Christy @ Kidsrsimple, Author at Kids 'R' Simple

PSLE Series – How We Learn English

I must admit that Primary School English these days is so much more difficult than what we learnt in our own Primary School years. We never had Comprehension Cloze! We never had Editing! We never learn the word “Prospectus” and whatever is that? We only know MCQs, Comprehension, perhaps some fill in the blanks but with helping words and we only know the word “Leaflet”.

I must admit that Primary School English these days is so much more difficult than what we learnt in our own Primary School years. We never had Comprehension Cloze! We never had Editing! We never learn the word “Prospectus” and whatever is that? We only know MCQs, Comprehension, perhaps some fill in the blanks but with helping words and we only know the word “Leaflet“.

If my own English is not good enough to score a Primary 6 Exam Paper, how do I teach this subject to my girl, especially when we have no tuition?

I am currently learning along with my kids whenever I teach them on this subject. I feel that I am re-learning English all over again and I am appreciating the specific usage of tenses, and even simple things like punctuation! I find myself flipping through the dictionary often and explaining the meaning to Missy 12, sometimes in Chinese. Apparently my Chinese is better than English by a great margin. Maybe because Chinese is so much more straightforward without complicated Grammar rules and phrasal verbs. I feel so paralyzed by my lack of English vocabulary words that I regret tremendously not having read enough books when I was young.

Hence, my number one advice in learning English is really to READ MORE BOOKS! No hard and fast formula, just READ, READ and READ!

Kel and I decided to devise an English learning plan for Missy 12 starting from January this year. It is kind of late and we get interrupted on our schedule due to the intensive volleyball training that sees my girl returning late and tired. I have yet to see results since there is only one school test so far, which is taking place as I type. But I have certainly put more ticks than crosses on Missy 12’s English assessment book lately, and that has been encouraging enough to raise her confidence.

I will be elaborating on a few methods that are shared by kind friends and even strangers. Although some are not yet tried and tested on my girl yet, I would still wish to share with you as maybe some of you are struggling like us on doing a crash course on English and would not be able to wait for our verdict at the end of the year. I would suggest that if you do use these methods, please DO NOT bet 100% on them to create miracles over a short time. You can, of course, use them as a guide or try them out on your own, or tweak them to suit your child’s learning ways as you wish.

Our Daily 30 minutes English Revision

I use the Longman Mastering English Grammar & Vocabulary book recommended by a good friend (The picture below from Google image shows Hodder Education, but it is the same. Popular Bookstore is selling Longman publisher). It is separated by topics and each topic has exercises to test the understanding of the student. I also bought a Complete Practice Book for Grammar, Vocabulary & Comprehension to help me test my girl’s understanding of what was taught.

First of all, I assign each topic, for example, Nouns, to be taught by me in one week. Then once the topic on Nouns is completed, we concentrate on the Complete Practice book on the second week on the same topic, Nouns. Hence, this is a 2 weeks block for each topic. If the topic needs more time, for example, on Tenses, then it will be 2 weeks teaching, 2 weeks practices.

Secondly, I prep my girl that we will have daily 30 minutes of English revision. I emphasized that it will only be 30 minutes and not more than that, hence, she should be able to give full concentration during these 30 minutes. I find that prepping her on this revision plan helps greatly. Both of us know that it will only be 30 minutes and not more or less, as compared to a stretchable time period that may see both of us losing concentration and patience.

On the first week
For the first 15 minutes, I will be teaching a topic on Grammar and once 15 minutes is up, I will stop teaching.
For the next 15 minutes, she will start doing exercises in the Longman book for 10 minutes and final 5 minutes will be marking and explaining mistakes.

On the second week
For the first 15 minutes, Missy 12 will do as many exercises as she can on the Complete Practice book.
For the next 15 minutes, I will mark and go through the mistakes with her.

The above is our lesson plan for English revision. Both of us are surprised at how fast 30 minutes pass us by and the real challenge is calling it a day after 30 minutes! I have to stop my urge to continue beyond that but since I have promised that it will be a 30 minute revision, I have to keep to it.

So far, apart from some interrupted schedule like Chinese New Year break and days that she returned late and too tired for any revision, it has been working out fine for us. I can also see her improvement in understanding the topic more in depth. This is certainly better compared to my previous way of assigning numerous practices for her to do in the afternoon while I was at work and then marking the practices and explaining to her on another day. She has given feedback that she understands English Grammar better now than previously blindly doing assessment books.

Tackling Comprehension Cloze

This method is with courtesy from a close friend.
I learnt that most students fail this section badly, and perhaps including me too! There are no helping words and unless you read newspapers regularly and read widely, chances are the students will have no clue on what words to fill in.

