Posted by Teacher Ria in Toys and Playthings | 0 Comments

Toy Feature: Pattern Blocks

One of my favorite preschool toys, next to playdough, are pattern blocks. I love how it gives the kids an endless realm of possibilities, as well as teaches them basic skills such as colors, shapes and one-to-one correspondence. I use this for all my classes, from toddlers to seniors, with just quick variations to cater to their blossoming cognitive skills and creativity.

My favorite way of using the blocks, of course, is just the free-flow do what you want kinda thing but every once in a while, I introduce “formal” learning through this. One example is having the kids work with a card with colored patterns drawn on it and letting them match it, just like this:

For older kids, I don’t color the cards or put lines any more

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Lesson Plans, Teaching Resources | 0 Comments

What Time Is It?

In class today, one of my little boys, Joshua, kept asking about “what do we do next, teacher?”. Every time I would answer him, he would follow this up with “but what time, Teacher?”. When I would give him a time, he would glance up at one of the wall clocks in our area (there are three of those large kitchen wall clocks visible from my table) and ask how I know that that was the time already.

Because of his interest in time, I decided to drop what I had plan and do an impromptu telling time lesson instead. One important thing I learned in my many years of teaching is that flexibility is key in making learning meaningful and memorable to children. Given the interest in time, we discussed how clocks tell us what time it is and how to read this correctly. We even made paper plate clocks so they could practice at home

For my class, I find that since they are able to follow skip counting by 5′s already, they can manage reading the minute hand in increments of fives, but for the younger kids, you can stop with “o’clock” and “thirty” depending where the long hand is pointing

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Classroom Escapades, Lesson Plans, Preschool, Teaching Resources | 0 Comments

Stop, Look and Listen!

A few weeks ago, we were discussing transportation in our classes. The kids had a blast pretending to be traffic enforcers and learning all about stop lights. We made them little cardboard signs that we used to signal the drivers and they had so much fun doing that!

Other things we did (or can do for that matter) in discussing this topic includes:

• For the older kids, we made a stop light as an indicator of their “warnings” in class. Beside each color (red, yellow, green) is a little pocket where I put in their names if they are misbehaving in class.
• Cut and pasting art activity where the kids get to make their own stoplights
• In the juniors they did a “read” and color activity
• Car wash day!
• Invite resource speakers like a police officer or a roadside assistance club worker who can show them how to set up an early hazard device and talk about how to be safe on the road

Any other ideas?

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Multimedia Center | 0 Comments

Teacher Wants a Netbook

This Christmas, Teacher really, really wishes she gets a netbook. Or an iPad. Teeheeeheee

I know that I already have a laptop, but for the past few months, my laptop has become, errr….a portable desktop? Haha. It no longer works without it’s charger because I think I accidentally killed my battery, thus it no longer carries any juice at all. According to the Mac store, I used up all the charge cycles already. They blamed it on the fact that I very rarely recalibrated the battery and that I was not very consistent in draining it or what not.

So, while I still super duper love my Mac, I still want a netbook for the holidays….I need the portability!!! Haha. The question is, what are the best netbooks to choose from???

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Teaching Resources, The Library | 0 Comments

Reawakening the Bookworm

TV. If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they'll have with twenty-six. Open your child's imagination. Open a book. ~Author Unknown

Not too long ago, I was tagged by several people over at Facebook with a note entitled “100 Books” (or something like that). The premise of the note was that majority of people would have been expected to read only an average of six books on that list. Me…um…I didn’t bother to see how many I had read haha.

I’ve never kept it a secret that reading is not my favorite thing in the world, right? Well, math definitely ranks number one as the academic thing I hate most, but reading is not too far down the list. To be fair, however, as a child I liked to read a lot, but the task was always a bit of a chore to me. During my middle childhood to early adolescence, though, books were a refuge for me. Growing up as a fat kid, after all, was not very fun. Add to that the fact that I am quite an introvert and quite picky with the friends I hang out with. Also, the books of my childhood were fun and as I grew up, romantic and idealistic. But then the world happened and work got in the way then things I have to now read are no longer fun so the bookworm in me kinda went on hibernate mode.

