Primary school Archives - Page 2 of 5

PSLE SERIES – How We Learn Mathematics

There is really no cheat sheet in learning Mathematics. And how I wish there is one. Mathematics was one of my worst subject in Primary School. Eventually, when I reached Secondary School, somehow I finally could grasp the Math concept and began to score high, and that’s how I start to love it and Mathematics became my strongest and favourite subject. I shared this experience with Missy 12 and told her:

“If you hate a subject, all the more you should make it the subject that you will LOVE! Go and conquer the challenges, love it and you will do well!”

I am not sure if it sounded abstract, but I realised that it was really like that for me. Once I grow to like it, I do well, it is as simple as that.

“If you hate Chinese, then conquer the 汉字, and you will grow to love it!” I told to Master 10 too as remembering the strokes of 汉字 is his biggest enemy at this moment.

How do we Learn Mathematics at home?

1) Identify the weaker topics that you child is facing

The moment I realised Missy 12 failed her Math in P3, it was a wake up call. I bought the P3 Math assessment books after her SA2 for that year and went through all the topics in the books for the December school holidays. There was work and play, I always ensured that. Since I realised her weakness in the subject so late, which went unnoticed, I felt that I should help her to re-learn all the basics. Hence, if you don’t already realise the weaker topics that you child is facing, perhaps, it is good to try to find out as early as possible to nip it in the bud before the challenges snowball to a big magnitude.

2) Flip through the school worksheets and focus on mistakes

This method works for almost all subjects. Make sure the mistakes previously made are understood, especially that topic in entirety, not only limited to one question, then re-do these questions to ensure the child gets them right.

3) All information / numbers given in the Math Question are to be used

Many times, I find that my children may leave out a number given in the question, and leave it unused in their working. There is one important thing to remember: the question will not give extra information, all information and numbers appearing in the question MUST be utilised.

4) Infer!

How do you infer in Math? Well, lots! For instance, if the question says, “After the 10th day, there is 1/4 sugar left. By end of 12th day, the sugar left was 120g.” The child must be able to infer that 3/4 sugar was used for the past 10 days. The child must also know that from 11th day onwards, the usage and leftover totals up to 1/4 sugar. One more thing in this question to take note is that 1/4 sugar is not equivalent to 1/4 kg sugar. Hence, inferences are important in Math too!

5) Train Accuracy and Speed

In Math, there are many questions to work within the exam allocated time. There is a need to use the best and most efficient method to work out a problem. Instead of beating around the bush, one should aim to identify the fastest method to work on a problem sum. This saves time for other questions.

For example, There is a discount of 20% on a T-shirt (usual price is $100) during a sale. How much does the T-shirt cost?

Method 2 below has a step lesser than Method 1. Using Method 2 will save time.

$Math qn 1$

Besides using a more efficient method, the child should not stay at a question for too long and learn to time himself and move along to the next question. Skip a question when stuck. Train the child at home by setting time to finish a paper. Accuracy and Speed need to be trained!

6) Remember to write UNITS

Marks will be deducted for forgetting to write units. And remember to write the CORRECT Units! A quick tip: Before putting down the answer on the line, make a quick check for what the question is asking and in what units.

7) Reasonableness

Always have a quick check with the final answer and have the child ask himself/herself if the answer is REASONABLE or not. For instance, if the final discount in value is $200 while the T-shirt is $100, this is NOT reasonable and somewhere in the working, there must be a mistake. If the answer for a pen comes up to 1kg, the child should know that it is NOT reasonable too. We can help our children in understanding REASONABLENESS by bringing them to the supermarket, or involving them in cooking preparation, etc, to gauge the value in weight, length, volume. This will help them very much in Mathematics and everyday usage in calculation.

