I have never sent my kids to academic enrichment classes before. However, I had once let XX join a 3-day Math holiday camp during a school holiday period because I did not want her to waste her time at home doing nothing much. Also, I believe holiday camps are fun and kids are bound to enjoy the learning-through-play camps. When YH had the opportunity to attend KidStartNow’s story-telling themed Chinese enrichment holiday camp, I was really happy and Continue reading “Chinese Enrichment Holiday Camp @ KidStartNow + Giveaway!!”
Tag: Chinese
My little princess’ score card – progress in Primary 1
It’s been half a year that my dear princess goes to Primary 1. Her score card in my eyes has been almost perfect so far. And how happy am I to give her a near perfect score. Taking into consideration that her Primary school is a well-sought after SAP (Special Assistance Plan) school (which means they place high emphasis on Chinese and it is mandatory for all students to take higher Chinese), she manages well with her school work and enjoys school so far.
She relates happenings in school to me and I am too glad that her teachers seem to be very passionate teachers especially her Chinese teacher 黄老师. They tell interesting stories and crack jokes in the fun of learning to capture the children’s interest. And her school makes sure parents are involved and know what their children are learning by making us sign on their assignment and textbooks frequently. Academic-wise, I have totally no worries on her school’s model of teaching and guidance.
It’s a relief and “gift” for me that she does her homework after dinner on her own without any nagging from me and Kel. She shows independence in passing me her school letters and making sure I sign on her worksheets and books without fail. As a working mother, I could not spend time with her in the morning before school. Hence, I mark out pages on her assessment books for her to complete in the morning so that I can mark and go through with her at night. She did the assignment I gave her with no adults reminding her. It saves me from what I would have otherwise experience stress and worries on her academic learning.
In XX’s first MA (Modular Assessment) test for English, she got full marks. For Mathematics and Chinese, she got 23 and 24 out of 25 marks respectively. I couldn’t ask for more. Now in the second semester, her 2nd MA test, she got full marks for English again but careless mistakes and lack of focus on the questions cost her marks and she got 17 out of 25 for Mathematics. Well, so to say, she has lots of room for improvement in her focusing skills and practising patience to read questions carefully before jumping to write answers.
XX’s first parent-teacher meeting has the same response from both teachers (Form teacher and Chinese teacher). She day-dreams in class. This observation has long been commented by her Yamaha teacher. I feel attitude is extremely important for learning and doing anything well. I know it will take lots of effort by herself and time to correct this day-dreaming problem, but I will help her and by her character, I am pretty sure she will improve sooner or later. As for her attitude, if you were to read my earlier blog on “Learning Piano – from dread to love“, you will know that she has come a long way in improving her attitude. Sometimes, if she seems to be relying on me to feed clues to questions in assessment books, I feel I have a guilty part to play. I may be too obliging to give clues too quickly and just last night, I realize that XX seems to be lazy in reading music scores. She has a good memory and for new song pieces, I spoon-fed her on correcting her fingering and wrong notes by reading the score to her while she focuses on memorizing what I say and what she remembers on the positioning of fingers on the keyboard. That was a wake-up call for me to not be too involved and let her have a free hand and time to figure things out on her own! It all points to the fact that this mummy is too impatient. My girl must have picked up this bad trait from me.
XX had just experienced a long one month June school holidays. I signed her up for a 3 day academic camp which she says it’s boring. Kel sent her to her cousin’s house to play for a day every week. I took leave on and off to keep her company and brought her to my gynae check-up in June as well. Places we’ve been to during the June weekends includes the National Museum of Singapore for the Children’s Seasons, Yakult factory, taking part in the Safra Sprintkids Competition, Marina Barrage for kite flying with their cousins, Wild Wild Wet and Madagascar 3 movie screening. Since we are not going overseas for the holidays, I thought this holiday for her must be boring. But she seems to prefer boredom than to go school even though she enjoys school and she did not have much to do except to read books to finish her many book reviews homework.
