National Library Board (NLB) is fantastic because they make reading accessible to all children. Not only do they have a comprehensive and wide range of reading and literacy programmes for school-going children, they also come to schools with their books and allow the children to borrow them.

This was not the first time that C had borrowed books from the mobile library. She also borrowed some books last year so I guess it was a yearly affair that the NLB went to her school. I saw that she had borrowed 6 books and they were of different genres. There was a classic and the was another on Science. Then she also borrowed one on values and character-building. Hmmm.... Okay, I will check with her when she is done to find out which is her favourite. :)

Back when I was a student, the best we had as a book store was Big Bookshop and it was nothing compared to the Popular book shops we have today. Big Bookshop didn't have fanciful storybooks and it carried mainly assessment books and stationery.

Then when C came into the picture, Popular bookshop became one of her favourite hideouts where she bought her story books. We didn't really frequent libraries because returning books took too much of an effort and we didn't want to risk getting fined.

Last week, I brought C to another kind of bookshop and she was intrigued by how she would get money back when she returned the book within the allotted time frame.

She told me the night before that she wanted to go to San's again and then reminded me again this afternoon. When we got there, she immediately set her bag down and dug into it for her book; she had finished reading it (in record time! - 1 week) then quickly returned it and headed to the shelf with the other Nancy Drew books.

Her new book for this week. :)

C is expected to write compositions and chinese compos at Primary 2 and these though Daddy and I could converse in Mandarin, writing those characters can prove tricky for us. While she did her homework, she would ask if we could help her with this word and that and I had to admit, there were times where I had to stop and think for a good 3-minute before the word came to me. A product of having not used the language as frequently as we should.

Though a simple piece, C took a while to complete because she was always coming up with complex sentences. Hence Daddy and I decided that she should get a little help:

:)

As for English, C is alright. :)

C returned with a form informing us that there will be a Story-telling Fiesta for the Primary 1 and 2 pupils.

It wasn't compulsory that the pupils join the Fiesta but they were highly encouraged to. This is a platform for the children to sharpen their presentation and speaking skills. Besides, this also helps build confidence. We discussed this with C and she agreed that she would participate in the Challenge. 

C would have to narrate a meaningful story which can either be a personal experience or not. She could also take a story from a novel that she had read but she must be able to link the story important values like faith, honesty, responsibility and humility among others and of course, to acknowledge the source of her story.

We have come up with a story and she has been practising though she still needs to work on her intonation and pitch. The first round starts this week and she will have to present her story to her class. The best 2 speakers will be picked from each class and they will compete against their peers 2 weeks from now. The winner will represent the school in the YMCA Plain English Speaking Awards 2013. 

It takes courage to speak in front of crowds and this is a good start. :)

C loves to follow Daddy down at the petrol station whenever we are there. That is because she will somehow get her Daddy to buy her a snack or a magazine. Her previous purchase was a comic: Archie, which I didn't approve of. So this evening, I specifically instructed her not to get anything from the store.

But when she got back in the car, I saw that she was carrying something in her hands and before I could question her, she defended her purchase.

Hmm... okay, not too bad: a book on word search. What I thought was useful; the words were categorized according to themes.

  She loved it so much that she put away the iPad and worked on the word search the entire journey. She didn't stop when she got back too and was going through exercises after exercises. When she was unable to find some words, she got Daddy to help.

I remember reading these books when I was in school and now Cheryl is reading them.



These were gifts from her aunts. Somehow they managed to get her different titles and these books will definitely last her a while. :)

It was lunch and I was with my kakis, Val and Justina. I can't recall what we were talking about but some how our conversation drifted to some of the books we read when we were kids. 

Val and I got really excited ... because of a series of books that we had when we were kids: Charlie Brown's 'Cyclopedia. It had 15 volumes in the series and each volume dealt with a different theme, from the Human Body, to Energy, to Stars and Planets. Oh, we have such fond memories of these books. 

That afternoon, I sat myself down to search for these books. It was quite a task because these books are out of print and it was quite impossible to get brand new ones. I managed to find a seller in the U.S.A who was selling her books at a pretty reasonable rate.

C was really excited when she saw a huge box and in it, all 15 volumes. That every evening, she started on volume 1 and didn't stop until I reminded her that it was late. The next morning, she brought another volume down to the car as she decided that she would occupy her time wisely while Daddy drove her to Art class. :)

Cheryl's homework this evening, a worksheet on "My River".

