Tag Archives: school

Getting Ready for Primary 1

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Anya’s going for her Primary One orientation next week. Can’t believe she’s only got a few days of school left in kindergarten and will be headed to Primary school in less than 2 months! The other day, I was telling her to cherish the time she had left with her classmates and she was also shocked to realise that she had so little time left with them and was quite upset and couldn’t sleep. Poor kid.

We headed to Smiggle to get her a new school bag and she chose one in blue because that’s her favourite colour. Some people say that Smiggle bags don’t last that long but I also hear that ergonomic bags are terribly heavy even without anything inside so I think this will work for now until we figure out something better. After all, it’s cute and quite affordable.

We also dropped by Bibi & Baba to get her school uniforms. She looks so different and so grown up in her new uniform. Where has my baby gone? She said the uniform is too loose but I think she just needs to get used to it. Pretty sure I’ll be in tears on the first day of school!

her school bag for next year

her school bag for next year

looking at all the blue stuff

looking at all the blue stuff

not in the mood for photos

not in the mood for photos

hand me those uniforms!

hand me those uniforms!

Now that Anya’s heading to Primary school and going to turn 7, I’ll probably not blog about her so much and I will also have fewer photos of her on the blog. Don’t think she’ll appreciate having all the details of her life on the blog for her new friends and their parents to stumble upon!

Anya’s Graduation Concert

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I was a lot less emotional during Anya’s graduation concert than I thought I would be. It feels like such a short while ago that I blogged about her concert last year and now she has graduated! I cannot believe how fast she’s growing up.

Adrian dropped us at UCC really early on the day of the concert so he could go and get the rest of my family. Anya was literally the first kid to get there and we got her make-up done and managed to get some shots without random people in the background photobombing us.

at UCC

at UCC

before the show

before the show

We had pretty lousy seats near the back and I’m so thankful for my friends who helped to take photos of Anya. One friend was seated right in the first row and during Anya’s performance, I popped over and sat in her kid’s seat while he squeezed in with her for a bit. Really nice of her to do that. She knew how bummed I was about getting such terrible seats!

The concert was called ‘The Little Red Dots’ in line with SG50. Some of the children performed dances from the different ethnic groups and there was also a dance tribute to LKY. Anya’s class danced to ‘Home’ but her favourite was the ‘Ah Boys to Men’ dance where the kids wore cute little camouflage costumes.

Little Red Dots

Little Red Dots

graduation ceremony

graduation ceremony

getting her scroll

getting her scroll

her dance item

her dance item

this is Home, truly...

this is Home, truly…

where I know I must be...

where I know I must be…

where that river always flows...

where that river always flows…

she danced so well!

awesome performance!

finale

finale

I thought I would sob like a baby during her graduation ceremony and performance but was rather calm through it all. I’m so proud of her and it’s been marvellous watching her bloom in her 4 years in this kindergarten and I know there’s so much in store for her when she starts Primary school. Adam will be in K1 next year and it will be his turn to perform in the annual concert!

family photo

family photo

with some of her friends

with some of her friends

and the mums

and the mums

Open House 2015 – Adam’s Faces

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Adam’s class did their project work on faces! They made many different kinds of faces such as balloon faces stuffed with flour, animal faces made of clay, paper thaumatrope faces, silhouette printing, papier mache faces, and so many more! The whole class worked together to make a giant face and they also put up a performance and they sang two action songs

Part of the Open House involved raising money for charity. In Adam’s class, there were some paintings on display that were painted by the students and these paintings were up for auction. We were admiring them and remarking that some of the kids could paint so well. Then we discovered that one of the pictures (of a yellow cat in a blue shirt) was done by Adam! We were pleasantly surprised because we weren’t aware that he had any artistic inclination. I’m sure he had a lot of help from his teachers but we were very proud of his work (and of course we bid for his painting).

giant face made by the entire class

giant face made by the entire class

thaumatrope faces

thaumatrope faces (facial features are on different sides and you are supposed to spin it to see the whole face)

masks

Chinese opera masks

robot faces

robot faces

expressions

facial expressions

Adam's art piece

Adam’s art piece

Open House 2015 – Anya’s Puppets

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Every year, the kids in nursery and up are given a theme for Project Work and they spend most of the year learning about and doing activities based on the theme. Each class is given a different theme and Anya’s class had Puppets.