8) Relate Math concept in Everyday Life

I try to relate Math concept as and when the right situation arises. For instance, I teach them to use ESTIMATION when we calculate discounts and division of a total number of sweets among siblings. When baking, I ask them to measure 1/8 cup of flour in a measuring cup relating to FRACTIONS. When walking on the road, we identify ANGLES on road signs, advertisements, etc. We talk about PERIMETER when we walk one round in the neighbourhood. We identify CUBOIDS and CUBES around the house. There are so many things in our everyday life that is related to Math. Just look around consciously and we will find many things to talk to our children on Math.

Our Revision

I find that #30minrevision does not work so well on Mathematics revision for higher Primary, mainly because one question can take up to 15 minutes to solve and teach. However, it is still possible if we are targeting to finish 2-3 questions per 30 minutes revision block. But mostly, we use 2 hours on weekends to revise Mathematics so as not to break the momentum.

We use Visible Thinking by Marshall Cavendish Education for our materials to revise by topic. I like this book very much because the questions are usually in sets of 2 or 3 questions with same scenario but only one variable is changed. This helps to test the student on his/her understanding if the question tweaks slightly. Further, each topic will start with asking some thinking questions that I, sometimes, may answer wrongly too. It has a good representation of working steps at the start of the topic which aids me to teach my children easily. So, if you are clueless in Primary School Math, I would highly recommend this book to help you learn along with your child. We have been using this book since Missy 12 was Primary 3.

As I am very familiar with Missy 12’s weakness in certain Math topics, I am able to identify and zoom in on these topics during our revision. We will start with me explaining the Math concept for a topic using the Visible Thinking book and assigning the questions for her to do. I have learnt that I need to mark on the spot during the 2 hour revision instead of leaving till days later, this will help her to absorb better as her mind is still fresh from her thoughts while I explain to her the mistakes and where went wrong.

As the SA1 exams are nearing, I am tempted to give her the top school papers to do as we are running out of time. However, I decided to still focus to drill on the weaker topics and ensure she got the concepts right even though it means that we will do lesser papers and wasting some money. I believe slow and steady goes a long way and also the right way. Hence, focusing on weaker topics and ensuring the child gets them right should be the priority in any kind of learning.

Now that we are quite comfortable in all the tested topics, we have started to do top school papers. We draft out a revision calendar and jot down the days that the children will be late home from school on the calendar. Then we fill in the afternoons with assigned revision and exam papers to do. As I have to be realistic about what they can finish in an afternoon, along with their school homework, I assign Math Paper 1 on one day and Math Paper 2 on the other, sometimes coupling with less demanding subjects like English and Chinese on the same day. Everyday after dinner, I will pick a paper to go through the mistakes for our #30minrevision. Time is limited. Either we have English during this 30 min revision block or we have various subjects focusing on mistakes.

And I will never forget one thing. If I see improvement in grasping a concept, I will commend on Missy 12’s efforts and good attitude. I do hope she feels encouraged and gets more confident as we go along.

If you like this post and find it useful, do share with your friends who need tips for Math revision 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 Series – Everything About Composition-Writing

Since my post on How We Learn Comprehension (The No Tuition Way), many have asked me about how we tackle Composition. So, I am going to share what I have learnt in the PSLE Parent Workshop for English by Marshall Cavendish Education mainly on the pitfalls, the common mistakes and some good tips. Some of the below are Rubrics that examiners used for evaluating Compositions too.

1) The Hamburger Proportion

In each Composition, there should be an Introduction, Body and Ending. If a student writes too much on Introduction, and a small “Body” (Main story) and rush through Ending, this will make an out of proportion Composition, just like a hamburger with a big bun on the top. Same goes to short Introduction and lengthy “Body”, etc. Do remember to not overwrite on any one of these.

2) Time for Planning before Starting to Write

Planning is important. When a student gets carried away in writing, he/she may miss out an important connecting part of the story. Do spend 5-10 min to do a quick planning. I think most students, including myself, do not plan. But according to the Trainer in the workshop, he highly recommends this step from his years of experience that planning helps greatly, especially for weaker writers. I would encourage my kids to do the same too.

3) Writing the Introduction

Weather – This is a favourite opening line of many students. However, if weather is not going to be related to the content of the story, please DO NOT start with writing about the Weather.

