End of Attachment Week 2 ✅

Week 2 Day 1, 24th August 2015, Monday:

As part of the usual routine, the K1s had to visit the washroom before heading to the playground for outdoor play. In the toilet, Child A was punished for his misbehavior and so his play time was removed and he had to stay in class with Wang Yan 老师. At the playground while K1s were playing, Teacher Christabel explained to me why she chose to punish Child A in the specific way due to the child's character. I really like how Teacher Christabel always explains to me the way she carries out her lessons, the teaching method she uses and how she disciplines each child base on their character. It really showed me the professional side of an early childhood educator. (:

After outdoor play, it was their Chinese lessons as usual by Wang Yan 老师. And again, she surprises me with the interesting lesson she carries out. As I sit in for the lesson, I was also engaged throughout as she made the lesson so fun and interesting! Today, her topic of discussion was on 'whales'. She made children think if whales are actually fishes and made them explain why. After getting the children responses, she then moved on to explaining why whales are not fishes as they do not breathe through gills. Through the lesson, I also learnt from her that whales breathe in water and they can store water in their body for 2 - 3 hours before they have to swim to the surface to spray out the water from their blowhole. Wang Yan 老师 even made a simple whale to show children how  the water is being sprayed out. She glued a small spray bottle (filled with water) in between 2 laminated cut outs of whales. She provided each child with 2 straws and a piece of tissue for them to place inside the spray bottle so that they can blow into one of the straws and water would be squirt out from the other straw, so cool!

For lunch, Elena and I headed to Far East Plaza. $15 for a bowl of ramyun that taste like instant ramyum with an egg ~

Week 2 Day 2, 26th August 2015, Wednesday:
The K1s went to S.E.A Aquarium today so I stayed in the centre and helped out with the PGs and N1s. We spoke to our mentor regarding the 4 field practicum assessment, assessed the first aid kit and then had our lunch! For lunch, we had...

Rice with stir-fried eggs with long beans and chicken and some sauce! I really need to learn my lesson and stop being taking so much rice LOL cause I had to force myself to finish the rice in the end.

After lunch, I just assessed the centre and wrote down some notes ~ And I came home feeling unwell with slight sore throat, flu and body ache. ):

Week 2 Day 3, 27th August 2015, Thursday:
Feeling so uncomfortable now with the flu omg. Anyway as usual, I helped out in the K1 class. For Chinese lesson, the K1 were provided with small portions of egg cartons and paint. They needed to paint the egg carton (body of the fish) with whichever colour they like and later on add the eyes, fins and tail. So creative!

And for lunch we had... rice with chicken and tofu soup + stir fried spinach + 榨菜! So good!!

After lunch, Elena and I stayed in one of the rooms in the office to do our work and chatted with this cute P1 boy, Hayden. And his Chinese name was Yu Zhe, omg handsome name ~ Rested a bit as I kept sneezing non-stop T.T

Week 2 Day 4, 28th August 2015, Friday:

Finally the end of week 2! Due to the haze, the K1s had their physical activity in the studio instead of the playground. Teacher Christabel played some exercising and dance videos for them to follow. They were so cute when they're following the actions from the videos!

When the K1s were showering, I went in and learnt from Peng Lao Shi (educarer) how she conducts the showering routine as I would be doing it in 2 weeks time for Elena to mentor me. After that, I had my lunch I had fusilli with tomato sauce and minced chicken!

Reflection:
Time passes so fast and another week is gone ~ This week has been rather productive as we really looked into the checklist to assess the centre. I feel slightly more comfortable in the centre now as I'm more familiar with the teachers. FPA 1 is next Tuesday and I've to finalize everything by this Sunday. Hope that FPA 1 goes well! :)

End of Attachment Week 1 ✅

So I'm here to blog about the first week of attachment because I thought it would be nice to look back at these blog posts after I'm done with the entire 8-week attachment. So here goes:

Week 1 Day 1, 18th August 2015, Tuesday:

Met Elena in the morning before we headed to the our attachment centre: MY World @ Stevens Road.

We met the Principal (our mentor) at the entrance of the centre when she was conducting temperature taking for some of the children. Afterwards, she briefed us on the centre's philosophy etc at her office. We were then introduced to the teaching and non-teaching staff in the centre, and the environment. I was attached to the K1's class taken by Teacher Christabel. Then, I followed the K1s to the playground for their outdoor play. The playground was also part of the centre's premise, so cool! Sat in for their Chinese lesson taught by Wang Yan 老师.

And this was our lunch for Day 1... 很好吃 cause we hungry!

After the children's nap, I continued following the K1s and just interacted with them cause there wasn't really much to do as their afternoons are either for enrichment classes or continuation of their morning's work.

