For today, I went over to one of the K2 classes to observe the children and the entire experience was new and different from that of the K1 class. The children in the K2 class were more open and more embracing towards strangers. Perhaps it is because they are preparing to go to primary school and are slowly developing their social skills. As today is both G's and C's birthday, the children in the class sang the english, chinese and malay version of the birthday song to both of them. I was pretty impressed that they actually know the song in three languages as I myself do not even know. G's mum was generous and even brought a cake along for G to celebrate with his classmates. On the other hand, C's parents did not bring a cake for her and I hope that she does not feel upset by it. The cake that G's mum brought was really yummy and I enjoyed the slice of cake for my breakfast =)
I started learning about developing lesson plan when the principal passed me the curriculum guide. I also flipped through some of the samples of the lessons planned for the year and I found some of the ideas pretty interesting. I can't wait to come out with a lesson plan of my own. All my ideas are bursting to come out but for now, I have to try to suppress them by venting them in my trusty old notebook, which by the way, no longer has its covers. I sure hope that the classroom environment changes when I start my teaching practicum next year. The current classroom is really not conducive for encouraging creativity and I wish to make some changes.
Anyway, back to the birthday children. C's uniform is really short. In fact, it is so short that her shorts underneath can be seen. She seems to be uncomfortable with her uniform as she keeps trying to make adjustment to her uniform but to not much avail. This shows the dilemma of a parent - to be willing to spend the extra bucks to buy a new uniform for the child's comfort or to save up since the child is growing at a fast speed at this stage anyway. G, the other birthday child, was a really adorable boy. He was a shy and sweet boy. On the other hand, his friend, E was a super active boy. E chatted alot to me and even showed me that he can move his knees like mr bean. The other kids then joined him and all started chatting to me about mr bean show, which apparently is on tv at 5pm everyday. Some of them also excitedly informed me about their purchase of their Primary One school uniforms and even complained about the number of books that they have to buy. It is a phrase in the local education landscape that everyone has to go through, isn't it?
The girls are also really adorable as they will observe me entirely and by that, I really mean from head to toe. Some of the girls will shyly comment that I am pretty and that I have a nice looking hair band. They make me shy! They also observe the slippers that I was wearing and commented that it was spoilt, which I wasn't even aware of myself. You see, the slippers that I was wearing belongs to the centre and it is of a size that is much bigger than my feet. Nonetheless, I still wear it as I really do not wish to walk barefoot around in the kindergarten. I am thinking of getting a pair of bedroom slippers but that would mean that I have to bring the slippers to school everyday. Oh well, I will consider about it.
As for the lessons taught today, it includes phonetics (as usual) and imparting the value of money. I really have no idea what phonetic is all about but as long as it helps children to learn how to read, it is probably useful, and I should learn more about it. From my interaction with the children during playtime, I also realized that some children are still unable to know the value of money (like the value of items printed in coupons). Nonetheless, they are slowly learning and they seem to be much better off than the K1 children whom I interacted with yesterday.
On a sweet ending note, I had an enjoyable time playing with the girls in the dramatic corner today. They were playing with the dettol hand sanitizer that one girl brought to school and even offered me some. Yes, you didn't read it wrongly. They were playing and were easily amused by the fragrance that the hand sanitizer gives off.
P.S: Tomorrow is the children's rehearsel for their graduation ceremony and the kids are all excited preparing for it. I feel happy for them too and I can't wait to see them perform. At the same time, I know I will miss them next year.
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