Yue lai yue xiao

My topic for teaching mandarin today is "yue lai yue da, yue lai yue xiao" (it's getting bigger and bigger, and it's getting smaller and smaller).
Although the weather is a little hot outside, and our classroom's air conditioner got a little bit of problem ( not cool enough ). But the children are still so excited about our mandarin session.
"Ok children, we say it together ... 1..2..3...." And all of students say it together," yue lai yue da".
After that I asked them," what kind of stuff that is getting bigger and bigger ?"
All of them said," a baby !!! A tree !!! We are also getting bigger and bigger!!! ........"
"All of you are absolutely right", I replied.
"And now let's say together yue lai yue xiao"
"Yue lai yue xiao!"
" And now what kind of things that is getting smaller and smaller", I asked.
"........................????", *silent* and they 're just looked like the audiences that start mumbling each other.
"What ??? Can you all answer it ? Look at surround you, and find a thing", I said.
"I don't know Mr. Danny."
(Hmmmmm..... I think it's a little bit hard to answer even who read this post have to think it very hard, am I right ? :)
And suddenly one students ,name Arvio, start to answer it. Arvio basically is a smart boy, but sometimes he is too busy to talk to his friends rather than answer my question :)
He answered," An eraser, sir." (He means rubber eraser).
"GOOD ANSWER!! ", I said.
Finally ..... After 5 minutes waiting their answer.
" Any other ??? " I asked.
" A pencil, Mr. Danny."
" Good answer too."
" Felicia ...." Luckily Felicia is the smallest girl in class. It's a desperate answer I think.
" No, she is not getting smaller. But she is just smaller than you."

And until the class is over, we only got those two right answers :(
Any ideas from all of you ?

Yue lai yue da = it's getting bigger and bigger.

Yue lai yue xiao = it's getting smaller and smaller.

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Numbers and sea animals , idea from Ayn Colsh

I've got the idea from Ayn Colsh's blog : Little Illuminations

What a clever idea, she used food bags for the media, but I choose to design it with computer Corel Draw and printed it out on hard paper. Once again, thank you Ayn.

Note : I put the worksheet in JPEG file, so all of you can copy and print it by yourself :)
Don't forget to print out the door image on the back of the paper :)

here is the door...................

So happy teaching...........................................

Smileeee........................ *click*

Today is parents meeting in school, all teachers are busy preparing for that. The meeting will be held after the school. We plan that while parents have the meeting, their children are waiting on the playground.
I am busy arranging the chairs for parents to sit. And I ask some children for assisting me, for telling the direction of the meeting-room to parents. They are really good assistants. Thank you.

While I was busy and also everybody were, suddenly I heard the clicking sounds from my back. But I ignored it coz I was too busy. Sometimes I heard it from my back, sometimes I heard it in distinction. And then the sound came near again.

When I heard the clicking sound for few times, I was so curious. I turned my body around as lightning, wanna see where it came from. I saw one of my students, a boy ,holding a camera-toy, "capturing" my pics.
I was standing at there without moving, like a big statue, and parents were also watching at the boy and me.
And also other students are watching at me and him. (Why suddenly everybody are looking at me ,huh...?)

I was thinking," Ahh..... let's be silly lah..." I started posing in front of the camera, with silly pose. The boy were just standing there, with mouth opened, not saying anything, already forgot to click.
I said,"hey, quick take a pic of me, I am posing for you........."

After saying that, I couldn't remember how many pose I had, and other students started to pose too with me and others. Everybody are starting to smile and laugh including the parents.

Haha, it's really nice to have a laugh session before the meeting.

The meeting goes well after that.

{The camera-toy was mine, I had it when I was a child. I donate it to the school 2 years ago..........so happy that now the children can play with it too}

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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Cake

The pocketmails are really something for us, especially for the children. They've got more friends, they become to know each other better. Also make us closer with the children, they also send mail to their teacher.
One of my teacher-mates, Ms.E....., I think she is more excited than me in sending mail or replying mail from children. Her mail -replied is always creative and full of color, make the children badly want to read the mails, and I am always being asked by the children for telling them what the meaning is :o)

And voila............... Ms.E 's pocketmail is always full at the end of the day.

