Questions about Chinese essay and picture conversation

Consulted Yu's P3 Chinese teacher 傅老师 on the followings and her replies were in blue:

(1)作文字数：
请问作文最少需要写多少个字？

考试的指示是不少于80字。但是，不要太在意字数，浪费时间去数。写1至1.5页，内容完整较重要。

(2) 看图说话：
请问图里的男士是否用“叔叔”或“男士”来称呼？若有超过一个男士，是否都用“叔叔“来称呼？学生是否可以用手指着不同的人物来叙述？

人称依场合来定，“叔叔”、“男士”都可以。不要用手指指着图。

P3 English spelling lists

Spelling 2: Feelings – excitement/happiness tossed his bag totally exhilarated really enthusiastic held her breath face lit up hummed her favourite tune flashed a toothless grin smiled shyly roared with laughter broke into a wide smile squealed in delight in high spirits	Spelling 4: Actions – See scanned among searched my face gazed longingly shot him an angry look caught a glimpse peered intently took a peek strained his eyes from the corner of her eye out of sight wide-eyed winked at
Spelling 6: Actions – Jump/run skipped merrily sprang up leapt out with a start barge into scrambled to her feet scurried around took to his heels pounced on took off fled into in hot pursuit	Spelling 8: Feelings – Anger/Annoyance turned red with anger stormed off heated by the minute clenched his fist in his fury bulging eyes glared at me face fell waited glumly arms crossed dark look temper was rising
Spelling 10: Actions - walk Shuffled grudingly marched down caught up retreated warily made a beeline tag along groped around in the dark struggled on strolled leisurely hobbled on	Spelling 12: weather shone brilliantly blazed unforgivingly swayed to the gentle breeze caressed their cheeks waltzed across the vast blue sky baked the ground wither in the scorching heat elongated shadows lending shade hot sun beat down
Spelling 14: throw/walk pelted stones at chucked my bag aside dumped carelessly by flung a pillow at me tossed a coin quickened my steps sashayed into the ballroom marched into strode confidently on the stage wandered aimlessly

Unit 1: A kitten for the king parade and circus clowns the doctors warned musicians tried to cheer quite contagious young king's day very special kitten laughed with glee in the day time Your Majesty to entertain began to sing no one could agree	Unit 2: Fearless Phil rumbled and grumbled under his jacket mountain track flexed his muscles opened his pack as fast as a deer as fierce as a lion as timid as a mouse as hungry as a bear trembling like a leaf felt like silk like a bullet
Unit 3: The sunflower that went flop sunflower growing by the wall don't get in a tizz fix-it bag hammer and nails needle and string as yellow as the sun as blue as the sky as white as snow as gentle as a dove nothing was found stick-on labels should be planted	Unit 4: The Wolf's Story minding his business house of straw one little puff pile of sticks slammed the door playing tricks house of bricks climbed down their chimney put out the fire cooking pot chased me out locked away
Unit 5: What's this? as flat as a pancake millions of years ago glides through the water as round as a marble catch and eat swallowing its victim makes funny faces and noises like sticky matchsticks chemicals can go through dared not move a muscle	Unit 6: The mystery of missing big wig superior spy boss of spies disguised himself uses spyglass to study the planets and the stars friendly bus captain prodded about solved the mystery like smoke in the wind in the dessert ferret out the truth
Unit 7: The gruffalo took a stroll treetop house underground house local favourite food long pointed sharp tusks unsightly and terrible teeth knobbly knees poisonous wart as brave as a lion go like the wind

2014 Primary-3 Science Syllabus

Pink-highlighted topics are new addition to the syllabus. Strikethrough topics are those removed from the current syllabus.

Themes/Topics	Updated/Removed learning outcomes
Diversity of living and non-things	Recognise some broad groups of living things – animals, amphibians, birds, fish, insects, mammals, reptiles
Diversity of Materials	Compare physical properties of materials based on hardness, strength, flexibility, ability to float/sink in water, waterproof, transparency.
Cycle of plants and animals	Observe and compare the life cycles of animals over a period of time (beetle, butterfly, chicken, cockroach, frog, grasshopper, mosquito)
Electrical system	Recognize that good conductors of electricity are generally conductors of heat
Energy forms and uses	Show an understanding that food produced by plants becomes the source of energy for animals.

P3 Science Exam - Year 2014

SA1 - 15 MCQ, 7 open-ended Questions
Duration - 1 hour
50 marks

SA2 - 24 MCQ, 11 open-ended questions
Duration - 1 hour 30 min
80 marks

2 Science practical tests
10% of overall SA2 marks
Term 1 - 5%
Term 2 - 5%

P3 holistic asessment

• 2 performance-based task (on observation and classification skill), 1 per semester, not graded in report book

• Concept cartoons

New format for English composition

A new format is used.

• No longer based on 4 pictures. Instead, 3 pictures will be given. Student must choose 1 of the pictures to write on. What follows is up to child's creativity.

