Attachment @ Shuqun Primary Outing 1

Zoo Trip with P1s

30^th March – 1^st April 2011

For the 3 days I was out with the Primary 1 pupils to Singapore Zoological Garden.

These are the objectives of the outdoor lesson. It is to allow them to identify the different animals they can see at zoo, observe and write short notes on an animal that interest them, count the number of farm animals found at Rainforest KidzWorld and lastly to make an addition and a subtraction story based on the information collected at the Rainforest KidzWorld.

I felt that the Primary 1 pupils fulfilled the objectives of why we brought them to zoo. There is no incidents in bring the kids around as the kids from all the 3 different clusters are all obedience and that they have the sense of urgency which from my point of view the sense of urgency and sense of danger at this age is not as great as Primary 3 students. After taking 3 different groups of pupils over the past few days, I realized something, Primary 1 and Primary 2 students seems to have more sense of urgency and danger when compared.

The Primary 1 pupils were able to identify the different animals that they see at the zoo. They were able to observe and write short notes on the animals that interest them. They were able to count accurately the number of farm animals that are supposed to be found at the Rainforest KidzWorld. They have a clearer understanding about how the farm animals look like. The 2 different shows that are watched, shows a clear view on the different animals how cute they look, how big size the dogs are but they have the same feeling and attitude of a human being.

The only problem for the trip  is that the teachers are unsure of the route that is suppose to walked and that for the animals that are not seen are listed in the worksheet. This is not that good for the pupils as they tend to compare answer and that most of the answer may not be right as they did not see it or they seen it and not mark it. For the pen house the number of rabbits was a problem. Why is it so? Simply the teachers are unsure which pens to use or have the teachers to mark all the 5 pens. It causes confusion for the pupils that they were totally unsure if they are doing correctly.

Pupils were not given much toilet breaks. This is because teachers were not sure where the toilets were or if there were toilet, it was limited with 2 or 3 cubicles. I have to bring the pupils to other toilets which were a distance away from the venue where the rest of the class is. I feel honored to do so but I felt that if all the pupils are there together at the same venue at least they will not have the chance to misbehave.

Pupils did not have enough water. Although we teachers also brought a few bottles of water, but it was not enough to satisfy the needs of the pupils. Most of the pupils would have finished their bottle of water by the time we reached Rainforest KidzWorld. Due to the lack of knowledge, we were unable to locate the place where the pupils can refill their water. I understand that there was a consideration for the pupils to bring at least 1L of water but because it may be too heavy for the pupils to carry around and therefore it was scrapped off. So I am unsure how we can go about doing it beside asking the Zoo to provide a water point or allowing the pupils to buy water from vending machine.

Overall for the P1 zoo trip, it was quite fine as most of the teachers are well prepared with the essential items although at the first day there were 2 classes missing from the first show as they were lost and that most of the teachers were unsure of the routes.