The Neolithics Alphabet System

Friday (19/03/2010)
a) Rescue vehicles.
· Wei Jeen brought us this wonderful book. It shows various vehicles for different emergency situations. Among: forest helicopter, a big fire truck with long ladders, snowplough, helicopter ambulance, patrol car, airport fire truck, ambulance, police motorcycle.
· The kids said all these needed petrol to move. Shi Jie said except people. Foo Soon said a bicycle needed petrol and he said it was in the tyre. Other kids said they sometimes go to petrol station to pump in the air but not fuel. Hmmm……I didn’t give them the answer but we would find out next week.
· The kids were interested at the snowplough and asked how come it could move in the thick snow. Chun Kit saw the huge wheels which looked like trains and tankers. Yun Wen wondered how the people could drive in the thick snowy road without the help of the snowplough. People would starve of hunger.

b) The Neolithics Alphabet System.
· The kids remembered that writing was needed for buying and selling. They said kids wanted to learn to write. That was true later on as they formed their own letters and words.
· Writing in the Neolithics Age was to record what they saw and learnt and passed the information the next generations. Animal pictures were seen and other images too!
· We saw pictures from an Encyclopedia. The class saw the Neolithic symbols. I printed a copy for them and highlighted how the words changes from difficult to easier level. Example: the word “sun” of the first generation looked like an eye but at the fourth generation, it was much simpler.

c) Analysing.
Teacher: Was it easy when you tried writing on the bricks with the stones?
Class: No. Yun Wen: …….but some stones are easier to write with.
· It was a good answer. Thus, the Neolithic people had to keep thinking of better ways for writing.
Shi Jie: We also wrote on the wood.
· The class said that writing on the wood was easier. However, they were puzzled why their hands were dusty after writing with chalks.
Yun Wen: Just like some stones. When you throw them onto the ground, they break into small pieces like chalks. They can be dusty.
· The dust was actually the powder form. The class learnt that stones, bricks, chalks are actually a kind of rock found in the Earth stomach. They looked amazed when I told them that the pencil leads that had been collecting was also a type of rocks. However, we would learn more about layers in the near future.

d) A different material.
Teacher: What is wood made from?
Jun Hong: Trees.
Teacher: What other things can a tree make?
· There was silence. Then, showing them a piece of black paper; Shi Jie said paper is made from trees.
· Thus, as scientist we were experimenting different tools to write with. A few kids were asked to write on the wood and the paper. All of them said, paper was easier to write with.
· Thus, each took a few chalks to write or draw. I reminded them to wash their hands after using as too much chalk is unhealthy for us.
· Foo Soon drew a hurricane, the sea and also a big burger, Chun Kit drew butterflies and a fire truck, Yun Wen drew a beautiful garden, Qian Joe drew a garden with hurricane, Xing Tong drew earthquake, Wee Hong wrote the Alphabet Family and also drew 2 bears, Devin drew a garden with a fire truck, butterfly, birds, fly and also a snake. Jing Kai drew a nice house with trees and Shi Jie drew a garden with a beautiful rainbow.