• Student can base the writing on 2 or all of the pictures, in any order. But the student must adhere to the topic given. For example, if the topic is "An unpleasant incident", student must write on unpleasant incident instead of a pleasant incident.

• At least 120 words.

• Can be 1st person (I) or third person (Tom and his friend). 

• Writing can be narrative, a personal recount, a report, etc.

Teacher Ang said that it is fine to just cancel the words instead of using correction tape.

How I would help Yu to improve his essay writing?

Though I have sent Yu to Mind Stretcher class for one-and-a-half-month, I did not see much improvement in his essay writing.  But from teacher's marking of his written essays, I gathered the root problems and this allowed me to think of actions to resolve the problems.

I observed that Yu is very poor in his grammar. There are a number of mistakes.

(a) Joining many sentences using commas.

(b) Use present tense instead of past tense.

(c) Did not start a sentence with capital letter.

So, my immediate task is to train him to write simple essays with no grammar mistakes. It will comprise short sentences, with simple vocabulary, but must be grammatically correct.

After that, I will need to improve on his vocabulary. He tends to use plain languages like said, told. I would have to search and compile a list of words for him to use.

Below is a summary of my strategies:

1. Combine good phrases 

I have learned that by searching good phrases on the Internet and modifying them for my use, I can come up with pretty good paragraphs. This gives me a clue. I can train Yu to combine good phrases from Internet to come up with his own paragraphs in essay writing.

2. Inject feeling into the essay.
   Writing essay is about how you feel about an incident and not just a description of what happen.  Yu tends to just describe what happens and there is no mention of how the character feels. So, I will need to train him in this aspect.
   
3. Correct Yu's grammar
   • Encourage him to write in short sentences. He tends to write long sentences with a lot of commas.
   • Use past tenses only. He tends to use present tense and marks are deducted for grammar.
    
   
4. Replace 'said', 'told' by richer vocabularies.

"的,得,地"的用法

的: 白色的花朵。（白色和花朵都是名词。）

得: 跑得很快。 （跑是动作，快是形容词。）

地: 她害怕地哭了。(前面是形容词（adj),后面是动词（verb))

1）果然：是事情的结果与之前想的、说的或者看的一样。例如：老师告诉了大家这道题目的答案，果然和我之前做出来的一样。
2）竟然：是事情的结果与之前想的、说的或者看的不一样。例如：早上的天气晴空万里，中午的时候竟然下起了雨。
3）到底：在小学现阶段的意思主要是：最后的结果。例如：这道题目你到底明白了没有？

抓 catch (action: grab, grip, hold tight) 抓紧一奌 <grib tighter>
捉 catch (action: run after something to grab) 捉迷藏 <play hide and seek>

忽然 time passed fast, that one feels like its just like a blink of eyes (unawares)
突然 all of a sudden (unexpectedly)

Source: Forum thread "小学生作文常犯错误分析" at www.kiasuparent.com, contributed by Injason888

P3 Science spelling

This list comprises Science spelling which will be used for revision before exam:

25 Jan 2014:
responds to changes
diversity
reproduce
can move by themselves
classifying
edible
non-edible

Density of liquids

 To teach kids about density of liquids, from TV show  <<疯狂实验室>>.

Experiment 1:
Place the following liquids in the specified order:

1. honey
2. corn syrup
3. maple syrup
4. full cream milk
5. dishwashing liquid
6. coloured water
7. vegetable oil
8. lamp oil
9. rubbing alcohol

Experiment 2:
Create lava lamp

Step 1: Place water at the bottom and oil on top in a glass.
Step 2: Drop coloured water into the glass using a syringe.
Step 3: Place a 胃药片into the glass.

Description of people

A nice story setting extracted from my son's Grammar Cloze workheet. Good for describing mummy or teacher.

-------------------------------

      I sat at the edge of my bed looking at old photographs. I looked fondly at each photograph before putting it away. One photograph struck a cord in my heart. The woman in the picture smiled brilliantly. She was very encouraging and it was her kind words that helped me overcome my difficulties.

      "Believe in yourself. Challenges help you to discover who you are." I will never forget those words of my wise teacher, Miss Tan.

Unit 1: A kitten for the king

Finally, I got time to go through this Stellar worksheets with Yu. Compiling the focus of each unit is essential for a quick revision before examination. Noting what Yu is weak at is also needed for me to think of ways to improve his English.

(1) Vocabulary:

Need to know the meaning of the words: circus clowns, doctors, frowns, Majesty, musicians, pageboy, parade, servants

Explained new vocabulary: "doctors making their rounds at hospital", 'cutlery', 'pageboy' and 'royal'. 

Yu needed to make sentences with these vocabulary and I noted that:

• He is poor in sentence construction. He tends to construct sentences similar to the sample sentence in the worksheet.

• He does not take care of the tenses. e.g  He wrote 'The baby frown' instead of 'the baby frowns'. He also used present tense in first half of the sentence and past tense in second half of the sentence.

• Missing words in the sentence he constructed

Re-iterated to him that he needs to check for missing words, spelling mistakes and punctuation right after he finishes writing each sentence.

