Christy @ Kidsrsimple, Author at Kids 'R' Simple

Cold Storage Kids Run 2017 – 10th Year Running!

Cold Storage Kids Run 2017 is celebrating their 10th Anniversary this year! It has become one of our must-go run every year. Now, for every run, there is a goal or cause to it (Please don’t just run for the sake of the goodie bag!). For Cold Storage Kids Run, it is aimed at promoting the goals of healthy eating, active living and spending quality family time through running together. This is so in line with what our family does, especially in bonding together!

Poster Mummy and Boy! That’s Us!

Do you spot who are on the advertising poster this year? It is amazing to see ourselves on it! Many readers told me that they “see” me everywhere! Friends and relatives saw the poster splashing across The Straits Times and message me to ask if that mummy was me! So, yes, the mummy and toddler in hand are ME and my Master 5! This picture was taken on our first Cold Storage Kids Run in 2015. I can still remember the cameraman flashed his camera at us non-stop the moment we crossed the starting line! We are so honoured to be chosen as the Poster Mummy and Boy very much to our surprise!

2 Adults can join family run!

Cold Storage Kids Run remains to be our favourite kids run event. Why is that so? You can read it all here in this post! Best of all, the organisers hear participants’ feedback and this year they allow 2 Adults to join their kid in the family fun run! In previous years, only 1 Adult can join the child and it was only me running with my youngest and I would have love for the Daddy to join as well! I am so glad that this year they made this change!

This year is also the last year that my Missy 12 can participate with us as she will not be qualified as a “child” next year. So, this run is really very special to us to be able to participate together as a family. It is also the first time that all 5 of us will get a Cold Storage Kids Run running tee each! The categories that we sign up for are Speedy Orange, Sporty Apple and AIA Vitality Family Fun Run.

Where’s the venue?

If you do not already know from the poster, this run is held at Palawan Green, Sentosa on 28 May 2017, which is a fresh change from the usual venue of Gardens by the Bay. Expect to breathe the sea air, and enjoy the sun and sand (hopefully not too hot!). Flag time has also been pushed back slightly to 715am to minimise rush and congestion for a better run experience.

What are the Categories?

Here are the Categories available in Cold Storage Kids Run 2017:

Runner Entitlements (child):

Limited Edition Cold Storage Kids Run 10th Anniversary Running Tee
Limited Edition Cold Storage Kids Run Bag
Exclusive Cold Storage Kids Run Finisher’s Medal
Limited Edition Cold Storage Kids Run Fan
Limited Edition Cold Storage Kids Run Water Bottle
Finisher Race Certificate*
Fantastic Sentosa Offers and Vouchers
Free Admission Into Sentosa

For more information and to look at the pictures of what is in the goodie bag, click here.

Discount Code!!

Do use our discount code in the poster above OR below to register and you will get 10% off! This code is valid from now till 10 April 2017.

KRSREF17

Race Day Details
Date: 28 May 2017 (Sunday)
Location: Palawan Green, Sentosa Island (next to Beach Station)
Time: 715am – 12pm
Registration period: Now – 10 April 2017 at www.kidsrun.com.sg
Activities include a family carnival, and lots of fun activities (to be updated)!
Don’t forget to check out their facebook page for updates once you have registered.

Hope to see you there! 🙂

PSLE Series – How We Learn Comprehension (The No Tuition Way)

We have been doing our #30minrevision every weeknight and only concentrating on nothing but English. We leave the Science and Math revision to the weekends when we have more time. The reason why we concentrate hard on English shows how I value the importance of the English subject. And it is also easier for us to concentrate on language rather than the heavy kind of revision in calculation or theories on the limited attention span on weeknights.

I wanted to catch more eyeballs with a header that says “Ace your way in Comprehension” but I thought since our self-learnt method is not tried and tested, I had better be humble to share this post on how we learn Comprehension, the no tuition way.

As most of you may have known that I learnt a lot of good tips from the PSLE Parent Workshop for English by Marshall Cavendish Education. I shared my learning with Missy 12 over 4 blocks of #30minrevision in 4 weeknights.

1st weeknight of #30minrevision – Reading Comprehension and explaining to her how to draw arrows on the Comprehension passage and infer.

