Riddles and Story

08/04/08 (Tuesday)

(i) All work and no play makes Jack a “dull” boy.
We ran around the kindergarten for a few rounds. ZY, JS and even XR loved it. Then, they got into the classroom. As usual, they would play hide and seek with me. They could only think of “under the table”. No other places….haaa…perhaps, I should really play a game of “Hide and Seek” with them.
(M/I: Body Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Logical-mathematical skill)

(ii) Writing: Letter “r”
After drinking water, we did some circle time. The kids raise their “magic finger” to follow my stroke of “r”. As I write on the board, they wrote in the air. Then, I got most of the kids to write individually on the whiteboard. The words learnt included “rat, rope, road, rose, rain and runner”. We talked about the differences of a rat and a mouse. Then, we talked about roses for people especially mother. I asked them, “What can we do with a rope?” YP said, “We can catch a horse”. So, I pretended to be a cowgirl and catch the horse. Of course, they laughed. Besides that, thieves use them to tie their victims. As for road, I asked them what would happen after rain? YZ said it would be slippery. So, we learnt to say the sentence,” Father, please drive carefully., The road is wet.” Rain…….”Can you play in the rain?” No, ZYg said we would fall sick. Then we sang a song:“Rain, rain, go away,Come again another day,Little Johnny wants to play.”They enjoyed the song when we substituted “Johnny” with their names. Runner……, “Children, what do you play at the playground in the morning?” ZY and JN replied, “We ran 3 rounds”. I replied, “So, you are a runner”.
Then, they did individual writing. They were all independent today with little prompting from me. After writing the “r”, they coloured the pictures.
(M/I: Body Kinesthetic, Linguistic, Interpersonal, Logical-mathematical, Musical skill)

(iii) Riddles
After tea break, I gave the kids some two riddles. First, they listen; then they looked at the words on the whiteboard. Then, they read together with me. I underlined the key words. Let's take a look:
"I eat a lot and I am fat, I am a mammal, I give birth to many babies,
Think of ham, think of me, What am I?"
At this moment, only YZ would ask me for interpretation of words. “Teacher Jen, what is a lot? What is fat?” ZY then asked me what is “give birth”. They guessed many animals. However, I strictly encouraged proper questions. “Excuse me, teacher. Is it a hippopotamus?” WY guessed it was a porcupine, YP guessed it was a horse, SYu guessed it was a bear. JS guessed it was a giraffe. Nobody asked me about “ham”. When I explained about ham, immediately they got the answer. Yes, it is a pig. The second riddle:
"I have hair all over my body, I have paws to hunt, I love honey, fish and meat,
I like sleeping in the cave, What am I?"
JW guessed it was a lion, XR guessed it was a lion, ZJ guessed it was a cat. Then, I asked, “Which animal likes honey and has hair?” Immediately, SYu said “bear”. Indeed it is the bear. If the kids had asked me what honey is, they would have got the answer fast. Then, the kids took a worksheet each. They looked for the relevant pictures and pasted into the columns.
(M/I: Body Kinesthetic, Linguistic, Interpersonal, Logical-mathematical, Musical skill)

(iv) Story telling: “Godilocks and the Three Bears”.
I chose this story because I knew they were familiar with it. Thus, I wanted them to speak their ideas in English. I told the beginning of the story, then at times; I paused so that they could continue. Among their short phrases included, “three bears, girl, chairs, beds, walk, sad, angry, run”. I reinforced these sentences with them. "She could see three bowls. One big bowl of porridge, one medium bowl of porridge and one small bowl of porridge.” “The big hard chair was not comfortable. The medium soft chair not comfortable. The small chair was very comfortable.” “They were shocked to see a girl sleeping.” They learnt fast. So, my next step is to ensure that they use these words regularly.
(M/I: Linguistic, Interpersonal, Logical-mathematical skill)