Tips: I learnt that for each word to be filled up, there will be clues around the word to hint at the right answer. Although this is not always the case as some are phrasal verbs, this method can still be applied for most of the words. You can find these clues in 1-2 sentences before or after the word.
Below are some clues that I have tried to find with my girl. For example: the highlighted words are clue to the blank word, like “read and write” hints to you that the blank is “school“, “determination” hints that the earlier word is “determined“, “raked the ground” and “harvesting” hint that the next answer is “planting” the seeds.

Memorizing Method

This method is shared by a stranger whom I had a chance to learn an unorthodox way of crash course English. I have not tried this method yet, but it seems a possible approach when one is running out of time. Do let me know what you think of this method!

Since we are talking about running out of time to clam all English words into the brain of a 12 yo, memorizing answers on practice papers may be a good way for some students. Basically, for all MCQs on English Vocabulary or Grammar options on practice papers (In this case, we bought the English set of practice papers called “Primary 6 English Exam Package by PhD Education” from Popular but have yet to try it out), parents can highlight the right word option in yellow and write down the meaning of the word beside the right word. So, that means that Parents have to be diligent to DO the practice paper for the child! For the rest of the wrong words, the stranger shared that there will be NO TIME to go through them and those will not need to pay attention to. In fact, highlighting in yellow aids the child to remember better and whenever the child comes across the same sentence or similar phrase, he or she will be remembering that this “Right Word” will go hand in hand with these words before and after. Whoa! Does this even make sense?

Now before you go all out to dismiss this unorthodox method, let me share a success story of a Korean family whose son joined his Secondary 1 class in June, half way into the academic year for the first time in Singapore. Everyday, his stay home mother would spend time to underline words in a comprehension passage or books that she thought her son did not know and write down the meaning of the word in a separate notebook. When the father came back from work, he would spend time going through these words and his son would re-read and memorize till he understood the words and sentences. This went on for 3 months before the son took his first English examination. Guess what? He did it well enough to move on to Sec 2! This is from a boy who did not know much English to taking English medium classes and passing an English Exam within 3 months period!

So perhaps this unorthodox method may help for some.

Composition

My girl attended the Marshall Cavendish Education PSLE English Workshop for students. They shared about plot twists and My “Friend Has Diarrhea” way of concluding plus some Synthesis tips. I shall not repeat them here. You may check out the post here for what she had learnt and happily applied to her recent Composition Test.

That’s all for my sharing of teaching and learning English at home. Do you have tips and ideas on tackling the English Paper? Please, please share with me and all other readers so that we can learn from each other!

Disclaimer: These methods are not meant to be in any way official guides to learning English. Some are tried and tested and some are not. Some methods may work for me but may not work for you. I do hope that by sharing some of the methods that I have heard and used or not used, some parents out there may find them beneficial for their children. I really welcome comments and even your own tips, so that whoever reads this post, is able to learn and hopefully take away some positive ideas 🙂

5 Ways of Safe Cleaning with Dapple

What are the common products that mothers have for cleaning when it comes to babies and young children?
For sure, every mother will need wet wipes for messy times, bottle and breastpump cleaner, toy and highchair cleaner, surface cleaners and laundry detergent that are safe for delicate skin.

{Product Review}

1. Wet Wipes

Well, my kids have grown to be big kids now, but Master 5 still makes quite a mess when it comes to meal times. We still carry wet wipes with us wherever we go. It is useful for me to wipe their hands, and even my own hands. We use it to wipe high chair and hawker centre tables too. These wipes are also useful in the car and when we go to the beach or family outings. We cannot leave the house without wet wipes!

2. Bottle Cleaner

As for bottle cleaner, well, don’t judge, but I let my kids drink from the milk bottle till early primary! Yes! Simply because they enjoy drinking from milk bottle plus, I do not want them to give up drinking milk early. Once they transition to cup, they will give up drinking formula milk or drink lesser of fresh milk. Hence, we are using the bottle cleaner for Master 5’s milk bottles as well as for the kids’ water bottles.

I find that pumping a squirt of bottle cleaner into NEW water bottles and filling water to the brim and soak for 2 hours help to remove the new factory odour too. The Dapple ‘PURE AND CLEAN’ Bottles and Dishes cleaner will be super useful. In fact, it targets milk residue and uses baking soda to combat odour. It is made with Plant-based ingredients and free of all the harmful chemicals like phthalates, parabens, SLS, SLES and dyes. I like that it has a mild Apple-Pear fragrance. They come in Lavendar, Apricot, Mango-Lemon and Fragrance Free too. The travel size bottle will be perfect for holidays and staycations!

