1st day of school

After having long holiday. It's so exciting to meet new preschoolers. New challenge, new parents, new classes, new voices ..... :) hey some of the old preschoolers are making different sound of their voices. Hahaha not meet them for a month, they are grown up already ya. Taller, bigger, prettier, and more handsome :)
Really cool !!!!

Welcome children :D
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Eyes contact and Hand signing

First thing in the kindergarten, we have to understand that we are facing the children. We are facing a group of happy children. We know what happen when they are happy or too happy. They were playing too excited, they even didn't hear me when I was calling them. Or even when I touched their shoulders, they didn't pay attention to me.
What's wrong with that, there was nothing wrong. We just didn't have the eyes contact with the children. When we had a chance to meet eyes contact with them, we can do all of the hand signing to communicate with them after that.

* How to get eyes contact with the children : just get in the right position for targeting ones, pro active and be patient :)

* Hand signing is very important, it's the beginning of learning more about body gesture for socializing.

* When you got the eyes contact, immediately do the hand signing before the situation will be expired :)
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This year

This year, we'd been through a lot of things together with the children. The K-2 class will graduate soon. I just remember that we did a lot of silly things, playing around together, we are so happy with that.
Well although I 'd been through this every year, the sad feeling always pop up suddenly in worth of my tears. They are always in my heart. A lot of things that I will be missing. Just like watching them playing in the waiting room, always be a chaos there :)
Or helping me watering the plants, well they were also watering the class :)
Or they were setting up a dinner table for me to join :) with imaginary food.
Or they are hiding under my table, for testing up my heart beat :)
Etc........ A lot lah.
But what makes me really proud after all those things above. They will say,"Mommy...mommy, they are my teachers, I love my teachers so much."
*sobbing* in happiness .
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Matches and shapes

Now the K-1 class (4 years old) have a chance to make shapes.
They make shapes from matches. Here are the materials that we should prepare :
- a box of matches
- A4 color paper for the media
- white glue
- cotton
- little tiny cut green paper

We have to guide the children to create shapes.
Let them try it first to create the triangle and rectangle, don't put the glue yet. After they succeed to make it, then they can try to use the glue with.
We want to make a simple house with little garden in front of it.
The steps are :
- create the triangle shape
- create the rectangle shape under the triangle shape
- put cotton as the cloud in the sky
- put the glue under the house shape
- pouring the little tiny cut green shapes

Voila, a small house is ready to tease your imaginations :)

Happy trying @ home.
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108

Yesterday so early morning, as usual there was just one kid already come to school. Her name is Jess. Jess is the famous one in the class , because she's so active. I think she is the gang leader of her friends. Wow :). She is so special to me because she is always coming to school earlier than me. I never met that before. I realize it's almost one year, and she and her parents are so consistent for coming to school earliest.
After she put her bag in the classroom, then just go out and play in the playground. While she was playing, suddenly she was calling me from the distance.
"Mr.Danny...... Mr.Danny....... "
I said,"What's the matter , Jess?"
She replied,"I found an half mango,sir."
Half mango ???
I found that an half mango on the ground, it fell from the mango tree last night.
FYI our kindergarten has a giant 30 years old mango tree.
It's been already at there since the beginning of the kindergarten.
I look at the half mango, ah I see. It's a bat that did it.
"Last night a bat was having a party at here." I said.
"A bat, Mr.Danny ?" She asked.
"Yes, the mango is beginning to ripe at up there. The smells is really good yeah. The bat was attracted by its smells." I answered.
" Oh we must pick all of them now. Before other bats know the mango." She replied.
"Hey that's a good idea. I will pick one for you yah, because you give me the idea for saving the mango's sake up there." I told her.
And then I pick the big one which the most below one and give it to her. She is so happy to receive the mango from me. The mango is very big, as big as my open palm.
"I will give it to my mom, when I got home." She told me.
"Oh really? Don't forget to wash it first, ok?"I replied.

After the school I and the office boy were picking all the mangoes from up the tree till evening. We have 108 mangoes back there. :)
Can't wait till tomorrow.
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As a replacement teacher

This is very interesting. One morning it came out that one of my teacher mate who teach english in english session didn't show up. She got sick.
And I have to fill up the english session with the material that she prepared before. Because I was the only one at that time who has the free minutes.
When I came inside the class, with english teaching materials. I saw the children's face, they were a little bit confused by my present :)
And suddenly one of the children asked me ," Where is Miss C?"
And I answered them," Sorry, Miss C is sick today and cannot come to teach you guys."

