GEP Selection Test (Round 2)

Congratulations to Min Yi who got into the second round of the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) Selection Test! Well done!

Besides her, 2 other children from 3 Persistence and 3 Diligence are going for the Selection Test next week.

Let's wish Min Yi all the best.

Dress Code for Class Photography

Dear children,

Please be in your smart and clean school uniform on Thursday, 15 October 2009, for the class photography.

I understand that you have PE lesson on Thursday. Up till now, no clear instructions have been given on the dress code. My suggestion is:

Come to school in your school uniform and keep a set of PE attire in your bag.

I've informed Mr Ashari that you'll be in your school uniform and he understands the rationale behind it.

So don't worry unduly.

Jack and the Beanstalk & Oral Examination

Each RT group gets better as the children view and provide constructive feedback on their friends' performance. It is my wish that with Readers' Theatre, the awareness of an audience will be instilled in children whenever they read aloud - an important oral communication skill.

Oral Examination matter:

Oral Examination will be conducted over this Tuesday and Wednesday.

Reading

When going through Oral practices, I have informed the children the need to 'dramatise' a little ie. the rising tone for questions, the stress on significant words, the tones for different types of sentences or characters. Children are asked to read a passage and the rest of the class would give comments on how their friends perform. From the way I see it, more and more children are starting to have an awareness of their audience and are more conscious of their reading, rather than just getting all the words in the passage correctly read.

It will do the children good if their parents could get the children to read to them and give them feedback on their reading.

Picture Conversation

These are the steps in which children are taught to follow:

1. Start the conversation with 'This picture depicts a scenario in the (place).'

2. Mention that there are many people/children in that particular place.

3. Find a person in the picture to start with, preferably someone on the bottom-left corner of the picture, then move on to the nearest person next to the first person mentioned, until the whole picture is covered.

4. For each person, describe the action and give personal comments such as 'It is very inconsiderate/impolite/kind/helpful' etc and back them up with reasons eg. 'as it will pollute the environment/it is very dangerous/he might injure himself and the others'.

5. At the end of the conversation, wrap it up with 'In a nutshell, this picture shows the behaviour of some people in a (place)'.

Some children have difficulty giving comment for every person in the picture. I suggest children to target giving comment for at least 3 persons if it is not possible to give comment for all.

At the end of it all, it still depends very much on the picture given. I have shown children various pictures. Some pictures do not allow children to describe a lot ie. only one character is acting inconsiderately. My suggestion is to focus on the inconsiderate act and describe how the other characters are reacting, feeling and what they think.

Please remind your child:

1. NOT TO 'look into the future' and say what the character is going to do. FOCUS ON THE GIVEN PICTURE and the currect scenario.

2. NOT TO tell a story. The task is to describe what the people are doing in the picture, not to let the imagination go wild.

Children's Day

Our children were mesmerised by the Children's Day Concert on their Day, the yoyo performance especially. It was a pity I didn't have my camera with me that day. The whole hall of children were totally captivated by the yoyo 'professionals'. Their eyes were fixed, faces fascinated. If any parent is wondering what the hype is about, yoyo is all the fad now!

Some pictures of the children in the classroom showing their excitement when they received their gifts:

Best Group of the Month (September)

Blue Pufferfish!

P3 Music Day

Dear children,

We are going to have our Music Day which will showcase your Creative Dance on Tuesday, 6 October 2009.

Please be in your PE attire for the Dance.

I haven't seen your Dance and am looking forward to it! Be excited and dance your best!

Class photograph

Dear children,

We will have our class photograph taken on 15 October 2009 (Thursday) by a professional photographer.

Please come to school on that day, neatly and proudly dressed in school uniform and ensure that your hair is neat or short if need be.

No charges or payment will be collected from you as it is part of the $12 collected at the beginning of the year.

Do turn up in school for that day as it is my first professionally-taken class photograph with my form class. It'll be a shame if any one of you is missing from the picture.