Story: Role –Play

07/03/08 (Friday)

(i) Colouring and Corner Playing
This morning, I gave the kids 2 pieces of A5 size animal picture namely tiger and giraffe. They were allowed to colour the pictures creatively. My objective was to assess the kids’ ability to co-operate. Currently, 50% of my kids could work in pairs but not in groups yet. That morning, ZY, ZYg, SYu and JS chose to colour the tiger while JN and LX coloured the giraffe. ZYg asked if the tiger’s stripes were black, I told him to observe the pictures on the wall. Then, he coloured black. The tiger’s group were co-operative. However, JN and LZ couldn’t get along quite well. LX coloured the giraffe “green” and JN screamed and pulled the paper away. Being the middle person, I asked them to negotiate. I asked them to look at the class giraffe picture as guidance. JN agreed to tolerate while LX is always trying to perform her best but tends to be impatient. It would take more effort and time to shape both their characters.
Meanwhile, JH, JW, EG and JS preferred to play with toys. Today, we had a new girl. Her name is SJ who is SYu’s younger sister. Initially, she joined her sister to do colouring and later, played toys. She is quite quiet but able to adapt herself well.
(MI: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Body-Kinesthetic, Spatial skills)

(ii) Song and Flash cards
Next, I recapped their favourite song, “The five little ducks”. YW and YZ who often missed our morning first session were excited to see their friends’ actions and expressions. YW is a fast learner. Instead of drawing, I used the “number” flash cards to assist in their singing.
Next, I assessed them on animals’ names using flashcards. Then, we repeated using Bahasa Malaysia’s vocabulary. They were very excited. Thus, I started speaking Bahasa Malaysia for the next 10 minutes with them. Among the phrases were, “Apakah makanan Zirafah? Mana satu lebih cepat, harimau atau gajah? Di manakah badak air tinggal?” We also sang a song on “Gelang, Si Paku Gelang” related to birds.
(MI: Logical-Mathematical, Intrapersonal, Linguistic, Body-Kinesthetic,Musical skills)

(iii) Story telling
Today, the story’s title was “The Unfriendly Elephant”. Their favourite part was when the porcupine shot their spines towards the arrogant elephant. SY and ZY quickly grabbed a porcupine mould from our Safari layout. I smiled….. The morale of the story was not to be arrogant or we would have no friends. Besides that, they learnt some vocabulary including, “arrogant, push, stomp, rescue, friendly”.
(MI: Intrapersonal and Linguistic skills)


(iv) Tea break
They were given task based on their duty roster. Currently, only M, ZY and SY took the initiative to look at the duty roster independently. For the past one week, they learnt; “What day is today? Today is Friday……….How are you? I am fine, thank you.”
As today was JH’s birthday, we celebrated by singing “Happy Birthday” in English, Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin.” After making his wish, he cut the cake. The kids learnt to wait patiently and passed the pieces of cake to their friends first. Later, SC wasn’t able to wipe the tables properly. I guided him the proper way and he did better.
(MI: Logical-Mathematical, Intrapersonal, Linguistic, Musical skills)

(v) Role-Play
YZ asked the meaning of “role-play” and I told them, it is the acting out of a story similar to the television drama. Then, we recalled the characters in the story of “The Unfriendly Elephant”. ZY, JH, ZYg, JS, Eg, JN, JW, Lx were able to contribute. SYu, SJ, SC were rather shy to contribute.
As there were 9 characters, I placed 9 chairs in an open circle. Then, they chose for their favourite characters. The elephant was LX and ZYg, the squirrels were EG and JS, the ants were SC and ZJ, the birds were SYu and SJ, the deers were YW and YZ, the porcupine was WY and JN, the rat was JH and SR, the snake was JW and and the monkeys were ZY and SY.
Most of them were not able to start the role-play, so I prompted them with questions such as “Who was unfriendly? Who was pushing the fruit? Who shot its spines towards the elephant?” Most of them could answer. Then, we practiced slowly. Although they were not fluent in language but their gestures were quite good.
(MI: Logical-Mathematical, Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Linguistic,Body-Kinesthetic skills)