Safari Map In Progress (3)

27/02/2008 (Wednesday)

(i) Song: Five Little Ducks
In the morning, we did a song on “Five Little Ducks”. Before the song, I drew a picture for them to guess. Their logical skill told them that it was a duck and her baby ducklings. I asked them to guess the story. EG said a crocodile ate them, ZYg called out that a snake swallowed them while YZ said they got lost. JS said a tiger ate them. Then, I pasted a cardboard of the lyrics. They listened attentively to the first verse as I pointed the words. ZY, JN, M, EG started smiling when I sang the second verse. The others were still attentive and looking at my gestures portraying the Mother Duck and how my 5 fingers reduced to 4, then 3 and finally 0. Most of them joined me singing at the fourth verse. They even reminded me to cross out every missing little duck. Then, the class was divided into two groups to perform the song with actions. They were anxious when the number got reduced.
(MI: Logical-Mathematical, Intrapersonal, Linguistic, Body-Kinesthetic, Musical skills)

(ii) Flashcards: Animal names
After tea-break, we did a flashcard session on the animal names. Most of them were able to read words on “tiger, lion, crocodile, duck and snake”. The others required some initial phonics sound to guide them such as “hippopotamus, peacock and horse”.
(MI: Linguistic, Intrapersonal, skills)

(iii) Play dough and Safari
Then, we talked about our current Safari layout. We talked about the other animals that we could occupy there. I did an example of hippopotamus mould. I recapped words like “squash, roll and form the play dough”. They did not bring the toothpicks as they said they would. EG said he didn’t have any. Luckily, I had some sate sticks which I later shortened them. They learnt to strengthen their moulds by using the sate sticks.
I asked their opinions on how to form a porcupine. JN suggested using the sate sticks as the needles. As for the peacock, SY recommended we draw beautiful feathers and stick to the play dough. Out of the 17 kids, about 13 were able to decide what they wanted to do. Today, only 2 kids asked for my assistance. Their imagination even contributed ice-cream sellers, bridges across the lake and hills. ZY formed a nice tiger, SYu did a baby hippopotamus, WY, JS and JN did the porcupine while ZY formed a bird. ZY wanted to place the birds next to the snake and I questioned him of the consequences. Then, he decided to place it next to the lake and hippopotamus.
We ended the class by asking the kids to think of more ways to improve their Safari. YZ said, “Teacher, I think it’s a fantastic Safari”. I smiled realizing that they are potential kids!
(MI: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Spatial, Body-Kinesthetic, Naturalist skills)