Parent Student Meeting Again

Very shortly after the meet the parent's meeting, it is time for the parents to meet up with their children and for the children to share about their progress again. I prefer the other one that Ace did because this one literally just is a boring goal setting exercise and he just reads his goal to us instead of sharing about what he learnt and what he enjoys doing as well.

But at least I finally met his form teacher Ms Roberts. Contrary to what I imagined her to be, Ms Roberts is probably as old as my mum! She has a grandmotherly feel and when I speak to her, I can tell that she is a very firm and strict teacher with loads of experience.

Unfortunately, Max was in a last minute meeting and couldnt make it for the session... I arrived on time but apparently they were delayed and so while the teacher was inside with other parents, I just walked around the classroom to see if I can take any pictures and I also looked through some of Ace's work...

This was pasted on his class door... the faces of everyone studying inside the classroom..

This is a poem that Ace wrote... It is a series of rhyming words but also a riddle.. can you guess the answer?

These are the goals that Ace set... his teacher said that they are difficult goals to achieve and she wanted to push him a little and set a slightly standard because she feels that he can do much more that what he is doing now and she even told Ace so.

Some of the other things he has done...

A project he did on Diwali.

Note that he has been cancelling away his work. His teacher told him in front of me, "Ace, you are in Grade 2 now.. with puts you into stage 2.. this means you are already a big boy now and that means that we do not do cancelling but attempt to write out the sentence and get it right the very first time instead of cancelling away. While this may be accepted when you were in Grade 2 but it is no longer accepted now that you are in grade 3. You will have to do all the big boys things and prepare and do your work seriously and little things like ensuring that your pencils are sharp before you start doing your work will be important."

But the thing about the targets they st is that they always set targets but forget to review the targets afterward with the children about what they have done to try to achieve it and whether they have achieved their previous targets.. I will wait and see and feedback to the teachers about the goal setting process end of this term if they do not do that...

Ace's story board... Maybe someday he can help Gandie Zhiguang come up with some good story ideas for animations:)

Ace told me his teacher said she watned to give him a better grading but couldnt because of his messy handwriting.. This is what Ace's writing used to look like.. somehow, someone asked him to try to write cursive and he has been joining his letters wrongly and as a result, his writing is sort of messy... so i went to the bookstore and bought him a book that teaches how to write cursive properly lah.. hope it will help him. But i think it is also because he cancel here and there and always have words scrawled all over instead of in a straight line when there is no line...

His teacher passed me a list of 80 frequently used words and said to work on learning them cos they will be expected to read them and spell them correctly at all times... she suggested instead of spelling (boring!) we can make it into games like pairing or splat (where you put the letters on the wall and use a bean bag to hit the right letters when the word is read out) but hor, I where got time to do that.. plus.. I dun live in villa leh, where to find such a huge wall? wahahahaha.. i think I will stick to spelling:)

She says that Ace seems to respond well to games as he has been doing well in math when they play games:) so she encouraged me to use games to teach Ace lah...

Anyway, I noticed Ace was zoning out during the session. When we were done, I asked if he heard what the teacher said and he said he did not cos he was busy looking at other things. Maybe it has been a long day (it was a tuesday which meant he had ECA after school). I hope he doesnt display this type of attitude during normal class hours!:) Anyway, i think he is a little frightened of Ms Roberts. Perhaps they havent gotten to know each other better yet:)

Actually to be honest, I feel Ms Roberts is more like a typical Singaporean teacher than a teacher in an international school:) wahahahaha... Eg, she is firm, she is strict, there are so many dos and don't in her class:) Eg, she doesnt like Ace to move around when he is bored which the other teachers give in to... Sort of prefer teachers who are more go with the flow but i reckon, SOONER OR LATER he will have to face different styles and diff teachers. Perhaps she can instill some good habits that this mummy who has not much discipline cannot..:D Perhaps they really do have higher standards now that the children are in a higher grade.

 Good also lah, if not, he might be in for a rude shock when he goes back to Singapore..

PS: I would also like to add that Ace is making good progress overall. It is like some of the disjointed wires last year were suddenly joined up.. what a difference a year makes:)

His PE teachers says that his swimming is improving.. and Max says he is getting a little bit of ball sense. From totally not understanding arabic, Ace has sort of become best at Arabic lessons in his class as he always gets all the answers right.. On the music side, Ace says that Mr Malanger, his music teacher says that he is not the same boy he was when he arrived in horizon a year ago because now he can follow tones and tunes and has developed an excellent sense of rhythm. In Ace's words, "Mr Malanger says I am Super Ace now... I am looking forward to a better report this coming mid term." :D

On the "homeschooling aspect, we are a little behind time in lessons BUT he is able to read read and write about 200 frequently used words now.But when I tested him using the test in the assessment book, he scored 52 out of 100 because he gave up answering the all the reading comprehension without even trying and said he couldnt read it at all!!!!:( When we went through it afterwards, I asked him to say "teh" for the words he couldnt read and based on what he can read, make a guess of the answer... with he had done that and be more careful (lost many points to careless mistakes), he would have scored at least 65 lor... sigh... Nearly vomit blood... Does anyone have any program or books to recommend for teaching mandarin expressions or grammer?

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