This year, we decided to go to Traders' Hotel for our reunion dinner.

Oh, what a spread?!

It feels different not having Grand Daddy around... .

How apt?

It's the beginning of the year and C made a calender.

 Spring

 Summer

 Autumn

Winter

And there you have it... one for each season.

C's latest art piece!

She loves her art classes on Saturday mornings.

This entry should have come in at the beginning of January but... never mind. Better late than never. 

Cheryl is in K2 this year and there has been many changes in school. For one, the teaching style has changed. She now sits in a permanent classroom with only 2 teachers; Ms Novelle is the "form teacher" who will be teaching the class everything from English, Mathematics to Project Work and then there is Ling Lao Shi who does Mandarin with the pupils.

She also sits with a partner in class and unlike the past, where she has a personal space in the classroom, she must now learn to concentrate with many friends around her. Ms Jocelyn, the Principal, reiterated that this arrangement was so that the children can be prepared for the primary school setting next year and I am all for it.

So far, C has been doing well in this setting and she is getting accustomed to having her partner around. :)

Just before the new school year started, C reminded me to get her stationery ready and we packed her school bag together.

C has been carrying her own stationery to school since last year hence she is alright with this arrangement. We tagged all of her stationery and her pencil case.

and she has a personalised bag for her stuff. She picked out the design herself and calls it her "fairy bag".

At the beginning of each school year, Josiah will request that we update Cheryl's profile and personal details.

And she will also need to submit 2 photographs of herself.

Our Precious has grown so much. :)

Aunt Di and Grand Mummy make some really mean new year goodies and they have been taking orders for several years now. 

The Lunar New Year is around the corner and they are taking orders again.

We love them because they are really delicious and very crispy and I have finished the entire tub at one sitting. Hehe. Anyways, if you are keen, you can email my sister at blogaaholic@gmail.com. She will close orders when she hits her quota of 30 tubs.

Each tub is priced at $15.

We love it when we spend Sundays with Grand Mummy and the rest of C's aunts. :)

One of the many reasons is because these ladies have the most wonderful ideas when it comes to preparing dinner and they are always in the mood to try out new recipes and new tastes.

  This evening, we had tempura udon. It doesn't look anything like those being sold in the stores but the taste was good. C liked it so much, she actually ate two bowls! How's that for a validation? :)

Our second attempt at putting...

Conclusion: It is not easy at all. When C was doing it, I was telling her to watch her direction and judge the distance and dishing out advice like I was a pro. Honestly, when I was doing it, I understood why the golf ball just wouldn't go the way I wanted it too.

Anyways, Coach Philip is a patient man and a very friendly one at that too. 

All of us!

Now that C is in K2, I notice that she has been given more practices to work on in Mandarin. She is beginning to bring homework back and she showed me the stuff that she did in class too.

She is also starting to learn hanyu ping ying.

And definitely writing characters that are more complex. Her penmanship has also improved significantly. :)

I was getting worried about her not adapting well because we hardly use the language with her and I am also clueless about how to go about teaching her. But she seemed fine.

A perfect 10! :) Daddy and I were happy that she managed. Next list of words are the days of the week.

Seems like I am not the only one who is preparing C for her primary school. Josiah is letting the children read more difficult words and revising nouns amongst other things.

A departure from the usual. In the past, Ms Novelle would be the one providing her with the list of words of the same sounds but now, C is given the spelling to the diphthong and she will have to come up with her own list of words and then use two of these words to construct two sentences.   

Looks like there are a lot of exciting and interesting things happening in term 1.

Daddy was contemplating taking her to catch The Ugle Duckling but it seems that Josiah has that covered. C will be watching the play with her classmates. :)

Then we received another notice informing us that there will be "Out-of-Classroom" experience. C and her classmates will be visiting places like NTUC, or the Parks for some experiential learning. Sounds really good!

No wonder she is excited.

When C's English spelling list came, I knew it was only a matter of time before she came back with her Chinese. And true enough, 2 days ago, I saw the list.

The characters aren't difficult and we have been practising nightly. I am seeking advice here because besides getting her to write and re write, I am wondering if there was another way of getting her to learn her Mandarin. Correction: I know for sure that there is a better and more effective way! But I need to know how to teach her.

Initially, she had some trouble but I came up with one silly story for her to remember the character of "ni" that was just one character. What about the rest? ...

For spelling in English, we were doing alright. 

  She gave herself many stickers after she completed her task and I was positively sure that it was because she felt such an accomplishment being able to spell the words and write out the characters correctly.

"Good job, Cheryl and we will work hard together!"

Two days back, C returned with news that she had been appointed Class Monitress

My immediate response to the news was of course, happy and definitely very proud of her. 

Upon further probing, I realised that her classmates had voted her to be the monitress and she would hold the position for a month before Ms Novelle gets another student to fill the post. I know Josiah is big on getting their pupils accustomed to life in primary school so this does not really come as a surprise for me. 

Among her duties, she has to distribute and collect books for her teachers and also to maintain order and discipline in her class. It is definitely a big job for a little girl but I guess, it is a good time to start.

Coach Philip took a family shot of us on the green.