Chinese Winter Solstice Festival ( Tang Yuen)

On Tuesday, we prepared glutinous rice ball or "tang yuen" for the Chinese Winter Solstice Festival. In the olden days, this festival marks the passing of the harshest part of winter. The chinese believed that the round dessert is a symbol of family unity and harmony. Oh.... and also a reminder that we are a year older even before the new year.

 The children had a lot of fun.I must mentioned that the pre-schoolers did quite a good job shaping it. Every year, we will get all the children to sit around the table and together we will make this "tang yuen". Mean while the pre-toddlers were also busy the dough; flatten, shaping and even asked to use the playdough cutter and rollers !!!!!

Once cooked we had it for our tea and we also made extra "tang yuen" for the children to take home.

                                     

                                      

                                     

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I couldn't help myself but to introduce again Eric Carle's book for our November's theme. The Very Hungry

Caterpillar is an excellent book and has won many prizes. 

This book contains not only easy-to-read words but also large and colourful illustrations. With the interesting story line I hope the children would be able to love this book as much as I do.

The first activity that we did was to decorate our theme board. We printed out sentence strips while the children painted the templates of the foods and fruits. Once done, the sentence strips and the templates of the fruits and foods were pasted on our theme board. The children were able to read the story from the board without having to read it from the book. Thus promoting language and literacy development as well as personal, social and emotional development. It was amazing to see how fast the children were able to learn  the story even the pre-toddlers. Bear in mind though that we didn't made the children sit down everyday to learn the story !!!!

I have enclosed a videoclip of a 3-year old girl who retell the story. Of course, she still stumble on the days' name but it was a job well done.

During our story sessions, we read out the story to all the children. However this time, we decided to spice up this session ( everything presented to the children have to be interesting) by presenting all the foods and fruits for the children to see, touch, smell and taste. This interesting session will promote the development of their senses and also encourage interactions and discussions on the presented materials. This promote mathematical development through counting and colours. The children enjoyed this sessions but most of all the tasting of the food and fruits.

We also sang "Days of the week" song and introduce "caterpillar" finger play during our singing sessions. Besides that we also talked about foods that are healthy and unhealthy.

We also saved some of the fruits to do fruit printing. Among other craft activities that we have done were the symmetrical painting of a butterfly and the making of caterpillar from egg box. Even though the caterpillar's diet is a fictional fantasy but the story does introduce the magic of the metamorphosis from egg to caterpillar to butterfly. We also did craft on the life cycle of a caterpillar.

For our cooking sessions, we made caterpillar banana for snack. The children cut the bananas and then joined it again using chocolate spread. They then used raisins as the eye and biscuit sticks as the catrepillar's feet. They had fun making it as well as eating it.

                              

  

  

The activities that we have done covers all the six areas of learning. By end of the month, all the children were aware that butterfly babies are caterpillars and that they don't look like their mum. Since I have  already touched on this topic, I'd like to share my experience during my training as a montessori directress. My self and two other friends were required to present a dramatic play as part of our course. I chosed a book " Monkey Puzzle" by Julia Donaldson  as I thought it was a funny and interesting book and by the end of the book, we know that not all babies look like their mum. Much to a protest by my colleague, I went on with my idea and after the presentation, the audience as well as my trainer were entertained and praised our drama. It was a memory to treasure !!

Parents' Day

Yesterday was the Parents Day and it was lovely to see the parents and show the parents all the works the children have done. In Fingertips, Parent's Day are held twice a year; June and December; to allow teachers and parents to discuss the progress of their children. These are done on a one-to-one basis so that they are able to discuss their child in confidentiality. Parents are also able to see example of their child's work. But most importantly parents will have the time and opportunity to talk to each other and teachers, which they may not able to do on a daily basis.

Many thanks to all the parents who make an effort to attend our Parents Day. Those who didn't make it, please arrange for another day at your convenience to discuss about your child's progress.