Our imaginary friend, Camarasaurus

10/07/2008 (Thursday)

a) I have finished my homework.
* The kids hid behind the boxes, the chairs and also under the tables. This time, they pretended to be T-Rex……and of course, I am the T-rex catcher…haaaa!
* Today SYu, SJ and XR preferred playing with blocks. The others were excited with the dinosaur toys. EG labeled his little dino toys. He shared with his friends.
* Some passed up their homework. JN’s colouring was effortlessly done. After a little encouragement, she said she wanted to finish colouring it. Cheers for her…she completed it! XR did not finish the second page. I guided her a little. She finished it rather independently. WY’s homework was interesting. His mother wrote WY’s thoughts below the page. WY did it along with his mum’s encouragement. SC, ZY, JW and EG handed in their homework. The dateline is tomorrow. The objective of homework is to encourage the positive growth of a kid with the guidance of parents and teachers.

b) Plant or Meat-eaters?
* I brought in “Camarasaurus” as my imaginary guest. He asked questions and also shared information with the kids. There are 2 types. Plant-eaters or meat-eaters. ZYg said, “look at the sharp teeth. That will be a meat-eater.” JS said, “They have sharp claws.” Examples: T-Rex, Spinosaurus and Megalosaurus.
* “Plant eaters had no sharp teeth”, said JN. In fact they protected themselves through many ways. Examples: Camarasurus with its strong tail, Anklyosaurus with its sharp spines (similar to porcupines) and also Triceratops with its horns.
* What about our teeth? They looked at each other. ZY, “We eat plants and meat.” Thus, we have nice teeth.” YP said, ‘I like meat. I am a T-Rex.” Ha….!

c) Our “Jurassic Park”.
* None of the kids remembered to bring leaves for our “Jurassic Park”. JN, SYu, Zy were among the others who said they had no leaves. Some such as M forgot. Thus, we focused on the trunk and branches. We took some boxes. I drew the outlines as to guide the kids. However, we would only work on it tomorrow.
* We had a ready-made stick on Camarasaurus. So, the kids assisted me to assemble the puzzle. Some cut the double side tape for me. Then we pasted it on the wall. Now, we have a huge dino in our class. We will making more!

d) Be responsible
* The kids were very unco-operative after tea-break. They forgot to put back their chairs and arrange tables even after a few reminders. I gathered them and told them that I was very disappointed. 70% of the kids were responsible while the others were very playful. They were shameful. With my disappointed tone, I said, “Next time, anybody who forgets without a good reason, would have to stay out of the class for the whole day.” Responsible kids will learn more efficiently.

e) Continuation of “Dinosaurs” movie.
* They marched down to continue watching their movie, “Dinosaurs”.
* Camarasaurus helped the weaker dinosaurs and tried to be brave all the time. We must be helpful.
* It helped the proud dinosaur who was injured. They rest in a cave to shelter from the storm.
* Megalosaurus found them and attacked them. The injured proud dinosaur saved them.
* Triceratops, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus worked together to hit the cave wall down. Eventually, they found a brand new world with plenty of trees and water. The kids were exclaiming, “Wow!! What happened next?!”
* I let them imagine about it. We shall continue tomorrow.