keep it up, sweetie ...

Hopefully this means that Kate has adapted well with her new school ...

zoo trip (2)

Last week, I had a trip to the Singapore Zoo. I went there with my class after school dismissal.

While waiting for the bus, Mdm Lee gave us the worksheets that we needed to complete at the zoo. It took us about 30 mins to reach the zoo. At the zoo, my teachers took us to the theatre. At the theatre, there was a talk about animals.

After the talk, we went to see some animals. We saw many animals. I didn't forget to take some pictures of them.

It was a tiring journey but I enjoyed it.

zoo trip ( 1 )

Tomorrow I am going to the Singapore Zoo with my class. This trip is part of my science class. It will help us to learn more about diversity.

This is my list of animals that my teacher asked us to take pictures of: monkeys, apes, cat family, birds, fishes, mammals, and hooved feet animals. My teacher already taught us the differences between apes and monkeys. Today, she taught us about the cat family and the hooved feet animals.

I think this zoo trip is going to be excellent. I am very excited and looking forward to this zoo trip.

... c u on zoo trip ( 2 ) ...

Last Day at HWS

Today is my last day at Hong Wen School. I am very sad, because it means I will be parted from my best friends, Mandy and Jun Ning. Even though if I stay at HWS next year, I won't be at the same class with Jun Ning, but we still could see each other at recess time.

This parted thingy is really difficult for me to handle. Yes, sometimes I quarrel with Jun Ning. But it's still better rather than to be parted like this.

I wish I don't need to change my school, but our home is very far from the new HWS at Towner Rd and it will be very tiring to travel that far every day.

Yesterday, I gave bookmarks made by my mum to my classmates and some teachers. I hope they like it.

National Day Celebration

Yesterday I had National Day Celebration at my school. We had to sing 4 songs. The first song we sang was ''My People My Home''. The second song was ''Shine For Singapore''. The third song was "No Place I'd Rather Be" and the fourth song was "Will You?".

After that, P1 and P2 had a sports day while the P3-P6 had their fun walk. For my class, the teams were orange, red, blue, yellow, and green. My team, the green house, got 2nd place for the basketball bouncing. I had so much fun!

Choral and Solo Reading

On Monday, 4 August, there was choral and solo reading at my school. My class got 2nd prize for choral reading .. Hip, hip, hooray !!! But wait, wait! What prize did my class get for solo reading? It's BETTER than that ... We got 1st prize !!!

Solo is done only by one person, so it does not become messy. In choral reading, lots of students talk at once, that's why it becomes a little bit messy.

Xin Yue was the solo reading performance. I was the reserved. Kenshi was the helper. He helped us to practice and decide the actions. So on Thursday and Friday, the three of us had to stay back at recess to practice our actions and reading.

What are the titles? They are "My Puppy Punched Me In the Eye" for choral reading and "I Went To The Barber" for solo reading.

how much?

As the landlord of the flat where we are staying wants to move back in by November, we need to start looking for a new flat.

With the rental price now hikes so high, we decided to buy a flat instead of renting. One request from Kate:
"Can we find a house that is not far from my school? I want to keep Hong Wen as my school."

We can see that Kate loves her school, eventhough there are not many facilities, yet. The school, too, will move to May Road on January 2009. According to Kate, the new school building will have swimming pool and sports halls (and many other new facilities). Surely this makes Kate doesn't want to be transferred to another school, even more.

....................
Mum: "The house nearby your school is very expensive."
Kate: "How much is it?"
Mum: "Around five-hundred-thousand dollars."
*wondering whether Kate really understands how big that number is*
Kate: "That much??? It's so expensive."
Mum: "Yes, it is."
Kate: "And how much money do we have? All of it. The one that we keep at the bank, in Daddy's wallet, in your purse, and the one in my saving box."
....................

myself

When Kate had no idea on what to write for her journal...

Myself

I am Kathleen. I am a girl. I am 7 years old. I am a happy girl.

I Wish ...

From many wishes in Kate's mind, she chose to write this one down for her journal:

I Wish ...

I wish to have an older sister. Then she can help me with my homework. I also wish to have a younger sister. Then I can take care of her. I also could play with her.

