K1 EL 2024 Brainwriting Reflection by Lim Qian Qi Karis

Term 3 Week 1

lim_qian_qi_karis — 2024-06-26 07:41:54 UTC

It feels so good to be teaching the class again! This term's theme seems to be a topic of interest for the class as they were all eager to find out and share their knowledge about plants, making the discussions more fruitful! However, it would be great if we had procured the items earlier so that we can kickstart the planting this week for children to document the growth as they learn more about plants in the next few weeks.

T3WK1

li_guizhen — 2024-06-26 08:17:37 UTC

Yes, I agree with everyone that it's nice to see our class children again!It was nice to see most of them excited to meet us and transiting smoothly to MK class routines. I am glad that we have started the WOW discussion earlier like the pervious term which enabled us to have more time to research, plan ahead and prepare the necessary resources.

Personally, I find the reflection questions guide at the end of the HL lessons very useful as it helped me to recap and rethink on what I have done well and how I can further improve the children's learning experience. Besides this, the individual and group reflection allow me to stop to reflect and analyze about what have happened in my class and it's nice to read about how my fellow colleagues were doing in their own classes. :)

Term 3 Week 1

cindy_peck_xin_ying — 2024-06-26 14:37:00 UTC

This term is actually my favourite term for every year because I love animals and I enjoy teaching children about them. I agree with Karis that it would be better if we could have procured the items earlier. However, it will be better next year because we have experienced how long it takes to procure items and the items that we will need for each lesson. With this knowledge, we will be better prepared next year. Also, I am excited to conduct WoW project for this term again because my class chose "Supermarket" and it is something new. I can't wait to be learning with them again. And welcome Tiana to the EL team! :)

Term 3 Week 1

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-06-27 06:48:05 UTC

It is nice to see the children back in school again! I also observed that the children show interest in this term's theme for plants and animals. They were eager to explore and find out the different plants during the plant hunt at the garden. Majority of the children in my class expressed their interest to learn about butterfly for Term 3 WoW Project. I am happy too to see them exploring and enjoying the different animal toys and activities at the theatre. I agree with Karis that the procurement of lesson materials should be done earlier so that we can start the planting activity on time with the children. The planting of the seeds will take time to grow and there should be enough time given to the children to document the plant growth.

Term 3 week 1

kan_shi_lin — 2024-06-27 13:15:44 UTC

Term 3 started off smoother than I expect it to be, mainly because I am more familiar with the curriculum and the children are also more or less settled. Am glad that timelines for events and deliverables for the term was set at the start of the term which not only gives me a heads up but also allows me to plan my time and pace. Am excited to cover the themes for this term as plants and animals are topics that children show great interest in, which would be fun to explore and learn about the topics together with them. Maybe can have the discussion for procurement before pvt moving on, but I guess the teachers (or in this case I) am now more flexible and comfortable in adjusting and adapting lesson accordingly.

T3W1

fatin_namirah_awang — 2024-06-27 13:17:30 UTC

Hello, Term 3 Week 1!

Thankfully, the first week of school was a breeze! Phew! This week, the Harmony had quite a few absentees (still enjoying their holidays!), so we weren't at full strength yet. While I noticed some changes in the children's behavior upon their return (lots of chatting and shorter attention spans!), I'm very positive that good things remain.

I was sad to say goodbye to Eva, who moved to a different class this term. I came prepared to answer the children's questions about her whereabouts, and thankfully, only needed to address it once. The children were very understanding about Eva's move. Despite this, I still make a conscious effort to speak to Eva every day and assure her that she's safe and we are all here with her. It's always heartwarming to see her walk by and say, "I miss you, Ms. Mirah." (sobs..........)

A Huge Win for Me This Week:

"What's your favorite food, Enzo?" I asked. "Nuggets," he replied.
"Enzo, can you count to 9 for me?" "One, two, three... nine!" he answered.

I celebrated this win with the class. Little did Enzo know how much his achievement made my week!

Small Wins:

The children were actively engaged in the learning environment which I purposefully planned and created.
Rifdi excitedly asked if he could write another book this term, focusing on feelings! We explored numbers in Term 2, and I'm thrilled to see how this new book unfolds.

That's the end of my reflection for Week 1. See you in my next post!

Term 3 Week 2

lim_qian_qi_karis — 2024-07-04 07:23:09 UTC

To ensure effective learning during small group literacy activities, I have grouped children according to their readiness. Initially, this approach was intended to facilitate differentiated learning during the small group literacy activities. However, both Tiana and I observed that this has caused confusion among the children regarding their groupings on a daily basis. Moving forward, I hope to explain and clarify to the children that these groupings are specific to Starlight activities only. For HI-Light and Learning Centre activities, we will follow through with the original groupings. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve this differentiated grouping approach, do share them!