2nd weeknight – Read Comprehension Questions and explain to her how to do highlighting on the questions. Then read the Comprehension passage a 2nd time to understand more in depth and relate to Questions. Start doing the Questions until 30 min is up.

3rd weeknight – Continuing doing the Comprehension Questions. Then check answers and explain mistakes. Try a 2nd Comprehension passage all over again starting from reading the comprehension passage once.

4th weeknight – Do the same steps as above to complete 2nd Comprehension passage and complete questions. This time round, Missy 12 could do it faster because she has grasped the Comprehension skills and concept.

6 Steps in Learning the Comprehension Skills

Step 1: Reading the Passage

This is the most important step to score in Comprehension! If one does not read properly and understand what the passage in depth, he/she will waste much time in answering the questions because he/she will have to refer back and forth and scan through to re-read several times. I told Missy 12 to spend more time to read the passage carefully and understand the passage as much as she can, once she is able to understand the passage, she will save lots of time when doing the Comprehension questions. It will be faster than skimping through the passage and dive right into the questions, only to have most of them answered wrongly.

Step 2: Annotate as you Read

I learnt this step from the PSLE Parent Workshop. There are many words in a passage that refer to one another. Sometimes, the reference of the words are not obvious and one has to infer (deduce or conclude) from the story to understand what the words are referring to. For example in the picture below, the word “a ten-year-old boy” is referring to “Wesley Binks“. And Missy 12 will draw an arrow to join these 2 inferences together. The word “It” highlighted in yellow is referring to the “firework”, hence, Missy 12 will similarly draw an arrow to connect both together for her understanding. While it may seem obvious, it helps readers to not get lost in the passage.

You may ask if this is a time-waster in examinations. Well, I told Missy 12 that as long as she annotates during her regular Comprehension practices, she will annotate faster as she gets the hang of it and she can even annotate less during the examinations. What is important here is to first UNDERSTAND the passage.

Look at the picture below, I teach my girl to write down meaning of phrases. For example, “feathers were still a little ruffled” means “angry“. So, what if she does not know the meaning of the word or phrase? I realised that it is good to make a guess and look one sentence above and one sentence below or within the same sentence for clues. I have gone through with her a few times and I find this trick works most of the time.

Step 3: Read the Questions and Highlight

Make a habit to highlight tenses and keywords in the questions. This will remind the child to answer in the right tense. Actually, most of the answers are usually in past tense for most Comprehension passages, unless the passage is a non-fiction passage. Then, you will spot most present tense usage in the passage anyway.

Step 4: Read the Passage a SECOND Time

Reading the passage a second time is very important. Usually, we will understand the passage better or catch the details that we had left out in the first read. This time round, when reading, do ask questions to yourself and answer them. In the Workshop, we learnt that this is a good habit to get used to. When one ask questions in the head and answer these questions, he/she will tend to get closer to the answers to the questions that examiners set, because examiners set the questions with the same kind of thought process in mind! In fact, when we get used to answering our own questions, we are training our mind to be analytical too!

Step 5: Answer the Questions

This is the time to answer the questions and I remind my girl: DON’T BE LAZY TO FLIP BACK AND REFER TO THE PASSAGE AGAIN AND AGAIN! I find that sometimes she tends to answer questions with her memory instead of flipping back the paper to refer to the passage. If the answer is in the passage, do not let go of a chance to get the answer right! Do not depend on just memory alone!!!

Step 6: Check G.P.S.

What is G.P.S.? Not the navigation of course! Get your child in the habit of checking Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling! There is bound to be mistakes! Never give up on checking carefully. I told my girl to point to each word when she reads her answer just to be sure she is using the right tense and right spelling.

The above 6 steps are how I want my girl to go through each Comprehension passage from now on. In fact, I told her if she gets the habit of doing these steps, it will help her go a long way into Secondary School when Comprehension passages are much tougher.

If you like this post and find it useful, do share with your friends who are struggling in Comprehension or preparing for PSLE like us. I want to selflessly teach everyone what I know and how I teach my children in academics. I do have a small ambition: To inspire more parents to go the NO-TUITION route like us! Let’s save money and save time for our children to play and unwind more! I think there is more to life than academic and tuition.

