let's jellydance! wobbles

Tuyan: [[Snowman Tidbits]]

2008-11-27T20:40:00.005+08:00

Okay, so today we(Me, shihui, beryl) went to conduct our 2nd day of the craft camp... and we did the SNOWMAN!!!!
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Alright, so this was supposed to be the shittest idea but the kids turned out to love it.
And something vry funny happened which i thoguht to share with you guys. (Actually beryl's suggestion)

Ok, prenote: The snowman is made by cutting out a rectangle(roll into a tube) and a square(base of snowman), then sticking cotton wool on the tube to make it look fluffy and fat. Pictures of sample snowmen will be posted soon, but for now, just try to imagine it.

Ok, in my little group, there's this little boy who seriously sucked at craft. Lets call him Boy. (I know its not creative.)
Ok, here goes:

Me: Measure a rectangle which is 16.5 by 9cm on the piece of paper and draw it out.*Proceed to show and help some of them*
One kid: Why?
Me: Later need to cut out one.
Boy: *Anyhow draw a lopsided square and rectangle without measuring, but using his ruler. But it somehow isn't straught anyway*
Me: Hey, you must measure properly and draw, or else later not nice.
Boy: Nevermind.
Me: Need my help? I help you draw?
Boy: Don't need. I can do myself.
*Later he proceeds to cut out two pieces of wierd shaped papers which does not have straight edges.*
Boy: Ok, do liao. Then how?
Me: Erm... *eyes his papers*, just fold it over, like this, and tape. *Shows everyone how to do it*
Boy: *Anyhow fold it over and tape do that it doesn't even look like a roll, and can't falls over when u put it on the table*
*At this point of time i went away to take smth, glue, i think*
*When i came back, my square was gone*
Me: Aye, where's my square?
Boy: *Holds a perfectly shaped square that looks suspiciously like mine*
One kid: He took it.*points*
Boy: Never. This one is mine.
Me: Huh? Then mine leh?
Boy: *points to one half-crumpled, oddly shaped, misshapen piece of paper* There. Yours.
Me:....
*I cut another square*

[After a while]
Boy: *Crumples his tube* Jiejie, i got no roll.
Me: Huh???? *Looks hard at the crumpled tube* Isn't that yours? Why you crumple?
Boy: No. That one not mine.
Me:...
Boy: *points to my tube* Give me.
Me: Why??????
Boy: That one is mine.
Me: ???????????????????????
Me: Never mind, i get you a new one. *Gets him cardboard tube that is perfectly round and un-crumple-able*
*We then proceeded to stick on the cotton wool on the rolls*
** Somehow the boy's snowman's fluff looked sparse, tangled and matted with white glue**
[After everyone's nearly finished(including me)]
Boy: *tore off all the cotton from his ~~snowman~~ tube (I simply can't call it a snowman the way it looked)
Me: *Shocked* Why you tear everything off???
Boy: My snowman don't have snow. Hah hah hah hah hah....
Me:But..... but......
~End of session~

[Later]
Boy: Jiejie. Give me that one can? *Points to the snowman i made*
Me: Nope. you have your own one.
Boy: But I want.
Me: Too bad, its mine. I want it too.*starting to b a little pissed off liao*
Boy: Give me lar, I return you tomorrow.
me: *Stares at him disbelivingly* Erm... dont want.
Boy: I WANT!!!!! *tries to snatch*
*I held it high above my head, (thank god i'm tall) and he couldn't reach it*
Boy: I want I want!!!! *Whines... accidentally tears a Pri1 Christmas tree in his attempt to get it.*
~~~

In the end when we left, i went out first to hide, then he reached for shihui's pastic bag when he saw shihui's snowman hat poking out and con't whining: "I want I want...."(To which shihui obviously said no. Actually she said: "This is the materials bag, you can't have it." Hahaha...)

Okay, so thats the whole story.

Woah what a long post.

How'd you'all think? Funny? Irritating? I think its a bit of both...

haha!

2008-10-23T18:33:00.001+08:00

now it's time..

for the DAY CAMP PLANNING!! :DD

you all free this sunday? or next monday! (deepavali!)

hehheh! excited! XDDD

HELLO JELLIES :DD (GASP! today is the anniversary of sept11!)

2008-09-11T20:38:00.005+08:00

tday was there from 3.15 - 5.30pm!

finally taught An after soo long, haha! he's turned alot faster! we managed to finish 6 pages in 10 minutes! :DD

after he was done, i taught JL.. she.. still prefers to get answers -.-

her maths has improved, but it may be due to the questions being simple subtraction and addition (they're working with Time now, though).

i sucked at Time back in primary school and i remember colouring and destroying the clock in the living room out of vengence keke :DD

then i taught Lus! he hasnt changed much, but towards the end he was super sianned and telling me how he hated maths and everything to do with it, including me, and refusing to do questions at the end. then i got fed up with his attitude and told him to get his attitude right, or i'm leaving him to do it. then his attitude improved..

i pinned a mini Guides trefoil on my pencil case, and a p4 girl at the centre saw it.. she pointed at it and asked where i got it.. i was wondering why she would be interested in my trefoil.. then she told me she was a Brownie! hahas! :DDD

had a lot of kids and teachers asking me where you all were today!

Jo: where's 长颈鹿？(aka tuyanXD)
me: she isnt here..
Jo: why? her best friend leh?
me: huh? who?
Jo: the scientist!
me: sarah?
Jo: dunno.
me: they're both still at school, having lessons
Jo: HOR! YOU SKIP SCHOOL RIGHT!
me: haha, no. they take alot of subjects, so they stay in sch longer(:

Ro: farah leh? how come farah never come with you?
me: oh, she couldnt come.. plus exams are coming! do you miss her?
Ro: ME? no lah! ah okay, about 1%
An: HAHA LIKE REAL! YOU WANT HER(farah) HERE RIGHT!
Ro: *pouts and walks away*

Sel: fenghan?(i think she said that, i wasnt too sure, her voice was so soft, but i'm sure it's you :D) how come that jiejie never come? where is she? is she ever coming back?
me: oh, it's exams now, thats why we arent coming
Sel: oh. okay. will she be coming?
me: nope, not today
Sel: oh.. why?
me: *faints*

Jes: where's that jiejie?
me: oh, you mean jean?
Jes: not sure. that one lor
me: she's not here
Jes: oh. why ah?
me: *omgggggg* *repeats reason i told Sel*

auntie cat asked where we were.. i said you all were still in school..
AuntC: so, in other words, they never come lah.
me: ahh.. yeah..
AuntC: will you all still come?
me: we're not here now because of the exams.. probably till after the exams, which ends in oct.
AuntC: huh. Oct ah. but by the time you all come back they've all finished their exams already what. no purpose already.
me: *stunned*
me: ah, last year i came to help out with the trips out, and revised with them their work using the centre's assessment books.
AuntC: oh. ok.

i got the feeling AuntC was disappointed that we weren't teaching them, cause of the exams.. i was kinda incredulous.. is she asking us to spend less time on our academics to help them, right at the critical moments before the exam? and also, i think she thought we weren't committed, that we were there purely just for the hours and for the SL, and that once the SL ended,we all 拍拍屁股就走, cause we've already 'used' them.

Auntie Yewhwa asks if we would like to organise some stuff for them during the hols!

it could be daycamp!! (doesnt have to be academic AT ALL!:DD)
i was thinking of us organising one, and it could be named JELLYCAMP! all prizes will be jellies :DD
or a 2hr, 3hr course! (on arts and crafts, etc. was thinking of using white glue and felt and making christmas stockings! then on the last day can give them candy to put into the christmas stocking! when i was younger i clipped to my bed the longest sock i could find in hopes of getting more candy from "santaclaus".. i used my dad's super long black sock. my sis was smarter. she used my mum's stockings. haha)

or, another outing! :DD
she suggested SPCA, etcetc!

i really really really think we should organise one! please? =3

30th July reflection

2008-08-10T17:55:00.001+08:00

Well on the 30th July, I checked through J Maths work. I also had to go through some corrections with her. She was quite careless in terms of addition and subtraction. Her maths seemed to improve a lot.

She practically knew how to do almost all the the problem sums except for one which I think is quite difficult for her level. Upon completing her homework, the teacher in charge asked me to go through with her the muliplication table.

I tested her from 2 times table until 12 times table. I also set some questions on the spot and asked her to answer verbally. I feel that she is quite good at her multiplication and let her off to play her own games.

I went to tutor M , who needed help with fractions. I checked through his work before allowing him to submit it to his teacher. After which I played a board game with J. I ain't know what it is called but it is of a star-shaped though.

6th August reflection...

2008-08-10T17:27:00.011+08:00

Hey... ...

On the 6th of August, I taught J maths. I told her that1 liter is equivalent to 1000ml. Once again, she is careless when it comes to questions such as 15litres 50ml- 4 litres800ml. She gets very confused when she sees both litres and milli-litres appearing. I told her to convert all the litres to milli-litres .Thus the above example will be something like this:15050ml-4800ml.

From then, I asked her to do her subtraction as usual. After which , I asked her to convert her answer back to litres and milli-litres. Though , there were times when she could not get the right answer but eventually, she managed to get the correct answer and understood the concept behind it. I was so happy that my effeort has finally paid off. Phew!!

Oh yeah there's a good news to share wif you all,

J scored 18/20for her maths ,15/20 for her English and 19.5/20 for her Chinese.
She is very smart... =)

--End of the dae--

6th Aug! :DD

2008-08-09T17:28:00.003+08:00

Everyone there from 4-6pm! :DD

missed the previous trip on the 30th cause i was training for the Guides Pioneering test (I passed!! :DD)

At first when i got there, An was away at percussion! D:

so i taught LeHa instead.

I was devastated!! nah just kidding :DD

in the start of the year, before SL began, i taught LeHa. He was really hard to handle, he refuses to concentrate, keeps asking you to buy stuff for him, simply ignores you if he ain't interested.

but he needed help and i was available, so i took him on anyway. and ah.. he has become better since the start of the year. He listened a little attentively, was able to do some questions. Then his attention wandered, but using coloured markers was effective in grabbing his interest in doing the questions. only problem was, he kept arguing with me over the markers he should use, and why the lady in the question had to give away her cupcakes -.-

with the markers we managed to do about 6 questions in one hour.. pretty okay :DD

and then An came out!

He was super enthusiastic and even gave me a warning before plopping down his book beside me "jiejie, you surely will have sorethroat when you finish teaching me! i got alot and alot of questions to ask you! *flips pages*"

haha so cute! in the end we managed to finish about 4 pages, not bad too :DD

several points to note:
When An doesnt know how to read a person's name in the question, like "Timothy has balhbalhablabh", i'ld tell him to just call the person "T", 'cause i feel the name isnt important, and "T" is all you need to draw a model.

but the teacher there felt that learning how to pronounce english words were important (it can also help him in English). So i taught him Timothy - Tea-Mole-Thea

and i also told him something that MrGan told me:
whenever you dont know a value, just show it out, but leave the details blank first!

pretty effective when it comes to drawing models, cause An hesitates to draw a model when he doesn't know the value. (like the current me haha)

--

today we also asked the teachers to do the survey, because from what i was told, the teachers didnt allow themselves to do the survey last week, saying that we needed to clear it with their heads (Faith jiejie and Auntie Yewhwa) first.

Very valid point, so they asked Faith jiejie, who said that they can only grade when they were sitting beside us, so the survey was pushed back to today.

but when we gave the surveys out today, the teachers informed us that they had a meeting a few days ago, and that Auntie Yewhwa wanted to take a look at the surveys before we distributed them.. and i felt immensely guilty..

the whole survey could have been done better.. i didnt think of it then, but it was kinda rude of us not to clear with them the survey, particularly the principal, auntie yewhwa..

made us look bad.. sorry jellies >.<

i'll try and think before i do stuff next time @.@

6 Aug (last visit before break for exams)

2008-08-07T22:32:00.003+08:00

taught 4 ppl maths today -- no great feat though, also like spend 20mins teaching each

(1) QY was doing maths - addition/subtraction of money, quite tedious since have to add them up by doing workings after workings which made it more prone to errors as well
otherwise, not much problems

problems sums -- took time figuring out what's 5cents, =o.o5 but he wrote it as 0.50 at first, so need to take note as well

(2) taught another guy fractions -- simplification e.g 4/8 =1/2
think he was lazy to think so he simply wrote everything =1/1 which was obviously incorrect
so i taught him that only when numerator and denominator are the same, then the simplified one would be 1
also taught him a little of finding our the 'common factor' such as by trying whether both numerator and denominator and divide by 2,3,4, followed by 5 first before writing down the answer -- able to do without assistance after getting the concept

(3) taught an upper primary malay boy fractions corrections also -- i guess it's schoolwork but his teacher must be quite careless since she marked many of the questions wrong, and even after doing at least 5 pages, he got most of it wrong, showing that he had been doing them without even grasping the concept first
so i taught him the concept (1) find the common factor which applies only when both numerator and denominator are divisible by it (2) multiply with common factor to get the answer
unfortunately, he didnt seem to get it, so i taught him using visuals and he did get the common factor part correct, but the answer is still wrong
so i reminded him to multiply to the given but he finished the work correctly only with assistance by me

(4) finally, an upper primary boy doing corrections - no serious problems encoutered except that he misinterpreted the questions which affected the results. the corrections i guess were still mostly due to not focuseing when doing work

overall, nothing much for me today -- perhaps can make fraction notes for the kids

30 july

2008-08-02T19:35:00.003+08:00

Ron was sick and wasnt at the centre that day so i went to teach the upper primary
taught JW at first but he got scolded for treating me badly (though it wasnt bad at all) and i felt weird to continue to teach him so i let sarah teach him

taught JJ instead -- he's very smart just easily distracted and a little lazy
he was able to figure out the steps towards the answer with just one hint from me though i must say that the sums were rather difficult for his level

he finished quickly after i nagged at him to do instead of looking around
so he packed up after he had completed

so i went on to teach a p4 top student there doing p5 work
not much help needed from me though
she was unsure with 2 questions in section B of the mock paper so i tried solving while she continued with the other questions

could see that she was very focus in finishing her work and didnt want to waste any time

even i took some time to finish the 2 questions, one of which i didnt quite understand the question (same as the topstudent) so i was rather unsure about the answer

we checked whether our answers were the same for both questions and ta da -- it's time for her to go

two other guys approached me regarding "fill-in-the-blanks" question which requires you to read through the entire passage and the answers in the box provided for you to choose before being able to answer all of them correctly

however, they were all in a rush so they hurried me
i let them redo the corrections themselves then i would check whether they are correct after that

in their hurry to finish i dunno whether their answers were correct as i didnt manage to read through everything, but simply see if the sentence structure was smooth with the choice they made

hope that i didnt cost them any more mistakes ...

29.8

2008-08-01T23:45:00.005+08:00

Went to the centre without beryl.
Initially have no one to teach.
Later Farah introduce me to one tutee.
So i took JW for the day.
I guess he's a problem kid, cause two teachers scolded him severely that day.
Firstly due to him not paying attention
and
Secondly, because he used the excuse of : "my glasses spoilt so i can't see the words clearly thus unable to do"
On the second one, i thought he just say it for fun but didn't expect the volunteer to take it so seriously.
From this i felt that the volunteer scolded him for the sake of scolding and would look anywhere in order to find a topic to scold him.
Still, it can be seen that he is quite naughty as he couldn't bother to answer the volunteer's question correctly and looked very angry with his eyes turned white elsewhere while the volunteer scolded him.
He said he hated maths and felt science was much easier.
So i tell him that science will depend a lot on maths when he goes to secondary school. If he couldn't do the simple math question now, he will not be able to well in science in the future secondly school as he did so now.
Can see that he is quite worried though, but he do not really believe me.
Really, his maths work that day is actually on multiplication, the steps to take when multiplying 2 numbers.
He's a primary 4 but i remember that C already know how to multiply before i taught her division on the first session to the centre. and C is only pri 3.
So, in conclusion his maths is not that good.
Thus we spent like years for him to finish his 2 page maths assignment cause he always don't want to do and talk to his friends.

Later after he finished his homework, i went off and saw a pri 4 student teaching An maths.
He drew models to teach him! i was impressed that he is able to help An even though his level of education is only 1 years higher than An.
And An listened to him =)

That day is also the time to conduct survey.
It is not very successful as we only got about 5 responses from the students there and the volunteers couldn't do it for us as they want to sit beside us as we teach our tutee in order for them to grade us.
Then it was too late, so the in-charge agreed to help us do it the next session.
But after missing 2 weeks the deadline for the finished report would have been out already.

K that's basically all.

16th July ReFleCtiOn...

2008-07-20T17:03:00.003+08:00

Heh heh..

Well, today i tutored J. She was restless and was not very focused. I helped her in mathematics.
The topic that she was doing was regarding distances. There were questions such as 1km800m- 925m=?m. Firstly, I reinforced with her the concept that 1km=1000m and that 1m=100cm. Next, I told her to make sure that the values are of the same unit before doing subtraction or addition. An example will be to convert 1km800m into 1800m first before proceeding with the later part of the question.

She knows how to solve such short-answer questions but was just too lazy to do them. I make her do her working out on the paper and checked them before she wrote it on her book. When it comes to problem sums, she shows a sign of disdain for it. She even asked me to help her do all. Of course I didn't and I guided her through the questions. I read the question out aloud to her and asked her what is the first step she would do. She answered it correctly and I allowed her to write it on her book.

This session with J showed that her maths has certainly improved as she know what to do and managed to complete her homework earlier as compared to the previous time whereby I was quite frustrated with her for being not serious with her work.

She enjoys looking at very LARGE model diagrams. I drew it out for her and she instantly knew what to do.

Upon completeing her work, we played tic-tac -toe. It was fun, i certainly enjoy playing with her. We also played hangman whereby I gave her a word to guess and then she will give me a word to guess. We also played treasure hunt. This game seem more like a mono-player game cos it was not very fun though.

Anyway, though I felt quite angry initially that she was still very restless, i managed to remain quite cool and that made both parties feel good............

J is just like any other kid. When it comes to playing, she is very interested but when it comes to doing maths she will be very restless. Oh yeah, J has a preference for CL not for maths, that's sad...

16.7.08 reflections

2008-07-17T19:56:00.006+08:00

Reached the centre early again at 3.45pm
C most probably tell the volunteers there that she don't like me, so i never go find her again.
Therefore, i was sitting by myself, without a tutee and doing my homework.
After a while, i was introduced a pri 3 by the name of JH whom i have never seen before to be taught.
It was maths problem sums corrections.
He said he knows how to draw models but is lazy.
So i drew using my marker pen for him and explained the way to go about solving the question.
He was a pretty good tutee, cause unlike others, he asked me to explain again when he don't understand a part. Most tutees that i taught before only wants the answer and couldn't be bothered about not understanding.
He also learnt very fast, being able to apply what he has learnt in the first question to other questions.

This is what he learnt:
1) How to use models to see the question more clearly, such as counting how many units there are.
2) what does 1 unit stands for. How to find 1 unit given 6 units = a number.
3) Other units must be of the same size for that unit to be equal.

I guess it is pretty successful even though he only did 4 corrections in all, due to the percussion session which lasted for >1 hr.
