Alif's (Not So) New Look

   Remember Alif? He's now in Year Four and is a prefect! He looks so cute, I wonder if his voice is as shrill as always. I do miss him. There's nobody quite as dear as he is, I've yet to find a pupil I like so as much as I liked him (biasness alert).

   Take care, dear! I hope you won't be embarrassed to find yourself on this blog, if you do ever find it one day :)

The Silent Game 1 - useful for keeping your class quiet! (or not)

   I was thinking of what useful things I could write, and I suddenly remembered this game that I invented in order to help me gain some quiet and peace in class. It worked... well enough, I guess.

   The idea popped into my head when I was taking a relief class with Year 1 at SKP. Now, I've had a little experience with Year 1 pupils when I went for SBE at SKP.

   (Wait a mo', I just remembered. Both schools that I went to, for SBE and teaching practice, have the same initials- SKP! Well, the one I went to for SBE is SK Palekbang in home sweet home Kelantan while the SKP I went to for teaching practice is SK Pegoh. What do you know... huh? I wonder if I'll go to another SKP when I start teaching... anyway...)

   From my SBE experience with Year 1, I realised that you have to be really active in class. I mean, really, really active. If you've read about the Year 1 pupils at my school, you'll understand why.

   Anyway, during a particular relief class with Year 1, I wanted to show them how to make animal masks. At first I had planned to give them some worksheets to work on, but as soon as I began to take them out, the children began to complain and turn on sour faces. They were tired of worksheets. They wanted to do something interesting.

   So I gave way and sent the class monitor to get some fresh sheets of drawing paper from the staff room. So we waited. Now, it's a dangerous thing to have nothing to do in class. You must always have some sort of activity so that the children don't start getting noisy and rowdy. In a sudden burst of inspiration, I invented the Silent Game.

   It's quite simple and can probably be implemented for 5 minutes or so before the children start getting noisy again. But trust me, with these particular group of children,  5 minutes of silence is a blessing... a great blessing.

   The game goes like this.

   (1) Explain to the children that they will play a simple game. In this game, no noise must be made. They are absolutely forbidden to talk or even whisper.

   (2) The teacher will asks some simple Yes/No questions.

   (3) If their answer is YES, they must put up their right hand and do a thumbs-up while smiling.
        (Don't ask me why, like I said the idea came out of nowhere)

thumbs up!!!!!!
source

   (4) If their answer is NO, they must use their arms to form an 'X'. (Again, don't ask me why).
 

-couldn't find a suitable picture-

    And that's it. Yeah. Haha. I hope you're not too disappointed.

   It actually worked quite well, because the children were so determined to stay quiet that some of them bit their lips. (You could actually add one rule, in that anyone who makes a single noise would be punised, or something). It also took all their will not to shout out or make a noise. When I played the game with Year 1, I could see that it took a lot of effort for them to hold themselves from jumping up in excitement.

   The trick is to ask interesting questions that relate to the children. When it's interesting, you can see them getting all excited.

   * You can probably invent questions depending on your creativity
   * It helps if you start the question with a short introduction or even story

   Question: I have a pet cat at home. (If you have a story then blablabla...) Do you like cats?

   If you want to make the game short and simple, then just ask a bundle of questions at one go.

   I also used this game with Year 3, but in a different way. But that, is another entry, haha.

   p.s. 1 - If you're able to exude that spirit and excitement when you're with children in class, even the simplest game can become interesting :)

   p.s. 2 - If anyone does try this game, I'd be really interested in knowing the outcome, so drop me a line through your comments!

I miss my kids...

   I'm supposed to upload useful things on this blog, such as lesson plans and tips on teaching (yeah... a yet-to-be-officially-announced-as-a-teacher giving tips..hah!) so that this blog  can more or less be useful to people who read it, but I don't feel up to it right now.

   Right now, I rather miss my kids non-stop chatter. I was always complaining about how they talked too much. The real truth is... I like it when they talk a lot! They tell me things, and I like it because it means they're not afraid of me. However, it became a problem whenever I had to prepare to be observed.