Lost & Found

On Monday, Mum got a phone call from Kate's teacher, informed that Kate has left her school bag in the SBS bus on the way to school.

Amazing ... how Kate didn't realize it until she reached the school hall and was about to put her bag (which was not with her). And about an hour before her teacher called, Kate has called Mum about other thing, but she didn't mention about her lost bag.

Anyway, Mum called lost & found of SBS Transit. For more than half an hour countless dial, it was always answered by machine, saying that the officers were busy. When finally an officer got on the line, she gave Mum another phone no, which was took only one ring to get through.

Apparently, as the bag was left on that day, it was still kept at the control office at the terminal. In this case, Kate took SBS Bus 80, Harbourfront-Sengkang direction, so the officer at Sengkang Interchange kept it.

When Kate came back from school (she didn't know that her teacher has contacted Mum):
"Mummy, I have a bad news.. I left my bag in the bus this morning... Luckily, I still have a spare bag, don't I? So we don't need to buy a new one... But how about all the books? The textbooks? The spelling book? The journal? ... Oh, no! I need to write those all over again, and I need to get spelling tests again, and my teacher will need to mark those again ..."

Kids ... their way to think is so simple ...

morning session

This year Kate has morning session, which is 7:15-12:55 on Mon, Tue, Thu, and Fri. On Wed, the school finishes an hour earlier, but since Kate joins with one of CCA, she comes home later than the other days.

Mum was worried that it would be difficult to wake Kate up in the morning, because she used to wake up a bit late for the last 2 years (when she had afternoon sessions). And last month during the holiday was even worse. But it came out that Kate is ready for the morning session, not so difficult to wake up early. She is happy with her morning session, which means she has more time to play after school.

Kate is in Primary 2. She gets lots of new classmates (only 6 who were her P1's classmates), new teachers, but the same form teacher (which means the same English and Math teacher) and the same classroom. Hope she could cope well with her subjects in P2 as well as in P1.

report card 2007

Kate has done really well in her first year of primary school. Her marks for English Language, Higher Chinese, and Mathematics are similar, and all are in band 1. And she got great grades on other subjects, too.

Keep up

your good works,

Kate!

Remarks from her form-teacher:

Semester 1: Kathleen enjoys and participates actively in class discussions. She has worked hard this semester and should continue her efforts. She should try to do and check her work more carefully.

Semester 2: Kathleen is an outspoken girl who often clarifies her doubts. She is polite and it has been a joy to teach her. She has the potential to do better if she tries to do and check her work more carefully.

math

Missy bought 5 red apples, 3 oranges, 8 pears and 9 chocolate bars.
How many fruits did Missy buy in all?

Kate confidently wrote: "5+3+8+9=25".
Mum: Could you check it again, please?
Kate: *checking and counting* Yes, it's correct.
Mum: Are you sure?
Kate: Yes, five plus three plus eight plus nine equals twenty-five.
Mum: Read the problem carefully.
Kate: Mmmm ... it doesn't mean 5 red apples are 1 fruit, does it?
Mum: No, it doesn't. 5 red apples are 5 fruits, but 1 kind of fruit.
Kate: So? My answer is correct.
Mum: Ok. How many kind of fruits are there?
Kate: Four.
Mum: And what are they?
Kate: Apple, orange, pear, cho ... eh ... :) :)

my september holiday

Kate had a homework, which was making a journal about last holiday (minimum 5 sentences).

My September Holiday

      I had a super holiday. It was a super holiday because I kept going somewhere. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I went to Plaza Singapura to watch High School Musical 2. It was very noisy there because it was very exciting and the music was very very loud. It was a very fantastic show and very nice. I also went to my friend's house. It was very fun. On Wednesday, my mother and I went to Aunty Honey's Hany's place. Her children are Hanan and Hivah Haifa. Hanan is 5 years old. Haifa is 3 years old. I met a lot of new friends there. We played a lot of games. It was very very fun. The next next day, my mother and I went to Aunty Fiona's place. Her child is Brendon. He is good sometimes but naughty sometimes and even funny sometimes. It was very fun to play there. She also gave me an origami book. I was very creative when I was free because when I was free, I liked to do the paper foldings, a lot of it. It was very fun doing the paper folding.

end of term 3

Just a story about the holiday last week...

