Topic: NUM
Theme: Animals
Learning Areas/
DOW
Knowledge, Skills
NUM
and Dispositions:
L&L
SED
MSD
ACE
Childrens Current
Children are able to identify basic colours such as yellow, black, red
Skills, Knowledge
and blue.
and Interest:
Perseveranc
Reflectiveness Appreciatio
e
X
Inventiveness
Engagemen
t
X
n
X
Introduction:
Activities
P.R.A.I.S.E
- Teacher will read the book brown bear brown bear what do you see book to the
-Engagement
children and introduce the different animals with the different colours to the
Children will
children.
listen to the
- Teacher will induce children to think about the different animals that they have
story
seen in their neighbourhood or in the zoo and to recall the colours of the animals.
attentively
-Sense of
wonder and
curiousity
Children will
wonder about
the different
types of
animals and
their colors.
Main Activity
Activities
P.R.A.I.S.E
- Teachers will teach children the song brown bear brown bear what do you see.
-Inventiveness
- Teachers will then introduce actions to children to follow to the song. Children
Allow children
can learn to crawl like a bear, fly like a bird, gallop like a horse, swim like a fish
to express how
etc. Before formally assigning an action to each of the animals, teachers can
encourage participation by asking children how does that particular animal move.
animals to
move.
find a friend and form a pair of the animals and move together. E.g, children will
-Engagement
hold one hand of their friends and flap the other hand and move together like a bird
Children are to
participate
actively in the
activity
Activities
- Teachers will print our different animals for children to colour. While children are
P.R.A.I.S.E
- Engagement
colouring, teachers will tell them the colours that they have chosen to colour their
Children will
participate
- Teachers will then cut two holes and laminate the animals to create a finger puppet
actively and
colour their
animals.
-Sense of
curiousity
Children will
wonder about
the different
colours.
Closure
Follow-up activity:
-
brown to them.
Children will be given oranges, pears and apple of three different colours. Children will have
to find a friend of the same coloured fruit as them and hold hands to paste the fruits on the
tummy of the respective coloured bear.
Children will do cookery lesson by making fruit salad. Fruits such as red apple, green pear, orange,
purple grapes and red strawberry will be put into the salad. Children will take turns to stir the salad
and enjoy their DIY salad.
Implementation
Observation of lesson
Class: Nursery 1
Interpretations
morning teacher M.
morning teacher.
story about the animals in the zoo. Shall we listen carefully to what
Teacher M took out the book and projected it onto the screen. E said
Yes. Mr. Brown bear is here. What are the other animals that you
got bird. The children continued to talk about the animals that they
have seen.
Yes these are the animals that you have seen before. Lets see what
other animals are there in the zoo and in the park said Teacher M.
M mentioned Brown Bear, she would crawl like a bear. When teacher
M said red bird, she would flap her hands like the wings of a bird. As
After the story ended, Teacher M said okay children, now we will
of the animals.
listen to the song of the brown bear. When you listen to the song, I
want you to look very carefully what colours are the animals in the
song.
Teacher M played the video and children watched. Each time the
song introduced a new animal, Teacher M would pause the video and
ask the children what colour is the animal in the video. What colour
is this duck?
followed after.
Teacher M replayed the song and demonstrate the actions and sounds
circles.
After the song had ended, teacher M said Good job children. Do you
Teacher M brought the children back to the table and asked them to
sit down. The children sat down and teacher M gave them 2 choices
of animals for them to choose. Teacher M asked C Do you want a
The children chose their animals and started colouring them with
markers. Some of them used one hand to colour while a few used two
While they are holding the markers, Teacher M told them to repeat
back to Teacher M.
After collecting all the coloured animals back, Teacher M asked the
children did you enjoy todays lesson? The children replied yes.
Evaluation
Children enjoyed the lesson and participate with it. However, the lesson could be further
improved by introducing the colours that will be shown in the story first then narrating the
story and showing children the coloured animals. Teachers could also add in animal sounds
along with the actions to make the story more interesting. Teacher M could also facilitate
responses from the children better by encouraging specific children to participate especially
those quieter children.
