All About Preparing For Primary One

[kero]

Wah… after going through the long postings… I am STUNNED!

Guess I am really far far behind in my son education who is going to P1 next year.

I know for now, my son would have diffculty in Spelling both english & chinese as his childcare didn’t prepare him at all !!! Urgh!!!

Now starting him with HanYuPinYing self-help one… as I realise he does not really able to recognise chinese characters well, let alone to understand what it means.

Guess i need to pull up my socks this 3 weeks.

[winth]

Hi kero,


I’m equally stunned to when I saw the first post from chiefkiasu in the thread.

Am worried with his spelling for both Eng and Chi too. His kindergarten says they will start to prepare him when he starts K2 next year.

My current work with him does not include testing him for spelling as I think it creates unnecessary stress for the child. And usually, a normal child will forget all the words they have memorised after the test is over. So I guess we just test child base on what is given in school.

But I am just curious, if HYPY is taught for first half of year, then how they test Chinese spelling huh? You mean test as in HYPY test?

[Poonie]

Train them to read silently - I realised no one has mentioned this. During the first term at P1, my daughter had difficulty understanding the tests or worksheet questions which I was intially shocked to hear. But she explained to me that she understood better if she could read the questions aloud. However during tests or doing worksheets in the class she was not allowed to do that. I believe most of us have been reading out loud to our kids and they also learn to do that since young.

[Working_Kiasu_Mum]

winth:

Hi kero,


But I am just curious, if HYPY is taught for first half of year, then how they test Chinese spelling huh? You mean test as in HYPY test?

yups, test in HYPY in SA1, my P1 boy in NYPS this year, has his chinese spekling for Sem 1 in HYPY and some characters. There are 10 Chinese spelling fornightly/weekly including 5 or 6 HYPS phrases and 4 to 5 chinese characters. then come Sem 2, more chinese characters.

Most Kids find that HYPY is easier, cos using letters, characters are tougher due to strokes.

[KS_me]

Hi all experienced mum,


May I know how would you label your P1 textbook? what info is needed on the school textbook?

Name in english
Name in chines
Class room.... should I spell out in full for the classroom i.e 1Confident or 1C will do? :oops: :oops:

[jedamum]

I only paste the chinese name on chinese books.

basically i put the full english name and the full class name.

[cantbearit2]

Hi all,


My K1 dd is currently doing phonics and TRIO for whole braing training. Being KS, i will like to start her with CMA maths too. Think it’s too much?She really enjoys both classes currently.

Thot of signing her up for swimming too but hubby said too much stress for her.

My argument was she will not have the time once she starts P1. Anyway, swimming is more for leisure.

Anyone has any views to share? How many enrichment class is too much?

Sigh! Hubby say I too KS liao.

[smurf]

I thought Longman was good. no wonder my engRish so poor lah. :celebrate:

[winth]

cantbearit2:

My K1 dd is currently doing phonics and TRIO for whole braing training. Being KS, i will like to start her with CMA maths too. Think it's too much?She really enjoys both classes currently.


Thot of signing her up for swimming too but hubby said too much stress for her.

My argument was she will not have the time once she starts P1. Anyway, swimming is more for leisure.

Anyone has any views to share? How many enrichment class is too much?

Hi, there are a few considerations for signing up enrichment classes on top of the existing ones. I'm assuming from your post that she is your first born and she's currently the only child in the family?

Some of the considerations that would be put forth are as follows:
1) What is your child's current schedule for her classes? Weekday or weekend class? Number of hours?
2) What is the length of the new classes that you have scheduled for her and will it clash in her existing schedule. When I say clash, it means, does she go one class straight after another? It's kinda tiring actually if she needs to go swimming, have lunch, then go for TRIO class.
3) Location of the courses? East to West?
4) Consideration for parents - are you able to commit to the new schedule throughout the weekends in place of precious family-bonding time? What are you people going to do while she goes for her class?
5) If you have other younger children actually, to be fair, you might want your 2nd born to enjoy the classes that the elder has gone for. So if you look at the long term, the equation goes like this: # of children x # of courses per child

Right now, my DS2 goes for 1 year Shichida, exactly the same as DS1 when DS1 was about 1.5 years.
DS1 has just started his Japanese and Wushu this year.
So our schedule is something like:
Saturday afternoon - Japanese for DS1 (we wait in the car for him)
Sunday early morning - Shichida for DS2 (they wait in the coffeehouse for us)
Sunday afternoon - Wushu for DS1 (we wait at the void deck for him)

We signed him up for the Jap and Wushu bec we know that we are ending our Shichida for DS2 after March, so that will free us. At the moment, this schedule is really tiring. We go for breakfast, have a short trip to somewhere (in place of a half day seaside) and then we need to go for class, whether we like it or not.

Plus the fact that if you go for enrichment classes, you need to be committed to following it through, i.e. homework, make sure she understands (if not really waste of $ for the course). Even for swimming, you might want to remind her about the strokes again or even 'warm her up' for the water.

If your plan is only to have 1 child, by all means if your time and energy allow it. I do want to sign him up for Speech and Drama once, but I can no longer slot him for more classes, and personally I feel that by engaging him for so many classes, we will lose lots of bonding time together when we could have gone to the seaside, book a chalet, cycling in the park etc etc.

[cantbearit2]

Hi Winth,


Thks for the advice. Actually i have 2 gals.

Sat - DD1 goes to Trio with mummy (DD2 stay at hm wif daddy)
Sun - DD1 and DD2 attend phonics class at the same pl. (timing is one aft another from 9.30am to 11am and 11am to 12.30pm)

Juz thot of signing her up for 1 of the weekdays for swimming class. We will stop the swimming class once she is able to swim.

What u think? Too stressful?