Red Pockets & Dancing Lions

I did both days' lessons at the table instead of around the carpet, because one of the kids has been having trouble focusing and paying attention, and he has been disturbing the other kids during our lesson time. He told me that he doesn't like circle time, but he couldn't explain why. It's not that he doesn't like to do work though, 'cause whenever we go to the tables to work, he'd come immediately, and he always does a really good job too. So this week I'm trying to grab his attention right away by having our lessons at the table. We still did our calendar routines and sang some songs, and then we moved right on to the arts and craft. I hope that he'll understand that I'm trying to accommodate, but I also want him to understand that it goes two-way and should be mutual. We'll have some circle time next week, and I'll talk to him before class to make sure that he knows that I'm trying to work something out so everybody can benefit from it.

I used alphabet cards to practice alphabets with the kids today. I noticed that the students are starting to recognize letters and their sounds, and they're able to come up with words that start with a certain letter. They're developing the skills that they didn't have 2 months ago!

This week's theme is Chinese New Year, so I read them the story of the Chinese Zodiac, and also talked to them about Chinese traditions during this special occasion. Yesterday we made some red pockets/red envelopes. I explained to them that it's a tradition to give out red pockets, because it represents a blessing, to wish somebody goodluck and good health all year long. I pre-cut the Chinese words (it means "luck") and made a template of the red pocket, so they only had to glue the template together, and then glue the word on the front. Then they coloured the word and put some glitter on it~

Today, we made dancing lions! I explained to them that people would dance with the lions puppet, and according to legends, it's supposed to chase bad luck and evils away. I told the kids to make it very colourful, and they did! I'm impressed by how much details and effort they put in making this craft. We also used glitter today~

After we're done, I put on some traditional Chinese kid songs and let them dance around~ It's fun! ^-^