A Lovely Day to Start the Year

First of all let me wish all of you a fantastic new year full of happiness. Though, it's already been the 9th day of the wonderful 2012, today was officially the first of school for us this year. The children were nothing but excited when they got to school. Though the weather was cloudy and damp, they're spirit were like the smiling sun (well, excuse my over-exaggeration... but you got my point, right?)

New Year is definitely a good time to fix and make things better. We worked very hard--yet enjoyed every second of it--for three days before school began to boost the children's excitement when they stepped inside their class rooms. And we did it by redecorating all corners of our rooms and also by changing most of the learning materials. All of the tiredness from lifting, cutting, pasting, thinking, arguing, google-ing, creating, going back and forth the stairs, and staying up late for couple of nights were paid off once we felt the enthusiasms of those young learners.

As a teacher, I personally love New Years because it's a good way to start something new in the class. For example, though our ground-rules remain the same as last year's, today I refreshed all of it by executing them differently. First, is by taking pictures of students doing the rules and posting them in a spot in the class room where they can see them clearly from all angles and second by is by introducing them to the stamp of good behavior of the day. My aim is to motivate the students so at the end, they have the willingness to motivate themselves through doing every tasks given to them.
Rule 1: Walk in the Class Room

Rule 2: Speak Softly (with indoor voice)

Rule 3: Everything has a home

Rule 4: Tap your friends/teacher if you want to speak

Rule 5: Roll the mat after using it

Kids Love Arts and Crafts

Hello again. How's your day? I guess I'm still a little too excited about this blog that I just want to add more stuff here. Well, the topic of the day is arts and crafts, as I just spent my evening preparing our class' art project for tomorrow. This past month I found out that my students are very fervent when it comes to art. They love everything about drawing, cutting, pasting, painting, coloring, tracing, and other art related activities. This makes me thinking how important art is for their learning progress. It's a good thing that all of them grow in an environment that equips them with all the materials. It's then my job as a teacher to direct them into using those materials appropriately and effectively. According to what I've observed thus far, my students love their arts and crafts project. It brings wonderful senses of adventures followed by accomplishments in the children's minds and souls, which results in miraculous progress. Here are some tips that I came up with on how to make your Art time more preferable.

(image taken from www.microsoft.com)

1. Appreciate their work no matter how "artless" it is. A simple "Wow!", "Good job!", or "Wonderful!" with a big smile from us teachers while looking at the child's work could bring a positively powerful impact on his/her progress. It could, at least, boost his/her self-esteem to work harder next time.

2. Be creative. Do not stick to the conventional coloring or cuttings. Remember: children get bored too, you know, even more easily than adults! There are lots of "undiscovered" methods and techniques that are applicable in your class room. You just need to discover it :)

3. Do researches. Thanks to a thing called technology, we can now easily browse for some fun crafts ideas whenever we couldn't think of something. Be sure to give credits to the author/inventor, by at least mentioning where you got the idea (Plagiarism--how small it is--is a big NO! NO! in academic life). Oh yeah, you don't have to follow exactly what it is shown in the book or your computer screen... use the idea to inspire you, and then make one your own.
It's my first Art Project in this school :) I found it in Google.

4. Find something interesting but not frustrating. It's best if you try to make one sample first before presenting the project to the students. Remember how your children are... they are definitely not as experienced as you are in terms of using scissors or pasting some tricky confetti. Find something challenging enough for them to learn, but not too hard to make them hate the project. Fun is a definite "FUNdamental" point.

5. Apply art in other subjects. To make Art more effective and Math or English to be more interesting, you might want to slip in some colorings or drawings while counting or writing (but don't be too distracting or off the subject, though!).

Most of the lay parents or teachers might have underestimated the powerful role of Art in their children's learning process. But let us not be too careless and give more dedication for the best of our students =)