prepare our kids for primary one..

June 11. 2015, it's just another normal Friday morning, I was preparing to set off for work while Daddy Chan came home with a letter, after dropping the boys at their childcare center, he looked absolutely overjoyed...

The letter was from our #1 choice of Primary School we've been planning to register Renzo with, informing us about details on Phase 2B registration. No there's still no guarantee that he will be able to get in but at least, we earned ourselves a chance to parent volunteering, before participating in Phase 2C with other schools.

During the past few years, while I've been spending a lot of time reading up on parenting tips, I did came across many tips on how to prepare our kids for primary school. And I could easily name a few such as:
- teach kids to ask for permission
- train kids to buy food and eat faster
- build their confidence and get them familiarized with school
- teach kids to relay information between school and parents
- teach kids to take care of their own belongings (eg: school bag, books, stationery, money..)
- etc, etc...

But be it from the experts, professional educators, or experienced parents, there's one most important tip that appears on every single checklist, that is:
- Get kids into a proper ROUTINE

Yes this is the one and only one thing I've been working on so far, and probably for the next 6 months. I do not really want to touch on the rest of the tips as I think Renzo has been doing a great job so far on all those areas, and I strongly believe once the routine is built, he will be able to manage the rest of the stuff well, on his own.

Renzo has been following a pretty good routine, yes he has a time table to follow daily since baby time. So that's nothing new to him, but the difference here is, he has been attending full day childcare since he was 19 months old and with great teachers around, it's not that hard for him to follow instructions and do what other kids do at the same time. But starting next year, he's going to spend the entire afternoon at home after school. I need to make sure he allocates his time properly so that he could get his home work done, have enough time to play, and rest. Of course I could come up with a new time table for him by then but I feel, he should be independent enough to handle all by himself this time round. And that way, probably it's also easier for him to stick to his own scheduling, take his own initiative and complete his tasks proactively.

As a first step, I asked him to help me out with re-organizing his books. I wanted him to participate so he could get a better idea about what type of books he has and whether there's anything he could pass down to his little brother. It's a way to train him on taking care of his own belongings too. The two had quite a bit of fun arranging their book shelf and Renzo even found his "7-piece-puzzle" which kept him busy for quite a while afterwards.

So, this was how his book shelf looked before, with English books at the top left, Chinese books at the top right, Rynus didi's books at the bottom left, and activity/assessment/educational books at the bottom right. It's not very hard to tell that the boys really do not have a lot of academics related books, and they are not asked to do any of those assessment books so far. I always believe in getting them into a good reading habit than doing assessment books. The marking of answers is a big turn off to kids and I don't see how it encourages kids to learn knowledge. Some of such educational books, like the phonics reader set I got for Renzo, he almost never touched them at all, instead he proceeded on to read long paragraphs independently. And I believe being able to read well, will definitely stimulate and broaden their views, and allow them to do better in comprehension and composition.

We bought a small book shelf to be placed in the living room, so that all academics related books, together with his paper for drawing and origami, oh yes I've not mentioned he's super obsessed with origami aeroplanes recently, he doesn't just fold them, he decorate them with colorful drawings and even stickers too. So besides all these, he's allowed to choose 5 books from his "old" book shelf in his bedroom, and migrate them to the "new" book shelf in living room so he could read them once he's home. This might not sound anything brilliant, it's just books after all, so why bother? Well to me, there are a few reasons.

Firstly, kids will form a routine to read when they are surrounded with books. Renzo's book shelf is in his bedroom so most of the time, he only thinks about reading books before his bedtime. By putting some of the books at the living room, it increases the chance of him reaching out to one when he's roaming around the living room.

Secondly, I want him to be responsible and strong in decision making. I am pretty sure he would pick his first 5 favorite books, along the way, he might find some of the books a little boring, but hey, suck it up boy! I meant, deal with it, that's your decision so you just have to own it. And what I hope to see is that at the end of the day, he will learn from his "wrong decisions" and make wiser choices in selecting the books he wants to read.

Last but not least, whatever Renzo is doing, is going to have an influence, in this case a very positive one, on his Rynus didi. It's tested and proven, we just have to do this together with him again, it's a new milestone for him and for us, and once he gets used to it and have a good start, it will be easier for us to go through the same with Rynus next time!

It is said that it takes approximately 21 days to build a habit. And for kids, so far based on my own experience, it probably just takes about 72 hours, yes that's only 3 days for them to realize they are expected to do certain things in a routined way. Sticking to it is tougher but it will only get easier along the way, and I am sure we will enjoy the ride with Renzo!

piano lessons, to continue, or not?

I am not sure if it is fated, somehow Renzo's piano learning journey has not been very smooth from the beginning. Since September 2012 till now, it's been almost 3 years and he has changed 4 teachers. First 2 from Yamaha music school and he followed them for a total of 6 months, just to learn music appreciation so he left Yamaha without being able to play a single piece of song. And after a 6 months break, he followed a home teacher for another 1 year, made some pretty good progress in terms of learning to read notes and getting the rhythms right with proper counting. And then we switched him to Ossia Music School for one on one lessons since last December. In a way, I am totally not impressed with Renzo's progress thus far. 3 years of learning is definitely not a short period of time but despite being able to read notes independently, his playing is still, nothing much to be shout out about...

According to the teacher Ms Yvonne, Renzo's progress is rather fast for his age, as he could read notes well. Well, what I love this school the most, is that the teacher communicate effectively with us through the record book. The first 3 months, I've been hearing all praises and Ms Yvonne has also recommended to let Renzo take the Grade 1 Prep Test which is going to happen this September. But recently, more often than not, I got the feedback that Renzo has not been practicing well, which is 100% true. We tried out many methods to encourage him, but often he's dreading his practice each week and we see an unhappy Renzo spending an hour in front of his piano, with probably the first 20-30 minutes whining about how difficult it is to play especially when he's required to use both hands. We all know that for sure, either Daddy nor I had learned how to play piano before and, we have no plan to pick it up moving forward, simply because, it's just too difficult!

So we fully understand Renzo's pain, it's not easy, it's never easy and it will not get any easier. But it's not meant to be easy anyway.  To encourage him to take up the challenge, I even learned a simple piece in less than 5 minutes from Daddy Chan, don't judge me on my hand posture, skill, or rhythm, I did this simply to prove to Renzo that as long as we are willing to, anyone can pick up anything new and difficult even if we know nothing about it.

Another effort we've made to get him into a better practice routine, is to shorten the practice time. Instead of letting him spend a full hour on a Saturday morning once a week, we make sure even if it's just a short 5 minutes, he MUST, touch his piano on a daily basis, no matter how busy his schedule is. I am glad that the boys have long formed this great routine after they are back from the childcare. So by 8pm they are all free to work on any kind of activities and sparing a short 5-15 minutes to practice piano, is not a problem for Renzo at all.

He seems to enjoy this routine much better as I keep reminding him that he's not required to sit down and practice each and every piece of song since he has ample time to do it the next day. And the result is almost immediate, because the following week, he received 3 stars and a "very good" comment from his teacher. He perked up and regained his confidence, and of course, is willing to practice more.

Just a few weeks ago, all of us were struggling to make a decision on whether we should continue his piano lessons, since obviously, he's not too interested, nor very talented in that. And back then I told him that I do not wish to see him easily give up on it just because he finds it difficult, and I believe if he practices more, he will master it and find it easier slowly. And since he's committed to go for his Prep Test in September, we will only bring up this topic and make a decision after he's done with the test, be it he passes or not, we will respect his choice about whether to continue his lesson or not, of course, provided he could justify for himself.

For now, I am hoping that the new routine will change his attitude towards piano practice and boost up his fighting spirit to conquer it, and hopefully, to continue with his lessons and enjoy the learning experience!

Ending this post with a cheeky video of Renzo practicing his piano and yes he's been pretty cheerful recently when he's asked to practice every night, so I am pinning much more hope than before that he would continue his learning journey happily and carry on with this only one real enrichment we sign him up for..

P1 registration 2015, it's coming

When was the last time I talked about primary school plan for Renzo? I did a recap and here you go:

July 31, 2011 - freaking 4 years ago when Renzo was barely 2, I talked about the rather complex P1 registration process which till date, I am still not 100% confident that I got it all right (you know, policy changes all the time...). But good thing is, back then, the choice has been pretty clear for us..

Aug 19, 2013 - then about 2 years later, with all the changes in life (house moving, that's a big deal when you talk about primary schools in Singapore), we didn't change our initial plan and instead, we proceeded on to get ourselves secured with a new job role - parent volunteers so that we could stick to our 1st choice of primary school, and since then. we've never looked back..

So what was our decision again for Renzo's primary school?
(Decision from our very first discussion 4 years ago)

Yeah! I am super glad it didn't change after all these 4 years. And even Renzo points at the school whenever we travel pass that area and asks: "That's my primary school right? I know that!". Once a while I do get distracted a bit by some of the rankings or comments from the internet about different primary schools, but I quickly remind myself,  our initial goal was to find a school that doesn't only focuses on academic results, but also gives Renzo enough exposure to experience and enjoy a colorful 6 years of elementary school life.

And how do we know if the school is able to provide him with such an environment?
Of course we won't know. But I guess our efforts in joining the parent volunteering program is the best channel for us to have a better taste of the school of our choice. Indeed I must thank Daddy Chan dearest for his efforts, in participating and making the PV experience super fun and enjoyable. Why do I say so? You will be surprised, or I should say there's no surprise at all, that most of the time you either see the Daddy, or very often the Mummy only, doing the PV work in school. And I think our kids are super lucky that the Daddy is always willing to dedicate his time and work hard for them whenever possible.

With our combined efforts, we only went to school 4 times before hitting that magic number of 40 hours. Don't get me wrong, it's not easy for working parents to take full day off from busy work schedule at all. I am just saying the school is very considerate to assign more full day programs to working parents so it's easier for us the clock the hours. We were extremely happy to find out the types of program the students are exposed to. For example, we brought a group of "student leaders from P3-P6" for their leadership training activities, such as completing different challenges as individuals and as a group. It's definitely rewarding to get to mingle around with school teachers, current students to hear more about the school. We were even lucky enough to meet with the chairman of the parent support group, to learn about some feedback from parents too!! And Yes! We truly love our every encounter with the school!

 

Ready to bring kids out for LTA visit to understand Singapore's public transportation system

 

PV work at school library!

PV work at swimming complex!

So tada, here's one excited mummy who can't wait to get a seat in our 1st choice primary school for our darling boy. Of course, you might think the next thing I want to say is, I am all ready to sit back and relax while waiting for the good news from the school!

Apparently, you are wrong, I was wrong too because I always got the impression that it's guaranteed that under Phase 2B, Renzo would definitely get a seat and that's based on my hours of research on historical record of the school. Unfortunately, when I called the school up today, I was told by a friendly admin manager that we will receive the letter in June and we could bring it along for the P1 registration in July under Phase 2B, and based on subscription rate, Renzo might, or MIGHT NOT get into the school!!

Quite a bummer isn't it? After all the careful considerations and efforts and only to be told there's no guarantee? But hey, what's the big deal?! Guess what I did next? I scrolled up and read this again:

That's why there's this thing called "2nd choice" in our original plan so yes, if the 2B plan ever fails for our 1st choice school, we will just go for 2C phase with our 2nd choice school and it's the NEAREST school to our house! Isn't that a great news?!

I know I know, what if?

No what if!!

I am really going to sit back and relax now while waiting for this to happen:
(from a school monthly circular)
Tentative dates for P1 registration in 2015 for 2009 kids who are going to P1 in Jan 2016.
Phase 1: 2-3 July 2015
Phase 2A(1): 7 July 2015
Phase 2A(2): 13-14 July 2015
Phase 2B: 20-21 July 2015
Phase 2C: 29-31 July 2015