One day on holiday, Mum and Kate went to Plasa Singapura. Mum wanted to buy something at Daiso (the $2 shop). At the atrium, there was a dance competition (with High School Musical song). Kate really enjoyed watching it, eventhough she didn't know what High School Musical is. And it made us went back there for 3 days, just to watch the dance :)

The other days, we went to visit and meet up with some old friends. Kate was very happy playing with her old (and new) friends - thank you, guys. At one of visiting, Kate made some of the children cried - sorry, girls - because of the High School Musical bookmark which Kate got at Plasa Singapura. The reason is simple: it was not enough for everyone.

One thing that Kate must not forgot to do on her holiday was doing her homeworks. Here is one of them (using bits of this and that that we found at home)

Today Kate is back to school, ready for Term 4.

(not) zoo animal

Kate needed to make a scrapbook about animal at the zoo.

Well, we haven't been to the zoo in Singapore, except Kate on school trip few months ago. But we had been to zoo in other countries few times. Strangely, we couldn't find any photographs of them, nor in our computer, neither in our photo albums.

After searching all our photo collections, Kate got several animals photographs. None of them was taken at the zoo, though. :)

Since Kate never sees any scrapbook, here is her idea:

garden

Since Kate was having a long weekend (Thu-Sun), the teacher gave lots of homework. Here is one of them:

garden collage

orchard

Question from one of Kate's English workbook:

They went to the orchard to .....
(1) pick some fruits
(2) do some shopping
(3) clean the windows

Could you guess what Kate's first answer?
Yup! Her answer was (2) ...


NB: For you who don't know, the correct answer is (1)

the quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog

Mum was very happy when Kate brought home exam-paper results. Kate got good marks on all 3 subjects (Math, English, Chinese). Horray!! Looks like Kate could follow the Chinese lesson well.

Somehow, one thing was bothering us. It was on English paper - penmanship section. It was supposed to be a very easy section, because the pupils only need to copy down what was written above. But what looked easy was not very easy, because on that section, Kate got much less point than other sections. And it mainly because she wrote 't' instead of 't'. Well, this is not the only letter Kate sometimes writes differently, but still normal letter though, not a fancy writing or calligraphy.

Mum has met with Kate's teacher to discuss this matter. Mum's concern was, the letter Kate wrote should be acceptable because it was what she saw in most of books. We should let children to learn more from their environment, shouldn't we? And we see 't' more than 't', don't we? Even if it was not acceptable, the school usually accepted her different-letter, but not this time. Unconsistency will make the children confused, won't they?

The teacher's point was that she understood Kate's writing, because she knew Kate. But this would make other children got confused. P1 and P2 children were expected to write according to what they learned at school.

Just now Mum tried to find the font (in MS Word) that looks like the letter that the school taught. The closests are 'Century Gothic' for lowercase and 'Microsoft Sans Serif' for uppercase:

jolly housewife made inexpensive meals using quick-frozen vegetables

ALL QUESTIONS ASKED BY FIVE WATCH EXPERTS AMAZED THE JUDGE

mother tongue

This is what happened when mother couldn't read letter in mother-tongue.

Yesterday, it took more than an hour for Mum to read a note (about postcard size) from school. What Mum could get for sure at first sight: there was a date, 9th of May. Hmm ... exam? Double checked with the exam-schedule given earlier -- it matched. Seeing the list, guessed they were columns of type of questions, number of questions, and estimated time given: in total it would be 55 questions in 80 minutes. Ok ... let's get the detail ... dictionary, please ...

And today, Kate brought home a set of exam paper (last year SA1 paper) for practise. Let's see it! There are 55 questions ... yup! Wait ... why is there ".../80"? They will not count the time spent, will they? Oops, that is the total point, not minutes! Double checking with the schedule again ... Yup, the time is 90 minutes.

As for oral exam, which was yesterday ... Mum only could trust Kate on it.

May be we need to ring Grandma more often for Kate to practise her mother-tongue :)