Your're my SUPERSTAR

Our project on a Starry Night:- we learnt about the Sun,Star,PlanetsI'm sure your child have been sharing with you about why is the sun so bright compared to many stars that are much bigger than the sun.At the same time, enjoy the artistic side of your child's creativity!I'm very impressed!

Phyllis' Riccia School Wishes all our graduates the best in their learning journey ahead

Salmon and its saga!

That is how it begins.....
After living 2 years in the river where the salmon were born, why do they take the trouble to swim to the ocean, stay for 3 years and then return back to the same river to die after laying eggs?

Min Yan, Qian Yu & Parveena guessed: To find their parents?
Cayden, Joshua, Eugene guessed: To find food?
Yu Hui guessed: To live in a bigger home with more food because they will grow very big?

-->I told the children to decide if those answers are correct by participating actively in the lesson of Salmon.

Before I could go on with my learning plans...

Cayden asked : Is the river connected to the ocean?

-->The children's perception is that river and ocean are too far apart & hence couldn't be connected!

Eugene asked: How did the salmon get out of the river to the ocean?

-->"Hire a taxi!" exclaimed the silly teacher. Everyone laughed their jaws out (children know that can't happen in reality)!

I explained with a pictorial map: River is normally at a higher level such as around the mountain compared to the ocean or sea level. The fresh water from the river will flow downstream natuarally because water flow downwards (all children know that). As it flow downstream, it will meet with the stream which is also on its way to the sea......(the children continued the inference). Please refer to your child's exercise book on their documentation of their newly acquired understanding about the world around them.

Joshua asked : Then, how do the salmon swim up the waterfall when they go back to the river?

-->Children's imagination of downstream is that there is waterfall.

--> With the aid of IT and books, children were convinced that salmon are very strong and can leap their way up a high waterfall.

With the year drawing close to an end, I'm just a little relunctant to let go of these wonderful moments experienced in my class that often enriched my lesson plans.

Metamorphosis to water creatures

Just as our curiosity on the amazing transformation of the tadpole to a frog and the pupanarium of wriggler(larva)to a mosquito reached the peak; it is my utmost pleasure to share these exciting observations with you, parents!
While we discussed that female mosquitoes need blood for it to lay eggs,
Dillon immediately responded:"So,only female mosquito will bite!".
Qian Yu, Oisin, Bryan, Parveena & Cayden spontaneously questioned:"Then, what do the male mosquitoes drink and do since they also do not take care of the eggs?!"

We then proceed to the theme on water creature. It is my habit to introduce the composition of water ie. H2O. This year, I was challenged by a child who asked without hesitation:"Are you sure?" It appeared to me that she does not believe that water is formed so easily! Neither do I?
Then again, fish will never be left out of our discussion let alone how it breathe.
As I was 'dramatizing' on how the gills act like a filter, drawing out the 'O' from
H2O and pushing the rest out of the gills;the same child paraphrased her understanding on my 'drama'. This is how it goes...:"The 'O' must be bigger that is why it is trapped by the gills where else the H2 got out of the filter."

What touches my heart is that our little young learners have the right aplitude and attitude towards learning. They think like great scienists. Keep up the good work my young scientists!

Watch us learn how to go about with seriation.

The long hurdle of human towards flying

Carrying on from the topic on birds is reptiles and amphibians. Children were asked what other animals lay eggs. Ask your child how are they same or different, they will tell it all; from physical to biological characteristics.
By the way, my students came to school happily, implicitly telling me that mom & dad learnt the difference of crocodile vs alligator, frog vs toad. Several intellectual discussion popped out during discussion about the revolution of flying birds since Jurassic era and the ability of strong leaping frog with their long hind legs.Children suggested that if we could practise very hard on speed running, we could take off like the aeroplane too(didn't all the kungfu series show that it's possible)!
To convince the children that nothing is impossible, we practised jumping like the frog to experience the used of our 'long legs'.Please remind your child not to do it alone at home nor demonstrate it to his younger sibling(s).
At the same time, we also addressed the misconception by many children that monkey & kangoroo have 2 legs & 2 arms each. Scientifically, all 4 are legs but the 2 front legs act like arms.
We will also continue to focus on problem sums for integrated mathematics lesson.
Children are also expected to confidently identify blends,digraph,word family and represent it through their writing practice. Expectations for penmanship and correct usage of grammar and punctuation will continue to be the main focus of integrated English lesson.

