Math

I have to learn how to elaborate these kinds of questions.......................... and tell myself not to dislike Math.

Math

These concept doesn't come naturally to me.
Can I say that I hate these types of question? (above)
Well, I don't say it in front of the kids but I hate these types of questions. Totally. 

Don't believe everything you read.
Or rather, I should say-- process what you read, don't take everything at face value.
Every time you resist acting on your anger, you may or may not become calmer. It would be ideal to be calmer but become calm is just a facade. It may also mean that you're suppressing anger, letting it simmer and develop into long term resentment which is even worse than anger. under-current is worse than current. 

Meantime, our library helped me save $41. 
No need to buy books, just borrow from our up-to-date library =)

Wow, a Typing Club =)

Friday evening, as I was.... can't remember what I was doing but I wasn't playing with the kids.
It was late and Colin has gone to bed cos we still have classes the following morning.

Kiki was occupying herself with her "Computer Lab" stuff.
I thought she was playing games or watching YouTube on the notebook but was intrigued with her gentle typing.

Like this--
kkdd ddkk dkdk kdddk dkkd
jjff ffjj fjjf jffj fjfj jfjf jjjf fjfjjf

Her school has this "Computer Lab" programme, each student has an ID to log in the Typing Club website. They have done a few sessions in class, so she could independently key in the website address on the toolbar and log in on her own. No help needed from me =)

User ID, Password, Website. 

  Sit straight, pretend you're at a fancy restaurant.

Practice sessions 1 to 100!
Who would go such lengths?

But really, it's quite fun for the kids.  I think when they treat this as a game, they would learn along the way. I remember during my school days, only the Commerce students and Computer Club people get to do these. Now, it's a common commodity. The "digital divide" has narrowed and we're dealing with "data divide" -- that is-- how much data access & speed you can get access to and afford.

I was also glad to find out that Kiki set up a user profile for her brother on her LeapPad and even selected a set of games for him. She borrowed my mobile phone, scrolled for a photo of Colin, used her tablet to take a picture of the photo, and used that picture she's taken to set up the profile photo. 

See, no need email, no need wifi, no need physical presence of the person, take a photo of a photo also can set up a user profile. No need to enlist my assistance also. 

100, 99. 95

I said if I were the Teacher, I would have given 100 marks.
Kiki said if SHE were the Teacher, she would have given 99 marks.

LOL LOR!

 It's like ARE YOU KIDDING ME? COME ON!

 This one from enrichment class. quite hard ar.... but okay lah. Just go at our own pace.

No More Aggregates, Yay or No Yay?

(source: straitstimes.com Apr 9, 2016, 5:00 am SGT)

The MOE announced that there will not be PSLE aggregate score from 2021. That means those students in P1 this year, will not have a T score after they sit for PSLE. Instead of having numbers like 223, 236, 242, 268 etc. that acted like a hot iron branding marked onto cattle but this cattle is a Human cub; the new policy will do away with numbers and will introduce grading system in terms of bands like As, Bs, Cs. Details to be elaborated but no parents I know jumped for joy because everyone is hesitant. Everyone feels that the aggregate just turned invisible but it will still be there. Some thinks this invisible aggregate thingy might be even worse as parents can't gauge how their kids are faring against traditional national standards. Plus they also wonder how then would the Secondary Schools select.  That's how little trust and faith Parents have become. There's no letting up with the obsession in academic "success", at least not at this moment. 

Well, there's still five more years for this well-intended policy to mature and take shape so let's see how to roll with it.

Our Maiden Exam

Yay! We've passed our Grade 1 Piano Exams.
Barely passed, borderline pass, nevertheless, passed!

She was so nervous until she had tummy ache while on the way to the studio.
She said she repeated a section of the third song twice! (corrected twice, played final once).
Oh no...... I read that the student shouldn't repeat a section but to just continue with the piece regardless glitches or fumbled. I should have read up more about the exams before heading for it... my bad. But well, glad we've made it =)

Hurray!

While we were there, there was a teenager girl who was taking her Grade 8.
She was alone for a large part of the time.
Until later on, a girl friend of hers came to give her moral support and waited outside for her.
How nice to have a friend.

Define Food

We had Show & Tell this week and this one goes into grading. Whatever stuff in Term 2 will be graded but....... I don't have much gusto these days. I just do all the same things- Chinese spelling X 2, English spelling X 1, Violin practice X 2, Piano practice X 1. No time to squeeze in worksheets and trying to make reading back on bedtime track.

Show and Tell these was - My Favourite Food. 

She named the green, soft, Pear as her favourite food and she presented her speech in class. 

However, she got anxious that her other 29 classmates all talked about dishes (eg: Nasi Lemak, Salmon Rice, etc) none of them talked about fruits. Furthermore, her teacher told her the theme is "My Favourite Food" and not "Fruit". 