He was distracted some times. But at least, he is willing to do workings such as addition and multiplication by himself even though he sees my calculator right in front.

This is what I learnt from him:
1)some lame jokes such as :
Q What are you doing yesterday at 10 am?
A Breathing. (its quite lame cause studying can also be an answer)
2)His science is not bad cause he scored 80/100 according to him.
3)He had me on Wednesdays, MGS tutor on Thursdays and ACS(I) tutor on Friday.
4)He said that his maths is "good but not good." (?????)

This is what i found out:
1) He likes to use markers to do work, perhaps it is the markers which enabled him to listen to me and write every steps and workings by himself.
2) He (and a lot of pri 3) has too much exposure to things that he should not know at his age.
3) His model drawing needs to be improved.

At the end of the day, he passed me a small note to be opened only when i reached home.
It written "tank you Sarah" with a picture of a sun flower (exactly like what i drew when i was pri 3). So sweet of him =))) even though he spelt "thank" wrongly =P.

16th July~

2008-07-16T23:46:00.005+08:00

All there from 3.40 to 5.50! pm.

Using Mr Liu's idea, i brought something little to show him how the apple question works. Wanted to bring lego blocks, but i couldnt find enough..

so i brought little stones instead!

he could understand pretty well, but it was kinda hard to get him to listen to me and watch me move around the stones, when all he wanted to do was touch them himself -.-

but in the end he was willing to listen to me, after i promised him he could use the stones after he understands the question. then i asked him to explain for me all over again how the question should be solved, he could do it :DD

so yeah, question down! then we moved on to his other questions! since we already had the stones on the table, we decided to use the stones to help us understand the question, cause he likes moving the stones around, and was perfectly happy to use the stones to make "3D-models".

the red stones represent the ring, the blue stone represents the chain!

using the stones were good, though sometimes he gets super carried away and cant be bothered to do the questions.

he went off halfway for some percussion lesson, and when he came back he informed me that he was gonna have percussion lessons every wednesday at 3.30!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Last time the band thingy by the other school took away An from 3.30 till 5. now this?! omgggggggg.

i seriously want to ask the centre whether An can get removed from the other programme, but An likes to play percussion , plus Farah's Ro said that An was specially chosen!

sigh. guess i'll have to make use of our remaining time every wed super productively!

anyways, we were productive yesterday, and i think he's improved in his model drawing! :DD

*doing work seriously*

haha, gonna bring stones again next week! and i'll try looking for other coloured ones too :DD

one last pic:

did this when An was @ percussion, fenghan's heart was wayy nicer! :DD

and thus i left happily :DD

nine(teen! :D) of july thinkings

2008-07-16T22:13:00.004+08:00

We were all there from 3.45 to 5.35 today!

Tutored An today again. We had a lot of model drawing to do! SO! we did the questions :DD

tried explaining to him the 3-box-4-box-how-many-apple question using mr liu's method that i mentioned in the last post, but he cannot understand! or rather, he was "huh?" and very impatient and hence too frustrated to try and understand the concept slowly.

during the day, i realised that An is visual/kinestatic learner! he understands immediately when you draw him a diagram to represent the question, but he isn't interested enough to actually do the question. so his "kinestatic" trait kicks in and he's only willing to do when he moves stuff around.

i realised that mr gan uses kinestatic methods to teach us, or at least the visuals on the board/ projector screen move around. i cant do the same with An cause the setting is different, plus he likes to move stuff using his own hands and not watch me move them, so little objects are needed instead! lego blocks! :DD

he also has this new little quirk, and it helps to keep him interested in the questions cause he dosent get "sianned". He likes to be a flower, then after he's done with every question, he will "wilt" and collapse onto the table and demand that i water him. so i have no choice but to imaginary-ly pour invisible water on him to help him "grow" until he's an "adult flower" and hence be able to attentively listen to me explain the him to question, or attempt the question himself. It's good that he amuses himself and creates his own "fillers", but it's kinda boring after a while when i have to keep "watering" him and be careful not to "over-water" him, incase he wilts due to excessive rain.

so we were pretty productive, not bad :DD.

as for reflection on my behavior, i think i was okay, but i shouldnt have shown my bored face when i have to keep on watering him. i dont think it made a difference to An, but if i were him, i wouldnt feel good if my tutor showed she was bored with me DD:

16 july

2008-07-16T21:56:00.003+08:00

went back to model drawing sums today
finished about 8 questions after much nagging and hard work
guess Ron was rather tired today -- first time heard him say that he was tired
and i too became restless soon after

he had this gun and rubberband thingy which distracted him
so i just kept calling his name until he listened which works -- but i ended up being very thirsty

same problems again associated with model-drawing , Ron didnt even try and just give up saying he dunno how to do
as our theme for E&C goes "it takes only a spark..." i provided him with one and helped him get started and assisted him with the rest of the model-drawings

still found it especially hard to teach when he's not focused and i realised how smooth-sailing tutoring has gone for me for all these time teaching Ron
however today, i was shocked that he actually asked me to provide him with the workings without the answer so that he could copy
obviously i did not comply ...

Ron was aware that i shouldnt write on his book, so everytime (for the first time today) he told me out of laziness that 'dont need draw (model) one" i said "ok i draw for you" and he would be hesistant, or even afraid of punishment -- then he would rather draw himself

must say that the problem sums were not easy, with 7 out of the 8 being star questions
would be quite hard to solve without drawing models and some flexibility in imagination
thus the outcome was still quite good -- for me still
yet i wonder whether Ron would be able to solve them by himself if the questions were to appear again -- i think not

was quite a fruitful day
told Ron jokes to keep him interested -- should prepare more simple jokes as i was pratically telling him one for every question
observed too, that i have never played games with any of the kids there even after so many visits :{

before the 8 problem sums, we also went through some corrections regarding money problems
all were careless mistakes made during subtraction and addition

-- would come up with some interesing ways (such as beryls' colourful stones) to engage Roydenn

9 .7.o8 reflections

2008-07-14T22:45:00.004+08:00

Never teach C that day. She did come, i just feel that she would finish her work faster without my help. So i just left told her that she can find me if she need any help. Though right after that the adult volunteer told me she can take care of her. I guess C has told her that she doesn't want to be taught by me, so i just went to do my own work. I guess it's better like that. Before i came, she usually sat down there doing her own work until i came then she reluctantly left her place and her pace slowed down. Since i can see that she look for the adult volunteer for help whenever she faced problems, so it's alright. However, I'm worried she would not be able to understand what the adult teaches since she usually just wants the answer and could not be bothered understanding.

So i did my own work for quite while, hoping that some Pru 3 would ask me to help them in their work. Sooo... JL came along. I thought him English. His English is actually not bad even though one of the volunteer said his standard is very lousy. But, he kept on pronouncing usually as unusually. His sentence structure is also incomplete or not "smooth" when doing comprehension.

Still, his character is much better and I'm able to communicate better with him. I left some notes for him to bring home and learn. Hope that he will really make an effort to remember. Even though it is obvious that Primary 3 kids are too Young and may not have realised the importance of studying.

2008-07-14T21:54:00.004+08:00

9th July reflections

Well, today thaught Sel as per normal luh. She was doing her maths corrections when i went. I didn't really bring anything with me, so Sel thought i've got nothing to do. So she went to her bag to take out her chinese textbook for me to copy and draw again. On the top of the white paper that she gave me, was what she drew from the textbook. Honestly it was quite nicely drawn for a primary 3 kid XD She told me to draw at the bottom of the paper, while she continues to do her work.

She'll get distracted once in a while, turning her head to see the others run about, or staring at me draw. then i told her, if she continues staring at my drawing, then i'd stop drawing. Unless she can continue concentrating on her work. Then she turned back to do her work. Hahaha so obedient.

She's a lot more talkative than last time. Maybe that's cos she's more familiar with me already. But overall she still listens to me, and is still relatively easy to teach :D besides, she cheers me up at times hahaha. Oh, she called me a clown, -.- cos i did that, yeah this >> -.- << LOL.

9th jUly ReFleCtiOn...

2008-07-13T17:59:00.003+08:00

On the 9th of July... ...

I tutored J in Chinese. She was not sure about answering the comprehension questions so I guided her by going through the passage once more with her so as to make sure that she understood the passage. I also clarified her doubts. I asked her where in the passage can she find the answer and she could point it out correctly to me. I was quite happy though.

Oh, by the time I reached the centre she has already finished doing her maths. That was pretty fast,huh? She complained that I taught her the wrong stuff??? The problem sums at the end were wrong, somehow she did it by herself and got it wrong... Out of all the questions that I helped her there were only 2 that were wrong that was because I overlooked the statement. There was another question in which she anyhow filled in the numbers but still got it wrong...

After I had tutored J, I tutored M. M is a nice boy except that he can be quite mischievous at times. I taught him how to calculate the difference in distances. Today's session was not as taxing as the others. I finished teaching him his corrections and we started revising multiplication and division since we had got extra time. After which, I revised with him his problem sums and made him draw model diagrams. He understood the question but was a little careless in his calculations. He was also a little lazy and would only do the workings on paper when I instructed him to do so......

After teaching him for a while we both got a little bored. So we decided to play tic-tac-toe so as to pass time as well as to interact with these kids. We played numerous rounds and finally here is the result.... ....

Interested to know about the result,

continue to scroll down...

The champion is...

M ......

Well, I enjoyed today's session and I hoped that next time I can finish tutoring my tutee earlier and have ample time to interact with them...

9 july

2008-07-12T20:48:00.003+08:00

maths with Ron again
we did mass (kg, g) -- 1kg = 1000g

had to do addition and subtraction e.g. 4kg 9g - 2kg 55g

realised that it was easier for Ron to convert all to grams before calculating e.g. 4009-2055
then convert all back to kg and g

or else he would easily forget the zeroes and do like 409-255 especially when the g does not consist of 3digits

there was carelessness on Ron's part too when he forget the zeroes behind when writing in grams -- had to do corrections cos he simply tikam and anyhow break down the digits into kg and g e.g. 4972 = 49kg 72g cause it looks even that way, when its actually 4kg 972g

reminded Ron regarding the steps to tackle mass problems before going off

#1 convert kg and g into g -- if g is only 1digit/2digits, add 2/1zero(es) in front to make the g consist of 3digits, e.g. 057g
#2 solve as per normal
#3 last 3 digits = grams, the rest falls under kg

2nd juLy Reflection...

2008-07-06T16:09:00.007+08:00

Hmmm...

Todae, I tutored another P3 student called Js. This is because my tutee, Pam was taught by another tutor...so sad... Never mind, Js is quite a smart girl. I tutored her maths . She was lsitening to me attentively initially but later part of the day she got tired and her attention was deviated. I allowed her to go to the washroom to wash her face and to drink some water before continuing on her work. This is because i believed that if i continue explaining to her all the boring maths stuff, she will get tired and become frustrated or even bored.

Js kept on spilling water while drinking and i say 'hey so you have a hole in your chin is it?' She giggled. Afterwards, we went back to serious work. I taught her using the ratio method. I also gave an analogy to help her understand even better. Afterwhich I also gave a simple example to try on. This is to ensure that she truly understood what i told her just now.

Upon completeing 2 pages, I kept my promise and asked her a question. The question is "what type of key cannot be used to open the door?"
She guessed that it was a fake key, a wrong key,a golden key.....(NAH all wrong...)

The answer was A DONKEY, of course it can also be A MONKEY...

I tried to help her solve the difficult questions which she does not know. I think that she was just too anxious to go and play with her friends that she said "never mind , just fill in any numbers'

I am shocked. I also learnt that she disliked maths...=(
I feel that she should not take maths as a guessing game. In all, I did manage to help her complete the task assigned to her by her teachers. She is quite restless towards the end and I think that her attention span was not very long. She was either daydreaming or looking elsewhere when I was explaining to her how to go about answering a particular question. This made me having to explain a question umpteem times. This somehow hindered our progress and we completed a few pages of mathe in about 5/2 hours. This was quite inefficient, i think.

Along the way, I helped M in Chinese. He does not know how to complete the sentences and I gave him a few examples. Hopefully, he will learn from there.

2nd JULY. (2 more days to USA's national day. :D)

2008-07-05T21:40:00.003+08:00

JULY ALR. TIME FLIES FREAKING FAST. @.@

TODAY WE ALL WENT! 4.30 to 6.20. :DD

--

HOHO! bought An chocolates to say sorry over the stupid question last week.
incompetent tutor D:

he was very 'man' and said "i dont need chocolates. i will listen to you one."
aww! =3

so anyway, we did the questions fast today! super productive, finished 8 questions in slightly more than an hour! :DD

he was in a happy happy mood, and plus i think it was cause he told me that he would listen to me even without the chocolates. he just say, cannot possibly retract his statement so quick :DD

i realised that they all have a bad habit.
when they dont know something, they'll go
them: "this x that x this x this! right?" *jabs randomly at paper*
me: noo.. why do you think so?
them "dunno leh. OHOH! how about this x that x that! *jabs somemore*
me: nooo!! dont anyhow guess leh!
them: "oh. okay. SO, it's this x this x that right?"
me: *faints*

and some of them also have this bad habit, thinking that we'll tell them the answers, and so they're too lazy to think!

i think, for both the problems, we have to clarify (and kill any hopes) that we'll not let them anyhow guess and tell them answers!
how about saying this
" young jedi, before we start on this horrible programme, please sign this contract. by signing, you promise on your pencilcase that you will Not anyhow guess answers, Will listen to us explain, *inserts simple instructions here*"

anyway, that session with An was :DDD!

--------

That day Sarah was having a terrible time. What was wrong?
C's attitude. it was super horrible.
She was just sitting there, totally ignoring Sarah.
And that continued for god knows how long. actually i know. about the entire session.
Sarah had a hell lot of patience, and was still trying to convince and persuade her to concentrate.

Even i got angry watching C, AND I WASNT EVEN TEACHNG HER. OMG.
*salutes Sarah for your unrivaled patience! :D*

i wanted to march over, and yank the little ap kid till she pays attention to me, and tell her that if she doesnt want to learn, don't waste sarah's time and energy.
she has 2 options:
either improve until the teachers feel she's too good to be tutored.
or listen to sarah and improve.

If Sarah taught any other kids, i tell you, they'll all be loving her to bits. Which tutor would go compile a cute mini working book for you, buy erasers for you, sit there and persuade you to do your work for 2 hrs?! and sarah didnt lose her temper, and just endured C's blacky face.

what the hell?! Whose the one benefitting from this tutoring, huh? whose the one shelling out time and energy to tutor, huh? Sarah isn't obliged to sit there and take your shit, little missy.

This kid has a serious attitude problem.

Hmm. Scolding her probably wont have any effect. Maybe a talk? but sarah can't be the one doing it.. cause it'll be odd.
eg:
sarah: C, i am not obliged to teach you. sometimes you may feel bored and you might not want to do, and start to ignore me and day dream. you feel that its okay for you, since you prefer to day dream instead of using your brains and doing your work. but dont forget that i'm here to teach you. and you're wasting my time and energy. i can leave any time i want to teach someone else, but because im committed to helping you, i'm still here teaching you. The teachers asked you to be taught by me because you're weaker in your maths. Do you want to be stuck with me for forever? Pay attention to me, and let's work together to improve your maths. you're smart enough, just not enough will and determination to make an effort.

on the other hand, i think can leh XD

on the other other hand, i think it's a bit odd for such words to be leaving Sarah's mouth. doesnt fit her Mother Theresa image O.O

maybe get someone else to "counsel" C?

---

to defuse sianness, maybe do a little activity before starting, like the simon says thingy mentioned earlier. :DD

im pretty sure the kids like moving about when they're bored, like jumping randomly and flapping like an obese bird. cause i like to do that sometimes too XDD

move your body! :DD

--

lotsa stuff to discuss on monday!

- C's problem
- Filler = jumping around? simon says? 哎呀，总而言之就是要动就对了拉。
- student file update! :D
- (if you all wanna add anything here, just edit this post :D)

27th June

2008-07-05T20:26:00.003+08:00

We were there from 4.00pm to 6.20pm, Sarah and Tuyan didnt go due to their mass bio lecture.

Taught An and JL today, since her ACJC tutor didnt come and she needed help.

JL wasnt willing to do at first, but once she saw that i was carrying the marker pens, she instantly started to take out the markers and start writing and doing willingly. But when she met with questions that she didnt know how to do, she went like "har. jiejie, how to do?"
the first few times i taught, she listened carefully and when i asked her to explain for me everything again, she could. However, the next few times, she just got sian-ed and went "eh, jiejie, tell me how to do leh." and then copy down what i say word for word, then prance off to go toilet or something. DD:

needa find a way to get her attention, and to prevent sian-ness!!

An was, to my not-so-surprise, was happy to see me, and of course that made me happy!!
:D
Things were going fine, his attitude was splendid, and he was still joking around with Farah's Ro.
He wanted to play abit, and i let him, after every question was done, so the atmosphere was rather relaxed. And because he was happy to get to play, he was also happy to listen to me. But then we met with the stupid question.

You have a number of apples. When put into boxes of 3, you have 5 more boxes than if you put the apples into boxes of 4. How many apples do you have?

i was O.O. how on earth do you show that in models?!
me: since they didnt state the smallest possible number of apples..
my stupid method:

If you have (3 x 4)(1) apples, you have 4 boxes of 3, 3 boxes of 4. you have 1 more box of 3 than 4.
If you have (3 x 4)(2) apples, you have 8 boxes of 3, 6 boxes of 4. you have 2 more boxes of 3 than 4.
If you have (3 x 4)(3) apples, you have 12 boxes of 3, 9 boxes of 4. you have 3 more boxes of 3 than 4.
If you have (3 x 4)(4) apples, you have 16 boxes of 3, 6 boxes of 12. you have 4 more boxes of 3 than 4.
If you have (3 x 4)(5) apples, you have 20 boxes of 3, 15 boxes of 4. you have 5 more boxes of 3 than 4.

Yeah, i know its pretty confusing. but I had to teach An to answer the question!!
and this was the simplest method i thought of.

Needless to say, he started getting frustrated and angry again, and me too. cause i explained the whole system and wrote it out for him at least 5 times, and spent 45 mins on this already.

so i consulted Farah!
She used algebra!

Let X be the number of boxes.
4X = 3X + 5
X = 5
Number of apples
4X = 60!

so i tried teaching this to An, and he still couldnt understand! (this one was kinda expected, cause he has no idea what algebra is, but worth a try :DD)

Then i looked at the other childrens' books. they all did corrections for the question, and they said Auntie Sharm taught them that. So i went off to find her, with An's book in hand. And she said that the question itself was rather baffling, and that none of the teachers could get it. so she told me to split the question into two and everything. then i mentioned to her Farah's method, to show that the question isn't wrong. It's just that i dont know how to teach An this.

Then she just told me to randomly fob off An, anything to get the answer first.
So i went back and told An alot of junk @.@.

Yeah, but that's been cleared up cause Mr Liu taught us how to show using the model method.
the 5 extra boxes were absorbed by the 4-each-boxes!

How many apples are in the 5 extra boxes?