Term 3 Week 3

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-07-11 05:48:26 UTC

I have been including games when I teach the high frequency words during starlight lessons. I have also started a Hi-5 Word Wall with my class since the start of the term, and it encourages them to Hi-5 a word that they know every day when they come to class. I pasted the hand print high frequency word cards at the side of the cubby hole so that the children can give a Hi-5 to their favourite word upon arrival in class every morning. I find this strategy useful as it helps alot in reinforcing the words that they have learned from the previous and current starlight big books. Moving on, I hope to continue to incorporate more fun engaging literacy games for the children during starlight lesson.

Term 3 Week 4

lim_qian_qi_karis — 2024-07-19 05:53:05 UTC

This week, following the Starlight lesson plan, I revisited vowels and blending with them as I have introduced blending to the class previously in Term 2. After demonstrating blending using the magnetic letters, the children enthusiastically joined in to blend the words together with me. I recently incorporated a blending wall on the whiteboard and am still wondering how to make it more meaningful. Can you guys share your experience introducing blending for the first time?

Term 3 Week 5

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-07-24 05:37:00 UTC

This week I tried out the gross motor activity "Bouncy Blending" in class which I shared previously in my last post. I observed that the Kindness children were more engaged during the lesson, and they were very eager to try out the activity. As learning to blend sounds is something new to the children, I feel that learning through fun ways as such will help them to understand better how to blend sounds together to form a word. Besides this activity, I also modified the lesson for rime "at" to introduce and teach the children the rhyming words for "at". I created some word family spinner using toilet paper rolls. During the lesson, I got the children to pick a picture card and they will turn the colored paper on the roll to form the corresponding word. Feel free to share if you have any suggestions to improve the activities. Thank you! :)

Term 3 Week 6

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-08-02 05:21:16 UTC

This week is the first week we are trying out the activity sheet for onset and rime "at". I observed that some children in my class were rather confused of the instructions in the activity sheet even though I went through step by step with them. I feel maybe I should have included the words (rat, hat, bat) other than just the target words (pat, mat, fat, sat) listed in the starlight lesson plan. This will help the children to be more familiar with the words when they are doing the activity sheet. I noticed that the children were having some difficulties to identify the onset of these words. It would be good to use the picture cards and words cards of these words as visual cues on the whiteboard if the children are having difficulties identifying the onset. Do share about your experiences of the activity sheet with your class. Thank you!

Term 3 Week 7 and 8

cindy_peck_xin_ying — 2024-08-15 06:27:54 UTC

We started our WoW project this week focusing on the Supermarket theme, which has proven to be highly engaging for the children. Given that supermarkets are a familiar environment for most families, the children have shown increased participation compared to our previous Rabbit-themed project.

Looking ahead, I'm planning our Term 4 learning journey centered around inclusive playgrounds, a key component of our Term 4 curriculum. I would appreciate any recommendations for interesting inclusive playgrounds suitable for our children if you have any to share. Thank you.

Term 3 Week 9

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-08-22 06:45:26 UTC

This week I had my first lesson observation for starlight. It was a fruitful discussion with my starlight mentor as she gave me some feedback and tips on how I can improve the lessons in the future. During our post-lesson observation discussion, I asked her questions about Literacy Support as I wanted to find out more ways that I can better support the Kindness children. She advised me to plan for 5 Literacy Support activities per starlight unit. It is also good to do lesson adaptation for the Literacy Support activities to cater to the learning needs of the children. For instance, she told me that instead of focusing on 5 vocabulary words, I can maybe just focus on 2-3 words. After all, the most important thing is to set the children for success and help them enjoy the learning process. It is always better to model the activity to the children first during Literacy Support and give them explicit instructions to help them understand and feel successful for completing the task. I will continue to think of ideas to help Kindness children for Literacy Support. Do share any ideas that you have! Thank you! :)

Term 4 Week 1

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-09-12 05:56:58 UTC

Time flies by so fast! We are at the last term of the school year! For the start of the week, I started off by introducing to the children the topics that they will be learning for this term. I decided to use the new library books to talk about the different topics and getting the children to make guesses of what they think they will be learning for the term. The children showed interest to explore the new books, and they were able to share some responses such as weather, shadow and transportation. I feel that the first Hi-light topic about weather is such a relevant and great topic for the children to explore on. The children are able to relate to it as they are able to observe their environment and feel the weather every day! As part of the learning activity of recording the weather for the month of September, besides getting the children to take turns to report the weather to the class, I feel that it would also be good to just spend a little while to talk about the weather with the children during their daily outdoor play time as they are able to look up into the sky to predict the weather and share their observations. It is a great opportunity for children to share their observations of the natural environment that they are in! Thank you for reading my post! Do share any ideas that you have! :)

Term 4 Week 2

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-09-19 05:18:34 UTC

While teaching the topic about wind on Wednesday, I decided to make a slight modification to the lesson by spending some time to link in the current issue which happened in Singapore on Tuesday night. I felt that the news article was very relevant to the topic on wind as it talks about how the strong winds and heavy rain resulted in fallen trees in different places in Singapore. I showed the children some pictures of fallen trees from the Straits Times article. The children were able to relate to the news article and shared about how they felt on Tuesday night when the strong wind and rain happened. This also helps them to link back to the previous lesson about their feelings during a thunderstorm.