Check out how we learn and exchange findings

Group A: The Greenhouse effect. (left pic:3rd day of expt., right pic:8th day of expt.)
On the 3rd day of observation, a few concluded that the bean outside the green house germinated faster because it received more air. Most of others who studied carefully the bean inside the greenhouse, confidently pointed out that the bean inside germinated and grew faster because the water vapour was trapped inside giving water back to the soil. In this way,the plants get water under the scorching sun. Both hypothesis were logical. Check out the 'answer' in your child's Science exercise book.




Group B: Chlorophyll is green? (thank you Cayden,Bryan & Joshua's mother for your 10ml of nail polish removal)

The nail polish removal solution turned green instantly when we dropped fresh leaves into it. On the following day, the leaves turned pale and the solution became darker green in colour. We placed a stripe of kitchen paper into the solution. The next day,there were different spectrum of green colour. "See, the paper is filled with green colour, chlorophyll is really green!" claimed one of the interested pupil.






Group C: Do plants perspire?

Right after watering the plant,we wrapped it up in a plastic bag and placed it away from direct sunlight. The next morning, 'wow' so much 'sweat'. Children witness that respiration happened to plants too quite similar to the way our glasses/spectacles get blurred when we breathe onto it.

The Earth, I Love

Beautiful and creative creations with leaves and peas/beans/nuts/seeds.
We are entering into the amazing Amazon & Rainforest to round up the theme on plants and to start the journey on Animals.
With all the prior knowledge on grouping or patterning, measuring (height of tree, circumference of trunk, width of leaf), adding & subtracting using number bonding concept, we will next embark on multiplication.
A 2 cent worth of advice:
Please avoid the temptation to make your child memorize the time-tables. From the perspective of early childhood education, the ONLY benefit is that it may please the adult or parent 'if' the child is good in reciting it. What if he cannot remember at all or can recite well but got all the problem sums wrong? Oh, then it must be that the teacher or perhaps the school programme is no good!!!???
Nonetheless, if the child enjoys the rhythm of the time-table,it suggests that it is time to discover the child's talent in music. Ability to recite the time-table well has nothing related to mathematical reasoning at a very young age. On the otherhand, if the child understood the concept from concrete and daily useful experiences and uses that understanding in his reasoning, he will out shine many others in his application.He will be a high achiever who knows how to enjoy learning. BTW, mom & dad, can you believe that your child can tell you how many seeds they've used in the activity on the left, in less then a minute! Thanks to the array of beans that make the pupils feel easy learning multiplication!

Speech & Drama makes learning language fun & easier

Our acquisition of english language has been very exciting. We have completed has vs have, this vs that, these vs those... you name it! Now, we are into challenging dramatization on what we understood &/or imagined from the reader. You know what I mean, it is a must that T.Phyllis will ask questions, challenging questions related to the reader. She also told us that in the filming industry, 'Take 1, take 2, take 3.... imply that the performers did not do their best. We need to also practice the intonation while reciting the text.Otherwise, we will end up having 'Take 99'. Watch us doing these fun speech & drama....

Beyond the classroom

Children are doing research from the exhibits.
Thereafter, they proceed to discuss the appropriate answer to the questions.

A parent volunteer helping to vett students' work.
Walking through the banana plantation..the smell is nice!Our Botanical Garden trip was very enriching.

See how we have water-play! It's better than the water playground.