Today, I saw two girls of my students are sneaking around, in front of Ms.E's classroom. And holding something.

I ask them, "What are you doing, girls? Should both of you be in the class right now?"

Both of them answer me,"We want to give Ms.E a piece of cake." and with one little yellow M&M chocolate on the cake :D

And they continue walking slowly, maintaining her balance, while holding a small piece of cake in her both palms.......................
I mean the cake is really in her palms..........!!!

I say." Eh...wait???!! where do you get that from?"

"It's from my lunch, Mr.Danny. I bring 2 pieces of cakes, one for Ms.E"

Ah............I get it, I thought they are holding their unfinished lunch.

So I say," Girls, if you want to give something to somebody, you should put the cake on something first, for example put it on the tissue. So it will be looked nice, better and hygiene." I dont want to let them get dissapointed by rejecting the only one cake in their hands, their little present that's from the heart. Although the cake is already not in a good shape.

Then I give them the tissues, and they put the cake on it. Ms. E is very happy to accept the cake, the girls are also happy. I am also a happy guy who keep the little secret :)

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?

Slide, the children's imaginations

We have two slides, the "old" one which is bigger and the "young" one which is smaller. Why I call the blue one is the "old" one, because we've been having it since 20 years ago............ WOW>>!!!!! Can you imagine that how many times is it being used to slide down by children ? And all of our alumnies , which are already in high-school, when they come and visit to our kindergarten they are just saying "Oh My God." With a surprising face, and mouth widely opens. They have a good memory to our kindergraten, in details, I really mean it. They remember their former teachers' names, they know the positions of the classroom, they remember where they was sitting in the classroom. Even one of them is saying," I really miss Fried Rice made by our former kitchen head." Hmmm we are so proud of those.

They also remember that the "old" slide was orange color. We already repaint it and turn it into blue color.
Anyway talking about slide, children are having a lot of imagination, easy get bored of somethings. They need challenges, even in playing. So they are doing this to the both slide (below).

It's a simple idea from the children's minds, an overlaping slide. They just drag the red slide to the under of blue slide. That's really cool, we appreciate that.
Sometimes we cannot provide them a lot of toys to play , but we dont have to worry about that again.

Their minds and imaginations will provide something new for them to play :)

Enjoy playing it then :)

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 }

Urgent matter

The thing is a little bit privacy, noone wants this happened. Including kindergarteners, but somehow lately in this unfriendly weather, heavy rain in the morning and in the afternoon is going to be hot and too humid. A lot of them 've got cold or runny nose or cough. And stomachache too.

If there's stomachache, now we are talking about the doing no.1. But still some students are too shy to tell it to the teacher earlier, so something bad will happen then. We told them that no need to be shy if you've got really urgent matter which is doing no.1.
Most of them were saying : "afraid to do it alone" or "usually my mom help me to do that" or "not comfortable if their friends heard abt it" or "it's an embarrassing thing ,sir".
All of the answer is so common, all I can say is "it's very natural, children. No one will be laughing at you, no one may laugh at you." " It's an healthy thing" " don't worry, let us teach you how to handle it by yourself,OK ?"

This is the trust that they need from us. The trust that to let them doing it by themselves under our supervision. So everybody no need to worry anymore :)
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I've got mail : to the next level

I stare the pocketmail, well a lot of mails inside. And I found this one, when one of my students show me the letter. Haha......... now they are sharing their home phone numbers. By the way, the other day we taught them the song about phone number using the "Skip to my lou" rythm (from Teach Preschool-Deborah).
"3324567...........3x"
"Dont you forget to call me up"
They are really happy now because they remember their own phone number, thanks Deborah. It's really nice that the children have the spirit just like that. By sharing their own phone number, it means that their friendship is going to the next level.

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/

I've got mail : the power of giving

Ar first, we designed the pocketmail is for sending mail only (as far as we thought). But the children are having so much creative, sometimes far away from our ideas. Beyond unthink-able things. They are now even sending a gift box or presents via pocketmail !!! That's cool.
We grow their sense of sharing between their friends. They've learned that if we care to our friends, their friends also care to them. By this mail-sending activity, they will understand the power of giving.  

Giving it first then you will be receive it too.

