Nature Walk @ Tmn Merdeka (July 2013)

We are very glad that we are able to bring our school children to the nearest park at Taman Merdeka this year. This is a very pleasant park with a variety of trees and plants that our children have learned before in school.



Auntie Chaz Yee explaining to the K1 and K2 children how to make the printing on the pebble-washed ground using crayon at the start of the walk.

Auntie Margaret explaining to the N1 and N2 children how to make the printing on the pebble-washed ground using crayon at the beginning of the walk.

We are all set to WALK! YEAH!

The children could recognize the bamboo trees, which we had explained the diet of a panda at the early part of this year cultural lessons. Then, the teachers also pointed out the coniferous trees, which they had learned about it as the habitat of some European animals. Many beautiful water-lilies, lily pads, dragonflies and butterflies were also in sight.

 
Teachers were explaining the pine trees as the coniferous trees, which are ever-green. The K1 and K2 students could say the fruit of the tree being the "pine cone". This shows they were attentive in Auntie Latifah's cultural class :)


Although some children have been to this park with their parents several times before, they seemed to have discovered something new at the park when we asked them to observe the texture of the ground and bark of trees by doing crayon-scrapping activity. They also discovered that the leaves come in various shapes and sizes and flowers come in different colours when we asked them to collect the fallen ones on the ground. They all seemed excited when they saw different types of fallen leaves and flowers on the ground, and could not wait to pick them up and put them in their little brown bags which they had brought from school.

 

 Look at our collections of twigs, leaves, flowers, dried fruit and tree barks!

 

 

Ee Tong was chasing two little brown butterflies. In the end, she was chased by the butterflies.

The children taking every opportunity to do crayon-scrapping activity to find out the effect of texture on paper. Some were crayon-scapping on the tree roots, some on the tree trunk.

Some did crayon-scrapping on the stone wall.

 

Some did crayon-scrapping on the tree trunk.

We also found something interesting...which insects or animals used the dried leaves to make a bundle like this? When we went back to the park in the afternoon with another group of children, this bundle shrunk to a smaller bundle.

 

The K1 and K2 discovered a millipede. They were in awe.

The K1 and K2 children saw this cotton-like fruit with its shell and seeds still attached. So amazing!

We also sang the "My Pigeon House" song while keeping our voices soft and gentle, peeping at the pigeon holes...

 

The heat and the long walk in the park (about 1.5 hours of walk) did not dampen any mood. The Nursery children, although with their short little legs, had spent the most effort in walking, none of them complained. In fact, they looked so happy and contented when they were departing the park. All children from as young as 3 years old to 6 years old asked when we are to bring them for a nature walk again. They are all good children who appreciate the nature.


The teachers also did a good job in extending their students’ classroom learning in the park. Auntie Chaz Yee and Auntie Latifah brought two different groups of children for the nature walk within a day at two different times, exhausting! Guess age is catching up. But the teachers felt as happy and contented as the children :)  .



Auntie Chaz Yee, Auntie Latifah, Auntie Shirin and the K1 and K2 children (on 22 July 2013 morning).

Auntie Latifah, Auntie Neva and the N1 and N2 second session children (on 22 July 2013).

Auntie Chaz Yee, Auntie Margaret, Auntie Liew, Auntie Neva, Auntie Mary and N1 and N2 first session children (on 17 July 2013).

On the way back to the car, we passed by a mango tree. Lots of mangoes were on the ground, Auntie Latifah and the children picked up the mangoes and...

Some of them brought the mangoes home...

some ate the mangoes at school....

Yum Yum...

K1 and K2 children enjoyed pasting their collections from the nature on the art paper.



Look at what I have got from the park!

We LOVE NATURE!

 

To view more photos of these nature walks, please CLICK HERE

 

 

KidsArtFun 2011 PART1 by Aunty Shirin

Yesterday，a good friend of mine sent me an image through watsapp, a picture of a flyer that's about Kids Art Carnival. I was doubtful at first but curious, so we went to down to 'Cultural Street'  文化街 in Johor Bahru old town to check it out.

I was pleasantly surprised with the stalls that were set up along the road by different art schools in JB. There were also plenty for little ones to create. However when I returned home and looked at my son's angry bird magnet creation, I cant help but question where is the creativity in it? It looks great, however most of the work was pre-prepared by the teacher, all the child had to do was to follow a sample and assemble the things together. Even so, the teacher did most of the work for them. So where is the thought process? What did the child learn from making it? What was the idea behind it? What skills and technique did the child learn? 