You may follow us in the NO TUITION PSLE SERIES by clicking on the link or follow us on instagram to see how we learn in our daily #30minrevision. And if you have a P5 kid, do hop over to DinoMama, a fellow mummy blogger who has started to document some good study tips from her daily revision with her son too.

Hope this post is useful to everyone out there who has a kid in school! Stay tune for the next post!

PSLE English Workshop for Parents – How to Tackle The English Paper

This is not an Adult English Course, in case you are wondering. It is more of a crash course in understanding how to tackle the English Language Paper in PSLE. All of us were there to learn tips and how to teach our children. Some parents were more interested in knowing how to obtain A* for the paper, some wanted cheat sheets that the private tuition centres have and school teachers do not, and for me, I want to learn as much as I can and incorporate into our daily 30 min revision of English with my Missy 12. I am there to absorb knowledge and learn how to teach, not so much as to obtain A*.

Spanning over 2 Saturdays of 6 hours each, the parents, including me, who attended the Marshall Cavendish Education PSLE English Workshop for Parents certainly wasted no time in learning.. PSLE English!

This is not an Adult English Course, in case you are wondering. It is more of a crash course in understanding how to tackle the English Language Paper in PSLE. All of us were there to learn tips and pass our takeaways to our children. Some parents were more interested in knowing how to obtain A* for the paper, some wanted cheat sheets that the private tuition centres have and school teachers do not, and for me, I want to learn as much as I can and incorporate into our daily 30 min revision of English with my Missy 12. I am there to absorb knowledge and learn how to teach, not so much as to obtain A*.

I think for many of us, we came out from the workshop feeling that we had squeezed the trainer all his possible knowledge in the PSLE English paper. The best part is, the trainer was super accommodating and selfless in sharing his tips and such. All in all, for me, I have learnt lots in the 12 hours of workshop!

The trainer is Joel Lim, who had conducted an enjoyable workshop for my Missy 12 a couple of weeks back in the PSLE English Workshop for Student. You may read about what she learnt in this post.

We learnt about the format of the English paper and weightage of marks, Comprehension, Letter-writing, Situational writing, Essays, Synthesis and Transformation, Comprehension Cloze, Oral, Listening Comprehension and many other details to look out for when attempting the English paper. Joel gave a very good advice before we started the workshop proper:

Listen to your child more, and Speak Less.

How true and what a timely reminder! Often, we fail to LISTEN attentively to our child when they talk, and more often than not, I find my voice filling the air from the moment I come home from work till they sleep. It certainly does not seem healthy!

Now, let’s see what we have learnt in each segment in the English language paper.

On Composition

Joel taught us Composition tactics. He shared to us from the examiner’s point of view when reading and marking a composition. Not only that, he printed examples of composition from a weak writer, an average writer and a strong writer. In the class, he analysed the writing skills and trademarks of different kinds of writers. This certainly helps me greatly in teaching my girl what to look out for and how not to fall into these pit holes. I shall be sharing more on what I have learnt from the workshop in my PSLE Series on Composition writing soon.

On Comprehension

He used a past PSLE Comprehension Passage and taught us the steps in tackling it:
1) Read the passage (and read again for a second time)
2) Annotation
3) Ask Questions and Answer them in your head
4) Complete Questions

He drew arrows on the passage and explained to us how he infers and asks questions in his head when reading the passage carefully. It may seem tedious but I find it very useful to teach my Missy 12 with the details of going through word by word, phrase by phrase and sentence by sentence. I believe with sufficient practices, she will get into the habit of ‘Inferencing’ and able to answer questions more confidently.

On Synthesis and Transformation

We were recommended some good assessment books and it is really up to individual to review if these books suit the styles of your child. Joel went through the following book on Synthesis and Transformation which I immediately went to buy from Popular bookstore. I find the layout of the book helpful in presenting transformed words in table form, and addressing some difficult ones like “who and whom” usage in synthesis. Do check this out and see if it suits your child.

One thing we learnt is that for Synthesis and Transformation questions, there are no half marks and hence, either your child get full 2 marks or he/she will get zero mark even for a missing word. Thus, practicing more questions is probably the key to tackling this segment.

