Lap booking class Term 1 lesson 4

Today we went to mother in law's house for Lunar New Year reunion lunch as 3rd brother in law's family and 2nd sister in law's children will be away for holiday on Lunar New Year Eve. As a result, it totally upset our schedule. We were late for the class. We missed some parts of the lesson. ARGH................

When we arrived, Shirley was showing a book on farm animal. She showed picture of cow then moved on to sheep. She asked tot what animal is that? A sheep. How do you tell it's a sheep? What is on the sheep's body? Wool. The wool makes sheep looks fat. Wool keeps sheep warm. Farmer shear sheep's wool for making thick clothes. Shirley suggested bringing tots to real farm to see what activities and what animals are in the farm. She said not all farms have the same animal. There are hay farm, fish farm, vegetable farm, etc. If there is no opportunity to bring tots to the real farm, show them picture or utube to understand farm

Shirley showed picture of 6 types of spider. She asked tots to listen carefully and point to the picture of the spider she described.

Spider with black body, yellow legs that are bent. The spider jumps to catch prey (Shirley action jump) It doesn't spin web. - Jumping spider

Spider with black body, black thin legs and a red hour glass pattern on the body. It spins web and wait for prey to come. It is poisonous - Black Widow I read that female Black Widow kills the male after mating. Guess that gives it the name Black Widow

Spider with big orange color abdomen that looks like a big ball - Marbled Orb weaver Shirley asked Png Png to point to the picture for this one. He held my hand to point to the correct picture

Spider with grey legs (looks dull green color to me) that lie very flat on the floor - Wolf spider

Spider with orange and brown body with very fat legs. It chase after birds - Tarantula

Spider with yellow long body (I told Png Png the body of the spider looks like shape of a peanut with the shell on) - Long jawed Orb weaver

Among the 6 spiders, 3 spin web (Black Widow, Marbled Orb weaver and Long jawed Orb weaver) and 3 don't spin web (Tarantula, Wolf spider and Jumping spider). Spiders which don't spin web, chase after prey

Parents had to describe to tots the 6 spiders and get tots to pick the name (tell name begin with which alphabet) and the picture. Tots at this age should get all correct. Png Png picked the correct name and picture for all 6

Lap booking class Term 1 lesson 3

Today we did

1. Sang Good Afternoon song, Old McDonalds have a farm. Shirley asked - how does a horse look like? It has 2 eyes, 4 legs, hair called mane; how many legs do you have? 2 legs; Who has more legs? Horse or you? How many legs does duck have?

2. Next is a pre-maths activity of letting tot choose which is the next animal. Shirley said give tot choices of 3 animals instead of circle the correct answer like in assessment book helps build analytical and logical thinking skills. She said all tots have an analytical skill but we have to give them activites to build up this skill. It is easier to teach by telling story. Shirley gave example Old McDonald's farm has 3 animals - cow, sheep and pig. Cow stands next to sheep or likes to go with sheep; Sheep stands next to pig or likes to go with pig; Pig stands next to cow or likes to go with cow. What is the next animal in the picture? I use Eric Carle's story poem style: Cow, cow, what do you hear? I hear a sheep baaing in my ears. Sheep, sheep what do you hear? I hear a pig oinking in my ears. Pig, pig, what do you hear? I hear a cow mooing in my ears. Png Png got the correct answer

3. Shirley showed books on spider. She described color on the abdomen, legs. Spider's body has 2 parts - headchest and abdomen. Shirley drew a spider on the white board. Then drew 8 orange color legs from the headchest, 4 on the right, 4 on the left. Blue stripes were drawn on the abdomen. She also drew 2 red fangs. Fangs are like teeth. Spider bites a fly with it's fangs. The fly will sleep (Shirley action sleep lying on the floor). Spider then wraps round the fly (Shirley action wrap round and round a tot). Spider sucks fly into abdomen. Facts - spider bites prey with fangs then inject venom into prey that paralysed or killed it's prey. Then it wraps prey up with it's silk to transport prey back to it's nest. Spider injects venom to turn the inside of prey into liquid then sucks the liquid