However, a few nights ago I was invited to the screening of The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader and out of the blue, that little bookworm in me kinda peeked out a bit Yes, admittedly I have not watched the first two installments of the film, nor have I read the series, but after watching the movie, I want to! While some of my friends did not enjoy the film (I honestly can’t fathom why!!! hehe…but, we’re all entitled to our own opinions, right???)  I fell in love with it. In the beginning, I wasn’t so sold on it first, but as it went on, I grew to like it more and more until the very end where I found myself drawn to the story. Add to that the theme song, There’s A Place for Us sung by Carrie Underwood, at the end moved me to tears. Well, that and some other things that happened towards the end of the movie

I truly, truly loved the movie, and I rarely ever say that about a fantasy film. Even though I’m into the whole fairy, synchronicity, signs and energy thing, I always liked my movies to be simple and…errr…real? Actually that’s why I never bothered to watch the first two films but since I’ve been working on trying new things, I figured going to see this movie would be a good thing. NO REGRETS I TELL YA!!! Oh…this is also one of those that I will say is so worth seeing in 3D (and yes, I don’t say that very often).

The Chronicles of Narnia, Voyage of the Dawn Treader opened in Digital 3D last Friday, December 3 and opens in regular theaters on December 9, 2010

Yes, C.S. Lewis reawakened my inner bookworm with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Borrow book?

Posted by Teacher Ria in Multimedia Center, Teaching Resources | 5 Comments

Balik sa Batibot!

Do you still remember Kiko Matsing and Pong Pagong? And Manang Bola with her bolang bilog and Ate Sienna? Yes, Batibot is making a comeback!!!

Batibot returns starting tomorrow at 8:30 am to be aired with our Kapatid network, TV5

Random bit of trivia: when I was a child, I actually auditioned for Batibot…yes, me Oo, shy type ako. Mwahahaha. That would have been the start of my showbiz career. But…..fail. No, hindi ako nahiya but this is where the audition went downhill.

Casting Director: What’s your name?

Me: Ria.

CD: Do you like to sing and dance and act with the rest of the gang in Batibot?

Me: Oh yes!

CD: Okay, lets see nga. But wait, can you speak tagalog?

Me: Of course, po.

CD: Ay mabuti. So…anong pangalan mo?

Me: Um….yes po.

Parang beauty queen lang. Ktnxbai.

Posted by Teacher Ria in Teaching Resources, Toys and Playthings | 0 Comments

Toy Feature: Lincoln Logs

In our school, one of my favorite toys, yet most ignored by the kids, are Lincoln Logs. I love, love, love this toy set I tell ya! Sadly, our set is so old and unattractive to the kids (oh, and did I mention that it’s incomplete?!?), it hardly gets played with.

photo credit: http://kiddleylinks.com/2006/11/17/lincoln-logs/

I love this toy because it really taps into a child’s creativity. I also like the whole “rustic” feel of the toy, given that it is made of wood and most Lincoln Logs sets really come in just natural wood colors so it really allows the kids to just imagine. I like to how I can use these types of sets to see how my kids’ develop their logical reasoning skills as they try to construct their cabins and houses.

Another reason I really like this, on a more personal level, is the fact that I really like log cabins (or nipa huts for that matter!) filled with all sorts of heavy, wooden cabin furniture (much like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears teeeheeeheee)because it reminds me of summertime and camp and games I played as a child.

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Multimedia Center, Toys and Playthings | 2 Comments

Dear Santa, Love Teacher Ria

Yesterday I had my kids write their letters to Santa. I do this every year and much as I’ve never really been a big fan of Christmas, this is something that always makes me smile. Since my kids are now in the Seniors class, I try to encourage them to work on writing by themselves, which includes spelling. Yes, they often misspell words because they still approach the task in a very phonetic manner and they have not mastered phonetic rules much, but I am one who places a lot of value on this part of the process: the invented spelling part.

Before I let them put their letters in envelopes, I discussed with them the different parts of a letter and what should go on the envelope. Because it was to be sent to Santa, I asked them where they would send the letters. And this is what they said:

Dear Santa....send to North Pole, Far far away

Cuuuutie right?!? Hehe. Oh, and can you figure out what this little girl wanted?

As for Teacher Ria, this is what she would have said:

Dear Santa,

I’ve been so super good this year, but yes, I’ve had my moments so maybe I don’t deserve that iPad or iMac yet, but but but…that little red Sony VAIO P Series Pocket Style PC sure would make me soooo super happy. Please, please with a cherry on top? Okay? Thanks, Bye.

♥,

Teacher Ria

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Lesson Plans, Preschool, Teaching Resources | 0 Comments

Where Would You Wanna Go?

