Blessings from Above

Claire has been doing spelling since the start of this year - are there specific methods to learn to spell? I teach her to recite the letters and then the word as she writes them so that they 'register' in her brain. Is this a good method?

Recently, there has been a furore among parents with young children over plans by the education ministry to 'review' the current primary school registration process as the current system gives priority to certain groups of people, much to the chagrin of others. I belong to a group who has some 'slight advantage' over others as I graduated from one of the local top schools - that 'automatically' qualifies Claire for a place for the school. Never mind that we stay a good 30 - 40 mins drive away from the school. However, being a single gender school, we will need to seek alternative schools for the boys, adding to our logistics woe in the future. Our current residence is in a private estate and the nearest school is 1.3km away. We have started looking at properties nearer to school for Claire, which means that we will have to move out of our comfort zone in the east. To make matters worse, property prices have escalated to ridiculous levels with suburban prop...

I am a product of the "much-debated" bilingual policy of this country but before I go on, let me first clarify - I HATED mandarin classes. ok, maybe HATE is too strong a word but I really had no affinity with the language nor the teachers that taught it. the methods used still leave a bitter taste in my mouth because I have such a goldfish memory (no '听写' & '墨写' for me pls!). I practically slept through all the classes then - I can still vividly see my teachers shaking their heads vigorously at me because of my learning attitude towards the language. in the end though, I still got a distinction for the subject. Coming from a supposedly '华校' (or chinese school) where taking higher chinese is the norm, rather than the exception and many even taking an additional foreign language for the 'o' levels, I have to say that this 'exposure' to the language is something I am proud of. Up till today, I can still read, write and speak fluent...

the original intention was to have li'l one go for playgroup twice a week when i need to go office so we enrolled her in the school, got the new uniforms and even paid the fees. this was her on the 1st day of (play) school - so happy and at ease - i felt very relieved that she took to 'school' so well! she actually woke up on time and the 1st thing she said was - 'go school, go school!'... but i believe that having a familiar face around definitely helps! UNFORTUNATELY, the weekend after the 1st 2 days of 'school', her grandma (婆婆〕was shoved at a crowded place, fell and broke her thigh bone as a result. after several days of consideration, i decided to delay school by another term or two so that i can go over to take care of mom until she gets better.