Well, I did consider this before we wrote our script but I had decided that a fruit is also food so I hope her teacher would just grade her on the presentation skills and be open to the fact Fruits are primitive Food.

 

Student ID EZ Link Card

The P1s have just received their Student Pass yesterday.
Kiki says the card is also a stored value card for payment at the school's canteen, her friends have started using their cards yesterday. But I haven't put in any money yet (?) did MOE give us some money with it? Shall check this out over the weekend when I top-up the card.

With the card, it would also mean..... no more free bus & MRT rides................................

Day 1 of 7-day-break

 Colin joins Kiki's friends at the indoor playground 

School Term 1

So, we're coming to the end of school term 1.

We are doing okay although sometimes I could be a little harsh. 

Like when she wakes up in the morning feeling grouchy, wanting another minute to laze in bed, I said to get up and not pout. To smile and say Good Morning, Mommy. I said everyone wants to laze in bed. I said to be happy to have woken up because some people never do.

But mostly we're fine. We're happy to get to school and get to work. Recently we are more fine. Because I've made a conscious effort to be extraordinary patient, positive and keep my cool. And that is paying off. In fact in the course of the day, I would repeat the phrase- "Be Kind" in my head. Be kind to myself, be kind to others, be kind to my kids, be kind to my husband, be kind to my helper. Only once or twice I got fired up the wrong way but that's a vast improvement from just two months ago. This has to do with a particular meltdown that Kiki had. That episode came after my conscious effort to relax, hence I was quite disturbed at the intensity of her meltdown and realised that it was my doing. She and Colin were exchanging licks and bites from their lollipop & Chupa Chups while mindlessly watching TV one Sunday morning when we heard Colin screaming & wailing that his sister had taken the last bite off his Chupa Chups, leaving him with the bare, straw stick.  Both Bren & I rushed to the scene, upon hearing from Colin, we both rained lectures on Kiki. We both said that we must always leave the last bite to the "owner" of the item, be it an ice cream, a candy or a Chupa Chups. I said it is only courteous. Kiki burst into tears, half explaining that they took turns and it was Colin who had offered her the last, tiny bit. I couldn't hear of it and forcefully challenged how she would feel if I were to finish up her lollipop. She was so worked up, she said she wouldn't mind if the last bite was my turn. To her, the rule about taking turns is the running rule and would supersede the rule about having the last bite. I didn't let up, further challenged her that she didn't know what she was saying. She got even madder than me and shoved the lollipop into my lips. Almost. It was all happening so intensely, with the candy in hand, between tears and sobs, she vigorously thrust the candy into my face, almost touching my face. That was when I woke up. Not woke up from a dream, it wasn't a dream. Woke up as in suddenly I asked myself what am I driving at. Here am I saying I would be violent no more, and here am I getting into a fight with my daughter. Over a social rule that I forced upon her. She was very sure that she wouldn't have minded if Colin took the last bite IF IT WAS HIS TURN. To her, the deal was taking turns. And my rule was to be courteous. At what cost? A meltdown. 

Luckily I took 20 seconds and a breath to realise this. Imparting to her a value at this moment with such intensity is not the right moment. Furthermore, she really didn't mind if I were to eat up her lollipop if it were to be my turn to bite the last bit. So what's the value of my moral? 

I embraced her and held her so that she would calm down. And she felt that I sincerely didn't want to fight. So she calmed down. 

As for Colin, he was happy to get another piece of Chocolate and soon forgot about the Chupa Chups.  We explained to him that next time, just save the last bite for himself (if it matters so much). 

Yap. So that was the incident that serves as a reminder to me that -- For what's it's worth, it's not worth straining her mental health and our emotional relationship. So the healing began.

***

Within the course of the first term in P1, there were two occasions she told me that the children were screaming and shouting with joy. The first was during the CNY celebration at the school's hall. She said the whole hall of children were cheering, laughing, shouting and screaming, and that it was so much fun just to watch the whole hall of children screaming. I often wonder what kind of outlet is that for our school going children, screaming with joy. I think perhaps that's similar to fanatics screaming upon meeting their favourite Rock Band or their Mega Idol or something like that. Or that you're dancing at the pub and then the DJ spun your favourite song or something like that. 

The second occasion was at her Show & Tell segment. She was initially nervous because we didn't prepare a script until the night before the Show & Tell. Not that I had forgotten but we had agreed that she would just speak freely without a script. But her classmates before her all had scripts so she became worried about not having a script. So silly but I couldn't convince her at 10pm at night, so we scribbled a script on the origins of The Little Lady harmonica, which she was presenting as a favourite toy. She said the class were roaring and asked her to play a tune, in turn, she played Twinkle and her friends cheered even louder. They were all intrigued by a miniature instrument, just like I had been. 