5x3 = 15.
These 15 apples were "absorbed" by the boxes of 4. Each box can absorb 1.(cause 4-3=1)
The apples were absorbed fully. meaning there were 15boxes of 4.
How many apples were there?
15x4! = 60!

yeap :DD

----------------------------------

Ive realised that I've turned from a interesting tutor to a sian-ed one too. DD:
Last time, i was super energetic when i was with them, but i always ended up dead beat and super tired when i get home..

Recently, i seem to be cant-be-bothered anymore. and when i get home, i still have energy O.O
eg: when the kids couldnt concentrate last time, i would 撒娇 shamelessly until they laugh and are more willing to listen to me and do their work.
now, when they show disinterest, i just make half-hearted attempts to get their attention, like saying "An, pay attention pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?". and if they dont pay attention, then i lose interest too, and give them this annoyed look; -_-. DD:

I think i was better when i just started out. DD:
Time for reflection on my part.

p/s. since the kids seem to love simon-says so much. im thinking of having mini-simon-says whenever they get bored. (like the fillers that mr liu mentioned)Part of the fun of simon says is when the laughing when someone does it wrong, so make sure you do it too!
Maybe we can pair up, 2 children, and 2 of us. or bigger, if possible. XD

The atmosphere and the centre has gotten seriously sian. time to liven it up! before we all die of boredom :DD

whenever youre bored, stand up and do stupid actions! :DD

lousy day, 2.7.08 reflections

2008-07-04T20:10:00.003+08:00

Today is a damn lousy day. Actually i didn't feel like going to the centre as i am worried about the problems I and C will face again due to our lack of interaction and also due to me missing some tutoring session due to school.
Things turn out worse than what i expected.
Firstly, as usual, she doesn't want me to teach her as she wants to be with her friends. Thus from her expression, i can see that she was very unwilling to be taught by me.
I asked her what homework she has, she told me its 4 problem sums question. Okay, i thought, it is going to be quite fast.
However, since i first asked her to read the first problem sums, she got turned off and couldn't be bothered.
Seeing her like that, i asked her, " You don't want me to teach you is it, do you want to sit there? You don't know how to do? You tired is it? Why you don't want to do?" No response, and these goes on for like hours. She simply turn away, and look at her friends, draw circles...
Then I feel really piss and helpless not knowing what to do.
After some time, i showed her my scrap book for doing rough workings, give her the eraser that i bought for her, hoping that she could at least talk to me. But to no avail. I felt really sad and grew more and more frustrated.
Next, seeing that the time has past and other tutees doing the same thing has started on the third problem already, i am worried. So guessing that C is most probably tired to do those problem sums, i drew diagrams and boxes just wanting her to fill in the blanks with numbers. I even did the addition for her! Finally, the question was finished, but i also not sure whether she is able to do the question again by herself. However i feel that she is able to write the statement for the problem sums quite well knowing when to and not to write past tense.
On to the second question, i asked her to read the question. She did not even read and turned away. The whole thing repeats itself again. I was really helpless, luckily beryl came to my rescue and attract C's attention for a while. After that she turned away again. Don't know after how much prompting and waiting, she would write some numbers in my box. Some time the numbers are random, as she did not even read the question and i have to correct her. Then more waiting... before she finally finished the 2nd question.
After that, i gave her 5 min break hoping that she would come back not looking so glum. 5 minutes over, i called her back and she once again sat on her chair staring at her friends, laughing but not wanting to talk to me nor finish her task. I looked at the problem sums, it only requires 2 steps and it is done. However, i did not remember how long i waited before her friends asked her to play with them and she chionged the 2 steps by herself.
Then on to the last question. It is not easy and requires model drawing. "do you know how to draw models?"
"No," she replied. By then her friends were all around her telling her to faster finish it.
"she knows. She just don't want to do," she friends were telling me
"i don't know," C replied
"Is C maths good?" I asked
"Not bad. She can do want but she lazy only"
However, i guess the last question is really hard as she is unable to chiong like the 3rd question. She asked me how to do. Then i drew the models out for her. Preparing to teach her, she was busy talking to her friends treating me as invisible. Then i was showing the piss face, her friends noticed it but she doesn't.
" Faster do! She angry already" her friends tell her, but she could not seem to bother.
So i got really angry and said, "next time i make you sit beside the aunties"
Her reply was really shocking," sit lor, bagus ( Malay word for "Good")!"
Then her friends helped her finished the problem sums and she happily handed it to one of the volunteers there then went off to play.

How will she be able to learn if her attitude remains unwilling. And when she's not doing anything, how i can know of her weak areas? Then, i thought it may help if i buy her something, but it is not of any help as seen today. Now i really don't know what to do and how to help her. Any suggestion guys? =((((((

2 July

2008-07-02T20:45:00.002+08:00

finished some pages on maths problems related to money today
-- wasnt a very difficult topic, more of easy rather, thus Ron was able to finish most of it all by himself without assistance

sadly though, Ron still needs some prompting to focus on his work as he, like the previous few visits, get distarcted very easily, especially when being around friends

realised Ron actually very Man, cause he refused to sit where i told him to sit at, where the whole row is being occupied by girls

must really thank Ron for being such a nice tutee to teach -- very cute, willing to learn and listen, interactive, and smart as well! Ron's handwriting had improved tremendously from the first day i saw him and I finally also came to knowledge that Ron is very good at reading
my encounters with other tutees had shown that most were unable to recognise the words used in the problem sums, had difficulty pronouncing the words, unable to understand the question, or simply cant read or dun wan to read at all.
however, Ron always read loud and clear without any problem whenever i tell him to read the question, and was able to comprehend and remember what the question is trying to say and what the question wants you to do perfectly.

he's also especially good at writing statements, remembering the past/ present tense, sentence structure and plural/singular

-- must be very gd at english!

sadly though, despite of all the schoolwork and assessement books given to him by the centre,
Ron told me he had tuition for all his 4 subjects -- Eng, Math, Chi and Sci
what a busy boy! ;(

Also taught XY maths today .. the normal addition and subtraction of litres and mililitres
i guess i underestimated XY, he's really very good at chinese!
for maths, just some careless mistakes made when doing subtractions problems,
and he had difficulty pronoucing words like 'volume'and 'capacity'
moreover, he repeatedly mistook 'contains' for 'container' and 'bottle' for 'water bottle' and frequently miss out words when writing statements

nevertheless, quite a nice guy to teach, cute and engaging

27 juNe

2008-07-02T20:37:00.003+08:00

nothing new with Ron today ..
played with *eraser dust* at 'regular intervals'
Ron once again proved that he's a very nice person by sharing his 'beloved' eraser dust with his friend
some more, he even used a paper and wrapped the eraser dust up nicely, enclosed with a stapler and brought it home
-- made me feel very touched :))

however, Ron's quite easily distracted and i had to make him focus on his work, though i didnt really succeeded in doing so

finished up the corrections but realised that Ron learn and forget fast,
meaning that if he were to redo the question he did wrongly before,
he's most likely to repeat the same mistakes and be unable to do it

thus, i have to really make sure he learn his corrections well -- perhaps go through the question with him and have him write down the workings correctly in the book without refering to the corrections he did earlier

6/25 Reflection...

2008-06-28T16:17:00.003+08:00

Eh...

Today, I tutored Pam maths.She does her work much quicker and completes them with accuracy too. I was pleased. I guided her in problem sums. An example would be 3 rings and 2 skirts cost $ 150. 1 Skirt and 2rings cost $65. Find the cost of 1 ring. I taught her using the ratio method and she was able to understand.

After which, I told her to revise on her multiplication table in which I will test her next week. I went to the lower primary section to tutor the students who have yet to complete their homework. I helped this boy called Dex.He was quite rude and was ordering me to help him erase his untidy workings. Initially, I did helped him. However, he went overboard and that made me feel quite fed up and I decided not to help him erase his untidy workings.

I had to explain a question to him umpteen times yet he kept on interuppting me whenever I explained it to him. He will just keep on saying' I don't know how to do because you never teach me how to do. ' I even drew out model diagrams for him but he would just look elsewhere. He is not focused...=(

Anyway, Dex is a smart boy just that he is too lazy to think and write down his workings.

Today's experience was not a good one...

5/14/08 Reflection...

2008-06-22T15:24:00.004+08:00

Urmmm...

Today, we played station games.

It was just after the mid year examinations and the students do not seem to want to continue to study. Thus,we organised station games and played with them. We just want to give them a break since it is the end of the exams and moreover, the june holiday is just round the corner. I was in charge of science. I created 3 questions that tested them basically on living and non-living things as well as plants, cells and others.

The student that i was in charge of did pretty well... and he won for himself a small, little prize---an eraser. Some students require hints in order to answer correctly while others don't.

Hopefully, they will find this form of learning interesting as they get to move about and answer some questions that they had never encountered before. Perhaps , this will motivate them to explore more information for themselves...

Farah's 2nd visit to Army Museum

2008-06-15T14:29:00.004+08:00

the 2nd trip to the army museum with the primary3s proved more troublesome as they were younger and therefore, more active people and noisier too, i guess.

the auntie and jiejie were like scolding them throughout the trip though i could understand their concerns -- heard that the p3s were punished for the trip before

at first, i couldnt imagine how bad they could get given the 1st trip was quite an easy one since the upper primary kids were rather well-behaved, i thought this would be the same too

however, i guess this time, the auntie and jiejie who followed us were more strict compared to the previous time -- the kids were like lining up and waiting many a time, yet they were not allowed to talk.

personally, i was able to stand the behaviour of the kids and thought that they werent really that noisy, neither were they running around too much. the noise level was tolerable and i felt that its quite alright for the kids to run around occasionally

nevertheless there were times the kids did not follow instructions and were quarrelling over the 'controlling game' and also at the adventure park, something that did not occur during the previous trip

still, im glad that the kids were given a chance and had quite an enjoyable time at the park

one got injured and my plasters came to good use, while i helped another climb over the wall THRICE (wonder why he just never gives up)

the kids played until they 满头大汗, which may be the reason they turned out hungry and less active later on our way back

weirdly, i guess i enjoyed this trip more than the previous, partly because i think i was able to do my part more in this trip and talked to some p3s which im more familiar with

on a personal level, i tried climbing the wall, the monkey bar, the rope, and i walked the raised wooden patform whatever it is called, which made my 2nd and perhaps my last trip to the army museum a good one.

11.6.08

2008-06-15T12:56:00.003+08:00

We were much useful during the 2nd trip to the museum.
As the p3s were indeed quite hard to handle.
The journey to the museum on the bus was very noisy.
Then the tour guide didn't say much at all, we just went to look at the gallery by ourselves,
watch the show and then played at the adventure park.
So sad that most of them are too short to use the rifle thus we couldn't play the rifle game=(
During the whole time, the jiejie kept on asking the children to settle down and keep quiet.
Then they have to queue up in twos then seat down and stand up all the time.
I guess this method is quite a good way to get the kids organised, and settled.
The kids had quite a fun time at the adventure park, however some fight started, and soon most of them got bored.

I feel that the two adult vounteers were a little bit too strict. For once, one tell xy to walk properly when he is just trying to have some fun.

In conclusion, compared to the previous trip, this trip was alot noisier. They alot missed out on quite a few stuff as the lazy guide didn't went through all the exibition there. However it would also be very hard to handle if they were to go to all the exibition. They may not even listen to the guide. Lastly they also wasted quite some time waiting.

A visit to the Army Museum...

2008-06-14T15:17:00.006+08:00

Ehh... ...

Well, I was quite happy to be able to go to the Army Museum again as it was quite a fun place. This time round, we brought along the P3s. These students seem a little too active though...

They went around the exhibits and enjoyed the show too. However , the teachers had to yell at them because they could not listen to simple instructions such as standing in 2 straight lines. The P3 students tend to be more mischievous( this is based on my own observation). Why do i say so??? Well, at the adventure park , they were quite rowdy. Moreover, one little boy was so playful that he fell and injured himself...=(

We also did not bring snacks for them because we did not had the time to buy...

Anyway, the students had their own fair share of fun and laughter. They enjoyed playing the various obstacles and of course singing some weird songs. We even thought about how to entertain these students if they are bored. However, apparently they managed to entertain each other through their own sense of humour...

I feel that the upper primary students are more obedient and sensible that the P3s ,perhaps that is because they mature faster.I feel that the trip for them would have been more fun if they behaved properly and received fewer scoldings from the teachers.

By the way, all this is part of growing up. Urmmm, I really enjoy interacting with kids. They are cute, really...=)

army museum for 12/6/08 :D

2008-06-13T15:29:00.002+08:00

fenghan and i went from 1pm till 3.40pm

third time going, was a bit sianned already.. BUT THIS TRIP WAS INTERESTING :D

haha, you'll see why.

this time the guide didnt skip any of the exhibitions, but since we had 50 p1 and p2 kids, they were very cute, but also kept interrupting the tourguide.

could see he was quite irritated and kept stopping and saying "i am T.A.L.K.I.N.G. you cannot touch me when im talking!" but his irritated comments were quite funny =X

then we went around the usual places, the wall, the ringing phone, overturned bus, 20 gifts from other countries, and then the highlight: the theatre :D

this time while the kids were lining up outside the theatre, they kept pointing up at the 2nd floor, and shouting "mummy! mummy!!"

and i was @.@?!!?!?
how on earth did their mummies follow us here?!

they were pointing at the Army -.-
there were about.. 80 army ppl? cause there were more of them than the kids.
fenghan said they went "whoa" when they saw the kids

anyway, then we went in and sat down, while those mummies remained outside.
then they came in, and they were folding their arms and then none of them sat down, all just stood behind us. kinda intimidating.

but halfway thru the show i looked at fenghan, and two were sitting beside her XDD (WHOO)

anyways, THE KIDS WERE SUUUUUUUPER CUTE DURING THE SHOW!!
the guide warned them before hand that its gonna be loud.. so use hand to cover ears if they cannot take it.

when the strong winds and bombs came out, the kids were screaming.. (dont know whether in terror or delight) and then they were frantically pulling out their raincoats outta their bags and wearing it, and then pulling down their hoods and holding their hands to their ears!!

i was laughing my ass off =X

but they were still cute :DD

and then it was pretty hot that day, so they only played for a while in the park.. and this time, no one was allowed to go climb the structures.. so yeah, no casualties :DD

and that was about it.. :D

trip to army museum, 11.06.08

2008-06-12T21:16:00.005+08:00

HEYY :D

today we all went, from 12.30pm to 4.40pm :D

today we went out with 30+ p3s to the outing museum.
AND IT WAS ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE.

okay lah, slighty better than last week, as in we were actually useful and busy, but things also got outta hand..

1. 10 less people than less week, but twice the trouble.
first, the kns tourguide SKIPPED THE ENTIRE FREAKING FIRST LVL.
i was thinking, oh, maybe the top's occupied, so we go somewhere else first, later then backtrack.
but when he ended the thing freaking early, i was like "sir. we missed the entire first level. you know the parts about the wall being made from the metal off the tanks, the letters made from the bullet cartridges?". he looked surprised i knew, then said hurridly "oh. those not important. no need to go"
needless to say, i was freaking pissed.

2. wah. the kids is really those "i defy you infront your face, what can you do?" attitude.
esp that medley/medwin/whatever name guy. ive never met a kid with an attutide problem as big as his. i felt like slapping him.
eg:
auntie cat: you boys! only one person can go up on the tank at one time! (to look for the waterbottle)
*medwin climbs on the tank*
me: boss, can find anot?
med: wait ah.. cannot find!
me: okay. thanks, and come down.
med: eheh! i never check the back.. i dont dare to go.. can ask lus come up with me to find?
me: didnt you hear the instruction? one at a time!
*med attempts to smuggle lus up*
*but lus listens to instructions, and dont want to go up.*
med: okayokay la, i go down, he come up, can?
me: yeah sure. you come down first, then i'll let him up
*med comes down, lus goes up, AND MED JUMPED UP AGAIN BEFORE I COULD STOP HIM*
me: wah! COME DOWN NOW, MED.
med: HAHAA. TOO BAD. WHY YOU SO STUPID? I COME UP ALREADY.
all the other kids: ORH HOR!! MED IS BEING NAUGHTY! AUNTIE CAT, AUNTIE CAT YOU SEE HIM!!
lus: ah, nvmnvm, i come down.

wah. that's how defiant he was. how did i handle him? i didnt. cause he managed to find the waterbottle, and then the teachers were all praising him -.-

3. i was standing at the tank watching them, cause it was slightly dangerous to climb up, but it just so happened that i stepped on a pile of ants, and they were attacking me and it was painful with them biting me. so i told the boys to watch it, and i sat down and started pinching off the ants one by one. during that short-less-than-5-mins-break, one of the boys couldnt climb up, and he tried to get up by pulling the aluminium wire. and what happened? he has abrasions on his last three fingers.
luckily we brought alcohol swabs and plasters.
and we "tended to him". he was okay after that.
but i felt guilty cause i went off to pinch ants -.-, and left them alone..
*next time diedie must keep an eye on them ESP THE BOYS*

4. the children were okay at the adventure park, i think it's cause the waichien jiejie was able to do one thing i can never do:
she restrained herself and the kids, to make sure she briefed them and that they all had got it in their heads, before letting them off.
eg:
there was a freaking lot of groups that day.. like 6? in one place. then 3 of those groups had CHILDREN. and i was like "shitshit. dont brief the children already! just let them all go before the other children invade!!"
but that jiejie didnt think like me. she made the children sit down, brief them, pick those who werent listening to repeat what she said, until they all understood, THEN BRING THEM DOWN. i was.. like.. whoa. nice one. i couldnt keep that calm.. kiasu mah :DD

5. that day, we were all like human barriers.. they were running all around and THEY JUST FREAKING WOULDNT LISTEN. so we had to resort to physical methods. to quite good success :DD
HAHA! TUYANS LIMBS WERE SUPER LOOOOONG. VERY GOOD HUMAN BARRIER :DD

and that;s all :D

11.06.08 photos! :D

2008-06-12T21:06:00.005+08:00

what are fenghan and jean looking at? O.O

LOOKING AT THIS! :DD but what's so special? O.o

THERES A CUTE ROBOT INSIDE :DD
and this robot is controlled by the controllers on the other side of the wall.
nice idea by the army museum ppl :DD

another robot! this one was ontop :D

they were playing some sorta game! O.O

they were looking at the thing fenghan and jean were looking at XD

farah was right. they really sit down alot O.O

the half-tour guide -.-

and this is the permanent structure!
and where a lil boy got injured DD:

YAY :DD
very little pics that day T.T

6/4/08 Reflection...

2008-06-07T17:36:00.013+08:00

Well, today I tutored the primary two students maths...

They are smart but a bit talkative and quite lazy though...

J told me he does not know how to do the remaining 4 problem sums. I taught him step by step but he would argue with me saying that 'more than' can be minus. I told him that 'more than' refers to addition of the current stuff. J does not want to listen to my explanation and just want me to tell himthe answer. For example, J wants me to say'30/3' or'50+68' . He is not in the mood to study and yearns to play.

I also helped to mark some assessment books.I realised that the students are quite weak in their maths because their times table was not memorised well enough.

