A paper fish with a paper clip

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 :)

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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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 :

Comic books

All these times, I found that my students often brought some comic books to the school. But they only just wanted to show off to their friends.
Just looking at the pictures for a while, after that they put it back into the bag and never open it again till got home. They didn't have a willing to share it with their friends :(, or read it together. Some of them are so picky.
Yesterday we got an idea, how about to let them bring their own comic books to school. So each one of them will bring different comic books then for today.
I let one girl start to read the comic in front of her friends.
" Ok go ahead ", I say.
She starts to read it, and all of her friends only see the comic cover.
"Vina, your friends cannot enjoy your comic. Please hold your comic beside your shoulder while you're reading it".
"Can't do that ,sir."
Oh I forgot, only a teacher can read it in that way :)
"Well children , all of you can make a small group and read the comic together", I tell.
Aha.... Each student now can enjoy their comics together.
While they are reading, I am asking Vina,"what is the title of the comic?"

" Sapi kebelet kawin " she say. (English : a cow that want to get married)
"What....!!???"I really wanna know how's the story goes, but I don't have a chance to read it coz their hair are blocking my view.
I thought perhaps I will ask her to let me read it for a while. After school I try to find her but then her mom already pick her up to go home.

Oh no, I really wanna read that comic badly. Pleeaaasee......
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Imaginery Taxi

Today the K-B class (K-2) are learning mandarin, the topic is about get on and get off the taxi.
We move their chairs to make two lines, which looked like inside the taxi's seat. Front seat and back seat. When I said "Shang Che" it means get on the taxi, they must do exactly as real taxi. Open the door first, then get on your leg and sit on inside, after that get on the other leg. It's so much fun, because a lot of them skip to open the imagery door car. And I say," Oh no, you can walk thru  the door." They are all laughing, and they repeat it again. After they get on the taxi, the imagery taxi just start to go without closing the door first. I say,"Oh my God, it's very dangerous if you dont close the door car first." They laugh again. After finish getting on the car perfectly, then I ask," Who's driving?" They immediately point to their friend who sit on the right front seat. (FYI : we are in Indonesia use to drive on the right side, right side steer). It's amazing that they perfectly know which side should the driver sit on. They really paid attention on this issue before. They aware it.
After that the imagery taxi is starting to go with 3 passengers inside......... Brrrrooommmmmmm................
"Don't forget to pay before you get off the car ya...........!", I yelled.

Shang che = get on the car

Xia che = get off the car

Honest Scrap

Hmmm..............I think this is a good idea not only in blog worlds but for our pocketmails. I think I am gonna use this methods for the children in writing the postmail- letter :) . Hahaha I think it's going to be so much fun when the children are being honest to each other.

I've got the award from Deborah J.Stewart who really inspire everyone about early childhood education. She also has liitle fingers that play and Excellence in early childhood education in my favourite blog lists.

And now in this event, I'd like to pass this award to all the bloggers in the world of bloggership :). First thing I have to be honest :

1. I like to watch cartoon movie, it makes me smile. Especially when it's the silly one :)

2. First time I faced the children, and was teaching in front of the class. I was sweating. Pphhuhh.....

3.  I nearly got a job as a water-fountain designer, coz I am really crazy to watch dancing fountain.

4. I like to dance with my daughter, and my wife recorded it. When I watched it, it seems that I am sillier than my daughter :)

5. My english is not too good, but it's really strange how peoples understand me.

6. But I can speak mandarin fluently, but only few can understand me :)

7. I was stealing something.................. from Deborah J.Stewart, her blog design is awesome. I stole some of her blog designs and put it into my blog.

8. I am always keep saying "drop comments into my blogs, please", when I met my little sister. And she is keep saying to me ,"Later lah !!" . Till now she only put one single comment in my blog :(

9. I'd like to eat PIZZA coz it's big and alot , 8 pieces !!!!! ..................
No, just kidding. A Pizza is teaching peoples how to share to other peoples. The power of sharing.

10. I and my wife love to eat frozen yogurt in Sour Sally, especially when it has 50% discount.

Now the 7(+) blogger :

to all of my students, they are the future blogger. We will play this honest scrap with pocket mail, ok?

Cleaning Time, My Little Busy Bee

In order to introduce to the children about clean environment effects our healthy, we just let them do the cleaning in their own class. Everyone bring their own cleaning tools from home. (I hope their mother didn't miss the tools :) .They bring : duster, wiper and broom. And we provide the mop and the water buckets.
One of my students who is using the duster, which is miss busy, she is very active cleaning. Running around with her duster, and scanning every dusty spots. Just liked a busy bee.

Everyone are cleaning their wiper-clothes in the water bucket after finish wiping. We teach them how to squeezee, because it's new to them and they can't do that by themselves. And Why all of the photos are so blur, because they are moving so fast and very quick, just liked bees. Can't follow it. Although not everyspots they can reach to.

