The Pine and the Willow

Date: 31 March 2007 (Saturday)

This post is 2 weeks after the event so forgive me for not updating the volunteer and children roll-call.

I used back the old format which was reading with/to the whole class using another of Judy Ling's big print and picture books titled, "The Pine and the Willow." The book was about the fates of two trees, the winding willow vs the straight and prideful pine. It tells the story of how the Pine despite being the better looking tree, suffers the fact that one would expect... To be made into furniture while the crooked willow continue to be left in the forest to provide fun and entertainment for people who came upon it.

The story is good for us to teach children on appreciating one's qualities even if one is not "beautiful/handsome" in the conventional sense. I asked the children for their feedback after the story and only slightly less than half enjoyed it. Ah well! :-)

We broke up into small group reading and I took R and J so that I could monitor their progress. R is okay, he is just mainly share and has a slight speech pronunication issue which I believe can be corrected over time as his tongue and palate develops. J on the other hand needs more individualised coaching but I noted some slight improvements after I realise her eyes jump over the words when reading so I need to train her to use her finger to follow the words and train her eye to look at where the fingers are pointing.

A good session as it went smoothly and the sense of satisfaction from teaching kidsREAD never ceases to amaze me. The other development is Az's elder sister asking me to help her in her picture composition. So now I set aside 1/2 an hour after the 1-hour kidsREAD class to coach Az's sister in english homework.

More in the next post.

I'm Hungry

Date: 10 March 2007
Volunteers: K, YJ, D and Myself
Class: 10/11 (S absent)

The big books were available this week and I read to the children "I'm Hungry" by Judy Ling. This is an interesting book as it allowed me to interact with the children asking them questions about who knows how to cook food, who helps their mothers in the kitchen and about the types of ingredients were mentioned in the book.

Attendance was reasonable given that the March school holidays had started so most of the children were back with the exception of one of them.

For the volunteer attendance, I was again fortunate to have D, YJ, K and myself to do the group reading session. After that, we had 5 minutes of "Simple Simon" game before ending the lesson.

The more I teach at kidsREAD, the more I will miss the children if I cannot make it for any of the sessions. The cute children in my class really grows on me...hahah...

As the teaching advertisements in MOE proclaim, teaching is about moulding lives.

I hope to be a competent potter. There are so many hidden talents in my class.

Hairy Scary Spider

Date: 10 February 2007
Class: 9/11
Volunteers: 5/5



This was the first kidsREAD classroom session for me this year as I had other commitments on the previous two Saturdays and it was delightful to see the class again!

The class has suffered some slight attrition since our pre-test and now we have eleven children in the class. Six of my last year's batch (J, Z, C, S, LM, YZ) from Primary 1 and now with me while I have five new children (JT, R, A, MS, HL) making a total of eleven.

As some of the children were new and in Primary 1, I decided to use one of Judy Ling's big books titled, "Hairy Scary Spider" for the class. The story reading segment in part 1 is usually how I warm up the class to the reading activities for the 1-hour session. The room's ventilation was not very good although there was air conditioning and I found myself perspiring profusely while reading to the children. One of the girls, Z was curious as to why I was sweating and I jokingly told her that it was "hard work" teaching them...*hahah*... :-)



The turnout for volunteers was fantastic as I had (D, K, YJ, A) to help me for the class when I broke the class up into smaller groups for the small group reading session. There will be some difference in reading proficiencies in this class as the primary 2 children are already one year ahead of the primary 1s. In addition, some of my primary 2 children were quite advanced readers who could be challenged with more interesting reading assignments.

After the group reading, I did a simple word game where there were rows and columns of letters all jumbled up in a six by six table and the class competed in two groups to see who could guess the most number of words either horizontally, vertically or diagonally in the table.




I see the plan forward is to develop group reading activities that involve all the children and then to have smaller group reading by abilities to help coach the children who need more help.

To cap off the session, the children were given some souvenir bags sponsored by MHA/CNB with the anti-drug message. They were given each 1 knapsack, 1 water bottle, card-case and file case plus a $5 Popular Voucher as well as some brochures on "Saying No to Drugs." I thought the message was more suitable for older children but the souvenirs were useful. A pity volunteers did not get anything. I guess that is the price of volunteering... Knowing that you have made a difference is reward enough.

Our kidsREAD session will take a break during the Lunar New Year Holidays and resume on 24 February Saturday.

Here's wishing all my fellow volunteers and CDAC HQ staff,

"A HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS LUNAR NEW YEAR
FILLED WITH LOVE, PEACE AND JOY!"

Mr Li and his Teapots

Date: 27 August 2006 Sunday

We changed our older class of kidsREAD to Sunday as the Jurong Student Service Centre (SSC) was celebrating its tenth year anniversary Mr. Lim Boon Heng, Minister (PMO) and MP for Jurong GRC was the Guest-of-Honour for this event.

As some of the children could not make it for the Sunday class, we had a combined class of both IIA and IIB. I was fortunate that YJ and K were also present to help with the class. We had selected a few of Judy Ling's large picture books on "Mr Li and His Teapots" as well as a couple of others. As the Minister would be dropping by, we timed our session for the children about the time he went on his tour of the Jurong SSC activities and classrooms. He popped in when I was about two-thirds into the book with the children. I think he "stayed" for a total of 1 minute :-)

Before that, to prevent boredom from settling into the children, we played games like Simon says, hunter/squirrel/tree to get them warmed up. The children enjoyed it immensely and I believe they were more than warmed up.... Hyper is the word I would use. :-)

Here are some shots of the cute children of kidsREAD.