Volume 3, Chapter 11, Page 73

Saturday, 14 March 2015

Sprinkles of innocence and wonder

Their take on a dinosaur taking over their city.

A long day at work and then shopped later. Tired.

Finally saw Jia En (my long-term student) again and we chatted a lot.

That plushies played a big role in today's class by watching over her draw haha.

Glad to know that she is more capable of instructions and capabilities now! I didn't need to explain in depth and she understood. She stayed overtime today as well.

Acquainted myself with this secretly mischievous (but super adorable) girl from Teacher Ethel's class.

She looks like a totally good kid but she keeps doing stuff to other people's stuff which was lying on the table. I think she's curious and a bit bright as I saw her playing around with the polymer clay by herself, making various shapes and sticking beads onto them and then excavating them out. She's just too curious that she almost destroyed other's craft because she used the wire to poke holes in them ("It's their ears!") or made a hat and attempted to stick it onto the crafts' head (like the above picture).

Work was fun and interesting because I got to teach three little kids from Teacher Ethel's class because they wanted to make polymer clay art. I was the only free teacher then so I said I can take over. And I had never had a class of kindergarten kids before so it's a new experience.

From back: the brother, the girl I had known for some time, the sister.

One word from sis: traffic light.

Handling multiple kids at the same time reminded me of how I used to feel at the nursery. My eyes have to be alert to keep track of everyone's work, which is quite impossible. They were chatty too which made it even more hectic, and they kept laughing and getting high lol. It was harder to handle at first but then it got OK.

The brother couldn't get how to make a donut and gave up so he mashed a lot of clay together and laid on it as a pillow. "Teacher, help me write 'pillow' on it," the brother said while handing me his colourful mess of clay. He said thank you, went back to his seat, and proceeded to use the 'pillow' clay as his pillow. It was quite funny.

The two little girls were pretty good at the craft. I think they are Zhu Ying (pink) and Chloe (green), both 6 (brother is 8). Zhu Ying's fine motor skills were better and she did a great job for her donut, making the basic loop shape before I even started explaining the first step - I was impressed. Chloe, on the other hand, was more of an amateur in this and she needed my help in making her donut into a reality but she wasn't lacking in willpower so that's good. :) Unfortunately we have only about five different colours to use because it is the trend in the studio nowadays and a lot of supplies were used up.

Chloe and Zhu Ying encountered confusion: (spoken in Mandarin)

Zhu Ying: "Jie Jie (big sister)." She called me and talked about something.

Chloe: Looks at her. "Isn't she Lau Shi (teacher)?"

Zhu Ying: "No, she is Jie Jie."

Chloe: "She's Lau Shi!"

Me: "I am Jie Jie Lau Shi." Which meant I am Teacher Big Sister lol. Then they laughed.

Chloe didn't want to leave when it was her time to go home (her Mom came up to wait for her). Her Mom wanted to buy the clay for her so that she could do the craft at home but not all colours were available so she didn't buy it in the end. In the meantime, I quickly finish up Chloe's donut so that she could go home. She reminded me of that time when Jia En didn't want to leave because she wanted to keep working on the box she made from ice-cream sticks. I'm just glad that little kids have determination to finish one thing that they like. :) Sure it's a little bit awkward when the parent(s) and teacher(s) have to persuade them to go home, but it's an experience.

In the end, I spent most of my time with Zhu Ying because she got really into the craft and told us how she is going to use the craft later on. Supposedly, she is going to take her donut out during her birthday to show everybody and she's totally not going to let her classmates see it cuz they "like to touch everything", cue frustration. She made it sound like they are not of the same age lol.

She is really quite mature though. She even has her own phone and when it rang in her bag, I thought what could it be? She looked through her bag and pulled out a cute little flip phone (like the one people used years ago) and then picked up the call from her Mom. We all kinda paused for a moment.

The brother had already mixed a lot of clay together to the point that it would be a horrible waste if he threw it away. He suddenly thought of making a camera and asked if anybody has made a camera.

Me: "You mean anybody here?"

Brother: "Yeah."

"Nope, you'll be the first and you'll be special."

He went on making the camera with my help making the shutter and I was just so glad he never wasted that enormous bunch of clay. He took his camera and took pictures around the room. :3 His sister even posed for him. He was quite a nice kid.

Complete cake!

Me: "You're creative." She really was; she knew what she wanted for her donut (which ended up looking like a cake).

Teacher Ethel: Came in to look around. "Do you know what is creative? It means you are good here." Points to Zhu Ying's head. "It means you are good at making all these!"

Zhu Ying: After Teacher Ethel left. "You are creative too!" She said to me and looked so happy hahaha. "Because you are good at making heart shapes." Later she told me again I am 'creative' because I can make clay muffins.

I made two rings as well because she wanted it. I also made the three muffins because hers failed.