Coincidentally, the National Museum had shadow puppet shows and puppet-making workshops as part of their programme for Masak Masak so we managed to learn a lot about puppets there and her project was based on what she did at the museum.

We were most impressed by the amount of effort put in by the students and teachers. There were so many different types of puppets on display. They even put up two performances: one in Chinese, and one in English. The puppets for the performance were all made by the students.

My favourite bit was a little book with a story written (in Chinese!) and illustrated by Anya. The story was about her baby brother running off to climb a mountain on his own and how every one had to run around looking frantically for him. She made a glove puppet to represent each member of the family in the story. Definitely a precious piece of work that I will be putting into her memory box!

Anya's project

Anya’s project

imagining a peacock puppt

imagining a peacock puppt

she made a blue puppet

she made a blue puppet

glove puppet

glove puppet

Primary 1 Registration for Anya

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2A1

Phase 2A1

I can’t believe I have a kid going into Primary 1 next year! I know it’s a bit of a cliche to say this, but where did the time go? One moment she’s a squishy, fat baby, and the next moment I have a little girl who reads and writes and makes all sorts of smart ass sarcastic remarks. It truly takes my breath away.

I must admit I was a bit of a slacker about the whole registration process. I put together her birth certificate, our identity cards, her immunisation certificate and my alumni letter, but forgot to make photocopies of the documents. I also thought the alumni letter would be good enough and didn’t know that I might have to produce my report books and/ or PSLE certificate so I turned the house upside down the night before registration to look for those items.

I couldn’t sleep well the night before and even woke the husband up at 2 am (by tickling his feet) thinking that it was already 7 am! Then I woke up a few more times before it was actually time to get up. The husband dropped me at my beloved alma mater then took the kids to school before coming back again to join me. I got to the registration counter before 8 am and was 7th in line for Phase 2A1. While I was filling in the form, I started feeling so emotional thinking about how my daughter’s going to be wearing the same uniform I wore for 10 years, studying in the same campus.. *sniff!*

The lady at the counter was kind and friendly and we bantered for a bit while waiting for my documents to be photocopied. I told her I was surprised by the higher than usual number of spaces taken up at Phase 1 and she agreed that it was definitely more than what the school usually gets at that stage. The whole process went quite smoothly and, since I was so early, I was done very fast.

After the registration, we went to the canteen to eat. I will never cease to be amazed by the fact that I can buy noodles from the same auntie that I bought noodles from on my first day of school in Primary 1. So many warm fuzzy feelings in one morning!

Initially, I wasn’t nervous at all about Primary 1 registration. But when I saw the unusually high numbers for Phase 1 and read about another girls’ school that was likely to have to ballot at Phase 2A1, I starting worrying in earnest. I was on tenterhooks the rest of the day and only felt slightly better when Adrian texted me at 4pm to say that his friend’s wife’s friend was at the school and was number 59 and there was no one else in line. I did not breathe easy until 8 pm that night when the results for 2A1 were announced and we were safe.

To be honest, I would be devastated if my daughter could not attend the same school that her mother/ aunts/ grandaunts/ great-grandmother attended. Thank God her place is confirmed!

An Interview with Children’s Book Writer David Seow

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When I first came across the Sam, Sebbie & Di-Di-Di series of children’s books written by author David Seow, I was instantly drawn to them because they are about the adventures of a little girl and her two younger brothers and the beautifully-illustrated book covers reminded me so much of Anya, Adam and David. The books are published by Epigram Books and illustrated by Soefara Jafney and I will be reviewing all the books in the series.