Maybe it is time, i should brush up my own tutee too on her times table...
A pity, she told me she did not go and memorise the times table...=(

Well, i still believe that learning can only take place when the student is willing to accept and understand the explanation or concepts.
The students perhaps are too used to people giving them answers, i think...which is not very good right?

5th JuNe ReFleCtiOn!

2008-06-07T15:14:00.000+08:00

Urr... ...

Later part of the day, we went to the Army Museum. The students that we brought along were the p4-p6s. They were generally quite well- behaved. During the talk by the guide, they were also listening attentively. I think they enjoyed the section on the 'marksman training' whereby they were allowed to use a gun and shoot at the target shown on the screen. The students also enjoy playing at the adventure park. The adventure park had various obstacles in which they had to clear. They had fun competing with one another. We also brought some snacks along for fear that they might be hungry as they missed their tea-break.

I also had my fair share of fun and laughter. Besides looking after the children so as to ensure that they are safe and sound, I also played some of the obstacles with my friends. I really enjoy this outing. It was an eye- opener for me as it showed me how life was like in the army. I hoped the students will enjoy the excursion just like I did.

ps. I will like to thank fh as she offered me a helping hand when going through the various obstacles.

5th june outing reflections!

2008-06-06T20:19:00.002+08:00

Today we went over with the kids at lakeside over to Army Museum! :DD

totally didn't see any shuai guys T.T (kidding kidding! :DD)

i was late, then caused everyone to be late, sorry sorry T.T

reached at 12.45 instead, and phoebe jiejie was already briefing them..

we wanted to split into groups, but this time we never.. maybe also cause they're already p4andp5, old enough to behave properly, dont need to hold our hands anymore DD:

but next week it's the p3 and p6, so i think might be able to put grouping plan into action! (but maybe still not possible T.T)

anyway! i realised that Lakeside has a carpark where you can board the buses without getting rained on! :DD

and i know another name, vivienne jiejie! age:19. HOHOHO! XD

we were all pretty well behaved, i yelled at 2 boys who kept pushing to try and play some game we've already left.

i wrote "we" cause i agree with farah, we were like, touring with the kids! :DD
instead of leading i.i

but next week we'll know our way around already, so can lead!!

and also we kept lagging behind them. they were all infront then we slowly slowly walked behind. to the point the uncle even chided us -.-

next time must stick tightly to the back (although i think a few of us will be infront, to lead the new aunties and little kids the right way in)

loved the lil shows we saw. esp the strong wind and mist, and the bombing and shooting! :DDD
like watching FOC MOVIE! heh heheheh XDD

and also the individual marksmanship training thingy. LOVED IT! :DD

everyone was lively, and i think sa fa ha used the food to train the kids to be more polite.

though some of them just take and never even say please, or at least, thankyou.

NEXT TIME WE DONT GIVE THEM! *HMPH*

was kinda slightly ticked the whole day.

hopefully next week's trip will be better. :DD

Army Museum

2008-06-06T19:07:00.002+08:00

farah went to the army museum for the first time on 5 jun, with a bunch of upper primary kids

though the trip wasnt as informative as i thought it would be cause i learnt almost nothing at all, it was rather fun

i experienced how exciting it is to join the army (doesnt mean im going), how it feels like to have an helicopter above you, the sound and visual effects of the tanks, in the show. too bad no one cried though i expected the young ones from another centre with us would

i also tried shooting for the first time, which turned out to be a total disaster as i was just anyhow shooting and simply cannot see anything through the eyehole -- will try again next time!

the adventure park was fun too! though i didnt try out alot of the thing there, i can see the kids really enjoyed themselves
i think buying snacks for them proved to be a v.good idea cause they ate them and said "thankyou jiejie" which showed that they at least took notice of us ;)

overall, i think the kids behaved pretty well and didnt really need us so much at all! i didnt do anything much there, rather i felt like i was part of these kids enjoying a field trip prepared by the centre
1 concern raised was the safety of the kids on the bus but i think its ok la since the chance of them meeting with any accident (choi! ) is definitely minimal cos we not so unlucky one right?

fortunately also, many worries we had regarding the trip such as what if the kids were hungry, or bored did not surface. they were chatting around, running around, playing cards -- showing their total capability in entertaing themselves

hope that the next trip would be a good one like this too！

4 Jun General supervision

2008-06-06T19:00:00.002+08:00

taught another upper primary boy maths today

was doing model-drawing sums
he had problem drawing the models based on the question as seen that he finished all the questions that did not require model drawing first then asked me for help concerning model-drawing questions

used quite some time explaining to him how to draw but for the rest he's quite good

realised another problem kids have regarding these questions is their interpretation of the question -- must take note of words like "before", "at first", "later", "after", in which 2 models may be required sometimes

at this point in think model-drawing notes covering not just the basic but consisting of a variety of questions would be of good help to the kids in helping them revise the steps and take note of trick questions

28 May General supervision

2008-06-06T18:47:00.002+08:00

taught 4 upper primary boys today.
all were doing chinese which they apparently dislike

my first time teaching them and they first started ignoring me and chatting among themselves
didnt control them and end up having an auntie to scold them
"oi you gang there 开会不在这里开的阿！" den they keep quiet

one started to ask me how to do then the rest followed suit
i shocked one had quite a major problem with han4 yu3 pin1 yin1
couldnt figure out whether its 1,2,3,or 4 声

one difficulty i encountered is when explaining to them how to do the "rearrange the words to form a sentence" question
its quite hard to explain without giving them the answer
so i had to resort to using english, which is not quite good either

5th june outing!

2008-06-06T18:12:00.011+08:00

personal coaching eh ;D

MINE MINE! ALL MINE :DD

this ammo box was THEIR SEATS! HAHA :DD

pretty ladies firing! :DD

Holes where the smoke came out of!

2 of the 4 screens there! (i think they were placed too high, no one noticed the 4th one behind them -.-)

SMOKEY ROOM~

that metal cylinder from the tip of the tank was where the light and smoke came from.. i think O.O

tired~~

they're kids too! XDDD

an overturned bus. the wheel was still moving..

climbing up to the main entrance!

5.6 .08 reflections

2008-06-06T12:51:00.005+08:00

Outing to army museum =)

It was pretty fun.
We walked about the galleries.
Watched a show with real life effects such as strong wind and smoke.
And tried to shoot with a rifle it was very heavy.
Then we went to the adventure park, it was quite fun and scary. Some obstacles were very hard but there are boys from the centre who are able to finish the whole course very quickly.

The students were pretty good and did not create much trouble.
Except that they are sometimes too noisy so the 2 jie jie have to tell them to keep quiet.

In the end, i guess the kids have alot of fun in the adverture park.
Things did not go with what we had planned cause we reach there late. But overall it still went on quite smoothly.

Did not learn much about the army from the trip but i realise that the discovery centre is not the science centre =O.

Will be going there again. This time with the primary 3 i guess.

4.6.08 Reflections

2008-06-06T12:42:00.005+08:00

General supervision again from 9:30 to 11
Was given a bunch of girls who are able to cope with their task by themselves. So i did not help them much.
One was very good at maths, so she helped her friend with all the maths question.
One had to do 10 chinese book reviews OMG so she was busy reading books.
One kept on laughing non-stop, the rest of the girls doesn't really like her cause they say she very fake.

After 11, it is play time for them so I slack until around12 then went home

2008-06-05T21:19:00.015+08:00

Beryl! lmao IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL BY "MANY MANY MANY"? XD

SO WASTED! D<

2008-06-04T16:20:00.003+08:00

gah!

today we were all there from 9.30 am till 12.00nn.

and i think, at least for me, it was pretty wasted DD:

the reason why we're even going back, i think, is cause we're worried for our tutees.. and we wanted to give them extra tuition during the holidays, that hopefully, they can improve alot and clear up all the doubts they have about the concepts taught from term1 to term2, before the schools start teaching new material in term 3 and 4.

but guess what?

last week, the primary 3s were off attending something in the library.

this week? the primary 3s were at a day camp conducted by acjc.
hopefully the acjc ppl uses the extraordinary time they have with the kids to brush up their concepts, and their character.

i hoping to see improvement in the children from the camp, either in character or studies.
or else i'm gonna criticise them like hell for stealing away and wasting the already-precious-and-scarce time we have with the kids (angry!)

so yeah. today i taught a primary 4 boy, the 不留名 friend of my last-week-buddy.
he's pretty smart, proficient in both english and chinese, which i totally wasn't back in primary 4.

he didn't need much help. but he was kinda ZZZzZZ cause he kept getting the wrong answers.
so we played a game similar to "who wants to be a millionaire?"

the close passage had 20 blanks. i gave him 3 lifelines.
50/50, where i cover half the answers, and he chooses from the other answers.
outright answer, where i tell him the answer and explain.
hint! i showed him, using the passage, what the word should mean, and he picks the correct word from the list given.

he finished super quick, and i had nothing to do. faith jiejie then told farah and i that the centre doesnt emphasize on work that much during the holidays! so we can go play with the kids. but the kids that we're close to, and would play with, are away at the day camp~~

so we wasted our time away, answering random questions from the children around us.

i hope that we'll get to tutor the children soon. failing is really serious, especially so in primary school. if they're flunking the subjects at primary school level, can you imagine they nightmare they're gonna face in secondary school, when they have to learn stuff lightning fast as the school rushes through the syllabus?!

and if they can't learn properly their concepts in lower primary, their foundation is gonna be weak, how are they gonna learn strongly their subjects in upper primary, and score well in the psle?!

im damned worried for them.
and they kinda remind me of myself, i dont want them to turn out like me T.T

and the stuff they learnt is different from ours. they're learning about penguin behavioral adaptations to it's cool climate, and ive got no idea.

and they can use calculators!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!

it's faster for them and all, but they'll get dependant on the calculator so young!
(to be frank, i think using the calculator dumb-ifed my brain. i used to think fast, cause of the mental sums, but i need to type stuff into the calculator to count now, i cant survive without it DD:)

i feel super unproductive and wasted. tmr we're bringing them out. but i think they've got day camp. oh wells.

bus's leaving at 1 pm tmr.

we're meeting at 12.15pm at lakeside mrt. reach by 12.30pm

and here ends the unhappy post of the apple jelly.

im hoping for a better time with them tomorrow.

5.28 reflections

2008-06-02T22:12:00.003+08:00

Sel wasnt around cos she was in batam visiting her grandparents.. i guess. so had to teach this p6 girl called BX. The first impression that she gave me was kinda violent, cos she sort of threw her pencil case and homework onto the table. Frankly speaking, i find a lot of upper primary girls here very violent lei :/

Kay so she was doing her maths or smth, and then this PF guy came along and started making noises beside us. BX called him to shut up or smth but was actually also adding in noise -.- she gets distracted like eighty percent of the time? oh god. and i was afraid of saying stuff to her as i thought it would provoke her even more, which makes her less willing to listen to me. Sad huh? D:

After that when she was doing her maths halfway, she decided to switch to doing science. Needed help for quite a lot of questions. Didnt really think before asking. Or was she just too lazy to do so? okay throughout the two hours we didnt really talk much, except for, This how to do ah, That how to do ah, Can play alr anot?

Eventually she managed to complete some maths area and perimeter questions, as well as her science paper SECTION A, 30 multiple choices during the 2 hours or so. o_o took pretty long aye?

After that, i was freeee! Then PF, jean's temporary tutee, told me to give him some maths mental sums. He took pretty short to do the sums. He's smart, as jean said, but just too lazy to look at the questions and naughty. lmao.

02 June outing!

2008-06-02T22:06:00.006+08:00

Hey pple!! These are e late pics!!(Done by tuyan^^)

(Sorry uh, feng, u said crop u away but i dunno how to, e crop thing like gone crazy le, so i just blurred ur face...hahahah!!IT ends up looks damn scary!!)

oops! sorry no time to edit DDD:
and my photos are mostly upsidedown and the like. sorrysorry! DD:

Here are the photos for today's hm outing! lol.

04/23/08 Reflection...

2008-06-01T16:35:00.004+08:00

Eh......

Today, I did not had the opportunity to tutor Pam as she was tutored by another college student. I felt a little disappointed...

Well, I tutored WJ instead. He is a P5 student. WJ is not focused and kept on talking to his peers if they hang around him. I went through science corrections with him. I taught the 'elimination method' if he is unsure about a particular multiple choice question. In this way, he will then be able to arrive at the correct answer without much difficulty.

WJ not only likes to argue with his peers but also with the adult volunteers. When he drifts away, I will wave my hand in front of him so as to capture his attention and make him complete his work. However, this method of waving my hand in front of him does not work very well. It can only last for a short period of time...so sad...

After WJ had completed his corrections, I revised with him on cells and the reproductive systems in man.As for the topic on cells, I tested him on the functions of the various parts of both the plant and animal cells. For example, I asked him what was the function of the cell wall, he replied that the upcoming test will not test on the functions on the two types of cells but rather on the drawing of cells. I am stunned upon hearing what he had said.

Once, we had finished our revision, WJ ran off to play with his friends despite having to do the English corrections. An example of the mistake he made would be "Bob's mum scolded him for played in the field. He should correct it as 'playing' instead 'played'. It seems like WJ English is not very good.

WJ does not seem to care a lot about his examinations as when I asked him when is his upcoming examinations he said he does not know or will utter some nonsense like" my exam is 1000 months and 1000 days later'......

I felt that I should be a little more enthusiastic so that he will be more interested in learning and not be easily distracted by his peers. On second thought,perhaps, maybe i should a bit more strict with him as he is so playful. However, I do not want them to be fearful of me, so I shall be more nice and enthusiastic.

5.28 reflections

2008-05-31T22:25:00.003+08:00

Today,we went there early in the morning from 9:30 -- 12:30
C is not around, so i was assigned a few pri 4 students.
Just to guide them with their homework.
One was doing Chinese, it was quite alright.

The other was doing science. It was a problem as the topic is about plants.
They were told to classify angsana, water lily, rain tree, fern and a lot more plants which i do not know about into flowering and non flowering, water and land plants. they learnt a lot more about plants then compared to my past, so i couldn't really help him with it.

The pri 4 were a lot more disciplined than compared to pri 3. After the aunt scolded them once, they didn't dare to make noise the second time.
Their maths were also quite good. I tested them my maths 5 mark question and they got it! Also about 1x2x3x4x0x9, they know the answer straight away that it is 0.
Though they are smarter than the pri 3, they are still we cute! The pri 4 doing Chinese was burping with the one beside him from A to Z. Their facial features really makes me laugh non-stop.

After that, most of the pri 4 finished their assignment. So we ask each other riddles. Then we realise that at their age, they already know of those "censored" jokes taught by their older siblings.
A boy was asking us science questions like how many bones we have in our body, how many heartbeats are there in a day. Not sure whether if they have to learn so in dept. After all, 6 years has past since i was pri 4, so the syllabus may be harder now.

After that, the pri 4s have to have their lunch before they go swimming. So i and Beryl went to distribute the prize for the last game session.
Not all prizes are distributed as some never come.
That's about all.
We had to do for maths supplementary lesson after that =(

5/28/08 ReFleCtiOn!!

2008-05-29T15:56:00.003+08:00

Heh heh... ...

Well, just to give you a quick update of what happened yesterday.

I tutored a student called PF. He is smart but quite lazy as he refused to even read the question and just shrugged it off by saying, "I don't know how to do." He is not in the mood to study as he fiddled with his pen at one moment and at the next moment he was chatting with his school mate.

When I asked him which part of the question does he not understand, he will reply by saying'I don't understand the whole question." I explained to him step by step. I even drew out the model diagram as he could not even be bothered to draw it out by himself. I told him that this particular question can be solved by using algebra. He was reluctant to use algebra, perhaps he is not good at it or others.

After attempting a few questions , he packed his bag and ran off to play table tennis. The teacher spotted him and asked him to show her his practice paper. The teacher refused to allow him to play as he has yet to finish his work. By the order of the teacher, he has to complete the piece of work before going off to play. His face turned sulky and ' black' almost immediately. Fortunately, he became serious and did the remaining questions properly.

I also tutored M. He is a good student. He understands concepts quite easily. He even remembered what Sarah has taught, which is the '11 times table'. I revised with him on the topic called"Fractions". Basically, I revised with him on proper, improper and mixed number. He recalled quite quickly. Next, i taught him a new topic on mass and length. I taught him on the conversion for mass. For example, 1kg=1000g.
Subsequently, I gave him examples to do and he know how to do but I think that sometimes he is quite careless.

28th May reflections!

2008-05-29T14:42:00.003+08:00

Today's visit was kinda odd

we were there at 9.30am till 12.30nn, with everyone present.

The p3s were doing something in the library, so we were split up..

dont know who farah, sarah and tuyan taught..

but jean, fenghan and myself taught the upper primary..

& i felt very tired and sad today after teaching 1 of them..

at first, i was teaching a primary 4 guy, called jun hao or smth liddat.

he was unwilling to do, and kept on talking to his 不留名 friend, so we 搬家to another table..

from then on, as long as i remained enthusiastic and encoraging, he was able to finish his work very quickly.

then i moved on to YF. and she was another story altogether.

i had tutored her before, for phoenetics the other time. she had struck me then as a hardworking student who was really poor in english, but willing to work hard to improve.

what i saw today made me think twice. she was doing her maths, and like XY, she wasnt able to do it well because of her poor grasp of english.

when i tutored her, she said she didnt understand the question. so i explained the question to her. by asking her to read each sentence out to me, and explain to me the meaning. she'll claim she didnt know. so i'll translate to chinese for her to understand. and even then, she'll say she didnt know. i felt that she wasnt even willing to think, and was just feigning ignorance to get me to explain to her, and prompt her again and again. this was our typical coversation for every question:
her: jiejie, i dont know how to do this question.
me: okay, read it for me.
her: *reads in stuttering english the entire question*
me: okay, explain to me the first sentence
her: i dunno.
me: *explains in simple english*. understand?
her: 可以说华语吗？
me: err.. if you dont attempt to understand questions in english, how are you going to do your exam paper during the PSLE? i wont be there to translate for you, you know.
her: oh. *struggles really hard to understand in simple english*

after understanding the question, i ask:
me: okay. so how do you set about doing this question?
her: i dont know.
me: you have to try.. imagine this is the psle, how do you do this question?
her: ah. a+b? a x b? a-b? a/b? c+a? *random guesses all the way*
me: nono. it's a+b. *explains it's cause it's 2 roads, and the entire distance travelled is the 2 roads plus together*
her: orh. *copies onto paper*

yeah. and the process repeats FOR EVERY QUESTION, even if the question was EXACTLY THE SAME, just with different values, BUT EVEN WITH THE EXACT SAME DIAGRAM.

and the bad thing is;
if she was a student who wasnt interested and just anyhowanyhow, it'll still be alright, cause i'll think that she's capable of answering the questions.
but she's actually trying very very hard, and yet she still cant do it..

i felt so tired at that point.. and very worried.. if she cant even do simple questions like routes, how on earth is she gonna pass her PSLE? if she indeed improve enough to pass her psle, how is she gonna cope with secondary schoolwork? it's very 心痛 to see her like that too..

