Here is the completed special chair to be used for ‘Murid Luar Biasa’. I hope to begin this activity with a vengeance this term!

I spent many hours painting the chair over the winter holidays, so I hope my students like it! I am really pleased with the way it looks.

For the last three weeks I have been working on the harimau story (adapted from Carol Gaab’s wolf story) with my Prep to Year 2 students. They have loved listening to me tell the story a couple of times with cardboard puppets attached to the whiteboard, then acting out the story in the classroom with actors. The fact that we have a life-sized banana tree in my room makes it even better!

I was worried they might become a bit bored by this routine, so this week (third week of the story) I asked Bu Cathy’s advice about how to get reps with variety. Use Catharina Greenberg’s Duplo activity, she advised. Now, I must admit I had read about this activity but had avoided it like the plague because quite frankly 25 young children getting a piece of Duplo at the same time sounds like utter chaos!

But I had a go anyway. One of my colleagues had a massive tub of coloured blocks which I was very happy to borrow. My first two classes were the Preps. I had my sentences (true and false) typed up ready to go. After the first two hours of lessons, I had four pieces of Duplo broken and I removed all delicate pieces from the tub!

So, after creating additional rules, the rest of the day went very smoothly. If you are thinking of trying this activity, I hope these rules are useful to you! The kids loved it and all listened carefully. I made them stockpile the Duplo and build at the end but next time will let them build as they go.

Duplo Rules

1. Take only one piece each time.
2. Place it behind your back and forget about it until the end of the story.
3. No knees, feet or hands leaning on Duplo.
4. Take a piece of Duplo using only one hand.
5. Crawl to the Duplo pile, and crawl backwards to your spot. (in their eagerness they would whip around to go back, sometimes kicking the Duplo)
6. Sit back in your spot on your bottom once ready to listen.

When I had finished reading the story, they had time to build (by themselves, or joining with others) and share their beautiful creations!

I like the idea of kids building as they go, but I can see them destroying their creations as they rush for a new piece. I would love to know exactly how Catherina manages this!

Harimau story:

Ada perempuan. Nama perempuan Elsa.

Ada harimau. Harimau lapar. Harimau lihat Elsa.

Harimau mau makan Elsa.

Elsa lari ke pohon. Harimau lari ke pohon.

Elsa lari ke rumah. Harimau lari ke rumah.

Harimau makan Elsa.

Prep boy retells Harimau story

He did this after only two weeks of the story!

Terima kasih to Bu Cathy for re-scheduling this meeting so that I could attend. It was so great to hear what other Indonesian TPRS teachers are doing. The meeting was held at Port Elliot Primary School.

Currently Hub members are using Spongebob may Sprite for junior learners and Bercakap-cakap terus for Years 3 – 6. I was amazed to hear that two of the teachers taught 6 new words per week to the middle students before beginning on the story. They appeared to remember the words really well!

I  heard about some good activities for students:

• order sentence strips
• match sentence strips with pictures
• order words
• spelling battleships (instructions on Bu Cathy’s blog)
• the Bop! game (also on Bu Cathy’s blog)
• sing the story

Sing the story was great! To the tune of Baa Baa Black Sheep, students learn to sing the story, as in:

Lucy dingin.

Lucy mau jaket.

Peter panas.

Tidak mau jaket.

Peter kasi.

Lucy pakai jaket.

Lucy berkata, “Terima kasih, Peter”.

One of the teachers told us about a good game to practise ‘punya’ with young children.  One person stands out the front of the group facing the whiteboard. Teacher quietly gives the ‘apel’ to someone in the group. The child at the front them turns around and has to discover who has the object by asking ‘Daniel punya apel? Lucy punya apel?’ etc.

Bu Cathy told us how teachers had used ‘Cicak Cicak di dinding’ and had students act it out.

I found out about three types of writing:

• free write: students write about anything. This is a timed write from between 5 and 15 minutes
• re-write: re-write the story students have learned in class
• quick write: students write about a picture based on the story they have  learned

The re-write can be made more interesting by taking out names of characters and places and asking students to make up their own, then illustrating.

More great ideas for junior classes:

• charades in pairs, guess the verb
• ask questions about the story, students pick up a piece of duplo if the answer is yes, don’t pick up if answer is no
• listen and draw
• wordle – use limited words for juniors. First to point to the word teacher says gets a point
• guess the gesture
• fruit salad – adapt with words from the story (can do with duck, duck, goose also)
• quick draw – in pairs – one draws, the other states (in Indonesian) the line from the story
• Raja Monyet – students sit on chairs in a circle, with one child Raja Monyet (king monkey) in centre. Teacher asks question (e.g. Kamu tinggal di mana?) Everyone answers with their own answer, but when Raja Monyet answers with ‘Saya tinggal di hutan’ (A special answer which teacher has previously told child), everyone must swap seats so that a new Raja Monyet (last one left standing) is found.
• Guess the number (Saya pikir nomor) – even Preps can do this! Write numbers satu to lima (or more) on the board, like this:

1 satu

2 dua

3 tiga

4 empat

5 lima

Choose a student to come out and write their number on the back of the whiteboard where no other students can see. (Useful if you or the student forget the number!) then student picks others to guess the number. They put a cross next to the number if it is not correct. If it is correct, new child gets a turn. Must say the number in Bahasa Indonesia!

If playing the game with middle or upper students, tell them to think of a number between 1 – 40, or 1 – 100. Draw a horizontal line on the whiteboard. If the class group guess a number larger than the one the student is thinking of, then  this number is written ABOVE the line. If it is smaller, the number is written BELOW the line. Students (hopefully) narrow down their options and guess quickly.

Here are some good TPRS ideas I picked up from Bu Carmel:

• use a music stand for your lesson plan (great idea – I always put mine down and lose it!)
• go s-l-o-w-l-y, students understand so much better!
• to settle students, Carmel says ‘satu, dua, tiga, diam’ twice. It works!
• students fill out a self-assessment form after each lesson, based on how well they listened, responded etc
• use a powerpoint presentation with aims of your lesson, stories, new words listed, pictures etc – Carmel’s powerpoint was ‘luar biasa’!
• throw a ball and ask students a question, such as ‘Apa kabar?’ for quick answer practice.
• use strip bingo (Martina Bex?) to revise words – I had not seen this used before. Students were asked to fold (lipat) a strip of paper in half, then in half again. They wrote any four words from the story. As teacher calls out the words, remove your word BUT only if it is on one of the ends of the strip. First one to throw all their words in the  ‘tempat sampah’ is the winner. Students loved this game!

Thanks so much for having me, Bu Carmel!