On Comprehension Cloze

We briefly touched on this and Joel had shared the following pointers from again another “My Friend Has Diarrhea” kind of abbreviations for easy remembrance: Round Aunty Farts Chocolate Rainbows!
Round – Read once first to get background information
Aunty – Annotate: summarise, drawing arrows to relate, asking questions and answering them
Farts – Fill in the blanks with as many words as you can think of in pencil
Chocolate – Choose the best answer for each question
Rainbows – Read again, use instinct to judge appropriateness of answers

Well, there are quite many ways that I have learnt on tackling Comprehension Cloze from various sources. Hence, I shall similarly share on my PSLE Series blog posts with one on tackling the Comprehension Cloze. Stay tune!

On Oral and Listening Comprehension

Joel recommended another good book for this segment. I really emphathize with our children these days. Even something so simple and easy to score like ‘Listening Comprehension’ and ‘Oral’ need strategies and a dedicated assessment book for them. I remembered we had never needed to prepare for them during our PSLE times! But, now, the PSLE standard has up many notches and Oral is really similar to an interview session in my opinion. Perhaps, if I were to take the PSLE Oral, I may not get good marks too since I tend to stutter or tongue-tied at impromptu questions, especially if the topic is not so much of my interest!

Do spend some time to go to Popular Bookstore to hunt for this book and read the tips given. I find that some are quite common sense and some are really good tips. But given the limited time, I would not be able to prepare my girl much for Oral and Listening Comprehension. Maybe, I should start prepping her during our conversations on bus rides to get her used to speaking and quick thinking.

Apart from sharing tips and tricks on all the English Paper sections, Joel is very kind to share his own resources on “Commonly Mis-spelt words” and Synthesis and Transformation Rules table among other things. We could feel that he understood why we would drop all schedule to spend 2 Saturdays learning from him. And he genuinely wanted to help us parents to help our own children.

After his workshop, I tested out the tips on my girl and for the first time, seriously, she answered 8 questions in a top school Comprehension passage correctly! While I am not expecting miracles, I can tell that my girl is gaining confidence in doing her English paper. By and by, I am sure we will get there!

Marshall Cavendish has 1 more Parent Workshop in this series:
PSLE Math Workshop For Parents
Date: 1 & 8 April (2 Saturdays in total)
Venue: Times Centre
Time: 9am – 430pm
Fees: $180

Do check out the website for more information and upcoming workshops.
I have a timetable here on the upcoming ones for your reference:

Disclaimer: I was invited to attend the Marshall Cavendish Education PSLE English Workshop for Parents. Thank you MCE and PR company for the chance to learn and teach my children. I strongly recommend concerned parents to attend MCE Workshops which I really benefited a lot!

The Goodness of Foam Rollers with Primero Fitness

If you are a regular fitness person, chances are that you already know what are FOAM ROLLERS and how they can help to complement your fitness regime. In fact, some swear by it to reduce cellulite if you use it regularly to massage those cellulite areas. Well, let’s see how we use the Primero Fitness Foam Rollers to relieve muscle aches, back aches and my knee pain.

The PaperClip Foam Roller

HoneyComb Trigger Matrix stimulates blood flow and recovery
Great for making yoga, pilates, and home workouts more challenging
Gentle on injured and vulnerable areas
Does not flake, chip or deform – even under heavy use
Waterproof & easy-to-clean
Passed EU’s stringent limits for carcinogens, formamide, and other harmful agents

The Centenarian Foam Roller

Firm enough to manipulate moderately tight tissue without extreme pain
Flexible enough to provide shear forces crucial to myofascial release during foam rolling
Does not flake, chip or deform – even under heavy use
Waterproof & easy-to-clean
Passed EU’s stringent limits for carcinogens, formamide, and other harmful agents
3 different intensities relieves chronic pain in any muscle group
Indestructible Core
Additional 100-Year Juggernaut Warranty

For Knee Pain and Relief of Muscle Aches

I have been having knee pain recently when I jog for more than 2 km. On one fitness article that I read, using a foam roller to massage my quadriceps will help to loosen the tight muscles above my knees and prevent knee pain. Hence, ever since I have the PaperClip Foam Roller, I have been able to jog for longer distance without knee pain. And using it after my workout is like having a masseur to massage my aching muscles, especially after my weekly Pilates session. Since then, I have introduced to my kids who have intensive volleyball training and they love that the “massaging” effect of the foam rollers on their overworked muscles.