After that we begin the morning greetings.
I greeted," Good morning, children."
They replied me," Good morning, Miss."

"...................????????"

I was jumping backward a little bit and said," WHAT.......???!!!! Am I a Miss now ? Hahahaha ."
They were all laughing too, they forgot that I am a male.

And then all the time in that session , they always called me wrong.
"What is that Miss , ooppsss...sorry!"
Or
"Can you help me ,Miss ? Oops sorry again."
Or
"I can't see it , Miss , oops!"
And so on with oops this oops that.
I only can take a deep breath then.

I guess the english session, it really sticks to our Miss C's image. Even she is not in the class, but she is present to the children's mind and the children's heart always. It can really control the children's tongue :D LOL

I am wondering if I also have a temporary replacement teacher for my mandarin session, what will happen then :)
Will be like this also ? OOPS :)
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See with your ears

, o

This is a simple game, I knew this kind of sense game from a comic
book. I read the "KUNG FU BOY" comic books. I am very curious to that
comic, it told me that we can really hear the tiny little bird's voice
nearby the waterfall.
Is that possible ?

As we know that we really depend to our five senses in our daily
activities, but we only use our sight sense as our first main sense to
do all of our activities. Approximately 80% we really depend on our eyes,
we only share 20% to four others.

I bring the K-2 class to go to the school's backyard. I give them 2
minutes to see everything in there and tell them to memorize as much
as they can. After 2 minutes I tell the children to close their eyes
and blindfold them.
"Ok children be silent please, no voice from you."
"Listen carefully your surroundings, find things for me, find it with
your ears."
"I also blindfold myself."
This is the beginning of our adventures in the backyard. It's so
amazing, they actually really find a lot of things with their ears.
Even without knowing where the sound come from. This is the list that
we found in our backyard :
We found "birds" (actually we don't know where the bird is)
We found "train" (there is a train station a mile away from us)
We found "so many cars"
We found "buses"
We found "motorcycles"
We found "polices" (haha........ we can hear him very from here)
We found "foot-step" (by hearing it from the neighbour)
We found "fire-fighter's car" (of course..........so loud)
We found "radio" (our neighbour is playing the radio)
even we found the "push-cart seller" in our backyard (they are yelling so loud LOL)


Hahahaha................our backyard's so noisy, pretty amazing yeah............

Finally I have to say that so many things that we really miss out because we didn't use
our five senses very well, especially our hearing.

The most important that they are practising how to concentrate and
focusing on a thing by using their hearing sense.

You can play with this little game with your little kids at home.
Have fun then :)

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facebook Regency Kindergarten has: 656 friends 29 photos 12 notes 19 Wall posts 17 groups Join me on Facebook Hi, I have started using NetworkedBlogs, an application on Facebook, and I think you would like it too. Facebook is a website that lets you connect with your friends, share photos, use applications and more. Thanks, Regency To join Facebook, please follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?app_id=9953271133&i=1459182506&k=Z21UXVU5UXTF6BD1PC6TUPPWSSIB4Z3ETSEUC&r Already have an account? Add this email address to your account here. tk.regency.elvisharcher@blogger.com was invited to join Facebook by Regency Kindergarten. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click here to unsubscribe. Facebook's offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304.

See, hear, touch

Last week's post , I was writing our activity about finding the animals in our school's backyard for K-2. The children were very enjoying their time.
At this time for K-1, I make a table chart which is containing 3 categories of the way you finding the animals. And some pictures of bugs, birds and reptiles on the other papers.

They have to find the animals :

By seeing it.......
By hearing it ........
By touching it ........

And they have to color the animals with different colors each by according how the way they find it.
It's really challenging their ability to use their senses.

So I bring them to the backyard, and we begin searching in the bushes, under the trees, on the ground, etc.
At first we find the animals by seeing it. We found a lot of course.
The second time, by hearing it.
I tell the children to close their eyes, and start to listen surroundings very carefully.
One girl said," Ms. Reni !!!!!!"
Hahaha that's my teacher mate, apparently she has a loud voice. When she is teaching we can hear her voice from our backyard :)

"No honey, that's Ms. Reni. Try another." I replied.
It's pretty amazing they are, they have a good hearing. And very sensitive hearing too :)
We found bees *buzzing* and we found birds *chirping* and lizard on the wall *clicking*

The third time, I ask them which animals can be touched and cannot.
Well we only found ants that can be touched.
I was also introducing to them some animals that can be dangerous if we touch it.
Like spiders and bees.
Birds and lizards are unreachable.
We were really enjoying the moments, no one wants to stop looking for it.