so this is how my teachers feel when i do badly.. they must feel super tired, frustrated and kinda helpless too.. i want to work harder and clear my damn bloody exams, clear up my understanding, and make sure i can still do well without them, and stop making them worry.

and then she had this bitchy friend, fenghan's tutee-for-the-day, i forgot her name alr, WHO KEPT CALLING HER STUPID AND TALKING IN CHINESE AND HOKKIEN *FAINTS*
i was tired and so i just let them talk.
in hindsight, i should have asked her to please leave us alone for about an hour, ask her to talk to YF in ENGLISH, and to stop calling YF "bodoh", "stupid", "idiot".
It was obvious YF minded, but she just protested half heatedly, cause everytime she protested, her friend would call her the derogatory term even louder, and 点 her head..

i felt like slapping her and asking her to keep her effing hands off my poor tutee.. *violent tendencies*
i was a bullshit tutor that day and have alot to brush up on..

- my patience
- just cause i feel tired, i should still stay enthusiastic.
- why didnt i stop the bullying?
- just how do i help her??!? (im thinking of firing more questions at her, make her practice and practice and practice until she's familiar with all the terms already.. but do i have the time and resources?)

& seeing her like that has made me more determined than ever that An HAS to do well.. his foundation HAS to be good.. if not he wont do well in the future..

JIAYOU JELLIES! bring your tutees up up up!!

Outings!

2008-05-29T14:00:00.000+08:00

HELLO :DD

Outings (all confirmed):
- 5th June
- 11th June
- 12th June

READ THIS:
http://jellytarts.blogspot.com/2008/05/yay-more-updates.html

Discussed solutions:
- tourguide late how??
ive got 2 of their phone nos alr. heh heh. hope they work ahhh @.@

- adventure park!
we, with our lil groups, stop at each part.
finish the entire thing alr, then they FREE AND EASY!
we will stand at the edges, make sure they stay in park, and look out for dangerous things.
at the same time, if they wanna play other stuff, we have
- dog bone game, gurreila warfare, 老鹰抓小鸡，H20, Elope
- indoor? concentration, entangle
- bring leftover prizes, play musical statue/chair, simon says, etc

- As for food ah, i think they will arrange, not our problem! :DD
(but we bring a bit of food also not bad. like sweets, potatochips :DD)

CID FILE~

2008-05-25T18:38:00.000+08:00

HELLO JELLIES! ^^

The SL file is being compiled now! ^^

im very sorry to ask for all the stuff, and i know it's super extra work (>.<)

the file needs:
- minutes! (there should be 5 more! i have 1 with me!, and we haven't done the latest one yet..)
- the most recent station games.. is anyone holding onto the paper, plus the questions and everything? please do pass them to me XD
- TUTEE FILES! (please do include name, primary??, results, seems to be weak in what, behavior problems, how he/she has progessed so far)

i think that's about it.. if you all got anything else you guys wanna include, please do tell us! :DD

04/16/08 ReFleCtiOn

2008-05-25T14:19:00.000+08:00

Hmmm...

Heh heh, guess who I tutored today???

Since Pam did not come today, I tutored Jac instead. He is a smart boy but quite talkative.Initially, he was quite quiet and he did his math corrections obediently. However, not long later, he started talking non-stop about wanting to fly to the sky and even sticked paper on his forehead. This made me feel very funny and he certainly did light up my day.

There was once when I explained to him a problem sum regarding 'money' umpteen times and yet he still does not understand. Next, I decided to draw model diagrams for him only for that particularly question as he does not understand. Unfortunately, he was still unable to understand the concept behind it. Lastly, I racked my brains and thought of a scenario which is much simpler but is related to the question. He was able to understand it. I was elated. However the sense of satisfaction did not last long as he would say 'Yes' and then'No' when I questioned him again whether he understood the concept.

Jac would not want to listen to my explanation and kept on mentioning about wanting to fly to the sky. I said thet I would allow him to fly to sky if he completes the task assigned to him by his teacher-in-charge.I even said that if he completes his work early, I will allow him to go off and play. He would not want to play and said that he will have to go back home early.

He told me his ambition was to be a policeman. I told him that in order to be one, he has to be obedient and be a good role model by completing the tasks assigned.

At around5.30pm, his parents came to pick him up. The teacher told his parents that he has a little more work to complete and asked them to pick him up later at around six in the evening. Upon seeing his parents, he quietened down and did his work seriously. I think the thought of going home somehow motivated him to complete his corrections.

In the end, he was left with only 2 corrections undone. I also folded a paper swan as a form of incentive for completing most of his work. Though he did not manage to complete the last two corrections , this experience certainly gave me a sense of confidenence when it comes to dealing with such interactive students.

ps. I really enjoyed tutoring Jac as he made the tutoring session become very lively. He is an interactive kid and I hoped to be able to tutor him again.

reFlections 21may

2008-05-25T13:19:00.000+08:00

Farah here to finish the overdued reflection for the visit after cross-country

Tutoring(3 ppl)
i didnt teach Ron cos he was being taught by an Auntie there
so i was assigned to teach J
he was doing maths and chinese at the same time
we only finished a few questions since he was there talking to his group of friends before going home quite early
I was sitting opposite to Dan, so i helped him with some of his corrections as well
realised that most of the questions he got wrong was due to careless mistakes
must say that both J and Dan are rather smart in which i taught them and they were able to understand almost immediately
however sadly, they were rather talkative and i think i spent more time there talking to them and answering their questions rather than helping them finish doing their work
Esp. Dan, i had to keep telling him to do his work because he was chatting away almost after every single line of working he wrote down
i think i shd learn to apply some of the things i have learnt from the meetings to help them stay focused next time
in the end i decided to ask the auntie whether i can teach Ron back and left Dan with Jean, which left him rather sad :[

i guess the auntie dun really trust me with Ron so she assigned me to teach someone else
i shall call him G cos i didnt manage to get his name
i think G is the best tutee i had so far because he was smart, focused and willing to listen
he was doing math problem sums -- model drawing which happens to be what i loved in primary school -- but not now
i took some time to figure out how to do the question -- without using algebra
and i thank G for willing to wait patientlyand quietly ;]
i must say it wasnt a easy question, both to do and to explain
i had him draw out the model which made me realise that drawing the model accurately is very important because they tend to draw it for example, equal to one unit of something else which in fact, is actually not true, in the end getting a wrong answer though it would be correct based on the model they had drawn
for this matter, i think boys will have to pay extra attention since they are usually less cautious and aware of the details as compared to girls
i used various methods of drawing to teach him partly because i wasnt able to find the best method earlier
in the end he understood and was able to finsh 2 questions before the tea break
this is very much due to G for being able to listen and respond during the process when i was teaching him although Ron was just infront of him
however, i think in solving model-drawing problems, it very much involves the basic in which, in order to help tutees to improve, we should first show them by example the various type of questions and how to go about drawing models then using the models to solve the question, and secondly remind them of the important points to take note when drawing the models
i personally feel that it is no use to keep doing and doing if they dont remember and remind themselves how to do each question since it will be like committing the same mistakes over and over again for every question
hence, i think it would be useful if we had a session whereby we can teach them how to solve model- drawing questions step by step using the various methods for different sets of questions

Games (华文)
once again im the one in the chinese booth -- in which some simply hate, while others love
i think i really spent time into designing the questions, which covers many aspects involivng the chinese language, summarized as follows:
1。读 [i] 汉语拼音
2。写（字）[i] 笔画 [ii] 错别字
3。说（口试）
4。翻译
5。作文 [i] 描述 [ii] 造句
6。理解问答
7。文化（诗）
basically, most groups did well with a score of around 19 to 20 since i gave at least one mark as long as they tried to answer the questions and were able to give a rough answer that was close to correct one
a) one surprised me with her discription of 老人 in which she was able to describe to full detail, for example, 没有牙、驼背、脸皱皱、拿拐杖、白头发、and many more i cant remember, which shows how observant she is
b) a few were able to memorise 李白的诗, though it was a very popular one which i thought everybody should know

c) the same mistakes descibed in my previous post for the 汉语拼音came out again plus one more that some were unable to fill in the correct 声。
d) mistakes for 造句were also the same as those mentioned earlier

ObSeRvAtIoNs:

Not so good
e) [i] some were very selfish in which they keep the question paper for themselves and wanted to earn the mark alone though everybody working together would have ensured their answers are more quick and accurate [ii] some simply came to my booth, realising it was chinese and totally shut off though it was in fact easy to earn a few marks without a strong command in the language [iii] the groups cared more about marks than their own learning -- some compared with their own teamates to see who earned the most marks for each booth

Good
f) [i] some groups were very united in which they read the questions together and one lifted up the question paper for everybody to see, which i thought was very good [ii] one guy gave his best and answered the questions all by himself although he wasnt good in Chinese as compared to his teamate, who wasnt even thinking at all [iii] although some of their teammates may be selfish, the rest was able to accept it and didnt let that affect their performance

g) nevertheless, what i thought was most worrying was the fact that they were unable (or perhaps just lazy) to read and understand the instructions. Most tried reading the instructions which they failed to understand, then simply asked me to tell them what i want them to do for all questions
one group in particular, even after i asked and explained to them to 描述 (describe) 感受， for example 生气(anger)，伤心(sad)，惭愧(guilt)，which i expected for example, 生气得脸发红，大声骂。。。or 伤心地哭了、掉眼泪，or 惭愧的底下了头，they actually acted out for me! they were going like “你为什么。。。！”yelling to show their anger or pretending to cry and saying “我考试不及格。。。” =.=

conclusion
i was quite tired that day partly because of the cross country but the station games was still quite fun and active with the kids running around and screaming about
however, i think the noise is indeed too much as the kids get all too excited, so i guess we'll most probably not do it again
i was surprised by how the kids like simon says and i think beryl really do know the kids very well!
Ron once again proved his cuteness that even sarah laughed :]
we still owed them a present so we'll be giving it to them the next visit
hope that they will not be angry with us, especially Jo, because it is really the learning that counts
however, i think station games, though a good idea, involves more fun elements than learning since time is limited and the kids are usually more focused on earning points and winning. we also dun really have time to go through with them the correct answers and correcting them to show why the got the question wrong
perhaps some questions given will leave an impact on them in future, but i think the chances are very small since they tend to do and forget since they dont really have the time to commit them to memory
hence i think it is good to have station games, but not too many times at once

hope the outings/ fieldtrips will be a success :]]

21 May Reflections

2008-05-24T22:41:00.000+08:00

OK, so it was station games day again.
I think my this post is going to be very negative cuz i'm super tired now and i'm just using this blog post to vent my irritation.

During station games, i found out the following things.
~The kids there are very inpolite. Many of them just snatched questions from my hand, then if they took more than 1 sheet, they just crumple and throw it back.
(An even snatch away my pen when i told him they must answer one question by one question. Then i told him if he dont return me my pen, i cannot record score and they wont get any marks. Then one of the other little boys snatched back my pen, gave it to me, and screamed at me to "Faster write down larh!".)

~The kids there don't like to coorporate with members in their group. If one of them takes a question, he/she will not show the other members the question and will just answer it alone. Meanwhile, the other members will attempt to take another question or just poise their hand above the papers so they can snatch a question once the first member finished answering.

~Some kids are ruder than others. Often, the nicer-mannered ones will be bullied.

~Okay, and most of them had no problems with the english questions, maybe except for one or two harder ones, so i guess my questions' level of difficulty is still okay.

Then, i also had a horrible time tutoring.
I'll call her hui. Yah, i heard beryl tutor her before.
Haiz... she is so so so so so so so hard to teach man.
When i teach, she just simper at me and then doodle flowers on my book.
At first i thought that she cannot concentrate, so i tried to attract her attention back. Well i kind of succeeded, but her attention span only lives for as long as i don't go back to the question.
To illustrate my point, i'll show an example of our conversation.

Me: So now we know lawrence has 5 apples and.....
hui: *simper spastically* Hmmmm......
Me: So how many apples does Mark have in total?
hui: Hmmm...?
Me: How many apples do mark have?
hui: Dunno..?
Me: *Draws model that has 5 units* How many boxes are there?
hui: 77!! Ahhahahah!!!
Me: Hah hah...very funny hor? Be serious la, how many boxes are there?
hui: dunno.
Me: Dunno??!! Five what. There... 1, 2,3,4,5.
hui: *smile happily* Hmmm.....
Me: Hey look here look here. Don't daydream leh. Aye you very bored issit? *Chat abt something not regarding maths*
hui: *suddenly super reactive* YAH YAH!! Aye you know right....!!
Me: Oky lar, we do this maths question first can? Then later we chat. Okay?
hui: Okay!
Me: So now we know lawrence has 5 apples and.....
hui: *smile dreamily* Hmmm......
.
.
.
And the cycle repeats.

Aaarrgghhhh!!!!
Can't stand it!!!
The entire afternoon we only managed to go through 2 questions.
TWO HOURS GO THRU TWO QUESTIONS!!!!
Waa i super sian-ed man. All my patience and energy deplete liao.
Then the worst thing is, when Ja beside me asked one question, i thought, since hui also dont want to listen, i might as well teach Ja first. Since he's at least willing to learn, right?
Then the moment i turn to Ja, hui suddenly super agitated and keep pulling my shirt and saying. "Hey Auntie Cat say you must teach me leh! Not him! Don't care him lar!! If not i compaint to auntie!!!"
.
.
.
Despite my pissed-off-mood, i still smiled at her and bargained for 1/2 minutes.
But also not much point, cause she keep shouting and trying to disturb whatever i write on my book for Ja.

To make things even worse, at the end of the day, Auntie Catrine(dunno how to spell) called me over and (kind-of) scolded me, "She only did 2 corrections for the entire afternoon?! How come she did two only?!...blah blah..."
I very lamely told her, "Uhh... one of the questions was quite hard and we spent a lot of time going through."
So fake can. Got question hard until need one hour plus to teach meh?

Aaiiiyyyaaahhhh!!!!
Nevermind.
So to conclude, I had a very horrible day at the centre. Bleh...

21st may photos! (part2 again! XDD)

2008-05-23T23:39:00.000+08:00

almost all the pics i took got smog-y look, i dunno why O.O

on the way there:

SO SWEET!! =3

sleeping beauty~~

shooting questions at poor jean!
but they 4 very shuai hor? *perv look*
An, Dx, Jor, Dar!

Veronica! :DD

SUPER PRETTY!
i forgot her name though.. it was long and unusual, but nice :DD

wah. many many photos!

2008-05-23T23:02:00.000+08:00

before i say anything, PLEASE REMEMBER TO VOTE! (please refer to Vitas vid below!)

oaky! photos photos!

this one is the one of the meeting.. i know some photos very ugly, but still must put, to be fair..
i also very fair! i put my kanasai looking pic here too T.T

WHOSE HEAD IS THAT?!

THERE SHE IS!! (why farah look so sad? O.O)

omg!! 狗仔队！！

farah too shy, dont wanna take photo alr!

smth interesting!!

nah. bored again XDD

*i forgot to take pic while shopping.. sigh DD:

21/5/08 reflections!

2008-05-23T22:23:00.000+08:00

today was station games day again!

OK BUT BEFORE THAT! i was tutoring Sel! Hmmm she did maths dollar addition and subtraction. Careless lor, that's all i can say. then she told me to draw her a healthy diet pyramid! LOL and i took all my effort to draw it properly!!!! Though my art is considerably lousy. Guess it was a sort of incentive for her to complete her maths sums properly.

Looked through her report book. she didn't fail any subjects, but her marks are all arnd 60 smth. And i guess she really got to brush up on her English ba.

Station games.

I was in charge of maths(multiplication and division), as usual. prepared 15 questions, 5 for easy, med, and hard each. for easy, 1 mark. for medium, 2. And lastly for hard, its worth 3 marks. Wrote down the answers for all the questions on a separate piece of paper. students have to randomly choose from those deck of paper cards. if they couldnt get the answer for many times, or decided to give up, then can proceed on to the next question.

Basically, i find some of them quite violent, for eg, beryl's A, >.< he didnt help his group initially i believe? he wanted to snatch for the question papers, ALL OF THEM, from my hands. then i was like no, you gotto answer the questions one by one with ur friends. then he just glaaaaaaaaaaaared at me then walked away. o.O the rest of the grp mates, dexter and gang i believe? they kept snatching the question papers as well, when they're not supposed to D: but according to the rest of the tutors, they aint as bad.

IS IT COS I LOOKED LIKE A WITCH?? T.T

Some of them were pretty good at maths. Like the group with a short hair girl or smth lol. and a chubby lil boy. Okay, honestly, only the lil boy rocked in maths!! :D The short hair girl, which beryl taught before or smth, she just chose the paper cards for the boy to do lei!!! omgggg super woman ah she lol! then the lil guy jsut chiong the qns all the way. he didnt even shout any wrong answers lei! fast and furioussssss! :D

Then the grp with all girls. They only left one of their team mates to do. the others just complain that she's doing this right, that wrong, when they didnt contribute. Aiyo!!! bossy lor :D

Yeah la that's basically all for me lor. Oh yeah i didnt have time to record down their marks before they switch to the next station as they're having the score sheet all along to do their rough work. T.T

reflections 21/5/08

2008-05-22T20:57:00.000+08:00

Hello Sarah jelly here again.
We had station games and tutoring.

Let's start with tutoring...
- Talk more to C today, she at least answers most of my questions and know that i'm sarah instead of ali baba.
-Also learnt that her CCA is handbell and chimes, same as mine in primary school =)))))
-She told me she failed her maths last lesson. I did not really believed it then, now i guess it's true. she told me she had alot of problem sums question which she didn't know how to solve.
Its my fault as i have not even touch problem sums with her at all. So i was intending to teach her a little bit of problem sums. Teaching her a simple question similar to last time XY and J corrections.
I see that most of the students there did their maths assement until 60+ pages already but C still stuck at 43, which consist of division and multiplication questions not problem sums yet.
Up till now, i guess i had only taught her 4-5 times. Thats why she is lagging behind. So i have to work harder.
- However, she had some problem focusing. When she was trying to do multiplication question, she would stare into blank space, then colour some pictures, until i called her back.
So i tried Farah's method, competing with her to see who finished faster. At first, it worked, she did a question within 2 min. But after that, she gave up and do not want to compete anymore.
- Seeing her not able to focus, i taught her problem sums instead. I came up with question asking her to do. She later pushed it away, then told me that she don't want to do. Then it was after i asked her then she admit that she did not know how to do. So i came up with a similar but simplier question and taught her. Showing her another example, i asked her to do the next question i set. She is able to follow my first few steps, but after that she gave up again. So i taught her how to do and gave her another question. She felt bored most probably because she doesn't understand and does not know how to do, so she gave up again.
- i had to revise my steps so that it is clear for C to understand and apply it.
- i also had to come up with ways to make C listen to me instead of giving up. Such as acting sad and pitiful...

Games
It was, noisy and exhausting when we conduct the station games.
The group is bigger. Like what Beryl had mention, it's hard to control the groups as some groups started fighting.
I guess i am not forward looking thats why i 手忙脚乱。Don't know how i manage to hold on to the answer key, help them write marks, hand them question for them to choose, lend them my markers and paper and answer all their questions at the same time.