I want to ride the airplane! I will go to....

While discussing the theme transportation, I overheard my students talking about where they would like to go if they could ride an airplane. Since they were so caught up in their conversation, I decided to have them make an activity out of it. I asked our other teacher to prepare some paper airplanes (errr….I seem to suck at paper folding haha) then I had the kids design their planes and we did a show and tell activity.

It was fun to hear their opinions and ideas about what it would be like to ride in a plane, and I was able to have some of the kids who have been on planes talk about their experiences. They described how it feels to have their tummies feel all funny during turbulence, how the clouds look when it’s right outside their windows, and one even so perfectly imitated the sound of one of the toilet flushing in those cramped bathrooms in airplanes.

Before they ended their turns, I asked them where they would like to go if they were on an airplane. As expected, the typical answer I got was “Hong Kong Disneyland” but here were some cute responses:

• I will go to the province to visit my lola
• I want to go to Japan because it’s snow (errr…that’s how she said it!)
• We will ride the airplane and live in Canada in May (their family is relocating there soon)
• I wanna ride the airplane and go to Africa because I wanna go on a safari and see the elephants and the zebras and the dinosaurs. Then Basti can come with me.
• I will go to Daddy in Qatar (awwwww nice, right????)

but my biggest laugh came from this:

• I wanna ride the airplane so I can go to SM with Mommy and Daddy. (ay kalayo man ng SM!!!!)

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Arts and Crafts, Teaching Resources, Tips and Tricks | 1 Comment

Unexpected Crafts

I think I have written about this in the past, but today, I came across a photo in Flicker that I fell in love with. Lookie:

Photo: “Star's Fault: Cigar Box #1” by Eileen Terwilliger, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

So cute right! I think this is one of those boxes you get when you buy wholesale cigars or something like that, rather than by the piece. I remember we used to have a whole bunch of them lying around the house (alongside a whole lot of wine bottles) then for some reason, just when I get into my whole mosaic mode (so much so that I created Project Sunshine as a mural on my wall), it disappeared. Wouldn’t handmade boxes and unexpected crafts like this make such wonderful Christmas gifts??? Sigh.

Anyway, for next weeks class, I asked my kids to bring old shoeboxes and I hope we get to do something kinda like this for the holidays. Other favorite craft materials for me include toilet paper rolls, big match boxes and plastic containers. Yep, I like boxes and cardboard a whoooole lot teeeheeeheee.

So, in preparation for Christmas (be it for decoration or for presents) I am getting ready to get into the artsy-fartsy mode once again. Wish me luck

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Teacher's Corner, Teaching Resources | 0 Comments

Treasure Hunting

In the past three weeks, I’ve been attempting to restore some order to my once organized room (um…well, people around me may disagree with that, but I’d like to think that despite my mess, I live in a room full of organized chaos, harhar!) because it simply has become overrun with too much clutter. I decided that before I completely leave the preschool, I might as well give them all the stuff that I have collected over the years that can be of better use there. I found a lot of hidden treasures in my cleaning up, I must say. This included old beads and paints, to scratch papers and even all the press kits and freebies from events  as well as other tradeshow giveaways including all those pharma bags, pens and stuff from conventions that I’ve attended. Talk about lots of stuff! I’m trying to figure out, however, how best to dispose of all the CD press kits I have collected over the years. I remember once, we used this as Christmas tree decorations, so maybe we can do something like that again this year hehe. I’m not really done sorting stuff yet, but so far, I’ve got three boxes full of  “trash” which hopefully soon will become treasures for the little kids I teach

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Arts and Crafts, Classroom Escapades, Lesson Plans, Outside the Classroom, Preschool, Teacher's Corner, Tips and Tricks, Toys and Playthings | 0 Comments

The Alphabet Project

...taking reading out of just books...l

Contrary to what would be assumed, given that I am a teacher who teaches preschoolers after all, learning to read did not come easy for me. For those who have been reading my blog for quite some time now, you probably are familiar with the fact that I was diagnosed with a mild form of dyslexia as a child.  Yes, early on, I couldn’t read. Lucky for me, I had a teacher who noticed the red flags very, very early on and thus I was able to receive interventions very early on.

