Can a mouse fly?

03/10/2008 (Friday)

a) One to one focus
l There were only 9 kids in the class; 50% turned up due to the school and Raya holidays.
l They passed up their homework. Some were incomplete. So, I had individual attention with them. Jin Nan and Shi Jie cut at school and coloured the shapes to be pasted on the hot air balloon.
l Meanwhile, I did individual Phonics assessment for Book 6.

b) Animals that fly.
l We brainstormed names of animals that fly. Among them included: bat, eagle, owl, butterfly, flying fish, dragon, phoenix and also Pteranodon.
l They said they could fly due to the wings.
T : Can we fly if we have wings and feathers?
Class: No!
Jin Shan: We are too heavy!

c) Storybook: Max Wants To Fly!
l It’s a storybook about a mouse who wants to fly like his friend, the crow.
l The crow laughed at his friend, Max because it has no wings. Thus, the Max collected some feathers, tied to himself and tried to fly! He failed a few times and did not give up.
l Then, he saw the helim balloons and tied to himself. It started flying higher, higher and higher. It had stomachache and couldn’t get down.
l Luckily, the crow that laughed at his silly idea, then helped Max to get down. The crow pecked the balloons one by one.

d) A mini role-play.
* The kids recalled the different characters in the story. The chose the desired characters. We modified the story by including 3 crows and 3 mice. (Yun Zhe asked: What are mice? Teacher: Mice means more than one mouse).
* They were enjoying the play and Jin Nan and Jin Shan were the more independent actor and actress.
* Vocabulary learnt: box, table, chair, feathers, wings, mouse, crow, fly, balloons

e) My painting
* The kids drew their favourite pictures of the story. Some drew the flying mouse, some the flying crows, some added the butterflies, clouds and the sun.
* Yun Wen, Jin Shan and Jian Wei had a very grasp of the story. They could draw the mouse flying with feathers and balloons.
*Yun Zhe and Zi yang preferred to draw Eagles rather than the crows.
* Le Xin painted a coulrful picture which she said was Rainbow. She said the rain and sun makes Rainbow.