Recount – Writing Recount stories can be very interesting and yet dangerous too. Just remember to make a note somewhere on the writing paper to remind yourself to tie back to the beginning of the story before concluding the Composition. Further, the trigger of the recount must be related to the main story.

‘One day’ – This 2 words should be avoided in any Composition opening line.

Smooth transition into the main story – Introduction has to be written such that it introduces the story’s mood or atmosphere appropriately.

4) Writing the “Body”

Description – Writing in good details and vivid descriptions will add mood to the story. There should be an ability to “SHOW” and not “TELL”. I am always attracted to good descriptions in any storybooks, and encourage my kids to take note of how authors describe a scenario, weather, facial expressions, etc. Writing description can allow the reader to picture the entire scene you are writing about, and it helps to raise the Composition marks.

Dialogue – Writing an interesting and relevant dialogue to reveal the character and to further plot will help to make a Composition interesting. Try to write a couple of dialogue to help boost the story.

Initiating event and Problem/Conflict – Take note to write a clear initiating event leading to the problem. The conflict should be clearly defined too. Events and Conflict should be linked.

Characters – There should be one or more well drawn characters that are well described and interesting. Too many characters may take away focus from the main character.

Language – Take note not to overuse words and try to vary the words with same meaning. This will show examiner that the language command is strong and it makes the story more interesting. Avoid starting with the word “I” too many times.

Sentences – Vary the sentence structure. Avoid writing lengthy sentences and using too many “and” in a sentence. Use modifiers. (What are modifiers? They are a word, phrase or clause which functions as an adjective or adverb to describe a word or make its meaning more specific.)

Plot Twists – Writing plot twists take some practices and skills. We should encourage our kids to write plot twists as they can lead the reader (examiner) into the story and shed light at the end. This will boost the story greatly.

5) Writing the Ending

Tie back to the story – This is especially for Recount stories. Remember to tie back to the beginning of the story.

Changing for the better – One of the common mistakes is that students may, without explanation, conclude that the main character “realises” his/her mistake “suddenly” and decides to change for the better! This will make the Ending too abrupt. Students sometimes spend too much time writing about the Introduction and “Body” and rush through the Ending. It is important to allocate enough time to conclude nicely.

Policeman, Paramedics, Rescue – This is a common Ending for most Compositions. If this is needed to conclude the story, try to describe in more details, eg, how does the inside of the ambulance look like, how having rescue team affect the character in the story, etc. Or instead of rescue team, try to write with the character as the rescuer or problem-solver by himself.

6) Trademarks of weaker students’ Compositions

I would like to share trademarks on weaker student’s Compositions as it will serve as a reminder to teach our kids not to make these mistakes.

Lots of Grammatical Errors – Weaker students have lots of grammatical errors such that the content is confused or lost. If your child is weak in Grammar, you may like to drill them in basic Grammar rules from the start. It takes time, but it will slowly help the child improve his/her language which will go a long way.

Not Enough Vocabulary – Lack of Vocabulary will make a story boring. Build up a Vocabulary Bank by jotting down new words when you are reading books, newspaper, etc. This is a long term learning and will help in the long run.

Lack Organisation Skills and No Flow – Here is where planning helps. You can be a strong writer but if the organisation is missing, the story will not be a good one.

Lack of Immersing in the Story – When a student is writing a Composition, he/she should imagine himself in the story. It will help him to describe the 5 senses (see, hear, taste, smell, touch) better and bring the reader into his/her world through the description.

Length of Composition – A weaker writer tends to write too short and a strong writer may write too long. Writing about 3,4 pages long is sufficient to not bore the examiner and not too short to miss out content.

7) Checking the Composition

Finally, check through the Composition and look out for G.P.S (Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling)! Replace words that are overused with better words.

I hope the above 7 Steps will help your child to write better. After writing this post, I am going to let my kids read these tips and guide them along!

If you like this post and find it useful, do share with your friends who are struggling in Composition 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.

