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January 2010
February 2010
April 2010
May 2010
August 2010

P1 Semestral Assessment Two (SA2) Oral Alternative...
Our Rainbow Day
Examinations
Show and Tell
CNY Pictures, Best Group of the Month and Star Pup...
STELLAR
Cows 'can' and 'can't'
Touch Typing Online Practice
My pupils and their class roles
Class Decorations

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Names or Photos of our Star Pupils of the Month will be published here for recognition

::STELLAR::
Saturday, January 23, 2010

(Singing to the tune of Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John)

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Farmer Dan, Farmer Dan?
The animals are noisy, the animals are noisy.
So I can't, so I can't.

Can you sleep now, can you sleep now, Farmer Dan, Farmer Dan?
The animals are quiet, the animals are quiet.
Now I can, now I can.

Do ask the pupils of 1D and I'm sure they could sing and dance to this song very well...Singing is part of our STELLAR tuning in before I introduced the big book reading activity. Singing can get them to settle so that they know they will be ready for a new activity to start.

So far in class we have read 2 big books, 'The Farm Concert' and 'Mrs Wishy Washy',both from the author, Joy Cowley. I would get pupils to focus on the visuals,pictures or prints before they start to understand the text. Thus, alot of understanding the expressions from characters' faces and making prediction from the prints are my major teaching points to them. Pupils are more willing to describe pictures without the fear of being wrong for their answers as I do not target words as yet in my first reading. I love active participation from them and welcome questions pertaining to the book.

From their positive reactions, many of them could follow through the story and those who could not read well, from prints, they learnt to make connections to the words. These pupils would listen to the sounds and after that able to figure out the words and eventually the sentences. I myself as a teacher love STELLAR and I hope this programme will instill love and interest for books in our children.

I have the powerpoint slides for Parents to view and understand further about STELLAR. I have also included tips on how you as parents can help your child at home as I am pretty sure many of us will be worried that for English, we forgo the textbooks.

Click here to download or view the slides.

An entry was written at 6:23 PM
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::Cows 'can' and 'can't'::
Tuesday, January 19, 2010

We had a grammar lesson on using 'can' and 'can't' based on the big book, 'The Farm Concert'. After doing the learning sheet, I decided to infuse some Art and English Grammar together. Hence, I extended the lesson by getting my pupils to form sentences using 'can' and 'can't'. I believe that by doing so, I could instill fun as well as to assess my pupils' understanding on the grammar lesson taught.

Pupils were able to respond well with simple sentences on what they can and cannot do which to me is really a great progress. Soon after, i showed them a template of a cow and i prompted them to brainstorm on what they think cows can and can't do. I guess we somehow learnt abit about living things and the limitations or the animals' abilities to perform certain tasks as compared to humans. Pupils came out with funny facts for sure but of course, they used the words 'can' and 'can't' appropriately in describing the cow.

(And YES...we know alot of verbs too from this lesson...i called this accidental learning!)

Here are some of the fabulous pieces of work done by my pupils and I am so proud of them for taking the effort to create a fantastic work.

I have more...since everyone did so well, I will put up their work up in the class!

Well done 1D!

An entry was written at 7:42 AM
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::Touch Typing Online Practice::

To my dear pupils of 1D,

I have managed to find a site that allows us to do touch typing online for free. Click on the 'Touch Typing' below and my class blog will bring you to the site immediately. Now you can have fun practising your touch typing during your free time at home.

Touch Typing

An entry was written at 7:37 AM
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::My pupils and their class roles::
Sunday, January 17, 2010

Earlier in week 2, I selected some of my pupils to take on some roles and responsibilities. These pupils are to assist me in managing the class and those choosen ones are to be good role models for their peers. I believe pupils can be nurtured and be taught about responsibilities so that they appreciate their capabilities and also encourage others to do the same. As such, i worked on a system where everyone would get a fair share of being a leader in class.

Of course, my 2 monitors, electrical managers, cleanliness managers will be selected on termly basis to give others opportunities to showcase their leadership abilities too.
By the way, congratulations to:
Zen and Joy for being selected as Term 1 Class Monitors.
Hong Zhang and Ahnaf - Term 1 Electrical Managers.
Qi Ting and Jerome - Term 1 Cleanliness Managers

For group leaders, i get my pupils to practise this leadership role on a daily basis in class. My pupils are grouped accordingly - Yellow Carebears, Blue Carebears, Green Carebears, Red Carebears and Brown Carebears. Every group will have a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday leader and pupils in each group will take turns to be the leader.

