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
Sent from BlackBerry® on 3

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!)
Sent from BlackBerry® on 3

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...

Sent from BlackBerry® on 3

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
Sent from BlackBerry® on 3

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... "
Sent from BlackBerry® on 3

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 :)

Sent from BlackBerry® on 3

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

Melting

Easter eggs, we celebrate Easter after the Easter holiday. That's our tradition in our kindergarten. I don't know why, perhaps that will make the holiday 's felt much longer than the others.
I think it's absolutely right, till now I can feel that the holiday hasn't been over yet.

The 3's class were bringing two eggs from home, one egg is only the egg and the other one has already been added ornaments or drawn or painted or put a hat, etc. We are hoping that children and parents can enjoy working and designing the egg together at home. There will be a competition for that, we have  prizes too for the winners :)

The other egg is for the egg hunt activity . We hide the eggs from the children and add some more eggs from the teachers to be hidden. It's Ms. E's turn this year to hide those eggs in the garden and at the playground. Last year was my turn to hide those eggs, they didn't pick me up again for this year because I am the master of hiding eggs. They said it's too difficult to find if I was hiding it .LOL :D. (it's only under those dry leaves anyway....)
So maybe we still can find last year eggs in the garden, Hahahahaha.......................

After we finish collecting the designed eggs from the children and put those on the table for displaying. And now we are starting to hunt the hidden eggs. How exciting they are, just like hunting a treasure.
The children are walking around ,running around, wandering around, confusing around :),...................

It's very contrast the differences between a child who has confidence and a child doesn't have any.
A confidence child already found 1 or 2 eggs, meanwhile the other was starting to cry.
And this the time we have to guide them to find the egg.

After each of them at least got one or two eggs, we finish the egg hunt and go to our classroom.
In the class room, we clean the eggs first then everyone have to eat the eggs by peeling it first.

Just a few of them can peel off the egg skin cleanly, most of them were just complaining and saying that they never did that before. And I said,"If you want to eat the egg, you have to try to get rid the skin first."

Suddenly a girl came to me, and telling me," Mr.Danny, what happened with my egg, it's melting from the inside...!!"
When I saw her hand, it already got messy of egg york.
"Haha, you never saw the half boiled egg, ya ?"
"This is what will happen if your mom was too busy in the morning." Or maybe her mom was mixed up with her dad's breakfast egg or something.
But anyway, and then I asked her,"Do you like the taste?"
She said," I like the taste, sir."

"So now you understand about "half-boiled", so next time you can order the half boiled egg  from your mom." :)

I will be very proud that I hope in the morning my students can say to their mom ," Mommy, I want to order half boiled egg, please.." :D

Numbers, teeth and yawning

This is a review from the last year lesson, numbers in mandarin session in my class. The numbers are until 18 (shi ba).
When we start to begin counting 1 to 18, it happened that one of my students was yawning so big that the whole inside view of his mouth was seen by me. Well it's still in the morning, but I never dreamed of last night that I will see the biggest yawning today in the morning :)

"Wow Zio, you are yawning in front of everybody." He's just smiling while still yawning.
Suddenly I have an idea................................................
"And now everybody must count Zio's teeth."  I am saying it with my wicked smile. LOL :D. Because  I think this is a good idea for learning numbers.
"Count only the upside teeth." I continued. Because I was teaching them 1 to 18 only.
"Ok Zio you start yawning in count of three, 1.......2.........3........yawning........ !!! "  :)
And then everybody got closer to Zio and start to count his teeth.


" Oh Zio, you only had ten teeth on upside. And now I will open my mouth, and everybody count my upside teeth." I was asking.

After finish counting, they all said," You have 16 teeth, Mr.Danny."
"Why do you have 16 teeth, sir ?"

I answered it," Because I am already grown up, and anyway my mouth is bigger than yours." :)
"All of you will have 16+16 teeth later when you are big."

"And Zio next time, please go to sleep earlier at the night before, so you won't yawn again in the class in the morning." :)

1 = yi

2 = er

3 = san 

4 = si

5 = wu

6 = liu

7 = qi

8 = ba

9 = jiu

10 = shi

11= shi yi

12= shi er

13= shi san

14= shi si

15= shi wu

16= shi liu

17= shi qi

18= shi ba

Twins

Twin is a life's phenomenon to me, it's a gift from God. Every year our kindergarten is always having twins students. Any kind of twins, boy-girl or boy-boy or girl-girl. This year we have Steve-Jos twin brothers in K-2 and Claire-Cleo twin sisters in K-1. This is so incredible that we have double twins in a year, it's the first time.

Steve-Jos are identically twins. If we look at them, we can't find any differences with their body or hair or skin or face or the eyes. I often call one of them with wrong names. The only difference is a tiny mark on Jo's cheek that only can be seen on 30 centimetres face to face. Wow can you imagine that how difficult to recognize their difference ?
We have K-2 in 2 class, so Steve in K-2a and Jos in K-2b. When - I was teaching and asking Steve a question about something, the answers mostly the same as Jos. Vise versa. It amazed me.
One day Steve got sick and had to stay at home, I saw Jos was also a little bit different. It seemed that he missed his half. And the next day he also got sick and had to stay at home too.

Now about Claire and Cleo. When I look at them I know the differences between them. They are not so identically twin. Cleo has curly hair and Claire has straight hair. Both of them are in the same class, they are so dominant in the class. They are so pretty and charming. They got the same bright eyes and very smart too :). Had the same answer too in every questions.

After all they are just ordinary kids, can be happy or can be sad , can be lazy :) , etc.
I wish I have twin, it looks so much fun :)

But one thing I already learn from this, we may not compare them each other in the skills. Different person different skills and different characters. 

I think this year I must spend a lot of time with them to understand better about this twin phenomenon :)
Sent from BlackBerry® on 3

Helping each other

After a long weekend, for Easter holiday, we got holiday from last Thursday till Sunday. In monday morning when I come to our lovely kindergarten, I found that a lot of fallen dry leaves on all over the playgorund. What a magnificent view, well I guess I am the first who comes to school. I must start to clean the playground by myself before the children come.
Anyway I have to burn my fat from last week Easter holiday, my family was having a feast at restaurant.  We are visiting so many restaurants. I ate quiet a lot :)
Doing a little exercise in this morning, that's what I should do :)


I started to sweep the playground from the farest corner, I didn't realize one girl of my students , Jess, already come to school. It's still early, it's 6.15 am. That's really so early for her.
She's watching at me while I was sweeping out the dry leaves.
She asked me then,"Mr.Danny, I will help you, is that OK ?"
"Of course Jess, why not ?"
I was so happy for her kindness. She wanted to help me :)

Not in a minute, another student , Avel, came to me and asked me," I want to help you too, Mr.Danny."
"Ok, give me a hand then."

Another 1 minute , another students come. They just put their bags on their seat in a hurry, then running to the playground to watch us sweeping the leaves. After that they just grab the other broom and start to sweep together with us.

"Helping each other", this is the topic for this morning that I never planned before.
Now we have a crowd here that were sweeping the playground.

They didn't think of anythings, just go and help others, help friends. This is our life in a monday morning.

I guess I have to cancel my appoinment this morning with my "nature trainer"(the broom) for burning my fat :)