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

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 🙂

Wake up Parents! A child’s life is more important than GRADES!

The day I read about the tragic news of a Primary 5 child who plunged to his death because he did not want to face the remainder of the day due to his poor results, my heart actually skipped a beat.

It was not because I am the type of Kiasu Mum who will punish my kids for not meeting my target marks, in fact, I DO NOT have a target mark for my children to meet, but it was more of getting a self-check on whether I am putting my children through high stress UNKNOWINGLY!

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]

The day I read about the tragic news of a Primary 5 child who plunged to his death because he did not want to face the remainder of the day due to his poor grades, my heart actually skipped a beat.

I read through the article and it stated that the boy’s mum cried out that she did not expect him to get 80 marks and it was “only 70 marks” that she had asked for. That gave me a wake up call too. What if I thought that I am a good mum who is doing the best for my kids and that my expectations (if any) are reasonable, but the kids are actually feeling too stressed out by my expectations or actions? It never occurred to me that my kids may be stressed. Have I looked out for signs that they are feeling stressful? Have I been doing a self-check on myself and checking on my actions and my facial expressions when they bring back the exam papers to me to sign?

Kids, nowadays, are indeed subjected to too much stress, from peers, from teachers, from tuition teachers, from parents, from grandparents, from society. And to make things worse, they are more vulnerable than previous generations who are more resilient and know how precious lives are. Their vulnerability comes from being too sheltered, too scared to fail, no chance to fail, and comes from growing up in a safety net around them and not permitted to take controlled risks. Are these the results of our “can’t afford to fail” mentality expected of our children?

The first thing I did when I returned home that day after I read the news was to catch my girl in a relax mood to talk. I asked my eldest if she felt stressful with the exams preparation. She answered yes. I was surprised as I had never thought that she was stressful because she played more than she studied and I detected no signs of stress in her. Neither is she taking any academic enrichment classes outside school that will cause her stress.

Me: Why do you feel stressed?

Missy 11: I am worried that I will not do well in the examinations.

Ok, stress noted and acknowledged. Then, I started to talk about my learning journey of how I fared a 238 for my PSLE, went into a better than average school with lowest cut off of 232 (now a top school), and began to ace my Math which was my worst subject in PSLE, ace my way to University and ended up just an average worker in the workforce and not earning as much as those who fared average in school.

ALTERNATIVE ACADEMIC ROUTES DO NOT DEFINE OR CONDEMN YOU IN ANY WAY

Me: Well, that’s more to life than getting good results. So what if you do not score well in P5 SA2 exams or PSLE? When you grow up and look back, these are just 2 small chapters in your life. Just accept that you have done your best and have a pat on your back for that. If you do not do as well in PSLE, you may go to an average school, or take the slightly longer route in Secondary School of Normal Academic or Normal Tech. These are just alternative routes to learning and they do not define you or condemn you in any way. It is not going to stop you from achieving success in life with other talents. Maybe you are not academic incline in Primary School, and it doesn’t mean you will not realize your academic potential in Secondary School when you meet a good teacher. The most important thing is that you have tried your BEST and be HAPPY.

I recalled with my gal on the time she failed her Math in P3. Now, fast forward 2.5 years later, I really appreciate that failure.

I told her: The most important thing after a failure is what you do after that. Do you reflect on your failure and get more motivated to do better or do you wallow in self-pity or self-destruction and waste the ‘Failure’ experience?

In my girl’s case, it was a good failure which I am happy that it happened. Without failing, she would probably not have experienced and gone through what the failure made her to be: More resilient and more motivated.

I had earlier mentioned in my previous post that PSLE Year will not be an enjoyable year. Now I think about it, it doesn’t have to be that way. Since teachers in school are putting pressure on the PSLE students, all the more I should moderate the stress by planning activities for destress and enjoyment. How can one waste one year of life to mug for examinations?