***

Lastly, we did well for our term 1 tests, mainly because the tests were easy I guess. The area that cost us five marks was the Chinese Oral. If not for Oral, she would have gotten full marks for the entire Chinese subject. I don't think we would ever speak in accurate tones 100%, so that's quite disappointing to realise that we may never ever get 100% for Chinese despite having written well or comprehend well. Anyway. Let it go. 

As for Math & English, she had one sum wrong on each subject and I consider that a feat, having just started school for 9 weeks. 

All she wants as a "reward" is to go to the music camp this March holiday. We've signed up for just one day of the two-day camp because the following day, she's joining Colin and the childcare, going on a beach excursion. Three days lined up for the one week holiday next week =) On Monday, Colin will join Kiki's friends on an informal gathering at a indoor playground. Looks like the two of them will have quite a few common friends. I guess that's one of the perks of smaller age gap. Common friends it is.

Math- P1: Term 1

So, had I been too trusting?

Her teacher had briefed us earlier, that, as long as there were nothing extra that comes back with the school bag, means that the child has managed to complete his work during lesson time and no extra work would be required at home. She said that if there had been any text books, worksheets, in the bag, that would mean some effort needed on our part.

So, there wasn't any Math stuff returning home until a couple of days before the Test.
One folder filled with worksheets. Oh...... several "corrections" needed. Oh wow....... I needed time to digest and develop a plan to better explain these sums to Kiki.  Anyway, these sums and methods are all new to me.

For these Number Bonds, I said- Look for "Two Eyes & One Nose" (numbers from two eyes sum up to the number for the nose). vice versa number from nose help deduce numbers from eyes. Whatever works, worked.

Wa..... this one took a while for me to understand.
It means these numbers are a "Family", so whatever math sentences you make, you could only use the family of numbers.

Where can I get worksheets accordingly to Lesson Plan by the school term?  Popular Bookshop?
These questions are totally different from the online ones that we've been practicing..........
You know, half the time my mind is racking to device a plan for Colin too. I must make time for him and develop a short and effective method to let him learn. That boy is so cheeky. Read to him a Chinese book, he mimic my voice in a squeaky animated voice. He's never serious. Are boys born this way? 
 

Pictorial Number Sentences 

Chinese 汉语拼音音调符号 Grammar

Her pencil broke four times.... pardon the handwriting.

Half marks taken for writing 'f ' the mirrored way. Such a unrelated error, cannot give chance meh?

 This one (above) is from enrichment class. 

See word #3 ju qi -- isn't ju supposedly is in second tone?  举起 ju (2) qi (3)- raise

I thought there was an error in print, so I asked a fellow Mama. 

She says that when two words with 3rd tone come together, the first word will be switched to 2nd tone. (That's like Ping Ying 音调 grammar?)  So I asked, if that's the case, shouldn't we write the tone in 2nd tone since we pronounce it that way and precisely the 音调符号's main purpose is to help us pronounce. She says no, we will still have to write the original 3rd tone because the word itself is in 3rd tone. In this case even though we read it in 2nd tone, we still will have to write in 3rd hence the print is correct. 

Wa...... win liao lor.   

I will surely confuse Kiki with Ping Ying Grammar if that's the case. 

音调 is to help us pronounce correctly. we write both in 3rd tones and then read them otherwise, surely at this point in time Kiki will be confused because I'm telling her the rules changes. Had the kids had more foundation, then they will be able to distinguish an exception. So now not only have they not caught foothold of the foundation, they have to know there are exceptions. Well, let's hope exceptions remain scarce and we'll gain momentum with learning the basics.

Show & Tell

Chinese & English Show & Tell

I asked what she wants to bring for the Show & Tell session. She says she wanna bring her Touch. 

"Touch" is the cow shaped foam neck rest she uses as her 臭臭 (security transitional object), an item she almost can't do without during bedtime. Since young, she finds comfort in touching prints, like a print on T-shirts or in this case, the cow-patch prints on the 臭臭. We have been trying to find a replacement cow. If I ever see this cow again, I will buy... two more, and double-stitch its seams because we've been using this (second) Touch the past four years.  The first time she had to do Show & Tell at childcare, I let her bring Touch to school because I normally just go with the wind, whatever harmless idea she has is fine by me. But this time I said - No. Because this Touch thingy is so personal! How to share about this with 28 other students? Some more what are you gonna talk about your Touch? So now she has to think about what other item to bring to Show & Tell. Colin never needed the pacifier nor any security transitional object like the 臭臭. He is less insecure I guess. I think the 臭臭 phenomena is not gender biased, there are boys who use the 臭臭 until they are eleven or twelve. The same 臭臭 for a decade even. I never had the luxury of a 臭臭, there is no such a thing as "insecurity" in a household ran by a strong, dominating woman but that's another story.