3. Toys and High Chair Cleaner

What do I use to clean for toys and high chair at home? Depending on the kind of toys, if they are good for soaking, I will dilute Dettol into a pail of water to disinfect and thorough cleaning. These are usually non-battery operated plastic toys like LEGO blocks. And if they are not suitable to be soaked in water, I will spray with Dapple Toy and High Chair Cleaner on a piece of damp cloth and wipe them. I like that this is a spray bottle and easy to spray on chairs at home and wipe clean with a damp cloth. Even my Master 5 can do this house chore! Just like the Bottle and Dishes cleaner, the Dapple Toy and High Chair Cleaner is free of the same harmful chemicals too.

4. Nursery Cleaner

Interestingly, Dapple products include the Dapple Nursery Cleaner too. I love this one to bits. Why? Because it can be sprayed onto any surface and remove grime, sticky finger prints, and even doodles on walls! It is a fast way to clean up kids’ tables, chairs and residue on the floors or shelves. Just spray and wipe off. You will have a peace of mind that this is free of harmful chemicals again!

5. Laundry Detergent

Lastly, the choice of Laundry detergent for young children’s clothes need special attention. This is certainly so for sensitive baby skin and eczema condition. Master 10 has eczema and using the right laundry detergent is very important to not trigger flare ups. Many of those laundry detergents that come with fragrance could potentially be a problem when it comes to sensitive skin. Dapple Laundry Detergent is hypoallergenic and fragrance free, in fact it is made without SLS, SLES, artificial fragrances, dyes, parabens, phthalates, 1,4-dioxane, chlorine, formaldehyde, optical brighteners, and alcohol. Hence, I have reserved this safe laundry detergent for Master 10 and Master 5’s clothes while the rest of the family use normal laundry detergent.

You will be happy to know that all the Dapple bottles are BPA-free too!

If you are wondering what are SLS, SLES, and why are formaldehyde a no-no ingredient in your choices of liquid cleaners or even shampoos, bath, check out this informative chemical list.

Discount Code Alert!

dapple15christy

Use the above discount code to enjoy 15% discount off all Dapple products on Dearbaby webstore and Dearbaby @ Jem (#04-45). Note that this code is valid until 28 February 2017. Do take note that the webstore requires a minimum $20 order for processing.

Happy Cleaning!

PSLE Student English Workshop by Marshall Cavendish Education

I think by now most of you know that I am exploring ways to teach my own P6 girl since she does not have tuition. In fact, I am looking at whether there are tuition centres for parents like me. Mummy Ed knows me well for sure, and introduce me to the series of Parent Workshops by Marshall Cavendish Education (hey, I am sure you have heard of MCONLINE!). It has all levels from P1 to P6 Coaching Workshops meant for parents to attend. I am definitely most interested in PSLE Parent Workshops!

But before I attend the PSLE Parent Workshops, I realized that they have PSLE Student Workshops too! Hence, I decided to coax my girl into skipping her art classes to attend the English Workshop since the dates worked out well for us. Each of the Student and Parent Workshops consists of a 2-part series, meaning that you have to attend 2 Saturdays for each subject upon sign up, usually from 9am to 3pm or 430pm depending on which subject it is.

In the English Student Workshop over 2 Saturdays which my girl and her friend had attended, they learnt the following:

The 5 Deadly Character Flaws – crafting a story from the inside-out!
- At the heart of every good story lies a flawed character who wants to/learns how to change.
- The 5 Flaws: Greed, Laziness, Anger, Envy, Pride
Unexpected (yet logical) plot twists!
- Identity shifts, unexpected consequences, defying the reader’s expectations
The 1-2 Punch Method of Combining Sentences
- Strategy for Synthesis & Transformation
The importance of asking the right questions (at the right time) – what is “right” anyway?
- Tenacity in asking questions – even if it means stinging your ego
- Situation Awareness – Jump out of your inner world sometimes!
- Classical Cases of People Asking the Right Questions who changed the world!

When I picked up the girls after the first session, I was anxious to know if skipping her usual art class for this workshop was a right decision. To my delight, both the girls gave their thumbs up! They enjoyed the workshop tremendously mainly because of one reason: the teacher (Teacher Joel) was a very humorous guy who cracks them up for the entire 6 hours. To enjoy the workshop is really the key to absorbing what has been taught. For this, the workshop is already a success with the right teacher!

The first part of this workshop is teaching them on writing a composition using the 5 character flaws, interesting plot twists, and ending with a funny Coda strategy: MFHD. Guess what it is?! It means:

M:My – Memories
F:Friend – Feelings
H:Has – Hopes
D:Diarrhoea – Decisions

The first two are for REFLECTING ON THE PAST, and the next two are for REFLECTING ON THE FUTURE. This is used for the last concluding paragraph.