-From this, i learnt several things.
1) I had too high expectation for them.
I had a total of 14 questions when an average group could only do 3-4 in 5 minutes.

2) My questions was too tough.
Most of them could answer 2 marks question correctly with some of them able to answer 3 marks one. I had questions ranging from 1 to 5 marks.

3) There were a handful of students who are really weak in maths. We really need to do something about it. However there were also some who are quite good at it.

4) Their model drawings were quite weak. For example, there were 3 times more girls than boys. Girls must have 3 units while boys have 1 unit. most of them were able to draw it. However, 1 unit of boys must be the same size as one unit of 1 unit of girls.

5) For number sequence, most of them only thought of addition. For example 3, 7, 11, 15, ?
they know that it is 19 as it is +4 to the next number. However, when i asked 1,4,9,16,?
they came up with 1, 1+3, 1+3+5,1+3+5+7,1+3+5+7+9=25 And it is right! even though what i'm thinking was 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5.

Thats basically all, i've learnt to talk to C . And will come up with ways to teach C model drawing and problem sums during the june holidays.

2008-05-21T22:31:00.000+08:00

Frigging cute!!!

21st May!

2008-05-21T21:26:00.000+08:00

hmm!

today we had the X-country! which ended at about 11.30am~

then we took bus and had lunch, during lunch did last min preparations, then arrived at the centre at 2.30pm.

WE WERE ALL THERE FROM 2.30PM TO 5.50PM TODAY :DD

-----------

i sorta expected today to go well, but it didnt exactly..

1. we were all tired cause of the X-country, even if tuyan, feng and i didn't run -.-
2. last week, 12 kids. this week, 23 kids (+2 that came later)
3. tutor first, then have the game (we were all tired from the tutoring alr)
4. as the game was after tutoring, it started late, ended late, a few kids went home in the midst of the game.
5. i didnt prepare properly for this one. sorry jellies i.i

basically, what went on:
- realised that the kids couldnt afford the time to play.. many failed their exams (including my An), and are behind in their work..
- discussed with Faith jiejie, she said it was fine.. cause during hols they still needa attend "lessons", so still okay-okay
- auntie catherine thought it was better to have all the primary 3 kids play the game, cause it's fair-er, and last week alot didnt get to play..
- there were 2 ACJC girls there tutoring.. they seemed pretty nice, and i felt bad about stealing away their tutees after they only taught for an hour.. so i invited them to take over my station (split into 2 for them) and be station masters while i take photos!
- realised i didnt prepare any paper for station masters to sign... then i just anyhow tear paper.. i think the boring-ness of the paper got affected their mood to playD:
- at first got 21 kids, very nice alr! (7 groups mah)! then 4 lil ones appeared one by one.. so in the end, some groups got 4, some got 3
- it started late, a few kids had to go home! no. of ppl in each group now ranged from 4-2
- disagreements over grouping started happening.. there was fighting within the groups.. cause there was too many ppl, many were saying "i havent even seen the paper, and my groupmates already answered the question. then why should i play?" (GROUPS TOO BIG!)
- some wandered off cause they were "useless" in their groups
- they were very very very very noisy.. and very difficult to control.. auntie catherine came to tell me the game was too noisy 2134657854353 times!
- kids remarked some questions were too difficult, made them demoralised (logic + chinese station)(somemore so qiao3.. one after the other)
- the only redeeming part was simon says.. they were super enthu about it, for some reason.. i just said "okay, now we shall play simon says." then they screamed "YAY!"
and they went along quite willingly to all my stupid actions! Farah and Sarah said that lil Ro put his foot on the table cause he cannot hold it up! LOL

my thoughts:
- super jumbled up.. even though we planned to avoid this, there wasnt a clean transition from one station to another.. cause the groups were big, and they ambled around slowly!
- instead of firing questions, the kids took all the questions, and spread out among themselves to do!! (cause last time got 3, choose one. now is alot.. maybe station masters werent strict enough, so the kids dared to just take)
- when planning, we didnt take into consideration the problems big grps would pose.. like the internal fighting (why you all never let me see question? why you take question first?), the talk-while-walking-super-slowly attitude they would adopt in big groups..
- having 4 rowdy boys in a group is pure terror.. they'll get emboldened, then speak damn loudly and become super hard to control.. but if separate, they sulk and say they wanna be together.
- I NEVER EVER WANNA ARRANGE STATION GAMES FOR ALL OF THEM EVER AGAIN.

- but i wanna try others!
LIKE TEACHING "DOLL DANCE"!
using simon says as a "morning exercise?"
play musical statue!
teach UG cheer! (cannibal king!)

HAHA :DD

as for the tutoring..

An didn't bring his paper.. he said his teacher kept it..
and i saw his report book! his science went from 37 to 70, chinese got improve, english from 47 to 37, maths from 57 to 56..
i dont know whether i can his progess from the paper, as the SA may have been harder or easier than the CA.. i think i can only know by comparing with the other kids..
hopefully the SA was harder.. :DD

realised that An got lucky in his paper.. i only realised today that he isn't good at model drawing at all!! cause his assessment books required corrections, and almost all were from questions needing model drawing.. and i also realised that the aunties didnt teach him by using models, but by using algebra! *faints*

so yeah, gotta strengthen him on that..

hmm
to do list:
- BUY BOX TO CATCH SPIDERS
- THE PRIZES FOR THE KIDS
- (needa buy more prizes alr.. didnt realise will have so many kids @.@
maybe one pencil for each, and the winners get extra? anyone willing to go buy more notepads? xDD)

beryl's off to do her maths alr.. but im very tired @.@
nights! :DD

p/s photos some other time :D

random thoughts! :DD

2008-05-20T19:52:00.000+08:00

YAY!

successful meeting! :DD

thankyou farah and sarah for being wonderful hosts! :DD
i forgot to thank tuyan for the previous time too! :DD
(I LOVED THE CHOC COOKIES AND HUGE ICECREAM!! THANKYOU XDD)

and also thankyou to tuyan for volunteering to do 3 pages worth of minutes! XDD
and thankyou to everyone, cause everyone got do minutes before! first was farah, then sarah, then me, then fenghan, then jean then tuyan with the loooooooogest one of them all! XDD
辛苦了！
but now everyone do before alr, so must restart cycle HAHA! XDDD

hmm.. i was thinking.. SHALL WE TEACH THE KIDS HOW TO DANCE?? XDDDDD

you see the kids down there dancing dancing! DAMN CUTE RIGHT!
(of course im not looking at VITAS!! only.. the kids also v. cute! XDD)

so, SHOULD WE TEACH THEM THIS DANCE??
VOTE BY EDITING THIS POST!

sarah - YES

tuyan - no
Reason:
1)The dance moves shown are not complete and they look a bit... ok, very lame.
2)The children there already have dancing lessons organised by the centre.
3)There's um...like, no link between tutoring and dancing... and if we always ask to play games or teach dancing or etc, the centre will think we're not serious in wanting to teach.

Additional comments:
1) I seriously can't dance so if you'all wna teach, please please please leave me out of e teaching part kay?
2) I bet 5 DOLLARS that beryl wished like siao to be the little girl in the video who got kissed by vitas. Hahahahaha!!!!

beryl - YES
farah - YES/no
fenghan - YES/no
jean - YES/no

14 May Reflections

2008-05-20T14:00:00.000+08:00

For today's station games i was in charge of quizzing the children on English.
Hmmm.... my questions basically required theIchildren to think of descriptive words to illustrate
~a cloud(easy)
~an apple(medium)
~or Singapore(hard).

Quite propaganda, hor? lol...

Anyway, All of them chose questions in the “medium” and “hard” category. Maybe all of them thought english is very easy?
Or maybe they're better in english acedemically.

But actually all those who picked the "describe singapore" question needed a lot of prompting and examples to get the answers.
(Most of them described singapore as "beautiful" and "nice" and "my home" and etc...
Damn patriotic, man.
but i rejected answers like "nice", 'beautiful" anyway, cause they don't really describe singapore. I was looking for answers that are more like multi-racial...or others)

Then after the game i didn't go tutor my tutee because...
Sigh...
He didn't appear to be around and...
So he's most likely stolen again....
and i didn't tutor him for so many weeks I even forgot his name....
Sigh.....

Its quite sad, really.

HENCE!
I decidede to go interact withsome children who participated in the game instead and asked for their opinions and suggestions about the game.

Most children said that the game was fun, but a little confusing for them because it was quite messy...(I admit it).
They also said they got learn things, but when i asked them what they learnt, they were speechless.
So i guess they just said that so we would play it again and they won't have to do assignment....
Sigh.... So lazy....

So... thats it le lor.

Yah, and i finished the typing the minutes already.
3-full-pages.
Lucky me for volunteering to do this super long minutes.

Ok, so thats it.
Goodnite everyone.

Photos (part2!), 5.14.08

2008-05-18T17:13:00.000+08:00

eh.. if you guys find it kinda odd,
it was cause my camera's not that good D:

and i editted photos to try and make it back.
there's 2 blurry photos (cause sy didnt hold her hand steady)
there's a smog photo (i have no idea why.. maybe it's the CO (isit?) in the air! xDD)

& i realised we nvr take pics among ourselves!! (actually got la, but they happen to be the SUPER blurry photos. T.T)

Jo's so cute here! XDD

the one above is editted. the one below is not. can see difference? XDD

Reflection [4/9/08]

2008-05-18T16:11:00.000+08:00

Hmmm... I am sure you will want to know what happened today.
Well, Pam did not had much homework to do today. She had a worksheet which she had to fill in the activities that require water. I racked my brain and came up with a few such as gardening, washing of utensils and sports day.
Upon completing the worksheet, she did her corrections for her english worksheet. She did not score well for her 'grammar test'. For example, the past participle of 'have' is 'having' . The word 'having' is formed by removing the letter 'e' and adding the 'ing' to the word 'have'. However, she spelt the word as 'haveing' instead of 'having'. I corrected her by teching her that words ending with 'ing' will have to have the letter 'e' removed.
Due to the errors she committed in the 'grammar test', she haad to do her corrections ten times for each of the incoreect word. I really pity her. I think that her teacher should not have asked her to do the corrections ten times. In my opinion, I think that understanding the concept of past participle and others is more important and useful than copying the corrections ten times. This is because the student may just copy blindly and repeat similar mistake.

14 mAy

2008-05-16T23:18:00.000+08:00

we had station games for like 1hr, which proved to be quite fun actually, though im not exactly the one playing.
i thought it would be very hard to control the kids and convey to them the rules and regulations of the game, and my prediction indeed turned out to be true, but i realised Beryl is VERY GOOD at engaging them and giving then instructions to follow.
thus, they were quite cooperative, even to the extent of being interested and motivated to win at the end. They were actually quite organized and obedient to follow instructions and carry out the station games well.

Since im in charge of chinese, i shall make some comments on my thoughts of the children answering the 3 questions and i set.
Basically, the first is super easy thus all who tried earned the full one mark. As for level two question which tests on han4 yu3 pin1 yin1, i see the common problems surface, such as whether there is a 'h' or a 'g' in 生。some were even unable to read 陌 mo4
As for sentence structure (造句）2 grps attempted but both were unable to give a full answer, in other words, they werent able to explain the first part of the answer.

Nevertheless, it was truly enjoyable and i realised that time past by very fast when we enjoy ourselves. From beryl's reflection i also saw that the kids themselves enjoyed it too ;D
thus i hope we can have more of such games in future, since it is not very difficult and time- wasting to prepare it either.

For the second part of the visit, i was back to teaching Ron.
he failed his maths ;(( -- that's what i was told but i didnt get a chance to see his paper

i think i really should be more serious in teaching him and make sure he really understands what im talking about and actually be able to APPLY it.
an auntie volunteer told me that Ron is poorer at problem sums and model drawing which caused him his marks, so i began my first time teaching him, or rather, revising with him on how to draw models based on question, and use it to solve for the answers.

the first question i saw requires model drawing, but the minute i finished reading it, i thought of solving it by algebra. I realised that after so many years away from using models, i have indeed forgotten quite an amount of it. Fortunately, i was still able to teach and help him. after much recalling based on the fact that i actually loved and excelled in model-drawing during my primary school days ;D

the most crucial problem lies with using the model to solve questions. Ron was unable to spot exactly how to go about the steps in finding the unknown from the model. As such, he will need more practice to help him be comfortable in solving the questions.
Sadly the tutoring session was not really productive as Ron was not being serious but was going around, figeting and looking at friends, and we managed only to revise about 4 questions.
i guess i should learn to apply whatever we have discussed in the meetings to help Ron stay in focus.

5.14.08 reflections -feng

2008-05-15T23:32:00.000+08:00

5.14.08

Basically, beryl has already mentioned about the games rules and process about the station games today. Heheh so i wont emphasize on the game too much ba! But but I guess it was really enjoyable for the kids seeing them run around, asking us for our names lol :D Could see they loved the presents too! Couldnt believe it tht Sel and Jess could get the firsssst! Woooohoo. i tot JOL and friend will get lei, cos .. They look smart and.. cunning :P lol.

After the whole event, me and Sel started to play.. smth. ohmygosh i forgot what we actually played, but i rmb jol was drawing some kinda clothes and accessories for her hand drawn doll. lol i rmb that's what i did when i was younnnng-er. lol. But anyway before long, some YOUNG LOOKING AUNTIE (ok she isnt even an auntie yet) told me to tutor sel on her english vocab and grammar, cos she's really bad at those two areas. So i went through a few of her english exercises on the assessment with her.

I realised that she actually knew how to do most of the grammar questions, if someone was there to guide her a bit. Maybe rephrasing the questions? Vocab cant be helped though, but i thought she's been reading quite a lot le. She even have the "English as its broken" (or smth liddat de) book. LOL i asked her if she understood the contents, and she said yeah o.o its quite difficult, as far as i think, for her to understand lei. But who knows, maybe kids nowadays are more intelligent, or just because i wasnt as smart as her back at her age :X lmao.

I think next time should emphasize more on Sel's languages than maths. I think her maths is already not bad lei, though she still makes some careless mistakes at times, for eg long division. But she still dont know a looooot of vocab, regardless of english or chinese.

2008-05-14T23:55:00.000+08:00

Photos, 5.14.08

NOT TUTORING! STATION GAMES!!

2008-05-14T23:47:00.000+08:00

HELLO HELLO! :DD

TODAY EVERYONE WAS PRESENT, REACHED AT 3.30PM, LEFT AT 6.30PM.

it's been a looooooooooooooooooooooong time since we last went there, with exams and all!

first we confirmed the outing details! and she says she wants one more for her p1 and p2 students (50 students). for details, please refer to "outing details" labelled post, the one posted on 14th may.

then we got her a-okay for the station games!

then we got her a-okay for photos too! (we said we would capture from their backs, auntie yh was kinda amused. but in the end we shot from front -.-)

and yeah! auntie yh gave us 12 p3s to work with for station games! (cause the rest were with percussion band. btw, today was the last day the percussion band was going over)

we were only prepared for 6, but in the end got 12.. so we made them pair up! (6 stations mah)

and the prizes.. only the top 3 teams got prizes! (got one lil boy, toysen or smth like that, was suuper upset got no consolation prize.. nvm! next week got sommore XDD)

the station games!
- chinese (farah)
- english (tuyan)
- multiplication and division (fenghan)
- science (jean)
- problem sums (sarah)
- logic (beryl)

rules:
- each pair will start off with one jiejie.
- they must follow the order given (we can follow, by seeing who signed the paper last)
- we will tell them who they must find next. they must ask us to verify. (but we cannot tell them who is who, we can only say whether we are, or we are not. GOT PROPAGANDA ONE! make them remember our names XDD. helps bonding mah! XD)
- got 3 questions to choose from. Easy, Medium, Hard. worth 1pt, 2pts, 3 pts respectively. they choose one qn to answer. once they got it, they move on! if wrong, take another pick, wrng again, take the last pick. (in a nutshell, just answer one question to go)

we all used diff coloured pens to sign.. i think that also make the paper more colourful, made them more interested! XDD

hmm, the kids were running to and fro, squealing and shouting, trying to answer the questions best and fastest and get the most points! i think my station was quite difficult.. but got 4 girls amazed me. 2 of them answered my medium question, another 2 answered my hard question!! the rest got 0. i tried to give them a bonus question (what is 30 divided by half?) answer is 60, but all told me 15 -.-

haha! the 2 girls that answered my hard question eventually got 1st prize! XDD
the other 2 girls that answered my medium question got 2nd prize! XDD
see? my logic station shows the winners. HAHA XDD jkjk

hmm, got a little girl, Jes, loves to take pics. keep taking pics man..
got little toyson upset cause no prize @.@

anyways, im super glad the brainchild of farah and sarah came to life! SUPER FUN!!

here's some testimonials:
(typed word for word, so got spelling mistakes XDD)

LokeJY: Can we play it another time pleeaassee? *draws a cute cat* It is fun too!

LinY: It is very interesting and fun! ~ *heartshape*

Jes: I think that the game is very nice! =D =) =S

Germ: I think that the game is very fun! =)

PeiX: I think the game is interesting and challenging! =) Ha!Ha!

Jo: I like this game because it is very fun and interesting. it help me in Maths, Chinese, Enlish and science.

HAHA~ XDD ------------------------------------------

after the games, i tutored An again! he was super high today! he was like:
"JIEJIEJIEJIEJEIEJIEJIEEJIEEJIEJIEEEEEEEEEEEEE! COMECOME!"

then i followed him, and he got his book, and said " I FINISH ALL ALREADY!"
then i gave him the Stink Eye, and asked "REALLY AH?"
he said "YUP. YOU THINK WHAT?" *grins widely*

then i said, oh, so you wanna go play? he said, "NOPE. I WANT TO DO SOMEMORE". then he passed his book to auntie sharmaine to mark out pages for him to do..

i was damn shocked, then i was like "auntie sharmaine, why is he so high?"
then she smiled and said "because An got his papers back!"

i went OOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
then i asked An for his papers! he did super well! (a big improvement from the failures in term 1)
Chinese: 62.5/70
Listening: 9/10
Science:
Section A: 20/40
Section b: 15/26
Total: 35/50
Maths
Section A: 26/60
Section B: 30/64
Total: 56/100

SEE THE MATHS. ITS THE MOST IMPT! HE PASSED XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
alot of his other friends fail, and he improved to pass! XDDDD

super proud of him! :DD

then i rifled through his test papers, and found he was weak in:
- even numbers! (end with even no., placing's significance)
- unsure about bar graphs, cannot read them properly.
- missing no. in box (?? divide by 9 = 6R1) (ans: (6x9)+1)
- fractions! (shade 3/12 triangles = 1/4)
- minutes & hr

got a few more, but he needed to go home alr..

saw that he did the section A's multiplication and division and other stuff perfectly :DD

glad to see him have such a huuuuuuuge improvement! XDD

hopefully it continues until he doesnt need me anymore. XDD

i'll upload the photos some other time :DD
nights, sleep tight, jellytarts!

signing off, beryl! @ 12.39am

YAY! MORE UPDATES!

2008-05-14T23:13:00.001+08:00

HELLO! :DD
YAY OUR OUTING IS COMING UP!!