Sadly Awkward

Since the first term beginned, we already made the database of the children, including : full name, copy of birth certificate, father's name, mother's name, address and children's medical histories, etc. So we put their datas in our student's guide book, then fill their names and datas on children's daily books' front page. The daily book is for communicating between teachers and parents.
I t's been half year I taught the class , one day I had a homework for them. The homework is a cut-paste pictures, so I think some of them needed adult assistances at home for doing that. Then I told to everyone in the class," Children if you guys cannot do it by yourself, you must ask your mother or your father to help you. Bcoz you have to use scissor safely." Everyone nooded that mean agreed with me, but suddenly one boy student raised his hand and told me,"I can't ask my father to help me, because I don't have a father."
I was in silent for 10 sec, no word came out from my mouth. I had to think fast, then I said:,"Oh............then you can ask your grandma, grandma can help you for sure." with my awkward smile.
After the class, I tried to find infos about that student from his grandma. His grandma is always picking him up by walking after the school. I feel so sorry, bcoz I found out that his father was already gone since a year ago. Deepest condolences. I never realized before, we have wrong database. It's because his mom didn't mention any of this situation. Perhaps they need more times to accept that. My fault, that I didn't know that.

Hope never happened again in my life.

I've got mail : Cinderella teacher

These mail sending activities are really motivating the children to write, to draw and to color. The most important is that they want to know how to write their friend's name. I can see on their face, when they were writing mail-letters, what a full enthusiasm face. One student can write 3 to 4 letters a day. Haven't counted those'd been written at home. How cool it is. I also saw that one girl has a small cute notebook with colorful pages in her bag, ready to be ripped off one by one page when the girl want to write a letter. Last week I found that they only wrote letters to their class mates, this week they were writing letters across to other classes. Even in different levels. Surely also across the gender :). That's pretty amazing.

My teacher-mate, teaches PG class, told me that she got many mails from other class students. And the letter it's quite interesting, it writes ,"Miss D........, you are so beautiful, just looked like Cinderella" or "Miss D......, you're looked like a ferinses" (it means Princess). it's a  sweet letter, makes everybody happy :).

Deep in their mind, it's so simple, the "beautiful" word is belong to Cinderella or princess, and the "handsome" word is belong to the prince. And it's very true, indeed.

Since we have mail-pockets, our class' life is much more fun and surprising :)

I've got mail part 3 : Likes you

T'day ,in the morning as usual I open the classroom and see nothing special since yesterday that I left. And also looking at the empty postmail pocket. One by one students go inside the classroom. Putting down their bag on the chair and go to play in the playground while waiting the bell rings. Then I go to the playground for checking up the toy safety. After 15 min, the bell rings, all of us go into the classroom. I see the postmail pocket is already full with mails. Wow what a surprise. They have enthusiasm about the mail sending things. They already wrote the letter at home. It's very sweet to know that they spent time @ home to write letters for their friends. There's one boy in my K-B class , got a lot of letters in his mail-pocket. And when I asked him, he said he got those from a girl on his class. And when we read them , the letters got the same contains. There are about 4 letters. "Dear A......... , you are so handsome , you looked like a prince from a fairy tale. I like you. Love G.....
Huh.... ???!!! Well well ,Some of them can show their feelings ,and others can't show their feelings so open :) I think their writing skill is improving a lot.
Hope will find other new interesting letters soon.
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Lion dance (kids version)

Chinese new year celebration is already end, not for this kids. I found them that they are playing lion dance infront of our kindergarten's gate. They are 2st and 3rd grade from neighborhood school. We really appreciate that their awareness to the chinese culture. It's so fun.