4. Shirley returned the spider craft tots did last week. She described some of the craft - black body, yellow legs and vice versa. The craft to be pasted on the cover of the lap book. Tots were given red marker to draw 2 fangs and 8 black dots stickers to paste as the eyes

6. Picture of spider was given to tot to count number of legs, color legs, fangs. Tots also had to count the number of eyes. There were 6 eyes on the picture. So, tot had to draw 2 more eyes

7. Sang The Spider in the web

Volcano

Chen Chen read a book on science experiment. He wanted to do the experiment on making a volcano
First he makes a volcano with play dough
Pour vinegar into a cup and drip a drop of red color food coloring into the vinegar.Chen Chen smells the vinegar. Yee.... smells sour
Put baking powder into the vinegar mixture and pour the mixture into the cup in the volcano
Tar tar tar, volcano eruption
Look at the volcano lava.
This is fun and educational!

Lap booking class Term 1 lesson 2

Today we did

1. Sang Good Afternoon song

2. Shirley asked tots what are the animals in "A very busy spider" book. Is there a lion? Is there a cow? Nobody answered her. Shirley read the book with animation. She pointed out the spider moved from right to left

3. Shirley showed a book on spiders. She showed the picture of the different type of spiders and highlight the difference eg color, long legs vs short legs, hairy vs not hairy. Shirley asked tots how many legs does a spider have? 8 legs How many legs do you have? 2 legs? How many legs does a pig have? 2 legs

Shirley drew 2 egg shapes on the white board, one bigger than the other. The smaller one on top. She asked tot what is that? Many said eggs. Shirley drew 8 black dots on the small egg shape, 4 boomberang shape on the right and 4 on the left. She said the boomberang shape are spider's 8 legs. She asked tot where do your legs grow from? From the butt. Where do spider's legs grow from? From the head chest. Spider can't stand up right like us. They crawl as their legs are grown from head chest. Spider has 8 eyes. Shirley asked tot how many eyes do you have? How many eyes does mummy have?

4. Shirley asked tot to lift up right hand. She said our hand has 4 fingers and 1 thumb. Fingers grow from palm. She told tot to listen to instruction for making craft spider. 1st paint palm with paint then print on white paper. Paint on palm again and 4 fingers. Print fingers and palm on top of the previous print with fingers facing right. Paint on palm again and 4 fingers again. Print fingers and palm on the same print with fingers facing left. When printing count to 5 without moving palm and fingers. Shirley asked parents to ask tot to repeat the steps to parent before doing the craft. Png Png can't narrate to me at all

5. Shirley gave out a piece of paper with picture of 8 animals and their names. Parents to

i) read the name of animal to tot, ask tot to match the name to picture by drawing a line with pencil

ii) ask tot what is animal in each picture then ask tot to match the stripes of animal names from previous lesson to the picture

6. Sang Good bye song

chocolate - narrated by Png Png

Gobble down the last piece of non dairy chocolate
No last 2
Do you wanna try?
Can't bear to gobble down the last piece

Adapt to childcare

I enrolled Png Png to Carpe Diem on 15 Nov 2010. He cried on and off in the morning when he was sent to Carpe Diem. Initially he was attached to a particular teacher, and didn't cry if that teacher was there to receive him. Then, he was attached to Chen Chen's classmate Sean, then Carl. Even the teachers called out for the Sean or Carl to help in the morning. I was fairly worried how is it going to be come Jan 2011 when the K2 boys graduated from Carpe Diem. Every night I talked to Png Png. He promised me he won't cry, still he cried on and off. Finally he stopped crying on 14 Jan 2011 onwards. Phew! Took him almost 2 months to adapt

Lap booking class Term 1 lesson 1

Literature for the lap book for first term of 2011 is The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

There were 8 tots in the class. Wow class getting bigger. Shirley's lap book class is very hot

We did
1. Sang Good Afternoon song.

