Sorry for the late reply. Have been really busy helping hubby with his biz. You all move so quickly, I haven't even the time to catch up with all the reading..... :).


Yes, the Intensive Maths Drills shown in some of your replies is the correct one. Please do not get far too many books for your children. It really puts the children off. I have lots of children complaining to me about their parents driving them mad with so many workbooks. If you look carefully at the books in Popular bookstore, you will find a suitable one for your child. Some parents by SAP books, some very enthusiastic ones by Olympiad books. Please get the ones that you see have increasing level of difficulty. I have a P3 (last year) dyslexic boy. He failed in his mid-year Maths exam. This boy comes from one of the top schools in Singapore. He could not cope up with the exercises his mother made him do from the Olympiad and SAP books. He started with me in July. I only had to go through with him every exercises in his Textbooks and I used the Andrew Er Maths Companion at that time because I did not want to frighten him with the thicker Intensive Maths Drills book. In the end, he scored 79 for his exam in October. He could have scored 97 if he was not careless in his very simple and straight forward calculations.

So, parents, do not panic when your child does not do well. You have to be their rock and guide them through. They do not see where their weaknesses are and they panic but you can help steady them and since as adults, we are generally more observant, we can help them.

Please do not try to invent your own way of drawing Models, it only confuses the child. If you use the Textbook method, you can't go wrong and it helps when your child does go along with the flow of the school teaching system. I made a mistake with my first child when she was young (she is now already 22 years old :)). At that time, I did not agree with the German school method of calculation. We had struggles in the beginning. Fortunately, all turned out well!

And yes, some P6 word questions cannot be solved by Model method. You have other methods like Guess and Check method, etc. However, the Model method is generally very good for children to breakdown information and see the word problem in picture (Model) form. It helps solve majority of the word problems.

Good luck to all:)!

P.S. Sorry if I have not got to some points which some of you might have asked but I really got to go off now. Will try to read the many pages I missed out and see if I can answer to your questions later. And sorry if there are any typo errors.

By the way, does anyone have any comments about Marymount Convent School? Living not too far from it and looking for a girls' school.

If you are worried about tricky questions, get the Intensive Maths Drills Workbook from Popular. More than enough exercises (with increasing levels of difficulty) that your children can practise and they will do very well. Just make sure that they keep practising drawing Models even for the simple word problems. I do this with my students and they do very, very well in their Math exams. Faithfully and patiently get your children to do the Models and you will see that they will do well. The problem with most parents teaching their own kids is that their children get away with not drawing the Models and as long as the answers are correct. Then, when they get to P2, P3 and further, they end up having difficulty do the more complicated word problems. Believe me. I see this all the time.

No need to worry about Maths. Really very simple. If you read carefully every page of the Maths Textbook, I am very sure you will understand and be able to teach your child. Really nothing to it. By the way... this is a mummy here :).

Hi Parents whose DDs are taking the school bus,


Kindly advise if your DDs have any comments about Marymount's school bus system. And also, are there any known cases of school bullies? Considering registering my DD in P1 for the year 2012.

Thanks

Thank you, yingxuan0806 and MathIzzzfun!

Hi, hope someone can help me out here:


There were two times as many blue clips as there are yellow clips. After giving away 66 blue clips and 8 yellow clips, there were thrice as many yellow clips as there were blue clips. How many clips were there at first?

Thanks

Hi,


My guess is, for Chinese Penmanship, your child is supposed to copy a short passage or something the like to show how ‘beautiful’ and ‘correct’ her handwriting is. Then, they are graded according. Just like English Penmanship.

Hi autumn82 and Cantbearit2,


Thanks for info :). Appreciate your quick response :).

Dear Parents,


May I find out if parents in this school are expected to find out from one another about homework? Is there any kind of e-mail communication line with teachers? Is the teacher <-> parent communication ok? Just prefer to have open communication available as kids can sometimes be a little confused or forgetful. Do your kids have something like a notebook where they have to record upcoming events, tests, homework, etc?

I called up MCS on Friday and was surprised to find out that they do not have an 'Open Day' planned for this year. So, will not be able to get a feel of the school before registration for P1 2012.

Thanks for info.