Glad that we've been given the guidelines:-

Just zoom in to 3-star zone and focus on Delivery of Speech, Engagement of Audience, Content & Language Structure.

• Audible throughout
• Maintain eye contact with audience 
• Sustain interest by using body language & props
• Details, description, explanation, elaboration
•  Speak in complete, complex sentences

 

Exploring P1 Online

Many parents are full of complaints. They feel that the school takes for granted that the parents have given their kids a head-start in extra curricular enrichment classes and that four weeks into P1, the expectations from the child is unrealistic. To a certain extent, that's true. But what is the use of complaining? If you go on and on and on and on, that's wasted energy. For me, I will do within my means to seek resources. Of course the easy way out is to send Kiki to Math & English enrichment on top of Chinese which she's taking but I think I wanna hold out, hopefully hold out until P3?  Not sure if I would be able to but I will just do within my means.

The school had introduced two resource websites to us. One focuses on Math, the other - English, Chinese, Math, and General Knowledge (Encyclopaedia Britannica). I feel that's wonderful! So many things to use and learn. Just need to familiarize ourselves with the Apps, it's the same with any distance learning programme, the lesson plans are there, exercises are there, homework are there. Anything else that we may need, just go seek further from teachers, books and if you're lucky; friends, not limiting to online resources. 

Well, to each his own, I am not here to convince anyone. I am here to learn to cope with our educational system and to manage the well-being of my children, to manage their health, comfort and happiness. That's all. 

So, last night, as I was in my showers, Kiki asked- Mama, it's not 10 yet, can we play the Math games later?  Me- Oh sure, but I have to hurry, it's 9.35.... they will be closed at 10. (yes, there's a clock in my bathroom) So I quickly showered and we logged in to see what challenge-sums are there.

Waa.. quite challenging lei. Shall explain to her about these kind of questions another time.

 Encyclopaedia Britannica- many topics

 Chinese

 So SILLY!  I got it wrong twice and the programme kicked me out.
Based on the boy's facial expression, isn't is "Oh!"  so I chose O in first tone but it was wrong. So I thought okay, Oh! in fourth tone, like OH! expression. Still wrong!

After I attempted the second question, did I realise-- oh,,,, it was O in third tone. as in Wo (Me) 我. The picture is showing the boy pointing himself- "Me". But I don't know why the test is only on AEIOU, where is the beginning alphabet?

Anyway. Ha ha. 

Supposedly Yu (with two dots above u)

 

Math "Number Bond"

 Lots of English stuff-- Nouns, Verbs, Articles, Adjectives, Adverbs, Connectors, Preposition, Grammar. Isn't this wonderful?

School Time Table 2016

 With this chart, I only need to look out for the icons to pack the school bag because every day there's English, Chinese & Math, so that's standard.  P.E means to use the other pair of track shoes, Tree means bring Social Studies activity book, Book means extensive reading & Painting Pallet means bring the oil pastel crayons & plastic cup.

Primary 1 Registration

After years of wanting to apply to Tao Nan, we changed plans at the 11th hour and applied with Ngee Ann. Upon making that decision, I felt my shoulders lightened and stress halved. Phew...... no need to take whatever mandatory higher Chinese. As it is, the regular, standard Chinese may be challenging enough for us. Along with everything else.

The confirmation letter finally arrived in the mails yesterday. Yeah! We're in!

TEST DRIVE TO THE LOCATION 2 WEEKS PRIOR TO APPLICATION DATE

The P1 registration is quite an intense event for many parents, especially first-time P1 parents trying to get to either a popular school or a school within walking vicinity, worse still if the school within walking vicinity is popular or over-subscribed. 

 

Few weeks before our registration date, I mulled over the possibility of applying to Ngee Ann Primary School. The only "draw back" for me was that logistically, it takes about 20 mins to walk there, how are we to send her to school so early in the morning and then beat the traffic from East to West. Some more.... next year MAYBE no car liao........or should I say -- likely no car liao. my logistics might become dreadful...  (Maricar has to settle Colin's school.. so),  the return trip should be okay, etc. etc. running thoughts. Anyway, we discussed and Bren was supportive of the change in plans given that we've got a better chance with Ngee Ann since we're within 1km also.

 29 JULY 2015, PRIMARY 1 REGISTRATION DAY

 
I do know that the academic road ahead may not be fun everyday, but we will try our best to ride the wave. After six years of prenatal care, postnatal enrichment, the time has come for a new phase in Primary school education. I need to rest before I can carry on. So........ let me rot a little bit.
(and they say the REAL challenge is during P4 & P5!)  Whatever!