Mid Autumn Festival

Mid Autumn festival is usually a family celebration, where members of the family will gather and enjoy eating mooncake while gazing at the moon and children will parade around the neighnorhood with lantern. This is our fish lantern which the children made at the school. Happy Mid Autumn Festival to all and do enjoy the varieties of mooncakes available !!

Eid Mubarak ( Hari Raya Aidilfitri)

I would like to this opportunity to wish all my Muslim friends " Selamat Hari Raya" while for others who don't celebrate, hope that you are enjoying long weekend and drive safely.  This week we made a raya card and mosque. The card was in a shape of a weaved ketupat except that we didn't do weaving as the younger children will find it too difficult to weave so we have cut-out green and yellow squares for them to paste. For a picture of a mosque, we used black sugar paper ( for mounting), orange colour paper, orange glass paper and some colour pencils. Best of all, we had a raya feast on Wedsnesday. The children were treated to a scrumptious Malay delicacies such as dodol, murtabak, roti jala, satay, kuih-muih, lemang, ketupat and many more. Selamat Hari Raya!

Frogs

I hope all is well. Before I begin, I'd like to apologise for not updating as I have been so so busy. So kindly bear with me and I promised to post up all the activities which the children have done for the past few months. I would also like to welcome Tan Kai Zhen, Verolyn Lim and Oliver Ong to Fingertips. Thank you for choosing Fingertips.

Croak! Croak! Croak !"Frogs" has been our theme for the month of May. "Frogs" is especially appropriate for the toddlers and kindergartners because they are fascinated with animals and are often highly motivated to explore their immediate environment.


The overall purpose of this unit is to help my students learn about the metamorphosis and the development of this amphibian species. Photos of this metamorphosis were laminated and and hung at the children eye level.

We have also planned various lessons and activities of this unit to help children to develop related concepts as they gain an appreciation of ways frogs help our environment. The children also had direct observational experiences and cared for this amphibian even though just for half an hour. I managed to get a frog ( well I wouldn't have the guts to catch it, but my hubby) for the children to observe and much to the children excitement, I had to let the frog go.

They also have had opportunities to express themselves through creative work in art, music and movement activities.

Frogs templates were colored and each child has to glue the frog's body part using their own creativity.

 Frogs' egg - bubble painting

Tadpole - side of the hand painting

Frogs' egg-I made these basil egg jelly for the children

We decorated our school with origami frogs.

We made these frog tin to store our origami stars.

We made frog headband to wear for our singing sessions. We sang and enjoyed our "8 Little Speckled frogs" instead of "5 Little Speckled Frog".

Books that we used for this topics are as below:

Family Picnic ( 19th June 2010 )

We enjoyed a great day out picnic by the seaside and have had an enjoyable alfresco meal. All thanks to the parents who contributed a variety of foods to share. The weather was lovely with beautiful clear skies. I've been worrying that it might rain and we had to cancel the picnic. The children were looking forward to this gathering more than anyone else. If it rains, this picnic will be at my house ( much to the childrens' relief).
One of the main reasons, I had this organised (apart from mingling with all families) was because children just love outdoors particularly eating outdoor. It's different and it's a great escape from the confines of the house. It is also great for the parents to take some time off  to enjoy quality time with the children.
Finally I'd like to thank all parents who turned up for this gathering despite the hot and humid weather. May this picnic memory will linger in our childrens' memory forever. I, myself, will do. Cheer!

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Fathers' Day

Happy Fathers' Day to all wherever you are ......

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Mothers' Day

We all love our mum. This year we decorated special home-made cupcakes for mum and also made a simple but a beautiful card to go with the cup cakes. The toddlers' group also made a hand print photo frame ( a big thank you for the parents who brought their family photo).

The children were so excited and brought varieties of toppings to decorate the cup cakes. Among them were chocolate chips, M&M's, colored rice, jelly beans and many more. They have had a wonderful time ( trust me...the cupcakes turned out so pretty but the whole room was erm....very messy and sticky!).

Lastly,I hope all mothers' enjoyed their cupcakes specially made for them and have had a lovely mothers' day.

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Saint Patrick's Day

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On March 17, we celebrated Saint Patrick's Day with the children. We had allocated a whole week to introduce to the children about this celebration.

 During our learning circle sessions, we talked about the origins of this celebration and they were introduced to Saint Patrick, shamrock, leprechaun and of course the colour; green. We also printed out some pictures and paste it on a paper with a few lines of descriptions, which were then be mounted . These frieze cards were then tack on the wall ( within childrens' height) for easier access to the children. 

For craft work, we made a pot of gold. An empty glass jar was painted in green by the children which were then filled with gold choco coins. They then present the jar to their friends. Besides that, we also painted shamrock and leprechaun. 

The highlights of this day was when we all wore green !!

Easter

"Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping along the bunny trail...." Easter was our curriculum theme that we explored in March. Before I elaborate further on this exciting theme, I'd like  to welcome 3 new students to Fingertips. They are Jie Ling, Zekai and Siew Bing. Welcome !