It was great to see my pupils proudly putting on the leader badges and willing to take on their roles everyday. This also gives them the opportunities to care for their group mates, learn to respect and to listen to one another.

With groupings also come with some motivational challenges. I implemented Group Score Boards too where every group will learn to work together to maintain good discipline. As a daily reward, the best group will eventually collect the most number of apple points. This entitles the groups to work hard to try and achieve the Best Group of the Month.

Hopefully, being in a group will help them to understand that certain things require them to involve everyone in the group and they cannot afford to be selfish. Of course, what's more important is not about winning but more to what they have learnt from being together as a group. I hope with this, the class bond will be stronger and my pupils are more motivated to learn especially when the settings are non-threatening.

Presenting my pupils in their carebears groupings:

Going to end this entry here. I will be posting up on activities that we did in class and I am pretty sure many parents are wondering what STELLAR is all about. Will discuss on this on my next entry, so stay tune!

An entry was written at 12:04 AM
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::Class Decorations::
Sunday, January 10, 2010

First of all, I would like to thank all parents and pupils who came last Saturday to help me out with the classroom decorations. It is really heartwarming to see parents who were present and immediately start to work on the class noticeboards, putting up the posters and pupils who helped to put up the classworks inside and outside the classroom.

For the amazing work done, we managed to complete everything in less than 2 hours! Here are some of the photos i managed to snap and the excellent work done by our parents and pupils.
-I must remember to arm myself with a digital camera everytime and everywhere I go with the class! :)

Our Reading Corner

Word Study Corner

Incentive Behavioural Chart

Charts!

I promise to take more pictures. Will introduce all the committee leaders and groups in my next entry.

Have a great day ahead!

Cheers,

Mrs Riz

An entry was written at 4:56 PM
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::Note to Parents and Pupils of 1D::
Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Dear Parents and Pupils,

My apology to parents who have to purchase yet another small exercise book (singled-lines) as I require 4 books (Journal Writing, Word bank, Spelling and Mental Sums) for my English and Math lessons.

I do understand that most parents have to take the trouble to buy another book from the bookstore as it is not stated in the booklist to buy more than 3 exercise books. For my pupils who still need to buy the extra book, do rest assured that I will be doing the purchase on their behalf, thus parents concerned may not worry whether your child has the book or not.

Other Matter/s:

I have informed my pupils to bring their small whiteboard, a whiteboard marker and a duster to school everyday as these will assist in our everyday teaching and learning as well as a good and quick way to assess pupils’ understanding on concept taught in class.

The whiteboard will also be used for other subjects besides Math, hence I highly encouraged pupils to bring it everyday so that they can participate fully during lessons.

Some may request to keep their whiteboards in class but do make sure your child whiteboard has his/her name and class written for safekeeping.

I thank you once again for your kind understanding and co-operation and truly appreciate the feedback given by some parents.

Do check out our class blog for any entry updates.

Regards,
Mrs Riz

An entry was written at 7:22 AM
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::Welcome Onboard Parents and Pupils of Pr 1D::
Friday, January 1, 2010

Dear Parents and Pupils of 1D,

I would like to wish a very 'Happy New Year 2010' and welcome to the very first entry of Primary 1D Class Bulletin Blog. For your information, I will try my best to post up entries here monthly. I will include class activities, important dates, pupils' work, photos, teaching and learning strategies, other interesting information and tips in this class blog.

This blog will also serve as a means of communication between us. Feel free to put down your comments and suggestions at the communication board as you scroll down on the left column of this blog.

What You Need to Know:

For the first two days of school (4.1.2010- 5.1.2010), your child need not bring any books for my English lessons except:

-storybooks to keep him/her occupied

-stationery for writing and craft activities
-student handbook.

This is because we will be busy with the following activities:

1) Setting up our classroom centres
2) Coming up with class rules and routines
3) Playing games and activities to break the ice

Thank you for visiting my class blog.

Looking forward to working with you!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Riz

An entry was written at 6:06 AM
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