Working on the Quadriceps

Working on the Calves

For Neck Aches or Shoulder Pain

If you do not have a good night’s sleep, and have aching shoulders and aching neck, try massaging your neck and shoulders using the foam rollers too!

You can also use the Centenarian for massaging any muscle group. I like it that it has different grooves for fingers, palms and knuckles. My kids use it for massaging soles!

There are simply too many ways to use the Foam Rollers! It is amazing that the Centenarian Foam Roller is designed to last a lifetime! It has a 100 Year Warranty!

Here are 2 useful INFOGRAPHICS on how to use the Foam Rollers:

Choosing The Right Yoga Mats

Since we are on the topic of fitness, let’s have a look at the 2 Yoga Mats that we are using and how to choose a Yoga Mat.

You may have noticed that in the above photos, we are using 2 Yoga Mats. The olive green one is called the Natural Rubber Mat and the light green one is called the TPE Mat.

We usually spend an hour or more on the Yoga Mat on one workout session and it is important to find one that does not skid as you workout or one that sheds rubber after some time. It is good to invest on a lasting Yoga Mat.

The NatTone Natural Rubber Mat

The Natural Rubber Mat is a very comfortable mat and has a cool feel to it. It is made with premium all-natural eco-friendly materials and the natural rubber is tapped from renewable rubber trees. This is the only skin-health mat with no unnatural toxins and chemicals used during the production process. In fact, this fitness mat is the best of its class. It is also suited for the hot weather in Singapore as its open-cell rubber absorbs oils, odors and perspiration. It is heavier than those PVC Yoga Mats. It has a thickness of 5.2mm and has a very good grip. Your feet will certainly not skid when you do Yoga or Pilates pose. I also like that it comes with a sleek bag for storage.

The TPE Mat

The TPE Mat is a combination of synthetic rubber and non-toxic material, making it safer and stronger than PVC. It comes with a Body Alignment System with the alignment lines to help users to concentrate while adjusting hands and feet to precise position. This keeps your body in proper alignment for effective yoga. The double layer structure design of thickness 6mm, provides optimal grip, excellent cushioning and double-sided non-slip texture, best suited for many forms of Yoga. This mat is lightweight, non-slip and contains no latex, PVC or any harmful chemicals.

Here is another easy guide to choosing a yoga mat:

So now you know how to choose a good Yoga Mat, do remember to head over here to check them out!

Primero Fitness is also launching a Good Posture Campaign: Family, Sit Right!

We find ourselves compromising body postures and sitting long hours in the office, and all these cause body pain here and there. Here is a good and easy way to relief aches in shoulders, back and upper body. Everyone can do it! It is good to do this for a set of 4-8 times daily for 10 seconds to 1 minute.

My kids surely learn fast!

For more information, check these links:

Foam Rollers – The PaperClip, The Centenarian

Yoga Mats – NatTone Natural Rubber Mat, TPE Mat

More on Primero Fitness – Primero Fitness

Disclaimer: We received the foam rollers and yoga mats for the purpose of this review. Hope I can play a part to help reach out to more people with good fitness tips and help relieve body aches with the sharing of this post! Stay fit and healthy!

Ending Feb 2017 with …

February has come to an end and so many things happened in this month! Ever since the December holidays, each and every weekend is filled with numerous activities and I have to decline social gatherings and blog events so that we can all have some downtime! Finally on the last Sunday of February, we were able to rest and relax and kids were able to meet their friends from the next block to play on a lazy Sunday evening.

On the PSLE kid…

Revision progress with my Missy 12 was kind of slow due to her Volleyball tournament. Her team has entered the Nationals and while I cannot wait for her training to end, it seems that all these intensive training sessions will only end 2 more months later. I cannot have any complaint since Volleyball is her passion and she has proven on being disciplined to do her homework on time and self-motivated to study for her CA tests despite her busy schedule.

