegranate class.

After the children had drawn the picture on the whiteboard, I gave each of them a piece of A4 paper to draw the Nian monster that they have just seen from the video or the Nian monster that they think it should look like.

Here are some pictures by the children:

Deshayne

Leow Xun

Lik Shin

Rachel

Sueanne

Suzanne

Jia Mao

Mei Jia

Ways of sending my greetings (part III)

Date: 19th January 2016
Day: Tuesday
Time: 4:30 - 5:30 pm
(Wushu Class : 4:00-5:00 pm)
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Ways of sending my greetings (part III)

After the Wushu class, we only have about 30 minutes. I introduced quickly about the activity that we needed to do today - to write a message in the greetings card that they have done yesterday.

Basically, the message would be simple as "Gong Xi Fa Cai". The children needed to decided who they wanted to address the card to.

I wrote the message in the card and then, the children traced it with colourful colour pencil.

Way of sending my greetings (Part II)

Date: 18th January 2016
Day: Monday
Time: 4:30 -5:30 pm
Class: Pomegranate
Theme: Happy Chinese New Year
Teacher: Ms Yeong

Way of sending my greetings (Part II)

Each of them were given a piece of small pink colour manila card that I have folded into the shape of a card. Then, the children will search for the pictures and words that they could see on the angpao packets to decorate their cards. Most of them could carry out the task on their own and only a small group of them needed some suggestions and guidance.

Here are some pictures taken during the acitivity: