What's for kids during this June school holiday..

Renzo's June school holiday has officially kicked start last week on May 28, and we went for a 3D2N trip to Malaysia Legoland to "celebrate" his holiday + Rynus didi's birthday. It's Renzo's 4th time and Rynus' 3rd time there and we had loads of fun as the boys have grown a bit older to try out more rides.

Anyway so, after that trip, Renzo is back on his usual routine again as Daddy and Mummy goes to work, Rynus didi goes to full day childcare. And his "usual routine" basically means, to spend the whole day at home with our helper. I do not give him any assessment but he just automatically works on a few pages everyday, which is really great, and there's time allocated for piano practise too, other than that, it's just play, play, and play.

I know many parents have planned a long list of activities for their kids during the school holiday period, SAHMs have the privilege to keep their little ones occupied with daily programs, and even FTWMs are often seen taking a few days leaves on a weekly basis, in order to bring their kids out for some fun. But for us, we prefer to let Renzo stick to his routine and luckily he's a homely person, he can easily spend a few hours customizing his own gundam model from a set of 20 years old gundam models Daddy used to build as a kid. And by the time we are home after work, he can proudly present us with his new creation, such as a 4-headed-dragon-transformer-alike-robot (now I know it's not true that once gundams are built, they are only for display).

You see, keeping him at home for the entire day isn't really that bad. I meant there are so many other kids who have to continue going to student care, although it's probably a full day of play at the center too. But Renzo definitely can enjoy much more freedom at his comfy own house! So instead of cracking our head to decide on what to do with him outside, well you don't have to as there's this popular blogger who shared more than 100 activities for kids which you can find on this awesome blog here, I've planned one single activity to keep Renzo occupied at home, which is, to help with household chores!

Let's face it, since we hired our 1st helper back in 2009, we have never done any real household chores, except for cooking of course as I love to cook for my family. I think back on what I used to do during my school holidays. My dad is a very hands on person who cooks his own meal and washes his own clothes at the age of 65 now. So I remember we had to come up with our own schedule during school holidays, and the schedule mainly comprises 2 tasks (of course besides completing any homework from school): housework, and writing book reviews. I benefit greatly from such good habits since young so I wish my kids could do the same too. Therefore I worked with my helper to come up with a list of items which Renzo could participate daily.

1. Pick Up Their Room — The boys have a rather neat and tidy room but their wardrobe is pretty much overloaded, oh yes the boys are rather fashionable and enjoy picking up their favorite pieces at H&M and Cotton On kids. Renzo's task is to take all his clothes out and sort them accordingly, pack away those no longer wearing for donation.
2. Laundry – Laundry is one of the most tedious chores in my personal opinion but it's also the best task to train great time management and organization skills. I am certain that the washing machine is enough to keep him excited for a period of time.

3. Wipe down piano — It's his own possession and probably he could develop more love and affection towards this most expensive piece of "furniture" in our house.
4. Empty Trashes — The rubbish chute is right outside our door so it probably takes a few seconds for him to hoist trashes into the dumpster. And the bonus part is, he gets to learn about recycled materials this way too.
5. Wash Dishes – He's done it before, stand on a stool at the kitchen sink and wash his own nonbreakable dishes is a piece of cake to him.
6. Organize Bookshelf — We have a number of bookshelves at home, with the biggest one recently added into the living room. It would be super cool if this little one manages to figure out a way to sort out his books nicely.

Renzo got a "Gotcha" book from his school, and he's so eager to collect 15 signatures from us so he could redeem a Gotcha Badge. Now I start to feel proud about the school holiday plan I mapped out for him, because he will definitely be able to achieve his goal before the end of his holiday!

First ever Parent Teacher Meeting (PTM) session 1:1

In the blink of an eye, Renzo has been attending primary school for nearly half a year, so before we welcome the June school holiday which is going to kick start in just 1 day (or probably already started to some), most parents are anticipating some nerve wrenching moment with teachers during PTM in the past few days or weeks. And we just attended ours yesterday morning.

