A trip to M’s home

11/03/08 (Tuesday)

(i) A trip
The kids gathered for M’s home. They were excited.
Everyone except WY, SC, EG, SY arrived. WY’s mother fetched him there while the other three were absent. It was very kind of SR’s mother to give fetch us to and fro there. Half of the class boarded her car while the other half into Ms. Ng’s car. Three teachers went namely Teacher Hui Ping (afternoon session), Ms. Ng and myself.
(MI: Interpersonal, Intrapersonal and Linguistic skills)

(ii) At M’s home
Upon arrival, they looked around the living room for M and couldn’t find him. M’s mother was in the kitchen. WY who arrived earlier, surprised us from the top floor. The kids immediately climbed the stairs to the first floor. WY was very happy while M was rather cool cum happy to see his friends. Haa……. They gathered at the comprehensive and comfortable reading corner. I was impressed to see abundance of good books on the shelves.
They greeted everyone and then, the teachers took some animal books for them to read. WY and JS glanced through very fast and did not show much interest in reading. JH, ZY, SYu, JN were attentive.
(MI: Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Linguistic skills)

(iii) Mandarin session
Next, Teacher Hui Ping showed them animal pictures. They named them in Mandarin and could even recite the related riddles quite well. Then, she had a story telling session with them about a funny elephant. The kids enjoyed themselves except LX and JS who required some prompting to pay attention.
(MI: Linguistic, Intrapersonal, Intrapersonal skills)

(iv) English session
Then, I reinforced their English vocabulary on the animal pictures which they saw earlier. The words included, “tiger, lion, leopard, elephant, wolf and bear”. They required more help when it come to Bahasa Malaysia. ZY, SYu and Max were more independent.
Next, I asked them about the animals they could find in the sea. JN and JH said sharks, ZY said octopus, LX said Nemo fish. This led to our story-telling activity on the book “Octopus”. They learnt words including, “8 arms, shoots black ink, very big, very small, no bones, shrimps, crabs and protect”. JS actually gave a good answer on why the octopus shot black ink against the shark. JS said, “…so that the shark cannot see”. ZY, ZYg and JH contributed partial of the answers.
(MI: Linguistic, Intrapersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist skills)

(v) Food session
By then, it was 10.20 a.m. and the kids were very hungry. They ate “fried bihun”. The other dishes were steamed sausages, corn, fishball. There was also pineapple, watermelon, jelly and some kuih. I have a few kids which I always have to take note when it comes to food.
LX and JN would experiment on every dish and tend not to finish them. JS and JW have good appetite and can eat a lot. WY must always be careful not to consume oily and sweet food plus chocolate as it would affect his health. Thus, I gave WY fried bihun and some steamed sausages only. Surprisingly, JH could eat averagely compared to daily tea-break’s session. Meanwhile, M ate rather slow…. which I assumed he felt very happy and unbelievable to have his friends in his house. Then, the kids had some Milo packet drinks and water.
(MI: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Body-Kinesthetic skills)

(vi) Toys
I am very impressed with M’s toys because they are very educational and fun! The kids enjoyed the “Bingo” game and actually learnt words from it. Lovely M’s mother actually gave one of the sets for us to bring back to school. Some kids preferred to play animal and car toys.
(MI: Intrapersonal, Interpersonal and Linguistic skills)

(vii) Happy Birthday
Next, the kids gathered anxiously around his chocolate cake decorated with fruits. We sang the birthday song in three languages. Next, M gave everyone a piece of cake except WY who could only eat a piece of strawberry…..but that already made his day!
We then, gave M two presents made by his friends. One from the morning session which was an A5 sized tiger picture and their cute drawings. The other one was from the afternoon session which chained up their pieces of nice drawings. We thanked M and his mother and left for school. (MI: Interpersonal, Musical and Linguistic skills)