THIS ARE THE DETAILS!! (REMINDER + UPDATED)

DATES:
5th june
11th june
12th june(pending)

TIMING:
meet @ 12.15!! LAKESIDE MRT!!

DO WHAT: (must repeat cause diff grp each time)
- BRIEF THEM!
*g0nna have bombs, dont scream!
*dont wander around! stick to tour guide and us!
*want to go toilet, find us! (EH BOYS GO TOILET HOW?!?! WE ALL GIRLS LEH).
*dont play play
*NO TOUCHY.
*BEWARE OF HOLES IN GROUND
*if want to cry, all of us sitting at back of theatre, come find us. stuff like that)
- SPLIT INTO GRPS!
*which jellytart look after which group! (lookout for the naughty ones)
- LOAD INTO BUS!
*do headcount. make sure they all got buddy buddy, to make sure they dont wander
- go there, find the tourguide, AND IT ALL STARTSSSSSSSSSS!
- end of it, proceed to adventure park.
* can let them play, but PLEASE WATCH THEM. THEY CANNOT RUN OUTTA CERTAIN BOUNARY, THEY CANNOT DO DANGEROUS STUFF
- time's up! go home..

hopefully it'll all go well..
i already foresee problems

- tourguide late how!
(better go store their phone no. call while in bus! to make sure they're ready and waiting)

- adventure park soo damn small how?
(eh, maybe liddat is better. can force them sit down and play games inside, if not enough attractions. play games that require running around, MAKE USE OF THE OPEN SPACE! (tag? hot and cold? police and theif? GUREILLA WARFARE?)

- adventure park too big how?
(groupings? then each group occupy one area?) (or how about we limit a certain area, they can roam free in the area? cause i scared later one grp hog all the fun things DD:)

- very sian how?
(better bring some little prizes over.. can play games like "simon says" and win prizes ;D)

- very hungry how? very thirsty how?
(hmm.. CALL THEM TO ASK WHETHER GOT FOOD ANOT. GOT FREE REFRESHMENTS?)
is food even allowed to be eaten inside?!
(if no, CALL AUNTIE YH, ASK WHETHER TO CALL THEM BRING FOOD ANOT.. allowed?)

waaaaaaaah. lucky i typed out man @.@
okay, i sleepy alr! ~.~

nights, sleep tights, jellytarts! <33

14.5.08 reflections

2008-05-14T21:28:00.000+08:00

After a long break for examinations, we finally got back to the centre. This time, rather than tutoring them 1 to 1, we decided to do station games for the students there as they also need a break after their exams. We tested them with questions ranging from maths to languages and logic. It was really fun as i find the students there bursting with energy as they compete with one another to win the prizes. After that, we announced the top 3 pairs which eventually got their prizes.

After that it was back to teaching the students, i see that C has just finished her maths homework, so she just went to play. Through this weeks at the centre, i realised that my bondage with C is not that good. So i have to start doing something about it, perhaps to buy some things for her in the next trip.

continuing, i had nothing to do. So i walked about and together with jean, taught a boy how to do 11 times table. it is a really good method to teach the students as they only memorised up to the 10 times table. This method is applicable even up to 3, 4,1000++ digits! for example:
11 x 11= 121 11x72=792 notice the trend?
11x 72 = 700 + 10(7+2) + 2 =792
11x 7234 = 70000 + 1000(7+2) +100(2+3) + 10(3+4) + 4 =79574
Its quite hard to understand it this way. (let the number to be multiplied by 11 be N) Basically the first and the last digit of N is the first and last digit of the answer. Then the numbers in between the first and last digit of the answer is the sum of two consecutive numbers in N from the first 2 digits to the last2.
I feel that this is a fun way to engage a student in maths. Even when we had nothing to do, we can anyhow find a student to teach him something that interest them and is beneficial.

After the boy has gone home, i started playing games with Tu Yan and some of the students there. It was pretty fun. I find it easier to make friends there as they are so innocent, as long as you play with them, they will be your friend. =) (They still remembered that i'm a scientist!)

Lastly, C said that she failed her subjects. And then i started to regret not teaching her for so long. up till now, 4 trips there, i had only really taught her once. This is mainly due to a lack of communication and bondage to one another.

Also, i can truly see that Beryl is very focused on her work. Going through A exam papers, he is able to pass most subject. I should be more attentive towards Cheryl, and use my best ability to teach her. Without regrets the next time.

3/19/08 reflection

2008-05-11T14:26:00.000+08:00

Today, I went to the Lakeside family centre. The children seemed to be very happy upon seeing us. Well, I think they must be very excited to see some new faces.I tutored Pam, a Primary 4 student. I introduced myself to her but she ignored me. So sad... Pam is a quiet and focused girl. She is not easily distracted by her playmates. I told her that if she encountered any difficulty along the way, she may feel free to ask for help. Pam is person filled with determination. She does not give up easily when she does not how to solve a particular maths question.

Upon completing her Chinese assessment book, she will go to her locker and take out anothe r Mathematics assessment book or worksheets to complete. Pam is not playful. In my opinion, she is a student who makes use of every opportunity to study. She indeed enjoy being alone. It was like after taking another assessment book to complete she will sit at another corner far away from me. It made me feel really quite bad...Never mind look on the positive side of life... I feel that she studies best when she is independent. When I tell her that she can go and play, she refused.

Apart from the above, Pam is a fast learner too. For example, there is a comprehension question(MCQ) in which I taught her the elimination method. After teaching her that method, she was able to apply it to other questions . This really surprised me!Though she is an obedient and good student, I still feel that she needs to be more outspoken. She should interact more with her peers as well as people of various age groups. Social interaction is very important for people just like us.

I look foward to the next visit. I will make it a point to be more friendly with them. The smiles on their faces truly light up my day. Most importantly, being a tutor for the FIRST time in my life gave me a whole new experience and feeling. It is a feeling that I never had before and also one that I will never forget.

4/2/08 reflection

2008-05-10T15:07:00.000+08:00

Well, today Pam had a lot of homework to complete.This resulted in me being a little frustrated as I not only had to teach her but also go through nearly every single problem sum with her.Perhaps because of a little pressure that I am experiencing that caused me to be in a slightly bad mood for that day.
I urged her to calculate faster if she could, as she calculates very slowly with her fingers. I also gave her words of encouragemnet such as "jiayou!"
Perhaps,I should put myself in their shoes and understand how they feel after a day of work in school and having to face the tutors again in the centre.
Pam was not very alert and focused today. She kept on turning her head to look at the group of boys playing games at a corner.
I think that I can try rewarding her with sweets as a form of incentive. In this way, she will work towards her goal and accomplish her homework in time. I should also not allow my mood affect the way I teach my tutee. Maybe, I should learn to be more patient when it comes to teaching and reinforcing concepts. This is a learning point that I will take away with me so that I will know how to tutor even much better.

outing details!

2008-05-06T02:25:00.000+08:00

Hello hello!

yes, im up at 2.25am studying chem =.=

haha! today confirmed alr

the outings:
5th June, 2pm
11th June, 2pm

that's when the tour STARTS.

so we'll probably have to reach there by 12 or something =X

i havent confirmed with auntie yewhwa the details yet..

i know you guys wont see this, being busy and all XDD

JIAYOU FOR CHEM MID YEARS, AND ALL THE OTHER MID YEAR PAPERS! SCORE SCORE SCORE! XDD

<33! beryl

reflections!

2008-04-27T20:52:00.000+08:00

everyone went today! XDD

reached at about 4.40pm today~

Auntie Yewhwa had already went home, so we couldn't discuss the CID outing with her further..
(update: she has smsed me, must confirm with group this coming monday)

An was still having percussion, so i took mel aka jj first.

jj was having problems with his maths, and it went "there are 3 times more boys than girls"
and DENGDENG! sarah's method of teaching came into my head!

so i told him to take it as 3units for boys, and 1unit for girls! and he understood immediately, but we practiced 4 more such questions to make sure he was familiar with it.
(looking back at my primary school days, i wished my teacher taught me like that! i had problems with the "than" too!! and she tried to teach me what "than" meant, and then sent me to my english teacher to try and make me understand.. she shld've just used "units" =.=)

& he also had problems differentiating bigger from smaller numbers, and even from odd!

told him to remember
"even and odd numbers don't like their own kind. so they want to change all the time! the smallest number is 0, right? just remember that zero is even! so 1 will be odd, 2 be even, 3 be odd, 4 be even, 5 be odd, 6 be even, 7 be odd, 8 be even, and 9 be odd!
when you see whether a number is odd or even, just see the last number! infront all dont care!
22222222222222222222 -> even!
22222222222222222223 -> odd!

"but for bigger and smaller numbers, see the infront! if the first number infront is the same, then go to the second number, then third! once there is a bigger or smaller number in the front few numbers, the back no need to care!!
2222 -> smaller!
3222 -> bigger!

4387 -> bigger!
4321 -> smaller!

and following that, An came out, and he went "jieJIE!! HURRY! I WANT YOU TO TEACH ME"
and i was like WHOA! O.O why is he so enthu today?
and so i went with him, and asked jj to finish up his assessment books, and then come and ask me if he has any more questions.

so i followed An to the table, and he plopped his book onto the table, flipped to that page.
half of it was blank, but the top half was all filled.
the bottom ones were easier than the top few, so i asked him "O.O? what is it you dont know? you know how to do the hard ones leh!!"
GUESS WHAT HE SAID.
"是那个JC姐姐帮我做的。"

i tell you, i wanted to explode and hate acjc forever. this is what, the umpteenth time that i have the children telling me "is she help me do one." "he say, i just do." "she show me how to do all".
when will they freaking realise that teaching isn't showing or providing answers?!?!
not only are they wasting time with the kids, the children think they know how to do, then they dont ask, and they'll only realise it when the exams come, or when other mini-teachers like us quiz them. and it changes their mindset, making them super unwilling to learn, making our job, the real teaching, even more difficult.

anyway, then i erased all and told An to try on his own.. out of 8, he got 6 wrong. how did he get the 2 correct? cause he managed to remember the working before i erased it -.-
(during the checking of his answers, i took out my calculator to quickly see if the final answer is correct)

so i told him, cannot, all wrong! and i proceeded to erase the 6 wrong ones. he let me erase. while i was erasing, he saw Ro(farah's tutee) using farah's calculator to check his (already worked out by himself)answers.
then he tried to grab mine too. i put it out of his reach, and asked him why on earth he wanted my calculator for. he said "to find the answer loh!"

i said he can't learn that way, and tried to teach him how to do long division all over again! and he was super unwilling, had a super bad attitude and called me "STUPID" all the way.

i ignored the first few times, cause i could understand him being frustrated, having to re-learn what he THOUGHT he knew (stupid acjc "tutor" -.-)
however, the method we're all using is interactive, and needs the tutee to think, and to answer the questions we pose (to help them remember better, and to make sure they truly know how to do the questions)

his answer: "ZERO LA, STUPID"
me: "the number that is close to or exactly 8, but not exceeding 8, and a multiple of 3, is 0?"
his answer: "THEN? STUPID LA."

after continuous abuse poor me suffered at his hands, and after i realised he diedie also wont pay attention, and after he cried and shouted at me and kicked the chair and threw all over the place the workings i tried to teach him, I WAS FED UP.

during the abuse i suffered at his hands, i remember that;
Ro piped up "oh.. later An go crazy again and dont want to learn"
then it hit me that that he uses this tactic to avoid learning. they wont bend to his terms? then he wont learn lor.

last time whenever he cried, i would back peddle and let him have his way, or at least try to make a compromise.

no more, man.

he wants to throw a tantrum? fine.
i put my paper in between the pages, closed the book, and slid the book over to his corner of the table, out of my sight.
then i said "talk to me when you're ready to learn."

conveniently, jj came up at my other side, and i turned my back towards An, and taught JJ instead.

then An took out my paper and threw them all over the place again (i previously picked them up). this time i picked up the papers and said "you want to throw? ok." then i threw them into the dustbin.

then i resumed my seat, and continued teaching JJ.

then An pushed his book infront of me, flipped to the page and shouted "TEACH LA"
i asked: "are you ready to learn?"
he shouted back: "NO LA"

then i closed the book and pushed it over to his side again.

the book is with him. the choice is with him.

then after another time, he pushed it infront of me again for the 3rd time.

this time i didnt even bother asking him whether he was ready. i just took out the paper, and did everything out, while voicing out loud how i got that number, what i did next, why i did it.

and then after i was done, i nudged the book to him. and he picked up his pencil and tried to do. and he could do it!! (with a bit of prompting from me)
his attitude was a whole 360! he was listening super attentively when i did the question out loud.

and i realised that apart from not knowing how to do long div properly, he also had extra difficulties cause he was not familiar with the 7 and 8 times table.

well, my purpose there is to teach him, and to make it easier for him to learn long div, the basics, i wrote out for him the 7 and 8 times table.

he could do all the questions by himself with a rare prompt or two from me! :DD

felt like we were finally getting somewhere, and i finally managed to handle him and tantrums!! XDD

and i must thank my mum for forcing me to memorise the times table when i was in p3! if i hadnt then, i surely wouldnt be able to swiftly learn my long division or multiplication or stuffs! so yeah, i realised the importance of memorising the times table!

so i told him to better bring home the paper and memorise, next week we'll have a competition to see who can learn more! (cue picked from farah!).

and he went like "oh. OKAY!" then made sure that i put the correct piece of paper into his pencilcase to prevent me from "cheating" LOL

and he became super nice to me after that, sharing with me the jelly (LOL) that the percussion ppl gave him.

i brand today has highly successful! and all the best to his exams man :DD

i realised, after the entire saga, that he probably changed his attitude cause i wasnt doing what was expected. i believe i wasnt the first person he threw a tantrum, cause he was frustrated he didnt know how to do, how to answer, to. he probably threw it at the acjc students, and then they caved in, and told him the answers. when i didnt, and actually threw away what he was throwing around for show, he didnt know how to react. so bo bian, just learn lor -.-
and im hoping that he became super nice to me after that, because he was happy that i finally taught him, and he finally knew, the way to do long division. it's quite exhilarating to finally understand something that's eluded you for ages, ya know ;D

all the best to your exams, Jellytarts!!

<33! Beryl!

23/4/08...(Tuyan)

2008-04-27T15:55:00.000+08:00

This was my third visit to the center!!

I could go the last time because i went to Palau Semakao the nicely preserved rubbish land with lots of sandflies!! lol... does it sound contradicting?

OK, so this time i taught a primary 5 girl called Hui Ru (Cause my orginal tutee was stolen again... by the same evil person i expect...)

But nevermind!
Hui Ru was a really sweet tutee, and i taught her chinese this time.
At first, after seeing that she had many questions wrong for one comprehension, i thought she didn't understand the passage, so i made her read the whole text once.

As i expected, she did not know the meaning of many words, and after we went through the text, i explained to her the meanings of the each paragraph, just to be sure that she understood it.

Then i asked her, "That wasn't very hard to understand right?" (Just as a form of encouragement.)
She replied, smiling, "Yah, but i never read it before i did the questions."
I was very shocked, and said to her, "If you never read the text, then how do you do the questions?"
She simpered cheerfully, "Thats why i don't know how to do lor."
*faint*

So after that rediculously surprising confession from her, i made her read all the passages which she had to do corrections and she happily complied.
After that, she knew how how to do a lot more questions which she initaially got wrong.

I could say i teached her an important skill in doing comprehension questions during this visit, but somehow or another, it isn't really true because she already knew that she was supposed to read the text first before doing the questions, and its not exactly that she didn't want to do it because when i told her to, she didn't even bargain with me.... hmmm....

...its wierd. But all in all, we made much progress this visit, so....i still have a strong sense of achievement^^, maybe next time i'll tutor her again and see if she remembers to read the text before doing the questions.

9/4/08...(Tuyan)

2008-04-27T15:34:00.000+08:00

This was the second time i visited the center and this time i was assigned to teach the lower primary students,
(because my tutee last week was stolen by another person...Grrr...)

First Tutee: JACK
At first, he appeared quite shy and non-responsive.

Of course, that made me quite worried as i feared that he might just keep to himself for the entire tutoring session. Cause then we won't be able to accomplish much, and end up just sitting there in stony silence.

Hoping to get him to open up, i conversed with him in an (extremely) enthusiastic voice and asked him about his interests.

It seemed that my worries were quite unneeded, because once he started to share his interests (about what catching flies and lizards and cockroaches), he got a little over excited and then there was the trouble of getting him to go back to doing his homework.

All in all, it was fun interacting with him, although it really wans't easy teaching him, because he got distracted at every other teeny-tiny thing.=.=

Lol, at least now i know how the teacher feels in class when the class just want to do everything other then learn what he's trying to teach.

Haha!!

~Tuyan

19/3/08---(Tuyan)

2008-04-27T15:28:00.000+08:00

Today was our group’s very first visit to the Lakeside Family Center.
Although it was a totally new experience, I found it a rather enjoyable one.

Before we went there, I was rather skeptical of the entire idea of going to a daycare center to carry out our project. To begin with, I had no experience or whatsoever on teaching younger children, and I had absolutely no idea what I could do if they were defiant.

Recalling the experience I had when I was in primary school, I assumed that if I was strict enough, and behaved like some respectable teacher, the child would probably see me as how he sees his teachers and pay me the same respect, thus making my job easier.

However, once we got there, I realized that I was very wrong.

In the daycare center, each of us was assigned one child to personally tutor. I was paired with a primary four boy who faced difficulties in his Chinese studies. When the teacher told the boy that he was going to be tutored, he defiantly declared, “I hate Chinese.” Of course, that earned him a long, fierce, lecture and some very severe scolding.

At that moment, I felt so worried. If the boy did not even obey such a fierce teacher, how could I make him even respond to anything I say?

Hesitantly, with a distinct sense of regret that I was chosen to be his tutor, I forced out a smile on my face and introduced myself, then sat down next to him and his Chinese textbook.

“I hate Chinese,” That was the kid’s first complaint.

In the next ten minutes, he repeated that to whatever I said. I was supposed to go through a text passage with him, but the simple sounding task was literally impossible and I was going nowhere with my suggestions.

Growing increasingly impatient, I resorted to “underhand means”. I offered him a bargain. If he cooperatively studies a text passage with me, he would get extra playtime and be dismissed from tuition earlier than his friends. (Which I was sure was not allowed, but since he didn’t know that…)

He hesitated.

Encouraged by his indecision, I continued, “If not, you’ll have to sit here all afternoon…. NO playtime at all.” I emphasized the last few words and watched horror dawn on his face.

He finally gave in, and the rest of my job went without a hitch.

From this experience, I realized that communicating with the kids is actually very difficult from the place of a teacher, but from the position of a friend, or fellow student, it was so much easier.

Ps: Sorry for uploading this first post so late...
Pss: I know i sound a bit formal in e post above, but den last time i din noe how 2 do it...
Psss: Ehh...next 1 i'll make it sound less formal^^
Pssss: Yah, and erm...sorry 4 so many afternotes, hehes...

