Title: Tanuki’s Gift

Japanese Folktale

Author: Tim Myers

Illustrator: R.G.Roth

Brief Summary:

This is a story of friendship between a Buddhist priest and a tanuki, a small badger like animal, who visits him every winter. The tanuki brings firewood and little gifts. The priest offers him shelter and listens to his stories. But when the tanuki disappears to search for three pieces of gold, the priest discovers how much he values his friendship.

Date of first publication: 2003

Recommended age of readers: K2 children (6-7 years old)

Theme of interest: Friendship

*notes on illustration:

Mixed media includes gouche, water color, and oil pastel, ink painted on D’Arches 140 lb cold and hot press papers.

Recommended Book: The Magic Gem

Title: The Magic Gem
Korean Folktale

Author: Kim So-Un

Illustrator: Jeong Kyoung- Sim

Brief Summary:

A fisherman is rewarded with a magic gem that grants him and his wife their every wish. But the fisherman’s wife is tricked and loses the gem- so their cat and dog decide to get the magic gem back. On their way home, the gem is lost again because of the dog’s thoughtless action. The cat manages to find it and she became the favourite of the fisherman and his wife. The dog is then neglected that is why up to this day dogs and cats no longer get along.

Date of first publication: 2006

Recommended age of readers: K2 children (6-7 years old)

Themes of interest: Responsibility and Jealousy

Recommended Folktale Books

All of us in the early childhood education field are aware of the relevance of children's literature. We have to provide a rich literature to young children as it will help them to become a literate adult in the future.



For those who are not convinced of the importance of books to young children, let me state here the reasons of providing a literature rich environment to young children.

1. Children learn aesthetic awareness, growth in literacy through illustrations and text and imaginative abilities.


2. Children develop emotionally as they learn self-acceptance and coping strategies.


3. Children develop multi-cultural awareness and cultural identity when they meet families, settings and cultures that are similar in some ways and or different in others.


4. Children develop intellectuaally when they obtain new information and ask questions.


5. Children develop socially when they explore interpersonal relationships and human motives.

With all the above reasons in mind, I am in a continuous search for good children's books in the library, especially the Bukit Timah Children's Library. It will be going to close by end of this year, but that is another story.

Nowadays, I am so fascinated again with folktales and fairy tales. I have here a list of folktale books which I greatly recommend.

Title: Why Mosquito Buzz in People’s Ears
West African Folktale

Author: Verna Aardema

Illustrators: Leo and Dianne Dillon

Brief Summary:
Mosquito tells Iguana a tall tale that sets off a chain reaction that ends in a jungle disaster. Iguana is so upset that he plugs his ears and is not able to hear Python’s greetings. Python suspects mischief against him by Iguana so he hides in a rabbit hole- which terrifies rabbit. The legend goes, until finally the chain of mishaps reaches mother owl that reacts by refusing to hoot and wake the sun. Eventually, all is resolved and jungle life returns to normal. But although mosquito learns her lesson and gives up telling tall tales, she adapts a worse habit.
Date of first publication: 1975
Recommended age of readers: K2 children (6-7 yrs old)

Theme of interest: consequence of gossiping

Awards: The Caldecott Gold Medal (1976)

*notes on illustration:

Art is in full color using watercolors applied with an airbrush in both fine spray and spatter technique, pastels rubbed on by hand and India ink. The cut-out effect was achieved by actually cutting the shapes out of vellum and frisket masks at several different stages.

TO BE CONTINUED......

Jean Piaget: Cognitive Development

Cognition refers to the development of mental activity, thinking intelligent behaviour and/or understanding. It has a major impact on other areas of development.

What we know now on how children think is due to Jean Piaget. His work provided revolutionary insight into HOW the developing mind works. He stressed the active role of the child in the learning process. He saw the child as struggling to make sense of the world around him like a little scientist, observing hypotheses and testing them. According to Piaget, the child actively constructs his own knowledge and this is facilitated by the learning environment adults provide.

Through researches with children, Piaget was able to describe cognitive development. He explained the interrelated principles of organization, adaptation and equilibration. His principles are of course apparent in our own children if we only closely observe them.

Just look at my Karllisse. She has this scheme that she can eat the food given to her by using her hands to bring it into her mouth.

When fork is introduced to her, like a little scientist as Piaget termed, she is studying the new experience- the fork, intently.

She learns to assimilate this new scheme by integrating her existing scheme of eating food using her hands, and then learns how to use the fork. When she discovers that it needs a different way to control her hand muscles that she needs to coordinate her palm muscles and finger muscles to eat with a fork, she accommodates by modifying the old scheme. Accommodation and assimilation work together to provide an equilibrium here. There is an apparent cognitive growth in Karllisse as she was able to acquire a new knowledge; she can use the fork to eat. That is an achievement in her practical knowledge acquisition.

This may be simple for us adults. But you see if we only observe children closely, we’ll discover that children are really active learners. From a simple discovery, they will learn more when given more things to explore. So why not provide your children with more enriching and explorative environment?

