Art and Craft - Butterfly

Date: 28^th August 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Art and Craft – Butterfly

Today, I wanted the children to try out this lovely art. It’s like drawing mirror image by using water paint. I prepared a piece of white paper for each child. Then I got 3 primary colours for them to use, red, yellow and blue. My intention is for the children to mix red and blue to form purple colour. At the same time, I can imagine the picture will be quite dark so I add in a yellow colour for them to mix around.

Before they start, everyone folded their paper into half. Each child was given a short yarn to dip into the water colour they had chosen. Then they placed the coloured yarn on one side of the paper and covered it. After that, they will pull the yarn out to make the pattern.

Some of the children managed to design their pattern while some just did it randomly. With such steps, the children could actually get a mirror image of the pattern on both side of the paper. We shall continue with the butterfly art on Friday. 

More things in Purple

Date: 27^th August 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

More Purple Things

As some of the children hadn’t completed in writing the sentences on their paper, therefore, I got them to complete it before we moved on to another activities.

Jun Qian brought some grapes and Zhen Yuan brought a mangosteen. Both of them wanted to share with their friends.  Since Jun Qian’s grapes were in the refrigerator, we observed the mangosteen instead.

Teacher: What’s the colour of the mangosteen?

Children: It’s purple.

Teacher: Look, there’s some petals shape at the bottom of the mangosteen. What do you think this is?

Kern Ee: Flower all is the grass there. (I’m not very sure what does he means.)

Bee Chien: Maybe it grow from the flower or tree.

Yi Han: Because it just a bottom.

Jia Jia: It’s just a pattern.

Yu Xi: Because the flower is a pattern.

Jun Qian: To keep the water in the fruit.

Bee Chien: Maybe to make the mangosteen beautiful.

Wei Lok: The mangosteen won’t fall out.

Bee Chien: Oh, I know. It got five fruits in it.

The children had a very good imagination about the pattern at the bottom of the mangosteen. However, Bee Chien had a good guess. In order to show it to the children what does it means, we all moved to the kitchen to have a look at it. The children were thrilled to find out that there were actually five pieces of the fruits in it. They all enjoy the fruit at the same time.

Jun Qian also brought out the grapes and shared it with his fellow classmates. Everyone is enjoying it though most of them said the mangosteen tasted sour and not as sweet as the grapes. 

Purple Colour

Date: 26^th August 2013

Day: Monday

Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

New Chapter of Colour – Purple

Today, we started with purple colour. We revised all the purple colour things that we went through last Friday.

Then I introduced a nursery poem to the children, it’s “Little Jack Horner”. The words are as followed:

Little Jack Horner

Sat in the corner

Eating a Christmas pie

He put in his thumb

And pulled out a plum

And said “What a good boy am I!”

I got the children to change the word “plum” into other purple fruits or food that could appear in a pie. The children happily changed it to “grapes, eggplant, mangosteen, dragon fruit” etc.

We saw some purple bougainvillea outside of the classroom. So I got the children to pick those bougainvilleas that had dropped on the ground to paste it on the paper that I gave each of them. After that, the children try their best to make sentences by using “purple flower” in their sentences.

These are the sentences that the children had made:

1)      The purple flower is beautiful.

2)      The purple flower looks like a butterfly.

3)      This is a purple flower.

4)      I love the purple flower.

5)      I can make bookmark with the purple flower.

The children chose 2 sentences and write it on the paper together with their flower. 

Pasting the bougainvilleas onto the paper

Bee Chien: Mine is a lily.

Kwan Ming patiently pasting his flower onto the paper.

Summary for Orange....New chapter for Purple

Date: 23^rd August 2013

Day: Friday

Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Summary for Orange and New Chapter for Purple

Today, we went through all the items about orange colour and then we end the colour theme. The next colour that we shall move on is purple. This is the last colour that we shall focus next week and the colour theme will come to an end.

The children seems a little disappointed to know that we are ending the colour theme so soon as they still wanted to do some other colours as well. I told the children we shall see if we could cover any other colour besides purple next week. We shall see how the progress of the class schedule.

So we had a brainstorming session today about things in purple. This time round, the children were more alert about what I’m looking for. They start to think hard for things in purple instead of telling me about purple chair, table or T-shirt.

Teacher: Can you tell me things in purple that you know?

Children: Grape….grape fruit (the flesh)….

The children were thinking hard but couldn’t continue from here. I hinted them with pictures yet they still can’t get it. So I listed some items out for them.

Teacher: Plum….prunes….egg plant or brinjal….

I suggested that next Monday would be our purple day where children could wear some purple on. However, some of the children claimed that they don’t have any purple clothing. As a result, I told the children to try their best to bring something in purple to share for next week, not necessary to be on Monday itself.

It's play dough time (part II)

Date: 22^nd August 2013

Day: Thursday

Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

It’s Play Dough Time (Part II)

As I observed yesterday that the children seems not satisfied with the duration given to play with the play dough. Further more the children had already took their portion of play dough back home. So today, I found some other colours play dough that the school has for the children to continue with the interest with it.

The day before I was too busy guiding and handling those children’s sticky play dough and I didn’t actually participate together with them. Therefore, today I choose to play with them. I sat down at one of the group to observe and play with them. I find that through this way, the children will be more motivated into making model of things out from the play dough especially for those children who are shy or has no idea at all.

With my participation, I find that those children who were just staring at first, started to come out with ideas of things to make. I guess that the reason why most of the expert said that parents have to be with their children when they play. Not just to accompany them but to guide them and motivate them in every way.

All the children had a good time kneading, rolling, making models out of the play dough. We shall move on to our last colour – purple by next week and that shall end our colour theme. 

Homemade Play Dough - It's playtime

Date: 21^st August 2013

Day: Wednesday

Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Homemade Play Dough – It’s playtime

Is our homemade play dough ready? The children are very excited and looking forward to our activity today. The play dough that I placed in the refrigerator were quite wet, so I took it out a little earlier and prepared some extra flour in case we need to make the dough dryer.

There were about 4 children whose dough was not successful yesterday. Therefore, I make some dough in front of the children and divide among the four of them.

Then all the children started to play with it. Some of them took a while to figure out what to do with their dough, while some had a lot of idea about it.

The children enjoy their play dough time today! 

Yi Han's creation

Homemade Play Dough

Date: 20^th August 2013

Day: Tuesday

Time: 3:30-4:30pm

Class: Pomegranate

Theme: Colours

Teacher: Teacher Yeong

Homemade Play Dough

Today, we wanted to try and see if we could make the homemade play dough by ourselves. Before we start, I played a video for the children about how to make homemade play dough.

From the video we knew that the basic ingredients we needed were as followed:

1)      flour

2)      warm water

3)      salt

4)      cooking oil

5)      food colouring of desired colours

I don’t have sufficient ingredients for each child. Therefore I roughly estimate the amount of flour, water, salt and cooking oil for each child to begin with. Due to estimation, some of the dough came out to be too dry while some too wet. As a result, some of them I have to add in a little bit of water or flour. 

Yi Han: Why so wet?
Wei Ni: Why so dry?

Jia Hoong: I stir. 

The children tried their best to stir the flour mixture evenly. Then, they also tried to knead it on the table. When one got it correctly, the children started to get excited that they were hoping theirs will be successful too. Unfortunately, there was still some unsuccessful one. For those who managed to get their dough done well, they went around to help others by either adding flour or water. I’m glad to see such helpful spirit among the children and also their will to get the dough done well.

Jia Jia: It's so sticky!

Bee Chien: Do like this. 

Wei Lok: My play dough!

I put the successful dough in the fridge and with the hope that the children could play with it the next day.