2. Shirley showed the book "The Very Busy Spider". She pointed to the picture of the spider at the cover and asked Is this a bird? No. Is this an insect? No. It has 8 legs

3. Shirley read the book with animation eg gallopping action for horse going for a ride, jumping for goat jumping on rock

4. Shirley asked tots "What is your favorite animal?" Png Png's answer is Cow. Shirley said most tot will answer like all the animals or don't like any of the animals. She said by asking this question set tot into thinking. She suggested parents to tell tot what is their favorite animal and why that is their favorite animal. Then ask tot what is their favorite animal and why.

5. As usual, Shirley asked tots to go forward to choose lap book. This is the first time that Png Png was the first to go up to choose lapbook. But he chose yellow color lap book. Oh no, I am so sick of yellow color lapbook

Shirley gave a plastic pocket with 8 rectangle piece of paper. On the paper, there are name of animals - pig, sheep, goat, horse, hen, duck, cow, dog. Shirley wrote the name of the animal one at a time on the white board. Tot has to pick up the animal that Shirley wrote on the white board. Png Png got all the 8 animals correct. Shirley said introduce nounce first to tot in this manner than followed by sight words such as "This is a". It's easier to explain nounce. This is to introduce word recognition

6. Sang "Old McDonald had a farm"

7. Sang Good Bye song

Creative play - narrated by Png Png

See what I can do with mummy's thermal cooker cover
Vietnamese hat!
Cute right!

Go for a ride - narrated by Png Png

I am going for a ride. Do you wanna join me?
Hop on to my car
I am a careful driver
I drive with one hand though hehehe....

First day in Primary School

Time flies. Yan Chen is going to P1. I felt like yesterday when he was still a baby in my arms.
He was very excited on the first day of school. He got everything ready early which is unusal of him. Shot before leaving home to school. Upon reaching school, I sent him to the staircase and bid him goodbye. Parents were allowed in the school premises on first day but up to the hall, not to the classroom. We went in by the side gate, so I was allowed up to the staircase only. I took pictures of the food prices in the cateen then left the school.

We went to the school again during recess. The canteen was rounded up by barrier. Parents could look at their children and took pictures or video clips from the side but not in the cateen with their children. There was a buddy to bring Chen Chen to the canteen to buy food during recess. The poor buddy stood besides Chen Chen to see him and wait for him to finish his food. Surprisingly Chen Chen finished a plate of chicken rice after taking rice at home before leaving to school. Chen Chen purposely looked away from hubby and I. 没良心的. He pretended he didn't see us when hubby signalled him to drink water. Chen Chen's buddy saw hubby's signal and asked Chen Chen to drink his water. As usual, Chen Chen ate very slowly. Most of the kids finished their food.
The poor buddy had to bend down to talk to Chen Chen as he is very tall but Chen Chen is short.
We went back to fetch Chen Chen in the evening during dismissal.
He was happy to see hubby and I.

New Year Gathering at brother in law's house

Hubby's eldest brother held a New Year gathering at his house. My boys stayed in Yang Yang's room most of the time. What else, toys!
This is Yang Yang. He is few weeks older than Png Png but he looks very big. According to sister in law, he can't fit into pants for 6 year old though he is only 2 year plus.
The 3 boys played in harmony.
All of them are car craze, especially Yang Yang. He loves car, especially sports car. He likes to browse cars magazine and see utube videos on cars.
After a while, Chen Chen played with ipad and iphone with Yang Yang in the living room. Yang Yang likes to play with Chen Chen. Only Png Png continued to play with the cars in Yang Yang's room
Png Png was fascinated with this car track
He had all the toys in Yang Yang's room to his own
Happy like a king
Such a sweet look