A BIG "Thank you" to all my wonderful students

This is the first Teacher's Day Mr Ang has celebrated as a teacher. I am joyful to receive card and little gifts from my students. I always encourage my pupils to make cards for their teachers instead of buying them. The cards they made would be the only one in the world. It will be the most unique one too. Nonetheless, I thank every student for making this Teachers' Day Celebration so meaningful to all the teachers in Peixin. The best gift a child can give to his/her teacher is to be an obedient pupil, pay attention in class and study hard. This is the best gift a teacher would love to receive. :)

Interdisciplinary lessons - Art with English Language for 4-Respect and 6-Respect

For my Art lessons with 4-Respect and 6-Respect, I encouraged them to write an acrostic poem in their teachers' cards about their teachers. In this way, the pupils can write creatively and also express their gratitude to their teachers in a very meaningful way. :)

30 August - Dramatisation in English Lesson

During our English Language with 4-Respect, dramatisation technique was used. Pupils role-played the characters in the picture composition. 5 boys roleplayed the 5 children in the picture. Three other pupils roleplayed the two drivers and a motorist on the road. The children "helped" the driver whose car had broken down. Dramatisation is extremely effective as pupils could relate to the characters' feelings, actions, and thoughts more easily. Hence, they can comprehend the picture better. :)

Recycling - Making a Building

During our Art and Craft lesson on 24 August 2007, pupils had brought many recyclable items such as plastic bottles, paper boxes and cardboxes. Children should know the importance of recycling. Here is a pupil from 4-Respect with his excellent model of a tower made using recyclable materials. Great effort! :)

Our mini Garden in the Classroom

My pupils were holding pots of plants they had planted in the classroom. It is important for them to develop an interest in caring for living things. On the metal tray, there are various seeds (such as saga seeds, angsana seeds, rubber seeds), and underground stems (such as potato and ginger) for my pupils to observe and learn.

27 August 2007 - A VIsit to our School Eco-garden

We had a fun mini excursion to our School Ecograden. Over at this garden, we explored the life cycles of animals such as frogs, butterflies and fishes. We were also delighted to see a butterfly feeding on the nectar on the flowers. Over at the garden, my pupils could see what a sucker (young plant of a banana tree) is. They were glad to know that besides reproduction by seeds, some plants such as pineapples and bananas grow from suckers. :)

27 August - Demonstration of Paper Recycling by Mdm Lee

We had a demonstration of paper recycling in the Science Lab by Mdm Lee. 3-Caring and 3-Integrity pupils were surprised to know that used paper could actually be recycled and made into something useful. Some brillant suggestions given by the students were bookmark, Teachers' Day Card and post-cards. 3-Caring would be making their own recycled paper in September. :)

27 August 2007 - Identifying Adjectives from 2 Book Reviews

During our English lessons, I taught my pupils the structure of a book review. After that, we played a game. I grouped my pupils into 2 small groups. Each group had to examine a book review (in their textbook). They had to find as many adjectives as they could from their book review. The group with the most adjectives became the winner. :)

24 Aug - Using drama to learn about photosynthesis

On our science lesson, we had a drama where pupils role-played "plant", "water", "carbon dioxide", "oxygen"
, and "sunlight". The other pupils read the script of the drama. My pupils enjoyed themselves a lot and we had a lot of fun. Dramatisation is certainly an effective and visual way to learn Science. It builds up the confidence of the pupils and also inject fun and excitement in learning. I could improve on this drama but just choosing a few pupils to read the scripts while the rest could watch the performance with leisure. :)

As closure, as my pupils have learned about carbon dioxide and oxygen, I gave them a challenge to find out what the 4 main gases in the air are.

23 August 2007 - English Supplementary (Picture comprehension, identifying past continuous tense and past tense from the passage)

During my English supplementary class with 4-Respect, I had improvised a normal comprehension passage with another aspect of grammar. As some of my pupils from PRC need more guidance in their vocabulary, I did a pictorial comprehension with them. Hence, they were able to visualise the story in the comprehension passage. After my pupils had completed the comprehension questions, I told them to pick out past continuous tenses and past tenses from the passage. From this activity, my pupils are able to identify what past continuous tenses and past tenses are. :)

23 August 2007 - Learning about History of Chinatown using the Internet

During our Social Studies lesson, we had found how the names of some streets in Chinatown come about. An interesting website we had visited was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_Singapore. My pupils were surprised to know that Sago Street got its name because in the 1840s, there were a number of sago factories located there. Hence, IT is definitely a useful tool in learning about the history of Singapore. :)

21 August - Group Activity during Science Lessons

On 21 August, we had a group activity during our Science lesson. The class was divided into small groups of 4 or 5. I displayed many flash-cards on the whiteboard for my pupils to select the appropriate ones for the activity in the workbook. To enable those pupils at the back of the class to see the texts on the flash cards, I had decided to use the visualiser. My pupils had a lot of fun today. :)

Supplementary Lesson 20 August - Group Work, Newspaper articles and IT

During our supplementary Science lessons today, we had a lot of activities. The first activity was a group activity whereby pupils worked in small groups. I showed them questions from an assessment book using the visualizer. Each group had to discuss and write their answers on the laminated board. We had a lot of fun.

After the MCQ group activity, I shared with my pupils newspaper articles on Global Warming. They had a better understanding about global warming and how it results in climate changes all over the world.

After that sharing session, I distributed a worksheet about Plant Parts. Using the website (lead.com.sg), pupils watched a flash animation and filled in the correct answers on their worksheets. I had tapped on the creativity of my pupils as they were instructed to draw a magical plant on their worksheets.

We certainly have an enriching Science supplementary lessons today.

Pupils, ask a science question and win a prize!!!

Dear pupils, here is a great opportunity not to be missed. I am sure that many of you have a strong passion in Science. There is a contest to win an international prize, simply by asking a Science question which could lead to a scientific breakthrough

This contest is organised by Molecular Frontiers Foundation. You can submit your science question by logging on to www.moleclues.com. The closing date for submission of questions will be April next year.

20 boys and girls with the most profound queries will attend the Molecular Frontiers Summit at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm next May, where they will receive prizes worth S$765, including a new wireless mobile device on the market, like an iPhone.

Regards,
Mr Terrance Ang

Examining a flower - Chrysanthemum or Orchid

On 14 August, we had a Science Activity on "Examining a flower". Each pupil was given either a chrysanthemum or an orchid. The activity in the workbook requires the pupils to paste the parts of the flower into the workbook. However, I stretched the ability of my 3-Caring pupils by showing them pictures of these flowers with their parts labelled. Hence, by examining their flowers and comparing to the pictures from the visualiser, they had learnt the various parts of a flower such as petals, sepals, anthers. They would be learning about this when they are in Primary 5. My pupils were also astonished to know that a flower has a male and female organs. Hence, from this lesson, they had learned that a flower does not only turn into a fruit, it has 2 sexual organs too. :)

Science Lesson on Plant System

On 7 August, we did an experiment where we put a lily plant into a bottle of coloured water. This experiment is to show that the stem of the plant transports water to other parts of the plant. Although our lily plant withered and died, we had learned many valuable lessons. Firstly, the plant died because I added poster colour into the water. As the poster colour contains oil and other chemicals, it resulted in the plant to die. A food dye (used for making jellies)should be used instead. In addition, a white rose would be a better flower to be chosen for this experiment as the flowers of the lily plant are coloured pink. Hence, any change of colour will not be obvious. The stem of the plant was cut and my pupils were given the chance to touch them. From this experiment, they have learned that the stem of the plant really transport water to other parts of the plant. :)