I really wanted to begin my series of book reviews with an interview with the author and he was kind enough to answer some questions I had for him. David Seow is a well-known children’s book writer and a staple on the Singapore literary scene. He is an award-nominated children’s book author of over 20 children’s books, including the Sam, Sebbie and Di-Di-Di series, Alexander’s Adventure Machine, and The Littlest Emperor. His latest books are There’s Soup on My Fly!, Blow A Kiss, If I Were a Blue Kangaroo, and Emma’s Elephant.

Sam, Sebbie & Di-Di-Di

Sam, Sebbie & Di-Di-Di

Q: What inspired you to write your first book?

A: My niece and nephews Sam, Sebbie and Jeremy (Di-Di-Di) inspired me to start writing the books. I used to babysit them every weekend and I had to read to them at bedtime. Each of them wanted me to read a stack of picture books to them and so to make things simple, I started coming up with stories about them which they seemed to like.

Q: How much of the book is realistic? 

A: The stories were first published in 1998 when the children were toddlers. My youngest nephew, Xandy was born after I started writing. The books that are currently available are re-illusrated and edited versions of the books.There were things that I wasn’t happy about with the original series and I was happy that Epigram Books approached me about revamping the series. I think Epigram Books has done an amazing job with the series. They’ve paired me up with an amazing editor and a fantastic illustrator. I love working with them but they may not feel the same way. I can be hard work! LOL.

Q: What are your current projects? Can you share a little of your current work with us? 

A: I have just finished a big commissioned project and I’m working on the sequel to my book A Day with the Duchess which is about Sam, Sebbie, Di-Di-Di and Xandy visiting the royals in London.

Q: Who is your favourite children’s author and what is it that you like about his/ her work? 

A: I don’t have one particular favourite author. I like Naomi Kojima, Susanna Goho-Quek, Norm Jorgensen, Chris Cheng, Sarah Mousey, Sheri Tan, AJ Low,  Emily Lim, James Foley and Mo Willems. Each of them have very strong voices in their stories which resonate with children and adults alike. They have a sense of fun and that’s what every children’s book should have. That’s the most important part of a children’s book.

Q: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? 

A: Thanks for reading my books. I hope you like them. Please buy more!! :)

Disclaimer: We received the books from Epigram Books for review purposes. All opinions are my own. 

Anya’s Concert

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A few weeks ago, we watched Anya’s kindergarten concert at the University Cultural Centre (UCC). It was all a bit surreal because we used to have so many performances at UCC when we were still in NUS more than 10 years ago and now I’m watching my kid perform on stage!

Anya was really excited about the performance and had been singing the songs in the car and practising the dance moves at home for the longest time. She was also very pleased with her costume and kept telling us how nice it was.

Anya was very particular about her make-up, emphasising that she was supposed to have silver eyeshadow, pink blusher and red lipstick. I’m very clueless about make-up since I hardly wear any but Aunty Debs came to the rescue and gave us tons of make-up for Anya’s performance.

doing her make-up before the show

doing her make-up before the show

Adam wondering what the fuss is all about

Adam wondering what the fuss is all about

all ready to perform

all ready to perform

being matchy-matchy in my Lark & Peony cheongsam

being matchy-matchy in my Lark & Peony cheongsam

a quick family photo (without the baby)

a quick family photo (without the baby)

the kids being herded backstage

the kids being herded backstage

We were seated pretty far back because the better seats were reserved for the families of the K2 graduating children so I’m very thankful that David of Life’s Tiny Miracles (who was seated much further in front with his very good camera and superb photography skills) took some beautiful close-up shots of Anya’s performance for me!

Anya’s dance was one of the first items and it was clear to to see that the kids and the teachers had put in so much effort into the dance. The same goes for every other item that followed. It takes a lot of dedication to put together a performance involving so many different groups of young children!

The Power of One

The Power of One

Anya in action

Anya in action (photo credit: David)

so happy to be performing

so happy to be performing (photo credit: David)

Lasso the Moon

Lasso the Moon

the finale

the finale

It wasn’t even her graduation and I was already bursting with pride and close to tears! I think I’m going to be a slobbering mess when I see her in her little graduation gown. How did my baby grow into a little lady so quickly??

with the baby after the performance

with the baby after the performance

well done, Anya!

well done, Anya!