PARENTS AS CHEERLEADERS

I feel that parents are the best supporters and cheerleaders in their children’s lives. As cheerleaders, your job is not to scold your teammates and instead your job is to motivate and give encouraging words. Who doesn’t know that positive words go towards better self-esteem and better performance for an individual? This is commonly known in sports team or workplace where coach/boss give a pat on player/employee’s back, in relationship when a husband give encouraging words to his wife or vice versa, and certainly it does more good than harm for a parent to give encouraging words to his child.

I seriously hope that PSLE can be scrapped one day. It does not provide much value add to move to Secondary School and beyond. Since we are doing away with school ranking, why not do away with an exam that serves no significant purpose in life except create a whole lot of unhealthy stress in our young children and us, parents? Further, in a recent news, ” South Korea and Singapore, both high achievers at school level, are below average in the graduate rankings.” Now, that’s some food for thought on our education system.

CHECK OUR FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

Back to the tragic case of the P5 boy, all I want to say is that when a child does badly, he knows it. We don’t have to reiterate to him on how badly he does, or show him a disappointed face combined with a slow shake of head. We should never never punished physically for bad results. Most of the time, the child feels worse than us. After a while, our emotions subside and we may feel it was not such a big deal after all. But the child, on the receiving end of the parents’ disappointed faces or negative words may feel it for a long long time.

NEVER COMPARE

And never compare your child with another person, especially siblings. If my hubby constantly compares me with another woman, you will be sure I will detest that woman instead of improving myself. I supposed the same thing applies to comparing academic results. Comparing serves no purpose.

Nevermind that my girl is in the 2nd class from the bottom as long as she is happy and enjoys learning. Having said that, academic basics and foundation are still necessary to be reinforced to the ability of the child. As Confucius said,”Different strokes for Different Folks (因材施教)“, it is how the parents coach their own children according to their aptitude that will benefit them. I am determined to make PSLE year for her a less stressful year and one that she will not remember for an unpleasant learning journey.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Decluttering, Slowing Down and Being a “Controlled” Kiasu Mum

declutter-poster

I have been out of action from my blog for 2 months! The main reason for my absence on the blog is because I was stuck in migration of my blog to self-hosted WP… Finally!! While I thought it could be as simple as giving my password to the Bluehost support and have them do for me while I sit back, I was flabbergasted to know I had to do it myself. I am an IT idiot for your information and struggled much with the migration of 2000 media files (this huge number surprised me!) Anyway, while I thought with the eventual migration, I could relax and that’s it, but the next step was to design my own blog theme. That took another 3-4 weeks and several sleepless nights. Oh, I lost my momentum many times and stop-start-stop-start till I could no longer bear the itch of writing and decided to get the blog up first and tweak it along. So, pardon me if you see the tweaks here and there each time you check in my blog. And if you do see any broken links, please help me by giving me a shout on it!

Many things happened in this period too. I quit my job of 11 years…. but no no, in case you think I have realized my SAHM dream. As fate has it for me, a job opportunity came knocking on my door. So, I passed interviews and am starting a new out of comfort zone venture to a new role and new industry. I pray for good colleagues, good boss and enjoyable challenges.

While I am busy with job transition, blog migration, I am resuming my tuition teacher role to my elder kids. I realize that I perform best when I have an overflowing plate. I just cannot sit back, relax and DO NOTHING. So in the midst of all these changes, I am also looking into ways of decluttering our house, and indulging in more hobbies.

Decluttering

A good friend said to me that many people profit out of buying and selling their lived-in houses when what a house should be, is a home which your children grow up in and contains precious childhood memories. I can’t agree more. Perhaps, investment should be done only on extra properties and not the primary property. As we shall be staying in our lovely home for good, I had better declutter things and make it as minimalist, simple and cosy as can be. It is not easy to declutter and re-decorate when the house is in such a lived-in condition. I have started throwing things I thought I would use but never. Whenever I sieve through the bags and boxes of pre-loved stuff, I would ponder over an item on my hand, pause for a few seconds and ask myself questions like:

Will I ever use this again?
How long haven’t I touched this thing?
Is it worth keeping for memento?
Do I have many of such items in the house?
Can I live without this item?
Has this item passed its days of honour?