The Best Gift for our children

From simple (1 attribute)...to sophisticated(5 attributes)... mom & dad : Did you notice the patterns?
If you have been following your child's work, they have done a great deal in comprehending the basic needs for survival of living things and the phenomenon on how nature is maintained. Even children admire a brilliant sunset, breathtaking mountain vista, lovely array of spring etc. What better gift can we as parents and teachers give this precarious earth than a generation of children who have learned to know and love the natural world? That is why, every year this time when the theme of plants is delivered, various field trips are organised. The emphasis on academic is to use natural environments for learning language, spatial and mathematical relationship eg. seriation,sequencing,patterning, photosynthesis, and much more.

K2,P1-P5 field trip to Botanic Garden(Jacob Ballas)

Dear Parents,
As you're aware, your child has been talking about my plan to extend our classroom experience at the Botanic Garden since 1st Aug 09(Bird Park was not in our discussion).

Points will be awarded to each child for games and quiz before and during the trip. Children with the highest score and/or with the best attempts will be rewarded for waterplay at Jacob Ballas.

Well, the reward for those with unreasonable behaviour or are disruptive during learning will be :- Just watch the rest having waterplay! (Teacher Phyllis is so bad, shouldn't nominate her as Super Teacher huh!)

Thus, please help me to remind your child to be alert throughout the trip and to listen to clues given by their 'mentor'. Our student care pupils are highly effective leaders and proficient naturalists, hence, they will be the best mentors for the pre-school & kindergarten children. On top of that, it is also our objectives for our primary school pupils to be constantly challenged with tasks to build their leadership as well as to learn more through teaching what they have learnt.

Place: Jacob Ballas at the Botanic garden
Date / Time: 21st Aug 09, 10:15am to 3pm
Half day children may leave with the evening school bus at 5:30pm.
Things to bring: swim suit, towel, extra clothings, water, snacks
Cost per full day child = $10
Cost per half day child = $20
Children who will not join the trip will be with Long lao shi for chinese lesson.
Cost fees include : Transport + lunch + extended activities from programme *hour.
(programme hour: 8:45am to 1pm & 3pm to 5:30pm)

Homework for parents(home invovlement):
Please let your child count the money (best to be in different denominations eg. 5 $2notes, 2 $5 notes etc), and hand it over to the teacher-in-charge, Phyllis. Additional points will be awarded for children who do not need to be reminded to submit and count the money correctly in front of the teacher. Hard cash payment to be submitted on 21/08/2009.

'Hot Air Balloon I' is full of mystery!

Teacher Phyllis' magic power is thinning like her voice due to her sore throat! She let us try different ways for the hot air balloon to lift into the sky. But all of them couldn't even lift to my height!
So upon her probing, some of us guessed that there are holes on the plastic bag, that is how we learnt about the meaning of the word 'airtight'. Others said the 'fire' is not hot enough, one of them thinks that perhaps we should do the experiment outdoor. She took our suggestions seriously. She is like that, never give up and expects us to be like her!
So we tried out the 1st variable keeping the other conditions constant. She said that it is important to be fair to each factor so that we don't accuse the plastic bag nor the flame for not doing its job! Take your breath, sit back and relax!


'Hot Air Balloon II' launching soon...

Racial Harmony Day

As the children get older, they understand better the meaning of exercising tolerance and initiative in this multi-culture society to make peace.

See the sea float or sink?

