Numbers and riddle

18/03/08 (Tuesday)

(i) Writing exercise
Firstly, the kids drink some water. Then, I gathered them in front to emphasize on the right strokes of letters “c, o d”. As, today’s exercise was to colour the letters differently, so I focused on the different colours which were blue, yellow and green. The independent kids were JN, JW, ZYg, EG, ZY, SYu, SY and M WY, LX, ZJ, JS, SJ required more personal attention.
Then, I gave them a simple writing exercise to practice their names. They wrote two lines and then drew a picture of themselves. Actually, they were quite creative at drawing. EG was bargaining not to draw his picture. He was just saying “No, no, no” didn’t want to say why. So, I showed him how I drew a funny boy on the whiteboard. He was smiling and finally drew a cute boy. SJ, ZJ and LX were also guided in this exercise.
(M/I: Body-Kinesthetic, Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial skills)

(ii) Tea-break
Today, somebody left a piece of bread on the table. It indicated either he or she disliked the bread or forgot about it. I told the kids that I want that person to see me personally to confess. They have until tomorrow to confess; otherwise each would be deducted 5 stars. I do hope this strategy works.
(M/I: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Logical-Mathematical, Spatial skills)

(iii) Numbers and games
We warmed-up by singing a song of “Gelang, Si Paku Gelang". We sang with actions. Next, we glanced through the numbers chart of 1 until 50. We ran through again. Today, I invited almost all kids to complete the numbers. SC, SY, ZYg, SYu, YZ, N and JW were able to write without my assistance. Although SC had not attended class for 2 weeks but he was quite good with numbers. ZJ, LX, WY and JS needed more guidance.My objective of this lesson was to enable the kids recognize and say the numbers. However, for writing wise, I would focus until number 20.Then, we formed a circle. There were 6 sets of numbers from 0 until 9 in the circle. Once I stopped singing "Gelang, Si Paku Gelang", the kids would grab the numbers I called out to. They were enjoying themselves. A few kids were quite independent in recognizing the numbers including JN, SY, SYu, ZY, EG, YZ and M.
(M/I: Body-Kinesthetic, Logical-Mathematical, Interpersonal, Musical skills)

(iv) Riddle and numbers
I wrote a riddle on the board and read through with them. It sounded:
"I carry my joey in my pouch, I like hopping all around the place, What am I?"
They asked, "Are you a...?" JN said, "snake"; M said, "monkey"; YZ said, "elephant" while EG and ZYg said "kangaroo". However, no kids asked me the meaning of joey and pouch. I had to prompt then. From the prompting, they realized that it was a kangaroo.
Then, I took a kangaroo "dot-to-dot" worksheet which connected number 1 until 50. They showed great interest. We were supposed to do it tomorrow but they were enthusiastic to do it at home. Well, I let them bring home hoping that they could learn together with their parents. However, I assume that I need to run through the worksheet again.
(M/I: Body-Kinesthetic, Logical-Mathematical, Intrapersonal skills)