Now that the holidays are over, she is back to school. She asked to be signed up for Wu Shu （武术）and she has to wake up early every Saturday for this class. It was tough on her to wake up early since she sleeps late at night and her school is in the afternoon. Even then, I praised her for being such a good girl to fight sleep and wakes up without much violent protest.
Xuanxuan, mummy is so proud of you. Keep it up my dear princess!
Learning through Play – the fun and simple way
There are many ways to teach academic topics to kids through playing and games. Kids find the games interesting and get to learn English, Chinese, Mathematics without knowing. I find the ways to introduce learning something new extremely important as first impression last for a long long time. If kids are introduced to learning in a fun way, they will not tend to be put off or reject learning the same subject matter in future.
Here are 5 fun ways of learning that my kids love:
1. Teaching NUMBERS using playing cards
I love playing cards. Not to gamble with kids but to introduce the concept of numbers to my kids. There are many ways to play to reinforce this concept.
a) Big and small – The deck of cards is distributed evenly to each player. If there are 3 players, each player take turns to be the first to throw out a card, the next person has to throw out a bigger number card. Whoever throws out the biggest number card wins the pool of cards. There is a catch here. If you always throw out big number cards in the beginning, you will end up with small number cards towards the end of the game.
What is learnt here: kids get to think of what number is bigger than the number thrown out. They get to plan to reserve cards for the end where everyone has no big cards. This trains their thinking and planning skills.
b) SNAP game – Do you remember how to play “SNAP”? If you have those flash cards with a set of numbers vs a set of counting dots, you can play “SNAP” with your kids.
What is learnt here: kids learn counting and get used to patterns and train them to know the number without counting dots.
c) Memory game – Sieve out pairs of number cards, shuffle, and lay them face down on the floor. Players take turn to open 2 cards at a time. Whenever 2 cards with the same number are turned over, player gets to keep the cards. If the cards are different, they will have to be turned over face down till someone picks these cards again.
What is learnt here: kids learn numbers and train their memory skills.
2. Teaching MONEY
Set up a market stall selling fruits, vegetables, meat, etc using kids’ cooking toy set. Write down 10cents, 20 cents, 50 cents and one dollar on pieces of paper and place them on each sale item. Give your kids some money with many coins of different denominations. Start selling to your “customers”, i.e. your kids. Guide them on giving you more than the price of items and give them back money change. (My kids love this part of getting money change back. They think they earn more by getting more coins back!) Make it more fun by selling their favourite toys as well as reversing roles!
What is learnt here: kids learn the concept of money, how to count money and get back money change.
3. Teaching ENGLISH / CHINESE
Do a “SHOW AND TELL” with your kids! You can take turns to play this with your kids starting with you! Pick up anything, it can be a pen, a tissure box or a favourite toy and start describing the object in your hands. You have to speak proper English or Chinese sentences, add in some simple but interesting vocabulary. Then when it is your kids’ turn, let them rattle on and DO NOT INTERRUPT or attempt to CORRECT their descriptive phrases. Let them be proud of their “Show and Tell” moment. After all, they are “on stage”!
What is learnt here: Kids learn English and Chinese words and build up their vocabulary. The game boosts their confidence and on-stage performance. While you also do a “Show and Tell, they get to learn more difficult and interesting words and phrases from you too.
4. Teaching MATHEMATICS
It is important to recognize patterns to improve Mathematics as many Mathematics concept revolves around patterns recognition. I play board games like “Snake and Ladder” and any games that require dice throwing. Such games enable my kids to recognize the dots on the die for each number. If you use 2 dice, they learn to add the numbers too. Learning music helps on pattern recognition as well. There are endless patterns on music scores. I teach my girl to recognize the pattern of the composition and play on the piano without counting each note.
What is learnt here: kids are trained to get used to recognizing patterns so that they are able to apply them in Mathematics concept.
5. Train the BRAIN
To give a game of “Snake and Ladder” an interesting twist, we reverse the rules with the kids. With the Up the Snake and slide Down the Ladder, the kids have lots of fun catching whoever confuses with the rules. Same goes for the card games where the smaller number card wins over a big number card.
What is learnt here: kids learn to think in unconventional way and their brains are trained to switch thinking from different perspective easily.