She learned about animals and we also did a little extra work by doing a simple research on some of the animals. We used the Internet to find out some facts on the salamander and muskrat too. The favourite part of the worksheet must be the last segment where C had to work on a word puzzle. :) 

One of the things I enjoy doing at the end of the day is looking through Precious' school bag. It's not just because I want to find out what homework she has to complete that evening but rather because I want to be updated on the work that she has done in school. There will be the usual texts and when there is a workbook in there, I know that there is Math homework. Other than that, I secretly wish that I will find her journals and creative writing exercise books, both English and Mandarin.

 And you will know why:

We love to read her entries and even more so, we adore the interesting and lovely pictures she drew. I was particularly impressed with this picture of the puffin. I looked into her study as she was finishing up her work and saw that she was humming to herself and swaying to the beat. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that she had paid attention to details and had coloured the puffin in its exact shades. :)  

Nothing is more encouraging than seeing her enjoying her homework. 

Half way into term 2 of 2012, and I must say Precious is coping well. She does her work every night and will even want to get her homework completed every Friday night after we get back from swim class at 1030pm.

I noticed that Precious has shown marked improvement in her English. She is also able to learn her spelling in speed time and this means only one attempt.

:) This is a little token from Mrs Lim for C's good performance in class with her spelling.

Writing in mandarin is definitely not something C does frequently but she has ideas. :)

She deliberated over what to write when she received her assignment over the March holidays. 

The other on-going assignment: reading. She has been diligently filling the log after each book she reads. She was most happy when she received many books for her birthday because she said, "Now, I can definitely fill up the entire log." Haha. Well, her filling up her log is really secondary because it's the love for reading and books that we want her to cultivate. :)

A summary of what C has done for English.

Her weekly Spelling for Term 1 and she has been performing well in school.

C definitely adores her Creative Writing sessions and she always wants to show us her completed work. :)

Precious loves books. One of her favourite hide out was the bookshops like Borders, before they closed down and Popular.

Each trip we made to the bookstore would see her coming out with a new book.

Earlier in the week, she returned with a book list. Bookaburra will be holding a book fair at her school and she had already picked some out. She had initially wanted as many as 5 titles because she said that she had read all the books that we had purchased but Daddy and I told her to choose only 3. 

C will be paying for these books herself: using the savings from her daily pocket money. :)

Not forgetting her Mandarin, she also reads 1 mandarin story book each week.

For Primary 1, there aren't major examinations but there are what the School calls "Mid Point Checks". They are really more like tests as the school term progresses.

C is on the Stellar Programme for English and this is the programme that all primary school children have to go through. 

For Math, there are more practices on Number Bonds and of course, simple problem solving sums. 

For Mandarin, C does her 好朋友. She traces characters and answers questions on 汉语拼音. There are a lot of matching exercises and she likes working on those exercises. Her teacher will note down several pages that she has to complete as homework but Precious has this habit of finishing all the writing exercises in the subscription. 

So far, we have been heartened that Precious enjoys school. She loves her classmates and her teachers. She has been able to make good friends. She has no issues with homework and for subjects like Math and Chinese, she has also been appointed the class representative. 

We received several updates from Mrs Lim regarding Cheryl's progress in school.

Cheryl has been learning more about number bonds.

And for English, proper nouns.

These are more like reinforcement as Precious had been exposed to them when she was in Josiah. :)

Last Saturday, during the Parents' Meeting, some parents requested that the school let us know the price list of the food items sold in the canteen and she came back with this list.

Food is reasonably priced and it looks like the amount that C brings to school everyday is sufficient.

Several days ago, Cheryl received a letter from Warren. That very evening, she got down to writing her own.

This morning, she mailed it out. :)

The whole experience of writing letter was quite good. C said she wanted to drop it in the letter box herself so we allowed her to do it.

Cheryl has mail! Warren is into writing letter lately and Aunt Hazel was wondering how he could write to. Our Precious responded . :)


It was such a cute letter and Warren had put it up behind the "ice cream" he coloured. C got down to writing her very own last night and she would be posting it out on Saturday.

We sat ourselves down to pen down Cheryl's thoughts about our recent trip to Kuantan. Ms Novelle got the children in school to write journal entries about their excursions too so I thought it would be a good idea to continue the exercise.