Having a discussion about current issue can help to deepen the children's understanding of what is happening in the environment that they live in. This was the news article that I showed the children in class:

Strong winds, heavy rain batter Singapore, uprooting trees and slowing traffic | The Straits Times

Term 4 Week 3

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-09-26 05:24:06 UTC

The topic on shadows was very fun and engaging for the children. They have enjoyed the different activities both indoor and outdoor. The children like the rainbow experiment the most however my class was abit disappointed with the results of the experiment as they didn’t get to see the rainbow at first. I encouraged the children by telling them that sometimes experiments might not be successful and that it is more important that we learn during the process about how and why things work. I told the children that even when there is no rainbow, we can still talk about it and discuss why the rainbow did not appear. After that, I showed the children some videos of how people conduct the rainbow experiment in different ways. One method that we tried together was to use paper, torch light and the glass of water. In the end, they managed to see a little bit of the rainbow and they were so happy! Through this experience, the children learnt about perseverance and not giving up easily as when one method did not work, they can always try other methods. My class children are still keen to try out the experiment again in class using different methods. Do your have any other methods of doing the rainbow experiment? I would love to hear and learn from all of you! Thank you for reading my post!

Term 4 Week 4 & 5

cindy_peck_xin_ying — 2024-10-10 03:50:44 UTC

Starlight: Children learned about the onsets and rime, blending vowel /i/ and sentence structure. Children are still learning about the use of in/on when forming a sentence and I shared with them that "in" is usually used for enclosed items and usually cannot be seen after putting the item in whereas "on" is usually used for a surface and it usually can be seen.

Hi-Light: Children had some difficulty playing the number game in unit 4.1. When it was their turn to clap, some children blurt out the number instead of clapping. This game should be played according to children's ability as I feel that the instructions given should be different. Also, I noticed that children understood the instructions better when it is conducted in a small group. Do you guys face any difficulty conducting this game and how did you guys conduct the lesson?

Term 4 Week 6

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-10-17 06:31:21 UTC

Starlight:

I observed that for starlight, the children are getting better at the sentence structure activity. They were able to understand the instructions for the activity and they took turns well with their friends. I feel it would be good if the different target sentence structure cards can be pasted on the wall to encourage the children to use them in their daily interactions with their friends.

Hi-Light:

While using the "See, Think, Wonder" with Kindness during some of the Hi-Light lessons, I noticed that many of them tend to get confused with "wonder" and "see". Since the picture or painting have many things to talk about, the children sometimes are unsure what they should talk about. They will share with me what they see instead of telling me about what they wonder about the picture. I decided to get the children to point to me one thing that they are interested about, followed by getting them to try to think about a question about the picture. For instance, in LA 5.1 Painting 'Life by the River' by Liu Kang, the children first point to me which part of the painting they want to talk about. After which, they come up with their question about the picture. For e.g. Nathaniel shared, "I wonder why the bridge is built halfway and stops here?" Jenson shared, "I wonder if the bridge is made up of wood?"

How do you encourage the children to share about their wonderment?

Thank you for reading my post! :)

Term 4 Week 7

cindy_peck_xin_ying — 2024-10-24 08:38:08 UTC

Hi-Light lesson this week was very interesting and engaging as it helps children to empathise with the people with needs. I think when we teach the lesson, as teachers, we need to be very mindful of the terms we use to describe people with needs. (E.g. we can say visually impaired instead of blind because after researching, some people may consider the term- blind as insensitive). Also, for the blindfolding activity, the children were actually able to see through the blindfolds and after asking, children shared that there were holes, and they were able to see through it. Teachers might want to redo the lesson by covering children's eyes with mask/tissue before getting them to put on the blindfold.

Term 4 Week 8

tan_hui_min_c_1 — 2024-10-31 08:06:01 UTC

This week the children explored about buses in the past and present for Hi-Light lesson. Besides showing the children pictures of buses in the past and present, I also shared with them how people pay for bus fare. For instance, I showed the children the picture of an old bus ticket machine and another picture of an ez-link card machine. Most of them were able to share their observation of the two types of machines. Some children were also able to relate to their own personal experience of tapping the ez-link card when they board the bus. I also provided the children with a drawing activity sheet for them to draw their ideas of their superbus model. Some children shared interesting ideas through their drawing. For instance, a bus which has foldable table for passengers to take out to use to put their laptop to do work or charge their phone.

Term 4 Week 9

lim_qian_qi_karis — 2024-11-06 10:29:43 UTC

This week's lessons are more on revision and I believe that revisiting numeracy concepts and literacy skills through games will make learning more enjoyable, while allowing us to assess their learning and understanding in a fun way. It’s been amazing to see how much they have grown and the strong rapport we've built as a class. However, as the children become more outspoken and develop a stronger sense of self, mini conflicts tend to arise. One area we could improve on as a team is lesson preparation - ensuring we are fully prepared for any experiential activities and have a clear understanding of the concepts/skills being introduced to avoid the need to redo/revisit the lessons.