Hope you guys enjoy the pictures :)

Big smile, big future

Some kids have a easy going character, some have hard going character. Every year when the school just begun we will find this kind of condition always. Once I had a student named Ipul, a little guy with a big white teeth smile. Still new to the school, but he was already running around to all of school's part ; classes, office, playground, toilet, etc. He is so amazing, even when he's playing ,his friends are always with him. He got alot of friends at school. He's so popular. He's staying in the neighbourhood, which is one block from the school. Everybody in the neighbourhood, I mean the adults know him. When he went home , everybody along the street that he met always say :"Hi, Ipul". That's including me to say that !!!!!! :) Wow I never met a kids so popular before, he's popular not bcoz he is handsome or good looking or being smart, I don't know perhaps his "aura", I mean his character it's so friendly.  I think if we have a score in socialize, I will give him an A++. In the class he's smiling alot at me when he need my help, always smile when I call him, when he did wrong he will smile to the teacher.
Now he is in the 1st grade, in different school, well I just really really miss him :) Who can forget to that smile :))))

The world becomes better with our smile :D

Heart touching story

Kids are so excited when we tell them that we want to tell them a story. "Hooorrraayyyy.... " They re yelling. The story of one leg toy that I choose. Why I choose that story, coz recently I saw the children are a little bit disrespecting to their toys. I want to grow their sense of belongings. The story is a little bit different from the book, it's adjusting the way of life in here. I don't bring the book into the class, but rather sketching and drawing on the whiteboard. 'That one day a rich dad bought a lot of presents for his daughter. She found out that one of her dolls got only one leg'. 'She throw the one leg doll out of the window onto the street.' 'While outside starting to rain, the doll is starting to cry.' The children are starting to get stunned at this part. 'The doll feels so cold,lonely,dirty no one wants her.''And it started to cry'. ' With all the way on the street, into the river by a dog, and swap away by the river's current, finally get to the river bank nearby a poor family house.' The poor family has one little girl that find the one leg doll on the river bank.' The little poor girl is very happy.''So the doll now has a new home, with little poor girl that is loving it forever'. Some kids drop a little tear on the eyes corner after finish listening to the story. They feel sorry for the doll in the story, also they begin to remember their toys at home that they already broke it. They didn't realize that already wasting a lot of toys at home. They promise to play carefully and must take care their toys much better next time. A lesson for me : If we want to give a message to children, the best way we can do is telling them a " heart touching" story. After the class, one girl came to me and said, 'Sad story, sir'.
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Fingermath

Recently I am always hearing fingermath method among the parents. I am so curious about it, coz never know it before. The parents said , it's the new method for teaching the children about mathematic. 'Really?? ' I said. 'Yes!!' They explain it as far as I remember here there are : for example , the multiply. 7 x 8 = 56, we symbolize the 7 as two fingers of left hand which are thumb and pointer are opening, and we symbolize 8 as three fingers of right hand which are thumb, pointer and mid finger are opening. So left hand we have 2 opening fingers and 3 closing fingers, right hand has 3 opening fingers and 2 closing fingers. Then we add the opening fingers 2 + 3 = 5 then we multiply the closing fingers 3 x 2 = 6. Put the opening fingers' result infront of the closing fingers' result, now we have 56 then. Unbelievable...... Right? You can try with other multiply e.g 6 x 6 or 9 x 9 or etc. FYI : this is only for multiply among this group of numbers 6,7,8,9. I think I will find out. I think I will learn more about this method. Perhaps if you read and and read again my post you will get what I mean.
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Confusing broken bookshelf

I remember a funny story that happened last year in the kindergarten. One of my students, name is Vynna. One day I found out that one of our bookshelves was broken on the first shelf, below part. We all teachers were kind of weird and surprised by this coz never happened before even the shelves is quite old. We investigated a few students at that time who playing around there. Finally we found two boys admitted, but were still in confusing face :) .Then we fixed the broken shelf immediately. A week after that suddenly Vynna , a girl student, came to me and tell me that she broke the shelf again, just like the last time that she did. Huhhh..........?????!!! Then she demonstrated that she wanted to reach the toys and how she broke the shelf in detail, with a sweet smiling face. 'Why you just tellin' me t'day?' She just confused. Hahaha...LOL sometimes when I remember this, I am just smiling by myself :)
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I've got mail part 2

Everything first time is always hard, today we begin to use the postmail pockets. Writing a mail is new for the children. Some can write their name but cannot write their friend's name, some can write their friend's name but forgot how to write theirs :). But something at the first time to tell them the rule of writing a mail:

1. write their name on the paper

2. write friend's name

3. write or draw and coloring

4. fold the letter and put into friend's mailpocket

Now they know the rule, they can freely write mail without any wrong address :)