Happy Birthday, Bryan!

We celebrated Bryan's birthday on 30th October by singing him a birthday song. He had also given his classmates a wonderful goodie bag each to share his joy~ On behalf of the class, I would like thank Mr and Mrs Wong for providing this treat for the children. Happy Birthday, Bryan! As the birthday boy is very 'shy', he is only willing to take one shot with his closest friends in class =p

Happy Birthday, Glenn!

We celebrated Glenn's birthday on 14th October at the canteen with a 'Ben 10' cake. On behalf of the class, I would like thank Mrs Neo for coming down to school with the goodie bags and to prepare for this celebration celebration. Happy Birthday, Glenn! Enjoy the photos =)

Childrens' Day Celebration - 30th Sept 2008

Childrens' Day in Kuo Chuan has always been a 'WOW' experience for the children. This year is no exception with a lovely concert put up by the teachers and a fun-filled carnival for 2 solid hours! View the photos below to see how much the children have enjoyed themselves~

Preparation for Written Expression Exam

Dear all,

Just a reminder that the Written Expression exam is on
7th October 2008, Tuesday.

Please revise from:

• Let's Create book (Composition book) - Especially on the stories 'A Brave Knight', 'Rescuing a Lost Dog' and 'A Greedy Boy'
• Story on 'Grandfather playing board games and fainted' (Written on paper)
• Story on 'Skipping P.E lessons by lying and being punished' (Written on paper)
• Spelling Lists (especially Term 4 where there are idioms)
• Specialist Vocabulary Lists (given out today)

For the exercises written on paper, I've marked them and written comments at the bottom of each piece of writing. I've returned your child both these writings today (Unless your child has not handed in their work to me)

Please take time to go through your child's writing with him/her and reiterate the points I've written for him/her. After which, kindly file in their red file.

I've also prepared good sample writings from 2 pupils in the class as well as compiled a list of common mistakes made during their writings. Take time to read these as well as it would help them avoid these mistakes.

I will list some of the common mistakes below:

• Lack of paragraphs/ Paragraphs are missing
• Past tenses were not used or pupils do not know the correct spelling of the words. For instance, the past tense of ‘wake’ is ‘woke’ and NOT ‘woked’. The past tense of ‘bring’ is ‘brought’ and NOT ‘brang’.
• Setting of the story is not established although it is in their writing plan.
• ‘Body’ of the story is lacking. Too little information
• Sequence of story is jumbled
• Ending was not clear. Conclusion? Morale? Lesson learnt?
• Weak sentence structures
• Lack of good vocabulary words
• Spelling errors for words given in the helping box.
• Inconsistent characters. In the beginning, pupil can refer to a name, and in the middle and the end, they refer to ‘I’.
• Stories did not follow the writing plan, hence there is no structure.
• Pupils started sentences with ‘But’, ‘So’, and ‘And’. This is incorrect.
• Some pupils like to use dialogues/conversations in the story. This is a refreshing idea. However, if they are unsure of the punctuation, dialogues are discouraged, as they make the sentence structures confusing and weak.
• Sentences are incomplete. Pupils are reminded to read their writing many times to ensure their story flows and make sense.

In short, there are some important things to note when writing a recount:

• Use past tenses
• Use of paragraphs to separate introduction, body and ending
• Setting is important for introduction
• Description of characters would make the story more interesting
• Use of good vocabulary words, phrases and idioms (where suitable)
• Sequence of events
• Elaboration of events

Thank you for reading through this lengthy entry. May the children rise up to the occasion =)

Important Examination Information

Dear all,

Please take note of the Exam Dates (from SA2 letter dated 6th August 2008)

Dates	Subjects	Remarks
23 , 24 September (Tues , Wed)	SA2 Text Type	Pupils to design an instructional text
25 , 26 September (Thurs , Fri)	SA2 Math Practical Test	Hands-on activities using manipulatives
7 October (Tues)	SA2 English Paper 1 Composition	Pupils to write a story of at least eighty words based on a set of four pictures, using the helping words and phrases given.
10 , 13 ,14 October (Fri , Mon , Tues)	SA2 English Oral SA2 Mother Tongue Oral	Reading Aloud Picture Conversation Retelling The Ending Of A Fairy Tale
22 October (Wed)	SA2 English Listening Comprehension SA2 Mother Tongue Listening Comprehension	Picture Matching Sound Discrimination A simple listening exercise
23 October (Thurs)	SA2 English Paper 2	My Pals Are Here! English Textbook and Workbook 2A, Units 1 to 8 Textbook and Workbook 2B, Units 10, 12, 13,1 4, 15
24 October (Fri)	SA2 Mathematics	My Pals Math Textbook 2A and 2B, Workbooks 2A (Part 1 & 2) and 2B (Part1 & 2) Math File
29 October (Wed)	SA2 Mother Tongue Paper 2	Chinese : Textbook 2B, Chapter 13 – 22 Hanyu Pinyin Malay : Buku Mekar Textbook and Workbook 2A and 2B, Malay File ( Worksheets ) Tamil : Tamil Osai 2A, 2B Textbooks and 2A, 2B Workbooks Tamil File ( Worksheets )

Spelling Award (Term 3)

I would like to congratulate our Spelling Queen and 3 Spelling Kings for Term 3. They are namely Justine, Junwei, Matthew and Glenn. They have scored a perfect score for all Spelling exercises in Term 3. Fantastic!

Character Award System

The Award system is carried out every term and the objectives of this system is:

1. To encourage our pupils to know the good, desire the good and do the good.


2. To reinforce good character by rewarding pupils when they do good.

A pupil will be given a stamp on his/her Award Sheet (in Homework Diary) by the the teacher when he/she displays any of the 12 character traits, namely Respectful, Responsible, Kindness, Courage, Positive Attitude, Perserverance, Self-Control, Creativity, Humility, Integrity, Love and Diligence.

For undesirable behaviour displayed, the pupil will be given a stamp on the "Stop" sign on the Award Sheet after the teacher has done character-based discipline with the pupil.

At the end of the term, a pupil who has received 20 stamps will be awarded a token.

For Terms 1 and 2, there hadn't been any pupils who received 20 stamps, but for Term 3, we have 5 pupils in the class who have clinched this award!

They are Glenn, Zi Yang, Junwei, Daphne & Justine!

Let us all learn from these model pupils and hopefully, there will be more awardees in Term 4!

Happy Birthday, Bertram!

We celebrated Bertram's birthday last Monday in the canteen with a 'Dinosaur' cake and lovely goodie bags. On behalf of the class, I would like thank Mr and Mrs Ng for coming down to school for this celebration treat. Happy Birthday, Bertram! Enjoy the photos =)

Teacher's Day Celebrations - 29th Aug 2008

Thank you for the thoughtful cards and gifts, children =)
All of you make my teaching days bright as long as you work hard and behave well~

Spelling for Term 4

Spelling for Term 4 will continue on Mondays at 3 p.m.
You would have noticed that the list for this term consists of several idioms with their usage and examples included. These idioms would be useful during Written Expression if the children are able to use them aptly.

I will continue to go through the idioms with the children in class so that they would be able to use them appropriately in their writing.

Click here for Term 4 spelling list or refer to the side bar on the right of this blog.