This brings me to the blog that I have written about my experience with KidsArtFun @ Clover 2 years ago. There was some error to the blog and it wasn't published. So here is the long awaited blog : 

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When I was asked to teach art, I asked myself the question. What is Art actually? What should preschoolers be learning about art and what can they really achieve? What can they create?

I began the classes this year by asking the children, “What is art?” “What do you do in art class?” they said art is painting, drawing, art is craft, something hung on the wall…etc. one of the children said : “Art is when teacher draws something, we just copy.” It struck me that art should not be ‘just copy’, it should encourage children to develop creativity. Yes, initially children learn through imitation but once they have learnt the skills, they should be able to create art independently with confidence.

So this is my quest for KidsArtFun Year of 2011, to bring them from 'just copy' to 'creating with confidence'!

So where should I start teaching art from? I thought learning from the famous artist would be a great way to start this journey to creativity. To learn to look and appreciate art, think about art, form opinions about art and also to learn the skills to create art like a famous artist.

Firstly, they needed to know how to manipulate the tools to use them to create art. So you can see we did a lot of exploration of tools to create art and how to use them creatively. 

Exploration of tools: Early on in the year, we first explored how to use tools creatively, to expand the children's mind to think about the different ways to use them. We used a variety of tools and explored them through different ways of holding, rolling, flicking, poking,brushing, printing etc. List of tools explored include:

pencil, charcoal, colour pencils, crayon, paint with brush, finger painting, printing with vegetables/leaves/sponges, paint with other materials such as card board, cotton bud, tip of a brush.

Learning about Colours :We then move on to colours, observing colours in our environment, learning about primary colours, secondary colours, mixing colours, rainbow. primary, secondary colours, tertiary colours, rainbow colours, mixing colours, colour wheel, warm/cool colours..etc.

Learning about rainbow colours through pictures and song!

Do you see concentration, joy and even dance during art class?

As an extension for craft using rainbow colours, we experienced how to make sand art from raw sand by sieving, adding and mixing food colouring to get desired colours, putting out to sun and dry, then pour them into a glass bottle through funnel to make beautiful patterns.

We sieved, we added food colouring and gave it a good massage!

Drying coloured sand in the sun.

Our K1 & K2 budding artist. (2011)

Our very own coloured sand - pouring through funnels into glass bottles.

Our N2 and K1 making sand art in a bottle.

Our end product with our project with coloured sand art.

Art piece titled: Birds of paradise

Beautiful rainbow coloured birds in the rainforest.
Hand printing and printing with real leaves.

From Primary colours, we learnt how to mix them to get secondary colours. We learnt to identify cool colours and warm colours. Now it's time to put them together to make the colour wheel!

Art piece titled: Colour Wheel

The primary colours: Red, Blue & Yellow.

The secondary colours: Purple, Green & Orange

Finally its the tertiary colours.

They first matched the colours with crayon for the inner wheel. As for the outer wheel, they had to mix only the primary colours to get the desired secondary and tertiary colours. 3 colours is all we need to make the rest of the colours!

The completed colour wheel, originally designed around the1800’s to show how different colors blended.

We also went on to explore different ways to create art-> will update more in detail and pictures

- Drawing, shading, painting, colouring, folding of origami, colour sand, sand art, printing, straw blowing, scraping, collage, painting on egg, making coloured sand, still life. etc


We learnt stories about Famous Artist/their famous works of art & technique used, we then explored and adopted the skill in our painting-> will update more in detail & pictures


- Leonardo Da Vinci / Mona Lisa / exploration & colouring

- Paul Cezanne / Apples / Still Life

- Vincient Van Gogh / sunflowers - Deutsch: Stilleben mit 12 Sonnenblumen English: Vase with 12 sunflowers

- Vincient Van Gogh / Starry night / Strong colours, mixing no or little water

- Georges Suerat / River … / pointillism

- Monet / The Water Lily Pond/ mixing paint on paper

- Henri Matisse/ The Snail / Collage: Drawing with scissors

- Andy Warhol /Pop Art


END OF PART 1 Stay tuned for part 2-3-4 where we made easter eggs in nest, learn about many famous artist...etc...

Blog Author: Auntie Shirin 

Music and the Brain

Ballet and Fun Dance Presentation (4 Nov 2012)

It was a beautiful Sunday morning. A group of dancers from the Ballet and Fun Dance classes led by Mrs De Silva did a wonderful dance presentation at the Taman Tasek Community Hall on 4 Nov 2012.