Before the class is finished, I give them the final question ,"What animals that live very close to us in backyard but we can't see it, we can't hear it and we can't touch it."
"What are they ?"

PS: I wish someone can make me a simple song for this backyard activities. So I can sing the song along with the children :)
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Answering the door

"Why" This is the question I always ask to myself, even until tonight.

It was happened this morning. When I was accompanying my student before they got picked up, in the waiting room. Someone suddenly was knocking on the door *KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* with panic sound.
I just opened the door right away, I saw a mom of my student with her heavy breath and sweating just like running a 10K. "Sir, my son , did he already get inside the class?" She asked.
I said,"Already , ma'm."
After that she said,"Mr. Danny, I just wanna tell you that when the class will be finish. Please tell my son to wait for me."
"Don't let him go out with anyone else, including someone that will tell you that he is his father."
Basically I never met his father before. There is always his mom the one who pick him up.
I just realize that something happened in their home.
I know it's hard for me not to care about this, or pretend not know anything about this.
I know that her son still doesn't know about this.
I guess I just keep standing out of the circle from this problem.

I know how to answer her ,"Ok ma'm, don't worry about this."

That was the best answer I could give to my student and his mom.
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Left hand

Recently I am so busy with my offline works, and also I tried a lot of things with the children the idea that I've got from other's blogs. Some can be done and some can't be done as we expected to. But the results were better, hahaha...........

And now, today morning finally one of my students, V is coming to school. After 4 days she had rest at home. Because she got accident when she was playing see-saw at her uncle's apartment park. I got the news in monday morning when her mom called me, and telling me that bad news. I asked her mom,"How come?"
She said when V was playing see-saw, she played with 3 other kids. And it happened so fast that the see-saw's handles, usually which the kids grab when they ride the see-saw, were bent and broken, got pulled off.

She and her friend, both of them felt on the ground, in bad position. Her friend was falling on her, and it got her right arm. I just can't stand it hearing the news on the phone. Immediately her mom brought her to a Chinese medical doctor (Sin She) for having the arm treatments. There's a problem with hte bones.
But I have to admit that V is very understandable girl, although she is only 5 years old. She understood that when her mom brought her to the doctor, her mom told her that it would be really hurt. At first V was very scared. But her mom gave her 2 choices : #1 do you wanna be like this forever and cannot go to school ? or #2 let the doctor handles it, it's very ....very ......very hurt only for one time, and your arm will be well soon.

She made the choice, she picked the Choice #2. What a brave girl :)

I meet V at school today morning, I saw her with the arm treatment.
I asked her,"is it still hurt?"
"Yes, still a little bit."
Since she cannot write with her right hand, she must write with her left hand. It's very hard for her to do that.
But she didn't give it up, she keep trying it. She is so sad that her hand-writings are not good anymore.
I immediately said to her,"Don't worry V, I will also use my left hand to write on the white board. See that............. my left hand writings are also not as good as my right hand writings."
Hoho.... apparently my left hand writings is really worse than hers :)

Now I can see her beautiful smile is back on her face again. :)

"Hope your arm will get well soon."

Uninvited guests

Suddenly I just remember this important thing that happened two years ago at the end of July, in our kindergarten. After we had a long holiday, that day was the 1st day the school began. When all of my students were already in the class. There was one student came late to school. His name is JK. I saw him when he was walking into the class. His hair got a little bit powder trace on the left of his head. As he walked from the door until he sat on his chair, he was scratching all the times. I went near by him at once and asked him in private," Why are you late? Is there anything that you want to tell me?"
"My head is so itchy, sir." He answered.
"Oh really ??? What happened? Because of the powder on your hair?" I was guessing.
"No sir, because my mom says I have 'uninvited guests' in my hair." He answered me.
"Uninvited guests ???? OMG...... There are some kind of hair habitat."
After I was silent for a moment then I immediately brought him to the school's backyard to let him sat there for a while. I called his mom at once for telling her to pick up her son
ASAP. At that time I was afraid that the uninvited guests will go and visit to everyone else in the class.
Not so long after that his mom arrived at school and just picked up her son and went home. Before going home , I asked her mom what happened. She said that in the holiday they were visiting their relatives to the village. "Ohhh...I see."
"This hair habitat should be cured immediately." I said.
And then on the next day, he came to school with a full moon on his head.

