Safari In Progress (4)

28/02/2008 (Thursday)

(i) Corner playing and Phonics
As play stimulates a child’s development growth, we stared the day with “corner playing”. The kids could choose any games or toys. JW, ZY and LX were excited with the toy animals while JH and JS preferred the straws game. Meanwhile, ZY, EG, SY and SYu chose to draw and colour animals which they saw from ZY’s Animal Encyclopedia They talked about the animals and even shared their experience. I would say that 70% of my kids could team up when it comes to play. Thus, for activities, they need lots of encouragement to team up.
While playing, I did my one-to-one phonics reading. We focused on “at” as in bat, cat, fat, rat, hat and mat. They learnt the sounds as well as did reading on sentences. WY, SY, SYu were quite independent. The others needed more prompting.
(MI: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Linguistic, Body-Kinesthetic skills)

(ii) Song and numbers
Next, I recapped the song on “Five Little Ducks” to reinforce their numbers and English vocabulary. They sang the song with actions and more independently. They could also explain the lyrics. Then, I jumbled the numbers for them to rearrange, followed by picture drawing to indicate the calculation. Most of them were independent including ZJ, SC, ZY and WY. LX required more guidance which she coped with.
(MI: Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Intrapersonal, Spatial, Body-Kinesthetic, Musical skills)

(iii) Analysing Safari layout
After tea-break, we gathered together to analyze our incomplete Safari layout. The kids talked about their products. ZY shared about his bridge across the lake, WY talked about his porcupine and YW talked about her ice-cream shop. Then, we discussed on other moulds they could add on; such as lions, giraffes and shops. I reminded them of the signboards and walls. Then, EG and WY explained the reason of having a wall. “To avoid the animals fight.” Intelligent answer….. EG argued that the truck could not travel into the animals’ area. ZY, SY, ZY and JW disagreed with him. Pretending not knowing the answer, I asked them how we could solve this problem. ZY said, “Let’s go to the Safari.” The others excitedly said “yes”! I told them that I would try my best to arrange a trip.
(MI: Linguistic, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Naturalist skills)

(iii) Play dough and Safari
They started molding the play dough. I gave them an extra colour of yellow. SY and SYu formed more hippopotamuses and tortoises. YW made a tiger, ZJ with his cheetah, LX, JW, ZY and WY with more porcupines. JW made another lake. EG formed a person to be placed at the ticketing counter. JH, SC and ZJ were creative with their walls. ZY kept thinking on how to make the shops. He searched at the classroom’s corner and found some small boxes. He would continue the next lesson due to insufficient time. They were so fired-up and creative. Meanwhile, I called some students to write the signboard labels. WY, LX, ZJ, SC, M and SYu wrote pretty well. The others would write the next lesson.
(MI: Spatial, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Linguistic, Body-Kinesthetic skills)