IMG-20170204-WA0001 — Photo with courtesy from MCE

IMG-20170204-WA0003 — Photo with courtesy from MCE

During the class, Teacher Joel asked them to act out the character flaws. It really helped them to remember clearly on each point covered in class. And when the students handed up their composition homework the next Saturday, Teacher Joel made a funny remark about my girl’s starting words of “One day,…” which made her laugh hard, and you bet she will probably never use that start line again!

On the second Saturday, the girls returned to the second part of the workshop learning how to work on Synthesis and Transformation questions using the 1-2 Punch Method. Basically, it is about the order of action just like in boxing punch of rapid succession of 2 blows. Well, what a way to describe the method to imprint on the students’ minds. Even I had a deep impression reading about this 1-2 Punch Method. Seriously I was wondering if the handouts were prepared by Teacher Joel too, since the contents are kind of humorous! And there is a TOP SECRET handout that says “For your eyes only” which has a formula table for all kinds of conjunctions.

When I picked up the girls after the end of the second class, they couldn’t stop talking about the class titbits. It is certainly worth skipping two art classes to attend such an interesting workshop and learning these extra tips on English.

Today, my girl had her English Paper 1 CA test. She came back and told me she had used a plot twist and MFHD in her composition. Wow! I thought how timely this workshop is! And the bubbly girl went on to recall what the workshop teacher had taught them and shared the jokes again and again. It made me and Master 10 laugh out loud too! You must know that my girl is a natural when it comes to acting out a scene. I can practically see Teacher Joel’s funny acts through her!

And guess what? She asked to attend another workshop!!

This PSLE Student English Workshop was held over the previous 2 Saturdays and the next upcoming student workshop will be PSLE Student Chinese Workshop on coming 2 Saturdays and Math and Science in March. Here is a summary of the dates, one on Student Workshops and the other on Parent Workshops.

For more information, do check this out and sign up from the 2 links below to enjoy 20% discounted rate. This is bundle of 3 workshops in special rates!

PSLE Student Workshop sign up link: click here.

PSLE Parent Workshop sign up link: click here.

I have attended the PSLE Parent Workshop for English. Click here for my review!

Disclaimer: I was invited to the PSLE workshops for the purpose of this review. As I am writing a PSLE series this year, these PSLE workshops will be a good resource to share with all parents preparing for the big national exam! Stay tune for more!

My Super Fun Play Book – Quality gift for little ones

If you are a mum with toddlers, you should be familiar with the term lapbook, playbook, busybook, quietbook. Basically they are cloth book or paper books with fun activities for curious minds to touch and feel and move around on the pages. Still clueless? Then the below photos should be able to give you an idea!

20161221_130143 — The clock has movable hands and velcro-ed numbers to be used for teaching time. The shape sorters on the right has a zipped pocket to store the shapes.

20161221_130120 — The pizza has detachable slices and the toppings on the right can be put on the pizza.

20161221_130203 — These lollipops can be slotted into the pockets and can be used to teach colours and fruit names. The tree on the right can be used to tell a story.

20161221_130055 — The doll’s hair can be untied and braided. Younger kids may find this challenging but will be good to teach little girls to braid hair. The shoes on the right is good for teaching pre-school kids to tie shoe laces!

We received a Super Fun Play Book during Christmas and it came at an appropriate time as a surprise gift for Master 5. You may think that my boy is overage for this book, but the moment it arrived at my doorstep, Missy 12 was the first to flip through the book and play around, brushing the doggie’s fur and moving every movable parts including the zip and hairbands. Well, even I find my itchy fingers pulling the shoelaces out and tying them back again. I think it is human nature to explore the book which is really meant for all these finger actions to train fine motor skills.

There are 12 pages of activities in this Play Book and each of them is equally engaging. This Play Book is meant to help develop fine motor skills, enhance hand dexterity and encourage creativity. There are many detachable pieces with velcro behind to allow the child to “paste” the pieces around and it could even be used to tell a story. Not only that, it is light weight, with a handle to carry around and it is great as a travel companion. The only downside is that you have to be careful not to lose the detachable pieces.

You will be pleased to know that the Super Fun Play Book has undergone stringent tests and conforms to the European standards of EN 71 (which is the safety requirements for toys, especially those sold in EU) as well as ISO 8124 (The requirements in ISO 8124-1:2014 apply to all toys, i.e. any product or material designed or clearly intended for use in play by children under 14 years of age.).

I like the Vision of this company too. Yes, a Play Book company has a serious Vision as well!