I guess this is the best way to cure and clean up everything in the house :)
Glad it was going well.

Head lice http://www.dhpe.org/infect/lice.html
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In our school's backyard

We have a beautiful morning today. Beautiful sunshine, the weather is not too hot, not just like yesterday. The wind is not too strong, but still OK.
Today's activity for K-2 class is that I am planning to let them aware to our environment and living organisms among us in everyday life. It takes place at our school's backyard.

I bring the children marching at my back just like ants (they really like it when I lead the marching)to our school's backyard. There are 4 teams, each team has 4 members.
Apple team, banana team, tomato team and melon team.

Their jobs are to find any kind of animals that live at our school's backyard which they see or touch or hear from distance or maybe they find evidence of organisms without actually seeing them.
They must have use their senses to find the animals.
In my hand I hold blank list papers, and I share it to each team leader. The three other members of the team have to look for the animals and count them. And the team leader's job is to write down the animal's name on the blank list and also to follow the counting.

This is so exciting, they are just running right away and start looking for the animals at every corner of our schoolyard. It's very remarkable, at the first time I thought it's kind of hard for the children to build a teamwork. But when I see it now with my own eyes, how they run, how they coordinate each other, they are building a very strong teamwork at here.
Kid 1 :,"hi friends, come over here. I found ants here."
Kid 2 :,"I will look over there to find something."
Kid 3 :,"Hey look over here."
Kid 4 :,"Hey I know how to write bird, let me write it."
...............etc.

Those conversations above are very common that we found in this activity. And also we found a new unknown species bugs hiding in the avocado tree. Personally all the teachers don't know the name either :) See the picture above.

They also found a lot of living organisms inside a holes of the old jackfruit tree's trunk as their habitat. We found ant's nest inside. And also a tiny plant is growing inside the holes.

Luckily our schoolyard is very rich of plant and tree collections. It's not too hard to find a nice spot for finding the animals.

 We also found lizards but it's too fast for us to observe because they just run just like wooosshhhh........... inside the bushes.
We didn't realize before that our school's backyard has a wonderful habitat for alot of kind organisms. 
As the result, there are some habitats :
ants, worms, cockroach, spiders, butterflies, bird, flying bugs and lizards.

We really have fun today by doing this kind of teamwork's activity. It already took for half an hour, but the children still want some more times. Sweaty but fun :)

Here is the example of our observation's worksheet :

Plays, sweats and happy

When I taught the new song "Yi zhi ma yi" (English = There's an ant) to the children last week. The children completely still remember the music rhyms, but they start singing the words not so clear. I heard they were singing it in the morning before the class begins. I think I must interupt their singing for a while and then told them ,"Let me sing the song again, all of you repeat after me, OK?"
"Ok , sir."they replied.

After finish to sing it and all of them understood (well, not all of them), I went to the playground for checking up the toys safety and condition. I do this every monday morning. Checking up the screws and bolts, the joint, the rope, etc.

But you know what, and then my students were singing behind my back and following me around in the line just like the ants do. So we have a group of giant ants walking in the line at the playground then :)
I was pretending not knowing that, and suddenly I turned my back with a surprising voice ,"Eeeehhhhhh.........." "Aaaaahhhhhh"

I know it's still in the morning, I still can smell my perfume which I put it on this morning.
But if the children ask me to play with them before the class begin, so be playing with them in a wwooosshhh....

Well I guess, a little bit sweat in the morning makes a big bit happy for the rest of the day. Indeed.

PS > I have my own perfume with me in my bag :) LOL

Blogging a discussion about teacher identity

We did a small discussion in facebook, via "Teach Preschool" fan page. I am asking about the teacher identity in school and in the public.  I love the discussion, it really truly opened my mind about the profession.
So I save it in my blog for me to remember it always.
In this discussion we have peoples who contribute their comments :
Tom Hobson, Shara Lawrence-Weiss, Deborah J.Stewart and Jo Caller.
Here is the question:
Regency Kindergarten via Teach Preschool fan page : "should teachers be allowed to wear tank tops
& shorts when taking a walk on the plaza?" The larger question for teachers everywhere is: "does a teacher need to 'look' and 'act' like a teacher .... all the time? If so, then there's this: "what does a teacher look like?"