Were we nervous about it? Not at all, at least not about Renzo's school results since he brings home worksheets often, and we know roughly how is he coping academically. We were more interested to know how's his behavior in school and in general, the feedback is he's pretty consistent in school and at home so there's no surprise at all, which is a great thing! It's interesting that Renzo's form teacher mentioned that we parents know our own kids the best so he doesn't have too much to feedback, which is 100% true for our case. (If you feel you do not know your kid well enough, maybe this book "The 5 love languages of your family" is a good starting point.)

Unlike the PTM we attended after term 1 which was held as a group event, this time, it's a one to one session and besides meeting the form teacher, we were also given the option to meet up with Mother Tongue, music, art and even PE teacher.

We had a very quick chat with his form teacher for merely less than 5 minutes, but a rather long chat with the Mother Tongue teacher.

Firstly, we were presented with Renzo's report book, I love the fact that his school made things very transparent by providing us the statistics on class mean and level mean marks for each subject, on top of individual's result, which also comes with a detailed breakdown on how the marks are calculated. For example, maths result is purely based on term 2 paper test result, whereas for Chinese, it's a combination of situational dialogue, listening comprehension, read aloud and paper test. Let me take this opportunity to thank all our beloved preschool teachers who have prepared Renzo well academically, they are truly amazing and I must give all the credit to them for saving us so much money in sending Renzo for any enrichment lessons!

My mummy friends had a good laugh sharing our first PTM experience in a group chat, and I jokingly reminded a mummy about how chatty she is, when she's expressing concerns about teacher's feedback on how talkative her son is. Lol.. Seriously it's no surprise that kids are mirroring their parents. We also chuckled when Renzo's teacher commented that he's very quiet and often in his own world, what's new?! Let's just say it's a Chan family's "trademark". And I was really glad that no one compared results since it can get rather sensitive as all parents definitely wish their own kids to do better. So nope I'm not going to touch on any figures in my post here either.

So my biggest takeaway from this session, was that TEACHERS ARE SO IMPORTANT!!

I always believe that parents are children's best teachers. But after our PTM session, I have to agree to certain extend, that teachers play the most important role in a kid's learning journey. Let me explain why..

Renzo's English teacher is an amazing lady who has tons of ways to motivate her students. All notes jotted down in Renzo's student handbook, are from the English teacher most of the time. They come in very neat and organized form, which reflects how the teacher manages her class in my opinion. (Of course Renzo also derserves some praises for copying the notes down accurately.) There are many reward programs and once a while, Renzo brings home some congratulation cards for good result or good behavior during English lessons. We can easily spot some reward cards hanging on the classroom wall, which helps to promote positive competition and encourage greater achievements.  And we just found out recently that his English teacher is a Year Head for Primary 1 and 2, so that pretty much explains why she's so enthusiastic and passionate in her job. We didn't get to see her this round but she shared a very inspirational speech with all parents during the first PTM session after Term 1. No wonder she's Renzo's favorite teacher and Renzo scored very well for English. No brainer right??!! You love the teacher, you love the subject, you put in more efforts in the subject you love the most, and you score well.

Renzo's maths teacher, who is also his form teacher, is rather the "old school" kind of person, my definition of "old school" basically means the typical kind of teacher whom you could find in your school 20-30 years ago. Strict, direct, and has zero tolerance in mischievous behavior. He commented many times that Renzo seems to love maths so much and one thing not so positive that he brought up, was that Renzo needs to focus and concentrate more during class, but he added, Renzo can multitask very well so although he appears to be "day dreaming", he's able to absorb the knowledge and score well for his tests.