   Anyway, I thought I'd reveal my sweethearts to the world today! (Hopefully it helps to mask my laziness to post anything useful). Just pics today. Later when I feel more 'rajin' I'll write some things about some of them- just for the sake of sharing my experience in teaching rowdy 9 year olds who just want attention- and given it, work really well during lessons.

Left to right: Alif, Syukri
Alif's my personal favourite.
What can I do? I'm a bit biased, haha.

Left to right: Amirul, Syhami, Syahrizan
Naughty boys. Rasa nak jentik je all the time :P

Left to right: Aisyah, Noriza & Aisyah
The two Aisyahs are besties

Left to right: Adina, Suhana
Eza particularly likes Adina, whom she says is very cute
They're both in pemulihan, but sometimes they're spirits in working rivals that of the others

   Only one of them is missing- Imran, who's pretty much the star in the class when it comes to English (And from what I know, all the other subjects too). He was absent a lot, including on my last day at school. Nak kena dak Imran nih!

   I've been wanting to buy a camera ever since I started SBE... but that wish is yet to be fulfilled. So far I just make do with my camera phone which produces 'okay' photos, but how I long for that camera!

   Camera or no camera, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't take enough pictures when I was at SKP... huhu. Masa SBE bukan main lagi snap2. Masa practicum entah kenapa hilang semangat ambik gambo...

A Small Taste of SK Pegoh

   Let me talk  a little bit about SK Pegoh. The place where I am currently doing my teaching practice.

   It's a small school. By small, I mean with a population of 73 pupils. The biggest number of pupils in a class is 18 in Standard 6, and 7- yes, 7 in Standard 2. There were 12 teachers, but with our arrival and that of another new teacher, the teaching staff currently consists of 15 people. 6 male teachers and 9 ladies.

   I thought the school I went to for SBE was small, with 308 pupils, but this school beats all the small schools I know. The Head told us that it's under-enrolled, but I'm not sure for what reason. Maybe because there are so many schools in Alor Gajah? I don't know.

   The school is quite beautiful, in my view. It's very clean, and I especially love looking at the surroundings just after the rain has stopped. Everything looks so fresh and clean. It's small, with two double-storey buildings- 1 for classes (Standard 1 to Standard 5) and the other for the office, library, Standard 6 class, and Science lab. There's a small building that house the computer lab, and the canteen. And that's it. Yeah.

   I teach two classes. 2 Bijak and 3 Cerdik. I teach two subjects. Art and English.

   I teach Art to 2 Bijak. there are seven of them. Three girls and four boys. Once, one of them was absent, so only six were left. Six pupils. I felt like I was doing home tuition, haha. They are such cuties, though. Judging from my friends' stories about them, I think Standard 2 pupils a.k.a. 8-year-olds are all generally cutie pies who are in the stage where everything their teacher does is incredible and amazing. They admire you so much that you can help feeling flattered and like going to their class. I guess the small number of these bunch in my class helps too. It's easy to focus your attention on each and every one of them, and it's also so easy to get them to do their work. Let's just say it, I love them.

   I teach both English and Art to 3 Cerdik. Now these people are a different story. There are 11 of them, but by the time I leave their class each day, it feels like I've been trampled by 100 kids. Well, no, perhaps that's not true, but they do take a lot of energy to handle. I know I shouldn't be saying this, when some of my friends have to handle up to 40 pupils in one class, but I guess each to their own, huh? They fight a lot, and just cannot stop saying bad words to each other (which really gets on my nerves for some reason).

   But there are some really clever ones, and the others are okay. Just one or two who need pushing, and there's one particularly lazy boy who I would love to (but will never do of course), using my supervisor's words, kick his ass! Yes, my lecturer said that, hehe. But she also said that I have to find a way to make him buck up a bit. As Mdm J. said, if no one does anything to help him, he'll be the one who'll cry and the end, wondering why nobody ever forced him to learn and let him end up as a no-good-for-nothing.

   The good thing about small schools is that you find it easy to remember the names of most of the children. i probably remember half their names by now, and it's also less embarrassing when you can remember the names of the teachers at one go!

   So that's SK Pegoh. No pictures yet, I'm afraid, since I don't have a USB cable, but wait for it. Soon. Soon.

   p.s. Alor Gajah was flooded to day. It rained non-stop for two days, and we couldn't get to school.