Week 1 Day 2, 19th August 2015, Wednesday:

As usual, I went to the playground with the K1s and sat in for Wang Yan 老师's Chinese lesson. I must say that Wang Yan 老师 is really a good Chinese teacher. The strokes of the Chinese characters are always difficult for children to understand. But Wang Yan 老师 makes the class so interesting by including games in it. She splits the class into the girls team and boys team and have each child come up one by one to recognise the strokes. Also, she always has different methods for collating scores for each team. On day 1, she used heart shapes to represent points and on day 2 she drew 2 ducks (one for each gender) and told the class that if someone answers correctly, she'll add a curly line below the duck to represent water for the duck. So interesting!!

At around 12:30pm, we had our lunch...

This chicken rice + achar + vegetable soup has to be my favourite out of the lunch for the 4 days! It's so nice omg ~

After lunch, Elena had to bring some of her K2s to the swimming pool for their swimming lesson and as one of the teacher said the instructor was handsome and I could follow to see see, so I went along with Elena, haha. This centre has so many facilities around the centre cause it's located in the YMCA building!!

Week 1 Day 3, 20th August 2015, Thursday:

The N1s, K1s and K2s went for their field trip to Bollywood Veggies and so Elena took care of the Student Care girls while I went to help in the PG and N1 class. I followed them outdoors for water play and outdoor activities. After the children were back from their field trip after our lunch time, I went back to join them ~

Week 1 Day 4, 21st August 2015, Friday:

Yesssssss ....

Finally the end of the week which means we are done with the first week of attachment!! On the negative note... we still have 7 more weeks to go T.T

Anyway.. In the morning, I took care of a few girls under the Student Care cause they had no school due to PSLE, and it was so interesting to see how P1 & P2 children interact. They were playing some sort of family game which includes a girl pretending to be a dog at the pet shop which was bought by another girl which found out that this dog could talk and walk, LOL!!

And this was our lunch for the day!! - Bee Tai Mak soup with chicken and vegetables!

In the late afternoon at about 3:30pm, the entire YMCA building conducted a fire drill and so the centre was affected as well. I was feeling kinda excited as I got to see how the teachers carried out the procedures etc.

It was slightly past 4pm after the children return to the classes, and I left afterwards. At the bus stop, I met the cooking auntie who stays near Redhill and coincidentally we were taking the same bus. As the bus just left, both of us sat at the bus stop and chatted for like 20 minutes and sat together on the bus and continued chatting about HK dramas, my attachment schedule etc etc.

Reflection:
After the first day of attachment, I felt kind of sian of attachment already as it was like a completely new environment and like it was boring to be alone with like no close friends to talk to and joke around comfortably with. In addition, I felt that this boring routine would be happening 4 days a week.. Initially, I felt that the K1 class teacher, Teacher Christabel was sort of not so welcoming as we hardly had opportunities to talk. But after going through the 4 days, I realised that she's actually quite nice as she shared more with me about the K1 children, how she carried out her lessons and told me to ask her any questions if I had any. (: Generally, the first week was okay and I hope that the second week would be better!!

End of Year 3 Semester 1!

Finally back to update after 2 months and it's finally the end of Year 3 Semester 1! It's suppose to be our holidays for the next 2 months but instead, we'll be having our 8-week blocked attachment ~ So before I start with attachment, I shall update on Year 3 Semester 1 Term 2.

23rd July 2015, Thursday:

Submission day of CAPE's 47 pages group assignment. This was the first heavy group assignment of the term and we spent like hours (till 9pm+) the day before at Block 22 and a few hours before the submission day to finally complete it.

2nd August 2015, Saturday:

Impromptu plan to see fireworks at Marina Bay with my aunts! The atmosphere there was really good and it wasn't crowded to the extent that I cannot take it.

5th August 2015, Wednesday:

Submission day for WISP group presentation in the morning followed by the implementation of Project Oritz-T in the afternoon for ASLEC.

Our class's theme for Project Oritz-T was Horror Fairytale! Ziying, Sujun, Huiting and myself were in the games committee and this was how we set up the games area! :)

one of the food prepared by the food committee!

my eye makeup by Kate!

After the end of Project Oritz-T, we headed to Block 22 (it's like our second home) again to finish AMPYC's group assignment which was due the next day.. and this time, we stayed till 10pm ~

12th August 2015, Wednesday:

Submission day for CIRPE individual assignment which none of us knew how to do. After lessons ended at 5pm plus that day, the 7 of us headed to the library to do BFCP group assignment which was due the next day. After the library closed at 9pm, we continued work at the atrium and we broke our record of staying in school till 11pm plus when we were the only 5 people left in the atrium in total darkness.

13th August 2015, Thursday:

Submission day for BFCP's group assignment and presentation!

14th August 2015, Friday:

It was the last day of school and we only had 1 tutorial with Ms. Vathsala ~

And that wraps up my second term of Year 3 Semester 1, assignments after assignments. But thankful for Huiting, Sujun, Stephanie, Amanda and Valerie for making group assignments more fun with jokes and laughter. (: Even though we are like 2 separate groups but it's actually really nice to stay back together for group assignments cause we get to clarify any doubts we may have.

Time to relax now and hope that the 8 week attachment would be a good one! :)