21 comments :
Tom Hobson at 16:15 on 22 April 2010

Naturally, teachers should wear superhero costumes all the time. =)
. . . alternatively, they may dress as owls or cowboys!
I know this is a serious question, but I couldn't help myself. =)
{Tom is a fun teacher , he is the frontliner in the school which's run by a lot of peoples : one teacher Tom and a group of parents. Parents make a very important role in the school. This is the model of communal homeschool}
Shara Lawrence-Weiss at 16:23 on 22 April 2010

HAHA! I agree with Tom. Of course...if your superhero costume is in the wash, you must reconsider. At that point, I think anything "non revealing" is probably okay. There are some tank tops that are fine...others are certainly not.
I was invited to join a new fan page this week - created by a mom who runs the PTA at her child's school. I can't even repeat the fan page name but I can tell you this much: if any Principal was looking to hire her for a classroom job and she/he Googled this mom's name...and that fan page popped up...she'd never get hired.
When polls are taken, the general public still expect certain career holders to demonstrate a higher standard of ethics: teachers, police, firefighters, etc. Might as well be safe - than sorry, eh? Otherwise, the teacher might just end up on the "Bad Teachers Wall" over at MomLogic.com. And nobody wants that :-)
Regency Kindergarten at 16:49 on 22 April 2010

@ Tom : Don't worry Tom, a teacher is full of fun and fun and fun............ :)
@ Shara : you are right Shara, a teacher is a public figure. Because we are teaching the future president :)
@ Tom : I wish I can wear that cape and still looks great just like you :)
Teach Preschool at 17:05 on 22 April 2010

@ Regency - You can't really judge the book by the cover. I have met some pretty amazing teachers through this online forum and they all look very different but I know after reading their posts that they love what they do so for that reason, I even like teachers who wear super hero outfits! LOL!
PS> I would wear my Cat Woman super hero suit but I don't want to end up on MomLogic as a bad teacher:)
Tom Hobson at 17:09 on 22 April 2010

Everyone looks good in a cape!
Shara Lawrence-Weiss at 17:17 on 22 April 2010

Or a pink cowgirl hat!
{Shara likes to wear pink cowgirl hat :) }
Teach Preschool at 17:24 on 22 April 2010

LOL! I got to get me one of those:)

Regency Kindergarten at 19:16 on 22 April 2010

I once ever wore a cap with a rotor, the rotor can be spinning.
I wore it in front of the children.
But never wear it in front of the parents.
Sometimes it's hard to make other peoples believe "don't judge the book by it's cover"
:)
But Tom wore a super hero suit with confident.
With his confidence, I start to believe that he really can fly :)
Shara Lawrence-Weiss at 19:20 on 22 April 2010

I agree...when I see Tom's image, I think - that guy can fly! Where is he going? What town is he saving? Who needs him?
Regency Kindergarten at 19:28 on 22 April 2010

I believe with suits, the children will always remember their teachers.
Even 20 or 30 years later, they will bring their kids or even grandchild to the same kindergarten as they had.
They will tell to their kids,"He/she was my teacher"
Jo Caller at 02:01 yesterday

@RegencyKindergarten...I would hope that children remember their teachers for more than their suits!
And what is it that I must do to 'act' like a teacher?
Dress should be appropriate for the environment that we work in and take into account issues such as sun safety, cultural expectations and comfort...I would be concerned to find a early childhood teacher dressed in a suit!
I have dressed as a fairy,train driver,clown to name but a few and have been proud for parents to see me! It's all part of the fun and the children and families LOVE it!
Regency Kindergarten at 07:55 yesterday

@Jo Caller : Good point Jo, I think I must add some confidences into me wearing those costumes.
Personally a formal suit is very boring to me, we have a formal teacher's uniform for teaching in the class.
Every teacher are not the same just like the uniform.
I think in these discussions I found something valueable.
'Act like a teacher' is = we don't need to act like a teacher because we are the real teacher and not an actor/actress.
The real teacher simply has the "teacher charming" inside :)
Jo Caller at 17:38 yesterday

@Regency....You got it !!!!! It is what comes from within...the passion, the caring, the love!
So glad this discussion has helped :)
Teach Preschool at 18:01 yesterday

"The real teacher simply has the "teacher charming" inside :)" Well said!
Deborah is the one who runs the Teach Preschool fan page.
She introduce us the new idea of teaching and connecting teacher with other teachers.
Good job!
Jia you , Deb!!! (English: cheering!)
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A story of Greedy

Story by Tsabita Doll

There was a very greedy dog. This dog likes to take other dog's food. When it sees another dog was eating, it will chase and take the food from that dog.