The presentation was kicked start with the pre-primary students who just started their ballet lessons a few months ago. The two little ballerinas of 4 years old were adorable and did not seem to have stage-fright at all. They tried to present their dance with some last minute adjustment to their dance positions due to the absence of their fellow classmate.



The Pre-Primary Ballerinas, Shee Ya and Haasimah.

Follow on were the Fun Dance students’ items. These were the 4 and 5 year-olds angels that Mrs De Silva has for her Monday (2 - 3p.m.) class. It has not been easy to impart dancing skill to children as young and active as this group. She has dedicated a lot of patience to turn the energy of these young ones into structured dancing. Although these young ones did not synchronise in their dancing much as what a professional dancer is to be expected of, they knew exactly the right time to perform a certain footwork and steps despite their physical development stage might not have brought them to the right level yet. Bravo to these little angels! They were so cute!



The Fun Dancers, Du Ee, Taryn, Xin Yuan, Bong Yi and Kayla.



The first graders who are only 6-year-olds ballerinas. They were adorable and with Cha Lih putting on a constant smile and AnQi did all the proper dance steps as how she had practiced before.

 

The Grade-2 ballerinas, Kai Lih, Natali, Wen Yi, Tai Hun, Pei Ting and Loke Zen. These girls worked their best at the presentation, showing off to their audience their ballet routine at the bars.




The second graders again with costume and props. They were beautiful.

 

These are the Grade-6 ballerinas, Celine, YunXi, Rysheen, Nicole, Lynn and Celest. They were at an emergent level and good coordination with their peers were observed.

 

The Eighth-Graders, Kee Min, Jia Hui and Chloe, presented their routine and footwork. These teenagers have achieved so much throughout their years of ballet lessons with Mrs De Silva.




The graceful swans from the Advance group, Gia Hui, Shan and Amanda. These adults have demonstrated the charisma and gracefulness of ballerinas and they each presented a solo dance which wowed the audience.  




Mrs De Silva and her students.

We have to thank Mrs De Silva for her dedication and passion in the education of dance. It is with this spirit, the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD, U.K.) awarded her with a life-time membership of the RAD, which is a highly-acclaimed award in the Dance sector.

We would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the following people for their help and support:

~The Chairman and Committee members of Taman Tasek for the use of this hall, Mr. and Mrs. Richard for being most helpful.

~ Parents for bringing their children and also being so helpul and generous, friends and well-wishes for their presence.

~ Mr. Ousmand for helping to clean the hall several times and with extended hours, and unwilling to accept any reward for the great job he had done.

~ The great sound system was another major factor that contributed to the success of this presentation. We extend our special gratitude to Ms. Christine Lee and Ms. Gia Hui for sponsoring the sound system for that morning. It was with this great gesture that we were able to enjoy the presentation.

~ Ms. Liew, her nephews and Ms. Soraya for distributing leaflets for the event.

~ The three Advanced Level students for preparing the stage and working with creativity, providing help in every way. 

~ Mrs. Foo for the "Little something" to the kiddios. 

~ Last but not least, the darling dancers, for doing their best!



Teaching Young Children Manners

I remember my father always said, "Hey, no manners!" when we were young. What he wanted to say was, "Hey, please have some manners!" and his intent was to tell us that we had to be polite all the time. Well, so we all learned manners through his "no manners" comment, then we knew what we did was not socially right. This was the old-style teaching, but the intent is absolutely right to teach children manners. When we met our parents' friends at home or public places, we were trained to quickly address these elders "uncles" and "aunties" whether or not we had met them before. But I begin to see a shift in this for our next generation, it seems like the elders are greeting the younger generation first, and sometimes may not get a reciprocal response.

Manners have to be taught, which help a child, who eventually grows into an adult to be able to socialise well with others. Reminding children to greet helps them to develop a sense of respect for the elders.

Teaching manners also starts with the Parents' own manners. MODELLING effect takes great place here. Children learn from imitation. A family value of politeness is also instilled better in modelling after the adults than hearing the preaching. I was teaching the Kindermusik Baby class two weeks ago and talked with parents about how babies learn to speak ---- It is through imitation! Hence, if a baby lives in a family who always uses polite words with each other like please, thank you and may I, the baby's speech will naturally include these magic words.

Teaching manners is never too early, and should never end. In fact, it starts with the Parents as Kindermusik always says Parents are the First and Most Important Teacher for a child.

Below are some practical guides from BabyCentre for Teaching Manners. Hope these tips can help to shape a good-mannered next generation to maintain the world a beautiful place.

• How to teach your toddlers manners
• Behaviour and habits