Dear Kids,
Hope you had a good day at school today – I was very happy to hear from Ms Gillian and Ms Belinda who replaced me in class these past two days and who said that they enjoyed teaching you and that you behaved well. That is what I like to hear and it makes me proud to be one of your teachers:)
On Tuesday, we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t manage to go to the Bird Park because of the bad weather. However this disappointment was quickly replaced by a feeling of excitement for the children in Junior 2A who got an invitation from Ms Gaby and her class to join them for another activity based on the story of The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle. Noor and Luigi had an even bigger reason to feel excited about this project as they were going to get the chance to work with their little sisters, both of whom are students in Ms Gaby’s class.
When we went into class, the Pre-Juniors were obviously happy to see us again – some asked about children who had been there the day before (and I explained that these were also Junior 2 pupils but that they belonged to a different class). I asked them whether they remembered the story of the mixed-up chameleon and they obviously did. The Pre-Juniors talked and explained to the Junior 2s what they had learned the previous day about chameleons and some of the Junior 2s joined in to provide more detail to what was being said.
We watched the video clip of the story and both groups really enjoyed this part – it is indeed a very sweet story with lots of familiar animals. It was amazing to see how the little ones could recall which animal would the chameleon meet next … they have such a great memory! In the end the children expressed their satisfaction when they saw that the chameleon realised it would rather be its own old self again as otherwise it won’t be able to use its long sticky tongue to catch a fly – its favourite meal!
As an activity, the children were given a small chameleon each, which they had to either sponge paint to obtain the effect of the scaly skin or use materials to make a collage out of it. Another group of Junior 2s and Pre-Juniors worked on a big wall chart which will eventually serve as a background.
Have a look at the wiki page we created for this project and there you’ll find some beautiful pictures taken during the activity:
http://themixedupchameleon.wikispaces.com
The children all did a brilliant job … they enjoyed working together, behaved extremely well considering the large number of children in one class and learnt a lot of new things and skills too by working together with older or younger kids.
The children in Junior 2B also got a chance to sponge paint their own chameleons – an activity they thoroughly enjoyed! During the day they also worked on their lapbook project on Patterns in the Animal Kingdom which they finalised and brought back home on the same day.
Hope you are all ready for tomorrow’s Carnival party – good night and sleep tight little ones:)
Ms Rosienne
