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Hi, everyone! I have finally managed to write something. I hope 2017 will bring many great things for all of us!
-TM, 2nd February 2017

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Under The Sea Sing-a-long & The Silent Game 2

   When Blogger went down and took two of my posts with it, I gave up on writing and let my blog get a little dusty.

   Well here I am, forcing my brain to think and my fingers to type. I always take a long time in producing even the shortest post, so the fact that the 'lost' posts took some time to be completed is rather depressing. Yet I know that I cannot be hampered by such a small challenge. If I'm ever going to succeed in making my pupils write in the future, I must be able to do it willingly myself.

   So here goes. This time I'd like to share a video that I used with my Year 3 pupils. I liked this video because of its colourfulness, the rather comical voice that sings the song and the fact that it's related to the theme that I was teaching Year 3 at the time- the Sea World.

   Sea World is the third unit in the Year 3 textbook. I was itching to get to Unit 4, which was 'Pets and Animals', but Sea World was very interesting. It pretty much challenged my brain to think of interesting ideas to teach, but I still feel that I did not push myself to the limit. I stuck with old-fashioned ideas- but it was this unit that helped me to get nominated for... well, something.

   I used this video as a Set Induction for the day's lesson. I thought I'd turn it into a game, so I did. I did not want a complicated game, as a Set Induction is only meant to be between 3 to 5 minutes long.

   Remember my Silent Game with Year 1? I changed the rules a little to suit Year 3. If you've read some of my old entries (this, this and maybe this), you may have some idea about Year. They can be such angels, and at times they're little monsters.

   Anyway, back to the game. In a previous lesson, I had taught Year 3 the names of a number of sea creatures. So, just to make sure they would do some thinking and show some reaction to the video, I asked them to put up their hands whenever a sea creature that they liked appeared on the screen. The  only rule was they were absolutely forbidden to make any noise whatsoever.

   Here's the video:


   Now it may sound simple enough- just putting up your hands and making sure your mouth is shut, but for children who LOVE to speak, it's quite a challenge. Alif, for instance, has a lot of trouble keeping his mouth shut. Each time an animal that he liked appeared on the screen, he would jump up and say in his high pitched voice, "Aah!! Aah!" (which I suppose means he liked the creature. Putting up a hand was not enough).

   It was a simple game but they enjoyed it. Their English was not that good to be able to sing along to the song while they watched it for the first time, but they liked it. I discovered that most of the boys loved the stingray, and the girls, being girls, liked the gentle dolphin. I suppose the stingray, with its long deadly looking tail appealed to the boys. I have to admit it is one cool creature.

   As always, if anyone ever tries this, I welcome feedbacks and comments. If you have a blog or story about your pupils, drop a comment- I'm always interested.

   Warning: There are some grammatical errors in the song lyrics in the video. I wasn't focusing on grammar so I was too lazy to do anything about it.

   It's a bit late, but Happy Teacher's Day! I just got an sms from Kak Yana, who's the class teacher for Year 1 at SKP. She said they remembered me and wanted to give me a present! Awww... what sweeties. I'll dedicate a special post (and probably more!) on Year 1 soon, Insya-Allah. 

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