” We are committed to the ethical sourcing of our material and work closely with handicraft producers and traditional master embroiderers to ensure that our products achieve the finest level of quality and workmanship. We cultivate and develop homegrown talents and skills of the underprivileged and promote their welfare by maintaining fair labour practices.”

The Super Fun Play Book has just got an award from Tillywig Toy Award too!

DISCOUNT CODE

The Play Book makes a great gift for birthday and special occasions. The cost of one Play Book is USD 58. Delivery is within days of purchase, good for last minute gift ideas! If you are planning to get one, please use the discount code below which is valid till 28 Feb 2017:

kidsrsimple

and you will get USD10 off the purchase at checkout!
There will be 2 ways to purchase online via the different links, mainly one in USD and one in SGD at local online retailer:
SmartMama Price – USD58 before discount
Owl Bliss LLP Price – SGD89 before discount

Disclaimer: This is a product review and we were given a Super Fun Play Book to share our play experience.

Ending Jan 2017 with …

It is 930pm and all the kids are in dreamland. It is a rare early bedtime in our house. And I should really be happy to hit the bed so early for the longest time. But in the end, I decide to use the precious silence at this moment to think and look back into January 2017. Call it learning from the past, or simply organizing my thoughts on what I did that I could have done better. As I am being carried away by the quick passing of everyday mundane life, it is good to pause to recollect, reflect and learn.

On the PSLE kid…

Ever since my girl jotted down the school’s schedule counting down to PSLE, I must say I am starting to get more than a little worried about how to help her do well in PSLE. I was at a dilemma and even self-doubt if I had made a right choice in insisting on no tuition for her. But after talking to the hub and drafting a revision plan, we trust that we are the best tuition teachers for her. Simply because we are totally focus on helping her and know her weakness better than others.

Since we are not engaging external tutors, I find myself totally responsible in giving her academic help. For the very first time, I bought the entire Top School papers. I visited the Popular bookstore more than 5 times to get the right assessment books for her. Many times, I fought with myself on this obsession with PSLE. This is not the kind of parent I want to be. This is not the kind of stress I want to subject my kids to. Didn’t I say I was determined to make PSLE a less ‘un-enjoyable’ year? While I thought I had only want to bring her up to a level of her own target marks, I begin to think that I may be overdoing it. You bet you will read the same dilemma and challenges I face when I recap at the end of the next few months. I am struggling and learning hard to juggle between giving my girl her rightful childhood and focusing on academic help, knowing we do not have much time left to catch up. Such tough decision affects how we spend our daily short nights.

On other 2 kids…

I am seriously neglecting the other 2 kids because each night with the short 1 hour, I spend a good 3/4 of the hour on my girl. Thank goodness, I am able to spend some time with Master 5 in the morning and walk him to school everyday. That leaves Master 10 with really little time to bond together. I know that, but I am not able to find a suitable time to spend with him. From now on, I shall designate a 15min time to do an activity with him every night before dinner. I shall update you if it works out.

On myself…

January is my favourite month. It is a month of celebration with New Year and Chinese new year and most importantly, my birthday falls in this month too. As I get closer to the big 4, family ties matter greatly to me. I do my best to teach my kids respect, contentment, and important values. While I am proud that I am being brought up well and proud that my kids live my values by their simple innocence, I do have areas to improve on. I need to learn to accept that I cannot teach other people respect and values. I can only teach my own kids these. Everyone lives his own life and I should not bother to change perceptions too. Life is a learning journey. I find myself so much more to learn and improve on, especially on relationships. I do hope to inspire and be a good listening ear and adviser to my kids in future when they face similar grown-up problems.

On a happy note…

Both my kids received the Edusave awards. It is a great encouragement and we are really proud of them!

Missy 12 and Master 10 appeared on the school’s subscribed newspaper 新列车Volume 1! They participated in the filming of Primary School Oral Video last December and the editor used the footage photos. Their friends and teachers were pleasantly surprised to see their appearance in both print and video. We are expecting to see more on Volume 2 too, I can’t wait to see!

On a different engagement, Master 10 and I got selected to participate in a filming of a kids’ show! This is going to be exciting! I will certainly share the details once it is aired on TV!

On a 3rd opportunity, Master 10 and I almost had a chance to appear on social media advertisement, but the client had decided to choose another family. Nevertheless, we were a little overwhelmed at these few opportunities all around the same time. I think all these are terrific experiences for us and I do hope that they keep coming!

So, my January ends with… lots of self-reflection…and I am glad that there are many exciting happy moments too! I hope February 2017 will be one with improvement and more kids bonding activities!

How is your January? 🙂