And interestingly, Renzo's Chinese teacher touched on the exact same point, but she gave us a slightly different perspective. Her exact words in describing Renzo were: "Renzo is a very special student. He has found his own learning method so it can be a little frustrating at the beginning, when he didn't seem to follow teacher's way of teaching, but slowly I realized he has his own way and when he's focused, he doesn't get distracted by anyone else so it looks as if he's in his own world, but he's just absorbing." The Chinese teacher even noticed Renzo's potential in arts and commented that she's very impressed with his handwriting, drawing as well as coloring. I was truly touched by this teacher because we've heard hundreds of times about "Renzo seems to be in his own world",  for the past 3 years from his childcare teachers, and also for the past 3 minutes from his Maths/form teacher. Whereas his Chinese teacher, is the first person who managed to put the message through to us in such a positive way.

As parents of course we know Renzo's personality and we try to accept it even we are not 100% sure why he behaves that way, but I am so grateful that this teacher has paid extra attention to understand Renzo better. She even mentioned that when there's a need to hand in worksheet, sometimes she will go directly to get it from Renzo because she feels "Renzo doesn't like to be bothered much about such stuff, he rather gets focused on the knowledge". Wow wow wow!! I am not trying to say that it's right to encourage him to be less independent, we all know that handing in his homework is his own responsibility but seriously, for a teacher who sees him for less than 10 hours in a week, I think she truly deserves a pat on the back for being so patient and observant. And this is the exact reason why I emphasized that "TEACHERS ARE SO IMPORTANT!!". Guess what??!! For a kid who doesn't go for any Chinese enrichment lesson, and doesn't have a Chinese speaking environment at home, Renzo's Chinese result is the best among all 3 subjects! So obviously there's some truth behind the "good teacher = better result" logic. And throughout our conversation, Renzo was happily "playing" around as he heard the teacher mentioned that she really likes him, he's so comfortable in front of the her but just a while ago, with the form teacher, he sat still and didn't "dare" to move or talk. LOL..


So yes, result isn't everything and even Renzo's Chinese teacher mentioned that "Everyone knows that knowledge taught in school is often boring, so how to keep the kids motivated in learning is the key!". And personally, I always believe that handling a kid is just like managing an employee, you don't find ways to motivate an individual, instead you provide them with an environment to self motivate. To achieve that, one of the things I always love to do is to make our home environment more conducive, and we went ahead to expand our book collection by visiting the Popular Book Fair at Singapore Expo right after the PTM session. I am certain that Renzo has found himself some pretty good reading materials to keep this June holiday fun and fulfilling!

Renzo's afternoon routine with helper at home...

[WARNING: LOADS OF PICTURES]

A few days back, we bumped into an upstairs neighbor, whose elder son is going to primary school next year, he casually asked us about our opinions on Renzo's primary school, and then he popped an interesting question, which I've been getting often from my own friends recently too:
"So, your son is at home the entire afternoon with your helper alone? Won't he run riot with your helper?!!"

Well, the answer is, NO..

So yes starting this year, Renzo has been on this new routine where he needs to spend the entire afternoon at home with helper. We do have other options like many other families, to leave him to grandparents, or student care. But personally I feel no where beats his comfy own home. And I trust my help to do an equality good, or probably even better job than most other care givers. We prepared Renzo half a year in advance and he's fully aware that if he's not able to follow a proper routine at home, he will then need to attend student care. I've been telling him that our helper is his home teacher so, how dare is he to "run riot" with his teacher?!

Fortunately, Renzo has established a really great routine as he's been attending full day childcare since 19 months. All he needs is just a fixed timetable. And a "comm book" which is a notebook I use to communicate with him, sometimes I ask him about his day in school, sometimes I assign him tasks to do and all these are done through this "comm book". I always believe if we want to put kids on a routine, we parents need to have a proper routine too, so I always start my day with writing down a few questions, or tasks for him to work on.