Back then, I couldn’t learn my letters very well, much less put them together to form words. As I understand (this is based on stories told to me by my mom and people around me, because I don’t really remember first hand anymore what it was like in the beginning), I would write my letters in mirror image and I couldn’t identify them properly. As I grew up, I loved reading but in hindsight, I realize I never was really good at it. I tended to skip words and make them up as I’d go along. It helped, however, that I had a good grasp of the English language and I enjoyed playing word games that allowed me to make up the right words as I went along.

Speaking of word games, this was really how I learned to read. In many ways, I would have to say I was really lucky that my mom is not a very traditional mom, so she really went out of her way to find ways to make learning more interesting and fun for someone like me. One way she taught me the alphabet was through the use of shells and corals in the beaches we often would frequent when I was a child. It helped a lot, I would like to say, because looking for these letters allowed me to work on my perceptual reasoning skills and helped me be able to see how letters really look like. To this day, whenever I am in a beach, I go and collect these shells to spell out stuff, just like these:

So today, I was inspired to start a new project. I want to take my alphabet project outside of just the beach and be able to find letters all around me and take photos of them. Here are a few examples:

Let’s see what I can find! Do feel free to take photos and send them to me via my Facebook Page so I can add them up

To keep tabs on the project, please check out my Alphabet Project Flickr Set

Posted by Teacher Ria in Classroom Escapades, College, Teacher's Corner, Teaching Resources, The Library | 0 Comments

Seeing the Bigger Picture

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs

One of the storybooks I like reading to my undergraduate students is the Scholastic Book The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith. I often use this when discussing the topic cultural sensitivity in my Personal Effectiveness classes. The students love the fact that I read them a kids book in class (although I’d like to think this is an older kids’ type of book ) and I love how the story reminds them to look at the bigger picture when coming up with decisions or making assessments.

I end the discussion by telling them that we are often guided by “traditional fairy tales” we’ve heard in the past, thus we do things mindlessly and draw conclusions that may not be valid or apt for a given situation. Also, I remind them that one reason we always feel so inadequate in our social environments is because of the fact that we allow these stereotypes and assumptions dictate who we are and how we should behave in our world. As such, we fail to see the bigger picture. Perhaps this is why even adolescents now go get plastic surgery and take all sorts of diet supplements and even inject themselves or take pills that have human growth hormones just so they become thinner, taller, whiter, and so on and so forth.What matters most at the end of the day, I like to tell them, is that we like who we are on the inside

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Teaching Resources, Tips and Tricks | 0 Comments

Family Recycling Fun!

For our Family Day Celebration in Playschool this year, we decided to have a little recycling competition. We asked each family to make a hat out of any recycled material and it was so much fun to see how creative our parents could get. Here were some of the finalists:

The top prize went to the 2nd hat on the top row, which was made from an old ice cream container and straws CUTIE!!!

Posted by Teacher Ria in Teaching Resources | 0 Comments

My Favorite “Office” Supply…

Okay, brace yourself for some strange thoughts from Teacher Ria…hehe.

Since I’ve become a preschool teacher, I have discovered so many office supplies and equipment (whether they are really designed for this or not!!!) that I have fallen in love with. If I had an unlimited supply of money, I would definitely get them for myself, but since I don’t, I try to get the school head to buy them instead haha.

So, what are these supplies I love? Well, here are a few:

• Packaging tape
• Bristol Board
• Letter Shaped Punchers (as well as other craft shapes!)
• Craft scissors
• Glue sticks!!!
• Ring binders (we only have a small one, but I’d love to have one of those heavy duty VeloBind machines that can handle large volumes of paper, as well as paper with larger dimensions!)
• Photocopiers
• and best of all….laminating machines (we only have a small one that can fit regular sized papers, but I would love to one day have a big one that can laminate posters!!!)

See….weird random thoughts at midnight tonight. Haha.

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Arts and Crafts, Classroom Escapades, Preschool, Teacher's Corner, Teaching Resources, Toys and Playthings | 0 Comments

Patterns, Patterns and More Patterns

Lately my kids have discovered beads. We’ve had wooden beads as one of the manipulative materials in the math area ever since the start of the school year, but for the most part, they have ignored it. One day, however, I brought out a set of barrel beads, the kind you get in those wholesale jewelry, trinket or accessory store and they discovered a liking for stringing beads. I love how it spontaneously has evolved into a learning experience, because even though I did not purposely use these materials to spark an interest in understanding patterns, that’s what it did! Now when they string their beads, they discuss and compare the patterns they make out of it. I swear, it’s the cutest thing!

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