Time & Tide Wait for No Man

Transportation has brought us to the end of the 1st half of 2009. It was all lots of sweetness & some bitterness throughout our journey of acquiring new skills and knowledge.
Most children's 'speed' of learning 'gear(ed)' towards a 'fraction' of their developmental milestones ahead of 'time'.Time concept became the main focus over the past 3 weeks after I've noticed that most of the children are more than capable to tell the time in minutes per the position of the hands of the clock(eg. 9:45am).Hence, the curriculum objectives were modified to scaffold their understanding of time meaningfully.To eliminate some misconceptions/ mindset of 1 hour equates to the minute hand pointing to 12 has been a big challenge.Visual & spatial intelligences are the 2 fundamentals that I have started off with. Children did many drawings of circle and assigned 1 to 12 around it representing the clock. This trains observation or spatial awareness. We worked a lot on gears and analysed how many small turns make 1 big turn & vice versa.. Therefore, having them hands-on and work on problem solving are the major activities I have used to eradicate their misconception and to understand how the facts are established rather than just remembering it. Mom & Dad, happy reinforcing at home but please make it as part of real-life application. Eg.let your child tell you the time he leaves home for school, then let him know how long he takes to arrive in school. Thereafter, let him tell the time he arrives at school. Estimation is alright/safe but make it consistent with explanation.

The destiny of Formula 1

Message for daddy from your chld:-
Dear Daddy,
Happy Father's Day!I really hope that you like the gift because there are things that you like, I wish for and magic too! I was so enthusiastic about giving you the surprise that I decided to trade my nap time for early completion of the gift. Did you manage to find out the trick without peeping into the slot?
Cheers!
We have entered into the favourite topic for the boys just in time to coincide with father's day so that your child can impress you with common topics to debate with you - Happy Father's Day. Mom & Dad out there, don't be surprised that your sweety pie daughter is equally competent when the topic on automobile is concerned.
As children has acquired the very fundamental of days and hours where time is concern, we proceed forward to race against the seconds. Together with their prior knowledge learnt on distance, they applied these into the understanding of speed.
We began by transforming ourselves into different made and model of cars such as Renault, Schumacher Mercedes-Benz. Teacher Phyllis won the 900cm (centimeter) race in 5 seconds in her who know what Jaguar XRK. A longest timing recorded was 15 seconds on the racer who was anticipating the bang of the gun shot instead of responding to the flagged of the flag. The average time taken for the 900cm race was 11 seconds.
Children also gained many logical processing skills as to why the train does not need the steering. Do you know why, Dad?
On top of that, they observed and studied the mechanism of gears that make a bicycle move. We will also study the treads on the tyres.
Throughout the entire week of discussion, it appeared that none of the children were more interested in the number plate than the adults. However, they seriously understood the laws and reasons for having it. Mom & Dad, see any conflict of interest or any hiddened agenda on this number plate thingy?

Around the '7 Continents' in seven days

To round up the theme:'Children Around the World', we took a tour to seven countries in different continent using different form of transportation.
When we arrived in Australia, children were very enthusiastic to spin the boomerang and frisbee.
We did it at the open field between our school and BKE. Some children were quite upset when they asked if the kangaroos really die after hit by the boomerang. With the observations of the spinning boomerang, children were taught technique to draw their object in motion - please refer to your child's documentation in the Math/ Science exercise book.
Many children love Italy by its name, they keep laughing upon hearing 'yi da li'.But there were also many questions such as 'If there is a strong gust of wind, will the Leaning Tower of Pisa fall?, How much does the gondola trip cost?
Children make use of their compass to determine the direction they are heading to. Time and money planning were also their constraints for arriving their destination on time. They have more opportunity to apply their acquired skills and knowledge on distance, money, addition, subtraction, number bonding, climate, gravity, electricity, speed, day vs night (wrt Time)etc.
Children were also exposed to more foreign language eg. Bon Voyage, as well as the costumes, cultures, houses etc.

Money matters!

This week, we were working on all about 'reality',namely : gravity & money. !
Children have so many questions about gravity and all the answers to the questions were answered in a so very funny manner to avoid confusion. Please ask your child to share why the hot air balloon, helicoptor & aeroplane don't fall after taking off, why don't we drop off from the roller-coaster? How did some kind of balloons fly off by its own? Why do water fall from waterfalls? Some were so very sure that I'm cheating on them when the pail of water didn't spill as I turned it 360 degrees for many rounds until I intentionally dipped my hand into the pail and splashed droplets on them. We all enjoyed experiencing the phenomenon in all crazy ways.
When come to money matters, children are serious and they don't think that a millon dollar is difficulty to earn. How nice if its real...!Lets take a look!