Crawling: A New View of the World

This is my grand daughter Karllisse. As you can see, she is very happy. Why so? Because a new world opens up for her as she can move independently. She can crawl on lengths. Since she can move on her own, she begins to detach from her Mom and or her caregiver. Now she has ideas on what she has to do in moving around the house, on which direction to go whether near the living room or to the direction of the bedroom. She has a new view of the world around her. But this poses problems for my daughter Krizelle. They now have conflicts of interests. And I am sure you know why.

But Karllisse' crawling skills points to something relevant. You know why? It is because her new acquired motor skill is related to milestone in her cognitive development. Being able to move and provided the opportunity to exercise it, new possibilities of exploration and construction of knowledge about the world opens up for her. According to Bushnell and Boudreau (1993) the more efficiently the infant can move, the more she can learn.

As research has proven, especially that of Kermoian and Campos (1988) the infant who can move around on their own were cognitively more advanced than those who could not.

Bearing this in mind, I hope that those mothers around who have infants, would also give opportunities to their own babies to let them move around and crawl in lengths. Do provide them an opportunity to have a new view of the world. Just like my Karllisse. And surely they will grow up to be problem solvers and creative thinkers in the future.

Teacher Bloggers

There was an article I read before which presented teachers as bloggers. The article to my understanding depicted that it was not proper for a teacher to blog as some students/children would read their entries and would view informations/entries in negative ways. I beg to disagree with the writer of the article. I believe in the positivity of blogs/technology and how it would help the particular teacher in his personal and professional growth and mostly in dealing with parents and students/children alike, and of course in information dessimination.

I am proud that I am a member of the Pinoy Teachers Network which I called PTN for short. It is an organization of Filipino teachers all over the world who are all bloggers. Please visit our site here.

The PTN is founded by Teacher Sol, a special education teacher based in Washington DC USA. Through her entries, I am sure you'll all be convinced of the positiveness of being a teacher and a blogger at the same time.

And to all PTN members Belated 2nd Anniversary!!!

Luchie's Anne Alligator Phonics

I developed this phonetic drills out of the challenge to prove something to myself as a teacher. Though, it was developed based on other phonetic methods for children, the entire names for each letters are mine, meaning, I personally know children or persons with these names. I am aware that young children learn their names first and are proud that their names are mentioned in every conversations, so I decided to use children's names to state the sounds of the letters of the alphabet. I made use of animals too for I am sure young children are more interested in any topic as long as animals are included. At the same time children also learn that she is use for a girl and he is use for a boy. For all the name of the letters, I addressed them as either Mr or Mrs for the children to understand that Mr is for a man like their own Dad and Mrs is addressed for a married woman like their own Mum. For the sound of letter U, since there is no known name for U in short vowel sound, I used Ugly duckling as it is a familiar story title for children.

Like most phonetic drills for children, this is also done thru singing. Please sing to the tune of Polly put the kettle on. (or to any appropriate nursery rhyme tune)

Here it is:

Anne alligator says a in words, a in words, a in words. She belongs to Mrs. A.

Beth butterfly says b in words, b in words, b in words. She belongs to Mrs. B.

Carrie camel says c in words, c in words, c in words. She belongs to Mrs. C.

Darrielle donkey says d in words, d in words, d in words. She belongs to Mrs. D.

Emie elephant says e in words, e in words, e in words. She belongs to Mrs. E.

Frida frog says f in words, f in words, f in words. She belongs to Mrs. F.

Garry gorilla says g in words, g in words, g in words. He belongs to Mr. G.

Herbert hippo says h in words, h in words, h in words. He belongs to Mr. H.

Irma iguana says i in words, i in words, i in words. She belongs to Mrs. I.
Jamie jaguar says j in words, j in words, j in words. She belongs to Mrs. J.
Kyllenne kangaroo says k in words, k in words, k in words. She belongs to Mrs. K.
Lilie lion says l in words, l in words, l in words. She belongs to Mrs. L.
Marielle monkey says m in words, m in words, m in words. She belongs to Mrs. M.
Nellie newt says n in words, n in words, n in words. She belongs to Mrs. N.
Ollie ostrich says o in words, o in words, o in words She belongs to Mr. O.
Paula penguin says p in words, p in words, p in words She belongs to Mrs. P.
Quennie quail says q in words, q in words, q in words She belongs to Mrs. Q.
Rachelle rabbit says r in words, r in words, r in words She belongs to Mrs. R.
Sally snake says s in words, s in words, s in words She belongs to Mrs. S.
Tessie tiger says t in words, t in words, t in words She belongs to Mr. T.
Ugly duckling says u in words, u in words, u in words She belongs to Mrs. U.
Vina vulture says v in words, v in words, v in words She belongs to Mrs. V.
William walrus says w in words, w in words, w in words He belongs to Mr. W.
Freddie fox says x in words, x in words, x in words He belongs to Mr. X.
Yanny yak says y in words, y in words, y in words He belongs to Mr. Y.
Zeena zebra says z in words, z in words, z in words He belongs to Mrs. Z.

Note: It would be nice if accompanying pictures/ photos are presented with the children. Maybe next time I would be able to print photos, so I could make pictograms for each letter characters.

(Images courtesy of Google Images)