Her results are still pending release and we are eager to know if she has improved with our daily English revision, although I do not expect miracles within such a short time frame.

On Master 10…

Master 10 has some unfair treatment by me lately. The hub reminded me that I have to be consistent and have good reasons for certain actions. I agreed, felt guilty about my actions and compensated Master 10 in some other ways like reading the newspaper that he brought home from school together. He seems to enjoy listening to my talk on economics, on news like Donald Trump’s presidency, to how Giraffes are attacked when they drink water. He is so different from my girl who tends to drift off when I talk about world news to her. Spending time with Master 10 this way makes me very happy. I have neglected him and I know I cannot make up for the lost time. I need to start now to spend more alone time with him! Gosh! I have said this in January’s wrap up post too!

I have not managed to keep up my 1 – 1 date with each of my children. It is not easy to plan for 3 kids especially when I need to conserve my off days for the year end holidays. March is coming and I already have plans to date Master 10. As for Missy 12 and Master 5, they will have to wait for their turns and hopefully, it will not be a long wait. Luckily I have my short 1 – 1 alone time with Master 5 every Sunday morning when I do marketing, if that counts!

On Master 5…

This boy grows up so fast! He is able to recite the 2 story books that I read to him every night (奇奇乱丢垃圾 and The Sausage Went For A Walk). He is also able to recognize some Chinese Characters and simple English words. I am correcting his grip of the pencil too. He is able to draw very decent picture of people, spiders and Police cars! I love to look at him when he is concentrating on his doodling. I cannot capture enough of his cutie face and I know very soon, he will grow up and I shall miss smelling, kissing and hugging little children. Hence, every milestone that I see in him will be the last time that I will see in my own children. I am starting to feel melancholy.

On my life…

This month sees myself being tested on my EQ greatly. Something happened at work that have made me reflect on how I communicate my intentions to others. A series of misunderstanding had occurred that have led to an unpleasant email directed to me. That mail was copied to my superior too. In the end, I was glad that I kept my cool even though I was greatly affected. I did not reply to the mail and that kind of saved the day. The misunderstanding was clarified and I was even praised by my superior for handling the situation well. Nevertheless, I decided that I have to work on the way I communicate and be more careful in understanding different working styles. This episode has given me chance to handle a tricky situation well although it also cost a friendship. Being a person who values friendship tremendously, I am very sad indeed. Perhaps it is not so easy to find friendship in the workplace even though I had forged several good ones in my previous company. Or perhaps it takes time.

On another front, my own children have been giving me good reminders on my behaviour too. I find that they have been telling me “Chill, Mummy! Chill!” very frequently! Haha! I find myself frowning easily for small things and raising a pitch unnecessarily. If only someone takes a video of myself, then I will know how ugly I have looked and how uncool I am behaving. I need to change!

On happy times…

Master 10 and I have gone on a day’s filming and it was an awesome experience! I find myself not so natural on camera and even tongue-tied during interviews too. It is a Chinese educational show which will be releasing a few months later. Don’t laugh if you see me stuttering in Chinese. I am usually more fluent in Chinese but somehow I was too nervous to speak properly. I shall shout out very soon when it is aired on TV! Hopefully I do not look too bad! Stay tune!

On the 2nd volume of 新列车, the kids appeared on the cover together with their friends! Yeah!

We celebrated Missy 12’s birthday this month with an Ice-Skating party with her friends. It was a cosy gathering and guess what, this was also her first party with friends. We hardly spent too much on parties and this is quite an exception, but I am glad she enjoyed herself and we all think she deserved a good party with her graduating friends.

We turned up to give Missy 12 support in her Volleyball competition too. Surprisingly, only her school has a good turnout of parent supporters. I cannot fathom why there were no parent supporters in the rest of the schools. Are they too busy to make some time to watch a match? Could it possibly be ALL the parents are not able to spare an hour to support their children? My girl and her friends are all too happy to have their mums and dads to turn up for support. I believe our support has made a difference too. I am sure we will see even more parent supporters from her school in the Nationals competition.

So, my February ends with… making time for the children and working on better communication. I hope March will be a better month!

How did your February go? 🙂