And interestingly, sometimes he would correct my spelling mistakes, sometimes he would give me questions instead, and very often, I get answers which are totally unexpected, yet funny. But all these answers also help me understand him better.   At the same time, I secretly hope his writing skill will improve through such kind of writing activity. And English composition would be much easier for him to handle in the very near future.

Recently, he surprised me with answering the below random question 100% right, it's heartwarming to know he's realizing my love to him which I am trying to show through all the breakfast I make for him every morning.

My friends suggested me to chat with him over the phone but I never fancy that idea. I told Renzo that my time at work, is for my boss and my company. Everyone has our own roles and responsibilities so if there's anything urgent, his "home teacher" aka. our helper is the right person to address his concerns. Come to think about it, what if he calls me because he wants to watch TV but there's no slot allocated for TV on his timetable, and helper refused to budge, what would I do? Of course either to allow him turn on the TV or to allow that with certain condition attached to it, such as to watch TV after finishing a few pages of assessment book, otherwise, how to expect him to put down the phone? So nope, I won't allow myself to get into such kind of dilemma.

Kids being kids, he spends most of the afternoon playing, drawing his customized gundams (sometimes his favorite dragons or cars which he's not been drawing for a long time), or reading, because I do not have much work assigned to him. I still do not like the idea of assessment books as I rather they enjoy the learning process than to kill their interest for learning at very early stage with repetitive questions and exercises.

As for his school work, he's been coping well in general. Spelling and tingxie are not as difficult as what he got during K2 in childcare, so I only test him one day before the test date and as usual, I do not really give him time to prepare. If he makes any mistakes, he just correct himself from there. But no doubt, I do feel parents need to get more involved especially now he's in P1. As I always say, parents are their best teachers.

English
So far he's been doing very well although there are small mistakes here and there. He seems to love his English teacher and his English lesson the most.  His teacher also praises him often for good penmanship and nice drawing. Oh yes he's putting in a lot of efforts to draw on his English worksheet!

Recently he's tasked to prepare a script for his English pick and tell. I was very impressed and proud with the 1st draft he came up on his own. Being "very responsible" parents, we tried to help him edit his script but eventually, he decided to come up with 2nd draft on his own after he learned more from his teacher, his books and some video clips on animals. I especially love the way he shares his knowledge, informative and interesting at the same time with some trace of his humorous perosnality there.

Mathematics
This is the subject taught by his form teacher so I didn't really pay much attention, as there's no homework given up till now. I was a little surprised with some mistakes on his school worksheet, but eventually I found out that he's just having some struggles with "fact family", which honestly speaking, I see no reason why they were taught in such a complicated way, it's just simple substraction/addition which he could easily manage at the age of 4. Anyway it serves as a wake up call that nowadays kids learn their mathematics in a very different way and maybe he really needs additional assessment books at home, to reinforce what he's learned in class. After all, practice makes perfect!

Chinese 
Interestingly, Renzo seems to know that this is his weakest subject so he's been extra careful and scored full marks for most of his Chinese worksheets. So when we missed out the date of his very first weighted Chinese test (听力测验), I was pleasantly surprised that he scored full marks without any preparation. That's indeed my goal, to get him into the habit of revising daily and be prepared for test at any time.

Of course I know exactly how poor his Chinese is. Because we seldom converse in Mandarin at home, his vocabulary is extremely weak and his sentence structure isn't quite there yet. So I've been trying to dedicate 1 hour every Saturday for his home Chinese tuition. Boy that's totally not easy as we do have a younger one to manage at the same time too. This week Renzo is having his 2nd official test in school, which is his Chinese 听听说说 - situational dialogue. I am not sure how the test is structured but with some sample questions given by teacher on the left side of the picture below, I came up with sample answers for him on the right side.

It's definitely a long way to go still. And reading some other bloggers' sharing on how they manage home studying with their kids, surely make me a little nervous as some of the parents went all out with daily tuition at home. That's a challenge for full time working parents like us, so we can only entrust our son to manage his own responsibilities well in this case!