The strength of the lesson was that the teacher stopped at every change of the animal to
introduce the animal to the children as well as helping them to identify their respective
colours. The teacher also closed the lesson by allowing children to create their own animals
and colouring them with the colours of their choice. Having said so, the teacher also helped
them to identify the colours that they were using for their animals. Teacher M also added
physical actions in the lesson to enhance childrens learning.
Summary
As stated by Miller (2007), children at the age of three years old will frequently use their
entire fist to hold onto their stationeries such as their pencil, crayons or paintbrush. From
there, we can further induce that they will most likely be using palmer grasp. This can be seen
from the anecdotal where the children are colouring their animals. Most of the children have
achieved the milestone of using the palmer grasp as compared to using the pincer grasps
when they were younger.
One of the cognitive milestone as stated by Blackwell and Baker (2002), children at the age
of 24 months 36 months should be able to point out to pictures in books and identify them.
They should also be forming sentences of 2 to 3 words and to be understood by professionals.
This can be seen in the anecdotal whereby child E pointed out at the bear on the screen and
Teacher M could understand what he was talking about even though his sentences were short
and contained few words.
Pamela (2011) states that one of the major milestones at toddler stage is to develop a
symbolic thought. In this, they show that they are able to use a simple item or task to act in
place of a more complicated one. For instance, the children managed to identify the animals
on the screen and is able to understand that it is not the real animals in front of them.
Harris and Libert (1992) noted that children at the age of three where they are acquiring their
language and speech tend to portray telegraphic speech. In that, toddlers tend to cut short
their sentences and omit redundant words to express their points. This can be seen when child
S said Mummy bring me go zoo whereby omitting words such as my, to and the.
Miller (2007) said that children at the age of three tend to form social attachment by imitating
one another. This is their way of establishing social contact. In the anecdotal, J imitated Ss
sentence and stated that his daddy brought him to the zoo just as Ss mummy did. J was
perhaps trying to form a social connection with S and wanting to communicate with him.
Reflection
According to Clements and Samara (2004), children might not be engaging in mathematical
activities frequently especially during free play, however results have shown that children do
engage in mathematical activities half of the time in a day. This has thus stated that
mathematical concepts are important to children as it helps them to process their experiences
and ideas logically.
Sheridan (1998) stated that children at the age of 3 years tend to confuse secondary colours
which consist the same primary colours. Therefore I have decided to introduce a few primary
and secondary colours to children to resolve their confusion and to allow them to identify
these colours better with the help animals since they have a huge interest in animals.
The preparations of materials were simple as they were readily available in the centre. They
could be printed easily or are unwanted materials that could be reused. Follow-up activities
planned for the children were closely related to the lesson as it could help them to do a recap
on the lesson and at the same time further extend their learning.
I believe that young children learn better through experiencing. Therefore, hands-on activities
that are engaging will facilitate childrens learning better and I believe that whatever they
have learned will be retained in their memory for a longer time.
Overall, children had a fun time in this lesson and were all very happy. On top of that they
have also learned new animals and learned to express themselves and shared their experience
with their peers and teacher.
The concept of colours can be further extended by encouraging parents to revise the colours
learned with their children to prepare simple activities for parents to carry out with their
children at home.
References
Blackwell, P., & Baker, B. (2002). Estimating communication competence of infants and
toddler.Journal of Pediatric Health Care, 16(1), 29-35. Retrieved September 3, 2015, from
http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/science/article/pii/S0891524502040166
Clements, D., & Samara, J. (2004). Engaging young children in mathematics: Standars for
pre-school and kindergarten mathematics education (p. 95). London: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates.
Harris, J., & Libert, R. (1992). Infant & Child Development from Birth through Middle
Childhood. London: Prentice-Hall.
Miller, K. (2007). Ages and Stages. Telshare Publishing,Inc.
Pamela, M. (2010). Child Development in Practice Responsive Teaching and Learning from
Birth to Five (p. 17). Routledge Publications
Appendix