One day the greedy dog was very hungry. The dog ran around looking for food. Near the marketplace, the greedy dog stole a piece of meat. The dog bit the meat and carried it home.

On its way home, the dog went through a small bridge over a creek. The water was very clear. The dog looked at the river below and saw clearly a dog's shadow on the water.

The greedy dog thought that there was another dog carrying a piece of meat...quickly the dog jumped into the water. The dog wanted to have the "other dog's" meat.

(In doing so) the dog lost the piece of meat from its mouth. The piece of meat was carried away by the river. There was no other dog. The one it had attacked was its own shadow. The greedy dog was soaking wet and with great difficulties reached the shore. The greedy dog went home sluggishly. Its stomach was getting even hungrier...

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Nice Mike and Rude Jude

Fun with Phonics.

This story introduces the 'magic e' spelling of the long i and u vowel sounds, as in bike and cube.

This is Nice Mike. He is always polite.

This is Rude Jude. Nobody likes him.

Jude acts like a brute.

He makes Mike wipe and shine his shoes.

He takes Mike's things :

his five white mice,

his crazy kite,

his Silly Slime

and his nice red bike.

But Nice Mike has a surprise for Rude Jude.

It's Mike's big brother, Huge Bruce.

"GULP! He's twice my size !"

Numbers , ants , and yikess....!!!!!

Yesterday, finally the CD "Simple songs for Preschool" by Deborah J.Stewart was arrived. How excited I am, I play the CD immediately when I got home. The songs are so awesome, this is what I was looking for all this time. It will be one of my rare collections at my home. When I let my baby daughter to listen the songs, she's just moving her hands and shaking her body LOL :D. I think Deborah really  understands the children's needs for songs. Even my 11 months old baby is loving it.

It's really a coincident that I already palnned for chinese teaching material last week for today, counting numbers of "the ants" and also counting ant's legs. I pick one of the songs from the CD : "There's an Ant" Track 7. But firstly translate into chinese, here's the translation :

一只蚂蚁 靠近我身边

yi zhi mayi, kao jin wo shen bian

one little ant, come near on me

一只蚂蚁 靠近我身边

yi zhi mayi, kao jin wo shen bian

one little ant, come near on me


我怕 我 eeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh................

wo pa, wo eeeeeehhhhh.............

I'm scared I'm eeeeeeeehhhhh............

它来我身边

ta lai wo shen bian

It still come near on me

一只蚂蚁 靠近我身边

yi zhi mayi, kaojin wo shen bian

one little ant, come near on me

I changed the translation  for finding the suitable words in chinese language.

We had so much fun from the song. When we were singing the song, we also did the motions :

1. We do the "ant's face" by putting our both index finger on our forehead, pointing to front.
2. We do the "crawling things" by playing our finger just liked an ant crawling and towards to us.
3. we do the "eeeeeehhhhh......." the yikes part by jumping on the spot and shaking our body and both hands.

In this session, I also introduced all about the ants to the children.

How's the ants' crawling ? or

What do the ants like to eat ? or

Why do the ants crawl in the line ? or

Where do the ants crawl ? or

What's it called the pair of pointing stuff on ant's forehead ? the answer is the antennas.
Alot of children didn't know what it's called, they just called it,"ant's horns" or "ant's hair" or "ant's moustache" or "ant's ears" ....................hahaha LOL :D

After the class, I still can hear they are singing the song together at the playground :)

Ma yi = ant

Spontaneous

Zi fa : spontaneous

This is the act that all peoples have done it before. We were already planning it before. But sometimes we must be spontaneous to react to every kind of situation that we're not expecting so. Everyone have different reaction of it.

As long as I am teaching, the spontaneous is my super weapon to break the situation.