Look at the photo above, I even cannot capture them focusly with camera.

The song that we sing =

Wipe, wipe, wipe !

Dust, dust, dust !

Sweep, Sweep, Sweep !

Everybody are happy when the class is clean . Yo !

(c) 2010 Danny Chiu for Regency K.

{ sing it in rap }

Shadow

One day I have to teach the children animal's name in mandarin. I have animal shapes that made of EVA material (sponge-like). But it's too small for children to look at from distance. So I planned to bring along my 'only one' light torch from home, the big one, coz it needs 5 'big' batteries to turn on. I've got it from my parents, wow it's quite old. But it's still in good condition to show it to the children. FYI : It can light up so far, the light distance's about 30 meters. When I was starting to teach, suddenly I turn off all lights in the classroom. They seem so surprised. They are wondering in the dark what am I doing.........................
I am drawing!!!!!!...... on the whiteboard using my marker. It's really need a very hi-l skill to draw in the dark, not even  a professor can do that.........:D. But a kindergarten teacher can do that. hooooraayy............
Then I start to turn on the torch, directing to the whiteboard. Now everybody can see my drawing, it's a jungle.
Well please don't expect it too much :) . There are four trees, bushes and grass. Then I begin to play with my animal shape in the torch light. The children are so excited coz my animal becomes alife when I play it, the monkey is jumping to the tress, and I ask one of them assist me to play the lion shape too as it's walking and hiding in bushes. As we know that we used to play shadow without any background, so in this condition I add the hand-drawing jungle background. It's quite simple but it's very effective to chill up the children.

The picture that I took, it's not so clear. Coz no flash's allowed in my little shadow playing :). Thanks torch !!

this blog provides us to learn hand-shadow, please enjow it : http://earlychildcare.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/5-awesome-hand-shadows/

Doctor 's visitng to school

Today's there is a doctor visit to our school, dr.Vita. To meet children and to talk to children about healthy and hygene. The kids are very interest about it, because we already told the kids that no need to afraid of doctor. The doctor is very kind. :) Alot of question that dr.Vita  asked. There is one question that answered by a child so cute. He is Kazio. Dr.Vita asks,"How many kind of doctor that it has?". Kazio answers," There are two kinds of doctors, a boy and a girl..........................". hahahaha everybody is laughing include dr.Vita. Of course after that we tell him that what dr.Vita means.

I've got mail, an idea from Mrs.Deborah J.Stewart

Finally.............we made it, with the help of other teachers which I designed it first. Now after a month, we made it, the postmail pockets for children that children can send letters each other by putting letters in their freinds' mailpockets :). Can't wait to start using it :). Thanks again Mrs.D.

Baking bread

Today K-A are baking breads, everybody are so happy. Everybody are preparing their breads by themselves. It's very interesting that they can do exactly by watching the teachers. Haha see the kids are so exciting about their breads. After that we help them to bake the bread. The class are already hungry, let's enjoy the breads..... Yoohooooo.....
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Chocolate for mom and dad

yes this week PG classes make the chocolate for valentine's day. The teachers are preparing the ingredients after that the children just pour the melting chocolate into cute plastic malt. After that they stick the little heart shape on the chocolate after we wrap it with plastic wrap. So the kids can know chocolate maing process, can pour it then taste it. It's a new experience for them. Happy Valentine's day Children............ :)

Fine motor skill for helping teacher :)

Thank you Kezia, Kezia is one of my students. At that time, I was kind of busy preparing my Mandarin worksheets. I saw her that her parents hadnt picked her up yet. Then I called her for helping me to clip bundling with the bundle clipper. At first time she needed long time to bundle it, after took a while she got used to it. Haha a little bit sweating, she really took seriously the job, then finish the jobs. The girl, Kezia, really has sense of responsibility :) Thanks again

Littering plans part 2

Finally, when I already put poster on the wall "THANK YOU FOR NOT LITTERING" with green background. I reduced 75% of trash that belong to children in the class and parents at waiting room. No food anymore on the floor, but there are still some used tissues and used plastic glasses on the floor. Well that's ok, it can be cleaned quickly. If there's food on the floor.................... yackkkk......!!!!
Hmmmmm...............but still left 25%, what can I do with that ?......hmmmm........wondering, have to find another ideas. Perhaps I will put the "talking trash bin" that like the Japanese has....... :) or should I put CCTV camera on every corners................ mpppiuuhhhhhh...........

Thank you for not littering plans

The children's awareness are still low about littering. Well we all the teachers have plan for the next week, to put posters on the place that children can see it, even parents who wait outside the school can see and read it. I hope it will work effectively. Well let's see for the whole next week.