(2) This, that, these, thoseHe did not know that fishes in plural form can be just 'fish' and picked 'this' instead of 'these' as the answer.

(3) Could, must, might

(4) Proper titles

e.g. Prince Patrick, Doctor Paterson, King Peter, Queen Phyllis, Princess Patricia

All proper titles must begin with a capital letter.

(5)  "to" + verb + noun

e.g. The boys went to the field. (soccer)

The boys went to the field to play soccer.

(6) Adjectives

Highlighting adjectives in an essay and making sentence with the adjectives.

Clue to an adjective: A noun follows an adjective.

I am surprised to see Yu highlighting verbs and proper nouns as adjectives when he was doing the worksheets.

Life is tough in good class

On the way back home from tuition, I told Yu about my plan for his English spelling. Given the short notice of 2 days, he would have to learn spelling twice a day over the weekend. Surprisingly, he did not object to my plan, as he would in the past. He then revealed that his teacher said any score below 8 for spelling is not acceptable for good class.

There was also informal 'tests'. Students were 'tested' twice in their understanding of the Maths topic within the 2^nd week of the term. A short time of 5 or 6 minutes is given for students to complete 6 questions in each test. Luckily, Yu knows 4-digit numbers well and he scored 6/6 and 5/6 in both assessments.

There are tonnes of homework to be completed each day. Students no longer have the luxury to do the assessment in the school during curriculum time. Instead, they bring homework back home to be completed at home. For example, he has to complete all 10 pages of assessment in the Chinese activity book at home. Over the weekend, he was given 5 worksheets of vocabulary MCQ to be completed and a Chinese essay to copy. But Yu did not lament. He still wants to stay in the good class despite the heavy workload. It is a good sign!

Battery charger

Though it is only an hour per study session, Yu often cannot focus throughout the session. For example, he finds learning essay writing boring and will start to lose his concentration. In the past, I would scold him. This does not help and in fact, though he continues to study, he drags to finish his work.

Recently, I changed my strategy. Instead of scolding him, I would motivate him by pretending to be a battery charger, hugging him to energize him. I would pretend charging in progress and say, "50% charged, 70% charged, 90% charged, 100% charged." This tactic works very well and puts him in a happy mood. And I found that he is more willing to study after that.

我如何帮助裕考到第二名

裕在小二考取第二名，除了他自己的努力，大部分靠的是我的策略。裕不是天生很聪明的孩子，靠的是后天的培养。现与读者分享：

设立目标：

自从在广播节目听到设立目标的重要性后，我就鼓励裕设立成为班上第一的目标。但他缺乏自信，总是觉得其他同学比他好。例如他在考前就因为竞争对手在两次模拟考试中考到满分而他没有,而泄气。这时，就要分析给他听,鼓励他说他能够做到。

设立目标主要的目的是提供他读书的动力，希望他能不需要外在的奖励而主动读书。我也给自己设立一个目标，就是让裕考进三年级的好班。

早教数学：

数学是唯一一科能取得满分的科目。裕自四岁起就读小学数学，所以数学很好。在考试期间，我就能专注在他较弱的语文课目上。在考试前，我只与他复习他常犯的错误及棘手的项目。他只拿95分，主要是因为害怕输給竞争对手，而边做边查答案，结果来不及完成考卷。

提升华文程度：

华 文是许多新加坡小孩很弱的科目。若能在华文上取得不错的成绩，整体分数就不会被拉低。若有MCQ,裕通常会取得不错的成绩，包括理解问答。他的弱点在于用 句子回答理解问答，总共10分，及两题造句，总共4分。造句方面，他不是不会造，而是不会写出一些字。所以，在考试期间，我就放弃准备那两题造句，而由他 自由发挥。

平日测验时，就要严阵以待，认真尽量取得好成绩。除了学写“识写字”，也学写“识读字”，因为这对认字很有帮助。长期累积下来，在考试期间，他能很快地记得所有的识写字，大量减少了复习华文字的时间。

读Roald Dahl 英文故事书：

自从裕开始读 Roald Dahl 英文故事书后，他在第三学期的英文测验总是考到全班最高分，在考试时拿将近满分。英文不像华文，能预备会考到的词汇，所以就只能靠平时的阅读。考试期间，我花许多时间跟他复习英文会考到的项目。

考试期间积极复习：

九月与PSLE Marking Day 学校假日，我都要求裕一天读六小时，平时有上学的日子则读三小时。每读一小时，就休息。通过不同的奖励，提供他读书的动力。

家长需熟悉考试形式：

平日就要注意孩子那个范围较弱，知道孩子弱的项目，而加强练习。例如，开始时，他的synthesis很弱，我就提早让他多做这方面的练习。

考试期间，要跟孩子讲解考试形式。例如裕因看不懂华文指示而花时间把华文字抄写在空白处，结果做不完考卷。题目只需他写号码。所以在考试前，我就跟他讲解考试形式，让他熟悉该做什么。