Through planned learning experiences, the children  learnt Easter customs such as Easter bunny, Easter basket and many more.

Both bulletin board were decorated. The toddlers' bulletin board was decorated with Easter bunny and Easter baskets filled with decorated eggs. Meanwhile for Pre-schools' bulletin board, we had colourful eggs hung from a tree. 

To recall our Easter celebrations that we had in the past was egg decorating. We have been helping the children to decorate their eggs in school and then to take home. Thus this year for a change, we have decided to let the children decorate their eggs with their parents at home. The result that we got was egg-cellent !! Just look at the photos and you will be amazed how creative and adventurous the parents are. We will definitely do this again next year.

We also planned cooking activity for the children. We came across lots of recipe which children would find too difficult to follow. In the end, I came across a recipe by Nigella Lawson ( yes the kitchen goddess) which is quite similar to this. The children mixed the cornflakes with the melted chocolate, which was then shaped into a nest shape. Once hardened, they places a few eggs ( candy) into it. Voila! 

One of the most exciting learning experiences planned to reinforce concepts of Easter was the Easter egg hunt. Hollow egg shells were decorated and then hidden outdoor for the children to find. The children were so excited and has been looking forward for this hunt. The older students has been helping out in decorating the eggs and before the hunt began, all decorated eggs were hidden outdoors-everywhere. However, we have been careful not to make the location too difficult to retrieve. When the hunt was over, goodies bag were given to all the students irregardless of how many eggs they have collected.

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Pancake Day

We have such great fun on our Pancake Day celebration. Unfortunately this year’s Pancake Day fell on 16th February which collided with Chinese New Year but that doesn’t deter us from celebrating it. A lot of activities were carried out for the whole week during Pancake Day.

For the development of creativity, the children painted a pancake’s template and pasted some cut-out fruits. This is our initial activity because we believe that not all the children have seen or even tasted English/American pancake before. Thus this activity will provide them with a brief introduction of pancake.

During our tasting sessions, I made two types of pancakes; the British and the American. The British pancake is thin, flat cake, made out from batter and fried in a pan and is eaten with a dash of lemon juice and sprinkle of sugar. Whereas American pancake is thick and normally eaten with maple syrup. The children really enjoyed this session very much. They tried it with lemon and sugar or with jam …and the result? They definitely prefer pancake with jam. I was a little disappointed that most of them didn’t like their pancake with lemon and sugar because I,myself, loves it the traditional English way. But never mind, they still love PANCAKE.

 We also played Flipping Pancakes and of course Pancake Race. It was hilarious to see the children trying their hand in flipping the pancakes without dropping it on the floor.

The children were divided into two groups in Pancake Race. In this game, they have to hold a pan with a pancake and run to their friend who is waiting for them at the opposite end. At the end of the day the Grasshopper group won.

Apple day and Trees

We are all aware of the importance of proper nutrition and how rich an apple is with vitamins and  I was well aware that Apple Day is held on the 21st October each year in UK but that doesn't stop me from introducing it in my school last month. Thus Fingertips Apple Day was celebrated on the 27th January with a good response from the children.

Come 27th January, every child arrived proudly in school with an apple in their hand ( or some who came in with more than half a dozen).  Red apple, green apple, pink apple, big and small apples over-flowed our basket.

We begun our very first activity which was of course, apple tasting. We wanted the children to know that even though these apples have the same colour but they do tastes a little different. By end of the week, the children were able to describe the apple as " sweet, juicy and crunchy".

 

 

For the development in mathematical area, the Toddlers did counting with the apples. Besides counting, they also did sorting leaves into their respective groups. These activities indirectly will improve on their hand-to-eye coordination as well as concentration skills.

For the kindergartners, we learnt about whole, half and quarter of an apple.

 

We decorated the theme board in the Toddlers' room.  The toddlers' were also exposed to various type of material such as apple stamping, leaf rubbing and bark rubbing.

In one of our many Learning Circle, we discussed about the three necessity for any tree (apple tree) to grow; water, soil and sunlight. We also stressed on the importance of having trees around us; that they provide us with oksigen, provides us shades and many more. 

In science, we introduced parts of an apple using 3-Period Lesson. These consists of stem, core, seed, skin and meat. By end of the week, most of the children were able to match the parts of the apple with the label.

The best part of the whole Apple Day week was the games that we played. We had apple hunt, pass-the-apple as well as apple bobbing.

 

 

Johnny Appleseed was introduced during our Story Sessions. We also read a book by A.H. Benjamin "Little Mouse and the Big Red Apple". It is a story about how this Little Mouse found a big red apple. With the help of his friends, he's finally able to bring the apple to his house and enjoyed it. So...did he get to enjoy the apple? Well....I guess you have to do the reading yourself or maybe ask one of our students??

It was a shame that Apple week passed so quickly when we could have more interesting activities for the children to explore. Need not worry as I'll be introducing this topic again in the near future.