Spooktacular 2014

Spooktacular! Spooktacular! What a spooktacular event we just have had this evening. Everything was just so spooktacular. Thanks to MOMBIES Inc. who organized this event. Kids and adults had so much fun!

Letter of the Week

This week, we started Letter of the Week activities beginning with letter A. Basically, each week the kids will do at least three activities related to the letter of the week which are tracing the uppercase letter using Wet Dry Try! app, tracing the upper case letter on a worksheet, and do craft activity that matches with the letter of the week.

In alphabetical order, each week, we spend about 10-15 minutes on Monday-Wednesday to trace one uppercase letter a day using Wet Dry Try! app. The goal is to reach one star a day which can be accomplished by tracing the letters three times, wet-dry-try.  On Wednesday, the kids should be able to have three stars which they are very proud of. 

Using thin marker, carefully, the kids trace the uppercase letter each week. We try our best to do at least 1 row a day, but this week, some of the kids were very determined to finish all 5 rows in 15 minutes. The fact that they could stay on task for more than 5 minutes were amazed as well as made me proud of them. Every week, after finishing this uppercase letter tracing, they are rewarded with stickers which they can stick on the worksheets. Observing how the kids traced letter A this week, some of them have already had good pencil grip which really help them in tracing neatly using marker. Some others still need help either to hold the marker properly or simply to be back on task. We try our best to encourage all the kids to practice this writing skill, but we won't push them so hard which can demotivate them. The most important thing is the letter recognition. Being able to trace then write the uppercase letters are the bonuses :)

Beside the two activities mentioned above, each week, we also do craft activity that matches the letter of the week. This week we did alligator cut and paste and next week we will do letter B covered with buttons.

Other than the stickers, after completing all letter of the week activities, the kids will attach the letter of the week train on their uppercase letter chart as part of their rewards. We also have a designated space in our classroom to attach the letter that we have learned. This 'A' train will be the engine of our long alphabet train.

October 27-30, 2014

Happy Halloween!

We had a great spooky week filled with creative and fun Halloween activities. We recycled cereal boxes into our trick or treat bags, we learned about some shapes while decorating our Jack O Shapes, we laced the jiggly wiggly monster, we had our feet painted to print the cutest ghosts ever (it was so ticklish!), we took a deep breath and blew the watercolor paint hard so our one/two/three eyed monsters can have funky hair, we froze some water to make our icy ghost cubes which were literally so cool to play with, we used red and orange sharpie markers as our spooky hands nail polish then put some fresh popcorn inside them, we..., we...  We did a lot of things!

October 20-23, 2014

Autumn in Balikpapan

Hi, everyone! It has been quite a tough week for some of the kids and myself to go back to our daily routines after a week of Fall break. No more itinerary to check, only the lesson plan :) But hey, we survived! Hopefully, all of you had a great week off, either here in Balikpapan or somewhere else.

Drought that we have had in Balikpapan for several weeks matched perfectly with our last week lesson unit which was season-fall. There are tons and tons of dry leaves to keep the gardeners busy for the whole month. We walked around the compound to gather some dry leaves and sticks. In the classroom, we discussed the importance of a tree and also the tree parts. We sorted the leaves that we collected from our nature walk based on their sizes: big, medium, and small. The fun part of this activity was the tape-part. They enjoyed every step that they did using the tape. They pulled the tape from the tape dispenser, cut it, and pasted it to the paper. Some tape cuttings were a bit too small, perfect length, or even long enough to cover the paper from one side to the other. We used the rest of the leaves to create our very own leaf crown and also a beautiful Fall wreath, which the first out of four-season wreaths that we plan to make.

We also did some leaf rubbings and used our fingers to to print leaves on our trees. Using a needle with a wooden handle, we trained our fine motor skill and poked holes around a paper leaf. Doing this, the kids were introduced to other way to cut paper without using scissors. From all the activities mentioned previously, 'Fall Leaves Fall' activity was the hit of the week. On Thursday, we spent about 20 minutes at the playground raking, piling, tossing, throwing, stepping on, and finally jumping into pile of dry leaves. It was so fun!

Anticipating 'Letter of the Week' activities that we plan to have starting from next week, the kids were introduced to Wet Dry Try app. It is a great app not only to introduce letters to kids, but also to train their fine motor skills by tracing each letter correctly at least three times to earn a star. Starting from next week, in alphabetical order, we plan to earn three stars a week for each letter. We will spend about 10-15 minutes a day as part of our circle time to do this.