See how we put our acquired skills into problem solving

Through knowing about the different climate in different parts of the world, as well as the available natural resources in those countries, children learnt to be resourceful while constructing their thoughts on building a house that suits the climate. In the process of identifying the type of climate, children learnt about the weather of countries near to the equator compared to that of the north & south pole. With the various skills (strategizing,planning,checking)and knowledge (area & perimeter,stable structure,center of gravity)learnt, children set up a tent which requires them to put their skills and knowledge into full use inorder to be successful.
You know what I mean after you've watched the video as attached.
If you're impressed, give your intelligent child a pat on his/her shoulder with a thumb-up! Trust me, a lot of engineering thoughts, management and leadership skills were evolved during the process! Children also learnt that lights are required in a house. We saw through pictures how wires run in the walls to bring electricity through the mains. All children celebrated that moment of amazement when the bulb was lighted up using battery from their home.

How tall and strong is your tower?

We visited (virtually)different types of houses around the world where children around the world live in:- houses with legs, straw roof, houses on water, on tree, houses in the rainforest, in the North & South pole.
Children also learnt the name of different segment of the house:- porch, attic, lawn.
There were interesting sharing of whether the balcony can be named as the porch. Why not, mom & dad???!!! Most children decided that they have an attic at home, they call it the store-room which is very small, a few shared that their attic is the maid's room.
The details of different part of the house was illustrated through a visual/spatial activity where the children drew their plan in their journal book. Then they transferred that plan into a colourful 2-D clay model.
Children have so much excitement with another 3-D model using wooden blocks as well as plastic manipulatives. Watching the students in each team testing the stability of their masterpiece was funny. They will blow hard on their model to ensure that it didn't collapse before they agree to flag their 'task-completed-hand'.

In the process of building the model, they learn how to plan and execute, compromise & test each other's idea, work with contraints, accept mistakes and move on to achieve the final goal. They learnt and experience how stability can be achieved for a tall building. They were exposed to the phenomenon on center of gravity.
We have also discussed on the space (area / perimeter)of our preferred home to live in. All children formed their space using 12 cube-connectors, (4x4)cm2(squarish),(5x3)cm2(rectangular)- please refer to your child's documentation in the math book.
In the coming week, we will be speaking and singing in a few foreign language.
Other than that we will also be 'obsessed' with the making of our mother's day present.

Moving forward to the theme of 'Children Around the World'

Through the learning on 'Watch Me Grow' in the 1st term, children know that each and everyone of us has something in common, ie. our body grow with the right condition.
From there, we move on to how people are related as in the nuclear family, culture and homes of families in different countries. This will lead us to learn more about time, area & perimeter, currency (money).
Over the past week, we role-play the various relationship in a nuclear family. Children got to be grandma & pa, ma & pa, husband & wife, siblings, cousins, nephew, niece, 'gugu', 'yiyi','bobo','shushu' etc.
The interesting findings from the activity is that there is a commonality that the children who greet the siblings of their parents as uncle & aunt often are not sure how their cousins are related to their parents. Nonetheless, through the drama of 'The more we are together', children appreciate the happiness of a family being close to each other.

Only if we can be on the topic of taste buds forever...

We created our Phyllis' Riccia K2 Honey Lemon Tea with the lemon from Eugene and Tea leaves from Yuhui. It was so tasty, we got to bring 40ml of it home for our family.
Yummm...honey from Australia's Honey Comb,the best we have tasted!More, more, more, please!Our taste bud won't cheat us.
It was so delicious.Teacher said last round, its already half past 1. Get ready for nap, you may get another chance at tea break!Honey comb in my dream! Sweet dream...Mom & Dad, enjoy reading my documentation on what I have learnt from this activity!