Besides throwing things, I am putting simple decorations around the house. Similar to my blog theme tweaking, I am taking really small steps to turning our home to a cosy and eye-pleasing one that is easy to maintain. That is my target and will take months to achieve. It is also to pave way for helperless way of living in the future. I will need a home declutter plan to start with.

“Controlled” Kiasu Mum

As much as I pride myself as a laid-back mum, I can no longer be as laid-back as I used to be, not when my girl is in P5 this year, a year where she learns 80% of the entire PSLE syllabus. The reason that I am pulling up my own socks as a “tuition teacher” to my girl is the hope that she can get into a good school, not elite school, but a good school where peers are motivated to study, a good school with higher chances that peers come from a nuclear family, lesser bullies, peers with lesser disciplinary problems, you get what I mean. This concern is very real. Peers are more important to teens at the secondary school age and it is easy for them to fall into the creaks if we are not careful. I don’t believe so much that every secondary school is a good school, sorry, but not at this moment.

A couple of weeks back, I had a good chat with a few fellow mummies and Meiling from Universal Scribbles shared her experience with us on the PSLE preparation. She is selfless in sharing resources that her son is using and we gained lots from her sharing. She has similar thoughts as I do regarding entry to a good secondary school. As much as I do not believe in mugging for the examinations and do not believe that academics means the world, the thought of getting into a less than good school with disapproving peers worry me too much to be hands-off. So, I am going to be a “controlled” kiasu mum from now on to ensure all academic basics are reinforced. As my children do not have tuition classes of any kind, they will still have plenty of time for a balance share of play. So, by being “controlled”, I am leaving them room for a breather. As for whether they will enjoy PSLE year, unless PSLE is scrapped off totally, no kid at P6 will enjoy any bit of it anyway. And I do not think I can make PSLE year any enjoyable for my children too. Since it is so “un-enjoyable”, a big part of my role is to moderate the stress off my girl and, myself. Either I end up blogging lesser closer to PSLE, or I blog more to destress. Stay tune to my woes! (Some good PSLE blog posts from other cool mum bloggers are here and here!)

Hobbies and learning new things

To destress during the preparation for PSLE is to engage in healthy hobbies. My girl does craft work and enjoys lots of outdoor play during her free time. My boy reads, plays Weiqi by himself, plays my handphone games (if I am at home) and goes for outdoor play during his free time too. For me, I am happily reading one book after the other and into my 9th and 10th book together at this moment. Here are the books that I have read this year:

1) Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
2) When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
3) It’s Easy To Cry by Subhas Anandan
4) Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph
5) 最美的一课 by 杨红樱
6) Charlotte’s Web by E. B White
7) Your Time-starved Marriage by Les and Leslie Parrott
8) When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us by Jane Adams
9) It’s OK to Go Up The Slide by Heather Shumaker
10) Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K Rowling

Besides reading, I am running and brisk walking to keep my body and mind healthy to run the household. I am also much motivated by our group of Racy Mamas and more mums are joining us for this common interest. Sometimes we need like-minded friends to push us along. It is wonderful to have these friends.

Slowing Down

Whenever I walk too fast or hurry the kids along, I am reminded by my kids on why I am rushing like this. Often times, it is the kids who reminded me to slow down. I like being led by my youngest. Our one on one time are usually on my off days or Sunday mornings. I like to stay half a step behind him and let him lead the pace. When he stops to marvel at an earthworm, I stop. When he strolls, I stroll. When he walks backwards, I do the same. When he hops, I hop. It is wonderful to have unhurried moments like these. What’s the hurry anyway?

So, each time I hurry my pace, I would remind myself to WALK SLOWLY. I really have lots to learn from the young ones.

I am glad that the blog is finally up again. I certainly miss writing and sharing my thoughts here. I miss the interactions with readers too! Do leave me some ideas on decluttering and your take on PSLE preparation or experience! I would love to hear your thoughts!