These are the situations that need our spontaneous infront the kids :

Situation 1 ---> a kid is yawning in the class, I break their yawning spell with my idea to count the kid's teeth. And everybody will be busy counting each other's teeth after that :)

Situation 2 ---> nose picking in the class , this is a big issue for all of teachers. And I am just saying,"Freeze........, put both your hands up in the air !! " And I am pretending that I am a policeman who catch a nose picking thief. ( Haha, I hope it's not too extreme )

Situation 3 ---> when a kid is running around at the playground and suddenly fall down. I m just saying ," HOORAAY...., you are the running winner." It will prevent them from crying. And I hug his/her body and checking out his/her possiblity of injury. If not then I let them to continue playing again.

Situation 4 ---> when the children are not paying attention to me and just talking each other in the class. I said," Ooopsss I lose my marker. Can anyone find it for me?" after that they found an erasers or pencils even hair accessories from under the tables.

These are the situation that I often face it. I just do what I must gonna do to lift up my class' mood :)

If you have another experiences, please tell me a story of it, thx
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A liquid absorbing device

Kids really love to play with water. I mean who doesn't like to play with water :)
At this time the children have got a chance playing around with it.
Don't be afraid of their clothes will gonna be wet, a lot of them care about their clothes instead.

Now we introduce the sponge to the 3's . We didn't tell them the name of this stuff. They are so curious about it. The soft feeling in their hands and when they press it, it becomes smaller. If they release it, it becomes bigger.
We demonstrate how to use the sponge to fill up an empty bucket with water.

One by one, they start filling up the bucket with their both handsFrom this activity, now I know who have patient and who have not. And this is one of the montessori activity that I know.

The children are having so much fun with this. Squeeze here squeeze there, splash here and splash there.
Ho ho , I tell them this is called sponge.

After the class is finished, one of my boys came to me and asked," Can I take the sponge home, sir? I want to play with it and draw eyes on it."

"Huh ??" Hmmm,... Really weird.

I give away the sponge to him and he said thank you and walk away.

When I am on the way home, I suddenly stop and almost screaming ," SPONGEBOB... "
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How to hold chopstick ( children version )

Are there anyone can use chopstick ? :)
Today I am teaching chinese lesson for the kids. I am bringing many pairs of new chopsticks from home to show them to the kids.
I am always collecting chopstick , usually I took home an new extra pair of chopsticks from the restaurants. I never brought home the ones that I used to eat. So don't worry about that :)

I already prepared the learning tools which are : Chopsticks, numbers shape (EVA) and a small bucket.

When I come to class bringing chopsticks, the children are saying ,"Wow we are gonna to eat noodles."
Then I said," Nope, we will play with it. Is there anyone can use chopstick ?"
"I can !!!" " I can !!" " I can !!!!"
Hahaha everyone said," I can............ !!"

" Really ???!!" I replied it with a doubt.

I started to give the chopsticks, each one got a pair then. I guided them how to hold a chopstick  just like the last post ( Chopstick ). My hands are in the air when I demonstrated to hold the chopstick.
Everyone already held their own chopstick, as demonstrated by me.

"Ok, you start to grab the number "wu" (5) with  your chopstick and put it in the bucket." I pointed Vio.

He just cannot maintain to hold the chopstick in the right position, but he didn't give up.  Finally he succeded to lift up the number with his own way :)
I didn't say it wrong to them, because in this lesson I try to encourage them to practice to use chopstick.
Chopstick is the best way to practice their fine motor skill.

I am watching them using chopstick to grab the numbers shapes,there are 5 positions how to hold chopsticks :

1. Using both hands : each hand hold a single chopstick, just like holding a spoon and a fork. This technique is quite difficult, maybe I hardly do that too :D.

2. Sword and shield : haha this technique is the easiest one, they hold a pair of the chopstick in one hand. And then together using the other bare hand to lift up things :)

3. Crossing the sticks : They hold a pair of chopstick in one hand, the chopsticks is in cross position. And they successfully lift up things. { I have no idea how this can really work :D LOL, personally I can't do that }

4. Pushing : This might be against the chopstick's user manual book :) . They are just pushing stuff with chopstick, just like a hockey player :)

5. Big Jab : Haha with a big jab they stroke things with chopstick. This technique is very common among us when we eat a meat ball :)

I start to use chopstick when I was 4 years old. Start at young age makes me even better to hold chopstick when I'd grown up.
To learn to hold chopstick at young age, it just like when we want to learn to swim.

So everybody go and buy a pair of chopstick, use it when you eat noodles or even spaghetti.

Chopstick : kuai zi ( chinese )

What I do, what I did, what I will do

Yesterday afternoon there'd been a heavy rain at here. We had to wait untill the rain stopped, I was going home a little bit late then.
Today in the morning, it's a shiny day. When I just come to open the class , there still noone's coming yet. And then I am preparing the teaching stuff for today. After that I go to the playground to look at there for a while, I found that our playground is covered by just a few of dry leaves from the Jackfruit tree.
I have to tell you that our kindergarten has a big giant jackfruit tree on the middle of the playground. With its leaves and branches, it makes a big canopy shape, at noon it's giving the children a perfect shading while they are playing.
Lately, I just found out that in the rainy season, the jackfruit tree is producing a huge number of dry leaves. It's very strange, right ?
After finish preparing the teaching stuff, I feel I need to go to the toilet.
While I am in the toilet, I kind of hear the sweeping sound from the playground. Eh............. it's weird that I thought noone's coming yet.

I just walk out at once and try to find out, .......I see two of my students are sweeping the playground using floor squeegee :). Apparently only the two of them just arrived to school.

I am very touched by their kindness, I know at the other day I was just doing what I think it's the right things, by sweeping the playground by myself ( helping each other post ) . They just believe in me, what I was doing it's the right things.

The children really paid it well, they just do "what I do, what I did", and perhaps they will figure it out "what I will do".
Maybe this is what we always called the "bonding" between teacher and the children.

Chopstick

It is a chinese traditional tool for eating. It's already exist thousands of years before. They use chopstick ,especially when they eat noodles, but you can use the chopstick to eat any kind of food.
You can use chopstick to eat meats or vegetables or beans , peanuts , even to eat rice. Have you seen peoples eat rice using chopstick before ?
Tomorrow I am planning to teach the children to use chopstick.
I am expecting all of them are able to use it :)

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Imagining the finger trace

Chinese language or mandarin is very difficult for most of peoples, even the Chinese people also said so. When the first time I suggest to put chinese language in kindergarten curriculum. There were a lot of pro and contra. The "contra" said,"How come, a very young child can understand chinese." or "it's too difficult" or "we as parents don't understand that" or ......................... (a lot).
After we explained to them, and convinced them. They finally agreed with us.

Writing Chinese :

There are so many way to learn to write chinese character, and you can do writing practice at anytime, anywhere, anyplace.

1. Writing in the air

What I mean is we can practice to write the chinese character in the air. Write the every character strokes one by one in the air. This will make the children having a pictorial image to every chinese words.
They have to imagine the chinese word is hanging in front of them, and tracing the strokes. They must use their pointer finger to write it, and keep the stroke trace in their mind.
This practice can be done at anywhere and anytime.

2. Writing on the flour

This is the method for the beginner. And I believe this method is as old as the human civilization. We use flour as the media and pour it on a flat surface, for example : a tray. Then the children can write the chinese character on the flour.The different to writing on the air is the finger traces are visible. This is quiet fun for them, because I make it as a "flour mark" game.
If they forgot one stroke in a chinese word, they have to put one flour mark on their face.

So everybody won't easily forget in the future.

The first time I teach using the flour to write, when I came into the class with a tray on my hand, the children were asking," What do you want to cook, sir?"
I answered them," I want you all to help me and get dirty......"
"Hooraaayyy............!" they're yelling.

That's the story of how our class civilization is beginning :D LOL

The Food Artworks

Aha...! Moms and children in team's cooking competition for celebrating the Easter. For the contestans,  the competition's rules are  :

1. should be adding the eggs ingredients in the food, but make it as simple as possible
2. the good teamwork between mom and child
3. hygene ( of course ...... haha )
4. the good taste

Very awesome, it's very interesting that all of the children have the competition's spirit. They wanna be the winner. Especially their moms start saying ,"Help me here" or "Help me with that" or " Help me to put those....." or " Don't eat that.........yet."   :) The playground is now full of laugh from everyone.

All of them already cooked the egg and other ingredients at home, so at school they're just arranging the food on the dishes in a nice compositions.

One had drawn a funny face with the fried egg :) and the others had designed a pretty house with the egg, with some noodles for the cloud  LOL :D. Is that a "man" on the food ?

And how you designed the food by adding a pair of wiggling eyes, this is for the example :

We're displaying the food artworks on the table so every other parents can see it. Hmmmm...... Yummy !

So guess, who is the winner ? :)

Thank you moms, thank you children for your great enthusiasm in this competition.
Happy Easter everyone.

PS : please do not swallow the wiggle eyes :D