~Tuyan

23.4.08 reflections

2008-04-27T03:05:00.000+08:00

Tird trip to lakeside family centre

C had percussion program until 5
So i took XY first
Taught him maths corrections
Had the same corrections as J e from last trip i went there.
"John had 3 times as many frogs as Susie"
After explaining to him that John is 3 units and Susie is 1 unit, i gave him another similar question:
"John had 2 times as many frogs as Susie, how many units does John has?" He didn't know the answer. 3? 3+2?
After explaining to him that the answer should be 2, I asked him another question again. Still he couldn't do.
I guess his not focused, so i started playing with my calculator and he wanted to play.
So i told him to answer my question correctly, then i will let him play for 1 minute.
He listened to my explanation attentively, and finally got the answer right! =)
So i let him play.
Continuing on with the first question, "John had 30 more Frogs than Susie, how many Frogs does Susie has?"
So i began explaining how he should go about doing it. (3-1) units=30, 1 unit=30/(3-1).
He could not understand how come 1 unit is 30/2. So i draw models and explain to him.
He still could not understand, and start being uninterested.

Still explaining, C finished her program, so i teach him how to do the corrections and went to teach C.
She's totally different from the first time i saw her. she was very quiet then, but now she has many friends and went about talking to them.
She began doing long division assignment and in 20 minutes she finished it!
Her long division has improved tremendously!
After that she left to play.

So i went back and teach XY.
He told me his maths not good. So i asked him what is 10 x 3 x 8 x 0.
After thinking, he said 0. Then i said wow, this is harder than your corrections! Your maths is good! it's just that corrections to easy for you so you don't want to do.
Then he got very interested, and set some question for me to answer.

After that, we went back to his corrections.
He finished the one i taught him, and asked me to teach him the next one.
It's something similar, and he could not do it. So i start all over again. Then he had to go home.
Yea he only did 1.5 corrections. Just hoped that he will remember what i taught him.

While XY was still around, i flipped through my file hoping to do some homework. Then some kids there saw a photo i taken at IMCB, we were wearing lab coat. Then they asked me how come i was wearing a lab coat. so i said, "i am a scientist." they really believed it.
After asking XY what is 10x8x3x0, i asked C. Then C friend all gather around her wanting to answer. Non got it right. I told them it is 0, they didn't believed it, so i press the calculator for them.

So after XY left, i set maths questions for C and her friends to compete among each other. After the first question which no body got it right, they do not want to compete anymore, so they began to test me. I answer some of their questions correctly. Then talked among themselves.
I eavesdrop :
" Wow her maths so good!"
" She scientist mah."
LOL

after that, i ask them what's their best subject
ALL say Maths and Science.
C best subject is also maths. So i guess i don't have to worry about her maths test next week already.

Yeah, the maths and science generation. Hope they will become scientist like me in the future!

23 April ReFlectioNs

2008-04-26T15:00:00.000+08:00

Guess everybody's been rather busy lately, with exams(!), exams(!!), exams(!!!), and more exams (!!!!) coming up. Of course, this also applies to my little cute tutee, or 'sotong ball' as Jean calls him. ;D However, apparently, my chubby Ron doesnt feel the stress as much as i do cos' when i asked him when his tests start, he simply said “不知道”. Oh wells ...

(by the way im posting this on my birthday cos i thought of my darling family, as well as tuyan of course, on my 16 birthday!!! <33333333333)

the 23/4 visit would be the last one before exams start since we'll be taking a break to mug for the mid-years

Ok, coming back to the topic, the visit was quite a BIG improvement for me -- in social aspects i mean
I let Ron check answers with my calculator, which definitely got him interested, just like the previous times. Needless to say, i made him do the sums 'manually' before letting him check his answers. I made sure his answers were correct too.

I think Andreas saw Ron with the calculator and wanted to do the same too -- which was the reason he cried :[**guilty**

Nevertheless, despite 2 weeks, Ron's improvement in solving division questions were not 'GREAT' though there were much improvements
at least he is comfident enough now to be able to do the sums by himself, according to the steps -- not considering careless mistakes and some confusion especially when dealing with answers that has a 0 (zero) in the middle
So, i gladly went through and revised the methods/steps with him

i must say Ron's really good with understanding texts and multiplication tables :D

sadly, we only managed to complete about 3 pages of his assessment cos' we spent some time 'building up our relationship' (dun 想歪 pls)
And i learnt more about him xD -- that he's actually a very nice person (not that i think he was very bad earlier =x)

ONE
Ron was collecting eraser dusts so i did the same, thinking that i would show him something with it later
So ... ron was collecting his and im collecting mine -- while we were both trying to solve the problems in Ron's assessment book
then Ron saw mine were less than his, so he gave some of his eraser dusts to me! (how generous! given that i was trying to steal his all the times earlier :x)
so in the end, i made a 'blu-tack-eraser-thing' using a ruler to roll al the dusts together and gave it to dear Ron -- and im glad he liked it ;)

TWO
Andreas was crying, so Ron excused himself to take tissue paper for him! (how caring!)

THREE
it was time for Ron to go home, and he actually waved goodbye to me from the window! (first time!!!)

... so that was one very happy day for me :D

Wishing everyone all the best for the mid-years!

reflections for 16 april! :D

2008-04-21T21:32:00.000+08:00

HI FENG HERRRREEE TO UPDATE MY LAST WEEK'S SESSION WITH THE KIDS! Cant really rmb much details cos so long since last wednesday T.T

Ok, so as usual, i tutored selly (NOT, sally. O.o wonder why her name's spelt like that). When i asked what is left for her to do, she said "AIYO COMPLETED LIAO LA!" Thus generally there's nothing much left for me to teach her.

She told me to give her ten mental sums, as auntie DUNO WHO said. Auntie Shirley perhaps? I gave her some 3-digits and 4-digits additions and subtractions first, before proceeding on to multiplications and divisions. It was supposed to be MENTAL SUMS leh, as i mentioned earlier on. But she insisted on working out long division on another piece of paper, BECAUSE.. 'auntie said can.' Hmm okay, she's only primary three so what can i expect.

There were few mistakes on her multiplication, now as i remembered, she ought to practice it more in future. When i checked her mistakes, she was happily drawing ANGELS, telling me to guess what kind of angel they were. There were pencil case angels, lamp angels, etc. aye basically she just drew it in the shape of that object -.- of which many other objects have similar shapes as? T.T how would i know! T.T she keeps saying "aiyoh", like hinting me that i'm stupid or smth T.T IM NOT STUPID OKAY!! lol, 'aiyoh'.. Auntie at a young age huh. AIYOH, "old at heart". XDD

Okay so we were done with work. She took out a jokes book and volunteered to read it out to me :D which is good. I think she alr has a habit of reading! great job! :P aye, it was some kinda jokes book, in the form of a story. Welll!! The point is!! The jokes AINT FUNNY AT ALL ??? -.- ok so she told me to read this chapter and rmb the details inside. I took about 5 mins to read. AFTER THAT SHE STARTED ASKING ME REALLY DETAILED QNS!?!? Fine, some were quite easy. I GOT THOSE CORRECT AT LEAST XPPP In the meantime she took a piece of paper and noted down how many i got correct and how many i 'forgot'. Lol. In the end i got more "correct" than "forgot" so i dont have to do forfeit for herrrr! hehehehs. Selly,"AIYOH I TOT YOU WILL DO FORFEIT DE! Not fun one..." -.- bet she enjoys my monkey performance.

Afterwards Selly took out monopoly to play with me. This jolene girl, well i duno how to spell her name but its pronounced as jolene lor, or jolin, whatever. Ok, she came along and asked if she can play with us too. Selly wasnt interested in playing with jolene. So jolene self volunteered as a banker. Initially, it was a fair game. Jolene suggested me not to buy the area of selly's color when i landed there, as selly could later build a hotel later on. she told selly the same thing too. alrigggght, it was fair, and i followed what jolene told me too. HOWEVERRRRR GRRR when it comes to selly, jolene told her to just kope that place of my color. GRRR. jolene said,"aiya we're like that one, i help selly!" -.- er okay. nvm two against one. At least im older thn them so i shld have the brains yea? As the game proceeds, another girl came to join us. ShiYing ah? or shi smth, she wanted to be banker number two, ( or rather, 'fate changer'.. you'll understand later.) As you know, there are chance cards in monopoly, you're entitled to one card each time u land on the "chance" grid. When Selly only misses the chance grid by one grid, Jolene and the shi person "agar agar anyhow" just placed it on the 'chance' grid lei!! scheming lil asses T.T and they purposely arranged her chance card as a card with a large profit. when it comes to MY TURN, they gave me a super lan4 card T.T now u know what's a fate changer? T.T plusplus! When jolene shouts that there's a payday, that is when she will drop loads of money through the air, she and the shi smth will help selly snatch! EVERYTIME!! in the end i gave up lor. let them snatch ba. luckily it was 6.30 before long and we had to leave. wahh cant stand them man lol. maybe they are always against ppl who are older then them, as what beryl said T.T

IN CONCLUSION!! IM INNOCENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNT! D:

please read this before posting! XDD

2008-04-19T21:46:00.000+08:00

okay!

YAY! farah and sarah have posted, to save me from being the outcast :DD

sarah, i feel super touched by your post! *hearts*
farah, you're damn cute! "watch out for me ;D"

to future posts, please try your best to post one for each visit, separately, cause it's easiest for us to sort out when printing it out. (at the side of blogger got this "labels" thing)

&&! got this "labels for this post" thingy below, when you're typing the post.

please leave a label! in this format (M.DD.YY, name)

eg, this one would be
4.19.08,jellytarts

heh heh!

<33! beryl

reflections for 19/3 & 9/4

2008-04-19T16:34:00.000+08:00

19/3 went to lakeside family centre for the first time, pretty excited.
I was assigned C as my tutee, and taught her maths. She had to do long division that day, initially i thought it would be very easy...
However, it didn't occur to me that she did not know anything about long division, so i take her to the first example in her assement book.
It was something like 279 divide by 3, so i began going through the steps with her.
After that i asked her to do it by herself, and she couldn't do it.
so i teach her again, and ask her to do the next question.
Still, she couldn't do it.
Then i realised how i assumed her to be my age, being able to learn things very fast.
Luckily, beryl came to my rescue! She lent me her coloured markers and taught me to write the question very big on a full scap paper.
I tried to follow and began teaching her 9/3
After that asked her to do 4 divide by 2 by herself.
Fortunately, her multiplication was superb. She knew that the answer and written 2 straight away, without any workings.
So i tested her with harder questions and she was unable to do it.
I began to feel very demoralised that i was unable to make her understand what am i doing.
So beryl helped me once again, and she began teaching her step by step, increasing the difficulty level slowly. She understood what beryl taught and was able to do the assement questions by herself! I was pretty impressed!

From this, i learnt not to assume that she understands everything. I also have to be more patient and clear in what i'm teaching. Beryl was very energetic and praised C often, she also used simple words that C understands.

9/4 is my second trip to the centre.
C had something on so i went through corrections with J.
She couldn't draw models quite well, so i taught her and it helped her with her corrections
There's also a question about the number of boys being 3 times more than girls, which Jwas unable to understand.
Therefore i told her that there are 3 units for boys and 1 unit for girls.
She understood and was able to apply to other types of questions.
From what i learnt in the first trip, i gave Jsome easier questions first before asking her to tackle the difficult corrections. It helped! she was able to do corrections by herself although she may draw wrong model sometimes and i feel glad.

Hoped that i will enable C to understand what i am teaching on the next trip there.

16.4.08 reflections

2008-04-17T22:21:00.000+08:00

today only me, fenghan and jean went!
farah had doc appt, sarah had bio attachment, tuyan was on learning journey!

today An wasn't in the centre! he was sick D:

so i tutored another girl in maths, called JL.

she was enthusiastic and lively!! just not so in maths..

she had done about 1/4 of what she had to do, but when i asked her to continue, she said "i dunno how to." and i said "but didnt you just finish half the page?!"

she said "oh. that one ah. is the jiejie tell me what to do, i write down only." acjc again -.-

then i realised a problem. alot of the children i've tutored who are weak in maths, are weak in maths, because they dont have teachers who teach, they have teachers who tell them what to do, and the children did not learn how to do maths! they only learn how to follow instructions!!

so i pulled out my ever handy markers and foolscap and drew for her a simple question. 8 divided by 2. she knew the answer!(using mental calculation) but she didnt know how to present it properly!! so i had to teach her the basics all over again! she was interested greatly cause of the marker pens (she kept asking for a different colour for every different step), and so she learnt pretty fast.

after we were done, i asked her to attempt the questions in her assessment book. and she said she was very confused!! (later on i learnt it was cause the space given was very small, the numbers were small) so i copied over one question to the foolscap, and asked her to do it.. SHE COULD DO IT! then i asked her to do the 2nd question in the book.. she could do it, but she kept asking me whether it was correct, like her confidence disappeared all of a sudden.. and she took very long.. so i asked her to copy the 3rd question onto the foolscap, and amazingly, she could do it fast and accurately!! then i asked her why this was so.. she said she didnt know, the problem just seems easier on the foolscap.. so i thought..

is it because the practice questions that i gave, and that she solved, were all done on foolscap, and so she was confident when solving questions on foolscap. but when asked to solve the 12-problems-in-1-page assessment book, she got intimidated by all the numbers, and didnt want to do anymore.. so i asked her to go home and revise more, and do the questions on the page itself, no reverting to foolscap allowed! im rather confident she'll do that, cause she was very interested in maths once she could solve it, and also because she has no foolscap (she didnt even know what it was at first)

the only problem was when i got too friendly with her.. she started putting her hand on my face to get me to pay attention to her.. a move that i greatly dislike.. i tolerated a few more times, then i put a stop to her work for a fw minutes and told her to stop doing that, cause others get uncomfortable and it's disrespectful.. at first she kept fogetting what i just said and continued putting her hand on my face, but after my constant prompting and repeated reminders, she finally stopped that bad habit, and became any other energetic girl!

so i could classify this as highly successful...

p/s in order to get her to start moving her pen at first, i bribed her with sweets :DD

reflections for 9th of april!

2008-04-17T22:03:00.000+08:00

everyone went today! :DD

hmm! i tutored An for the 9th! everything was tight running.. we managed to get through muliplication successfully, and also taught him basic division.. but when it was time to teach him the longer and more complicated division, he became more interested in bugs and flies and refused to listen to me..

i tried applying all the method's we've discussed before, and eventually resorted to.. threatening him. (this method was actually discussed as a last resort, but i forgot An was especially sensitive)

i told him he'ld better start paying attention or else i'll ask auntie S to tutor him instead.
he instantly clammed up and refused to talk to me at all!!

then i couldnt understand why, i thought he was about to listen, just trying to put on a last defiant stand.. so i continued with the threats (SUPER BIG MISTAKE *scrunches face*)

he started crying.. then i was be bewildered.. i thought he really was lost about the maths or something.. so i tried to revert back to the simple sums, but he ignored me, threw my markers around, and used his pencil to pierce the book repeatedly, intent on mutating it.

then i gave up, and asked him why on earth he wasnt listening. (i was pretty fed up) and he more or less yelled "你吓我！你刚才吓我！为什么每个人都要吓我？吓啦！来啦！你刚刚吓我！”

then i had this overwhelming sense of regret and self reproach.. i was exhibiting the exact type of behaviour i said i wanted to free the children from.. what the hell was i doing?!

then he ran off to the bathroom..

when he came back, i attempted to explain and apologise.. this went on for 45 minutes.. plus the earlier time, 1hr+ was lost in total..

the explaining seemed to have calmed him, but it was still extremely hard to teach him.. so i gave him a break.. luck was on my side, a HUUUGE flying ant appeared and he was jumping around, trying to catch it to fed his tiny spider..

he was getting high over it, and i was standing there helping him, and he finally caught it.. and it cheered him up a whole lot.. after that, he was a-okay again! we manged to do another 1 question, and then i let him off..

so the entire day wasn't productive at all.. it could have been, but i forgot his sensitivities again.. beryl! wake up and stop forgetting your aim! guide them like a friend would, not dictate and theaten like a monster

reflections for the past 3 vists

2008-04-15T23:37:00.000+08:00

my name is farah and my tutee is Ron :D
i think he's quite gd at least he's been stuck with me for the whole 3 times i've to the fmily centre
yet im not sure how he feels about me (sounds weird >.<)

anyway, i tutored him chinese and maths -- multiplication and division

the first time i taught him, he too said "i hate chinese" and was hesistant in reading chinese texts
but in the end he still read them but was unable to recognise quite a number of chinese characters (including those easier ones)

however, after speaking to him i realised that his chinese is actually very good, but only when it comes to speaking using the chinese language and his command of it
for example, he was able to translate what i said in english to chinese, some of the translation he made were even better then what i came up with

moreover, when we were doing a passage where for every question, he had to choose the most suitable out of the 4 for the answer, he was able to come out with the correct answer, without even looking at the 4 options partly becasue he wasnt able to recognise them

unfortunately, he could not recognise the words even though he was able to say out the answer verbally, in the end getting all he wrong answers

hence, i tried to write hanyupinyin below each character to aid him in the pronunciation of each word, which proved quite useful since his hanyupinyin is not bad

we took quite some time, but we were able to finish the assigned assessment in the end ^^

on the second visit i didnt teach Ron much at all cos his multiplication is V.G!!!

for the third vist, it was finally my turn to teach math division
i thought i would be quite gd after the "training" we've gone through to teach multiplication questions, however that was not the case ;(

Ron already had some pirior knowldege to division, but was unable to remember the steps, much less follow the steps accordingly

i tried doing 2digit division questions first, such as 44/2 but he was unable to apply what he had learnt
so i went throught the example with him
i wrote down another 2 digit question and this time he was still unable to do it on his own
nevertheless, he was able to do it after my prompting, such as where to put, up or down? bring down or remainder?

hence throughout the entire session, he was doing the 10 division questions -- with my help
when i told Ron to do himself, he would just say he dunno how to do even without looking at the question

i guess he's just inconfident, and uncomfortable with learning new concepts

so i tried showing him an example and telling him to do the same example again -- this time competing with me and without any help

this made him more excited and i let him win, which boosted his confidence a little

however, this method made him rather dependent on examples done and given and solving it again
and when it is another example altogether, he will say "i cannot do!" again

hence i'll try providing him a step-by-step guide to solving such division questions in the form of showed examples in a booklet

i think it will be rather useful since i remembered even i myself faced difficulties in solving division questions when i was in primary school

ok .. feeling sleepy i'll continue next time
watch out for me ;D

2.4.08 reflections!

2008-04-06T11:39:00.000+08:00

Today we reached the centre at 4.00pm exactly! on the dot! XDD

tuyan and sarah didn't join us, cause sarah's attached to a university for BIO! DAMN PRO! tuyan's had lotsa tests coming up!

this time, An was still having band lessons from the other grp of student volunteers! so i went to help another girl who was having difficulties learning her spelling~

hmm, lets see what techniques i used from the last time we discussed!

used colours! to highlight the different parts of the word, so that she'll know that when certain parts of the word have the certain type of sound, it's spelt in that certain why.

shrink, shrank, shrunk

yeah! so as you see, the black vowels are the only difference in the spelling and pronunciation!
she initially just hardcore-ly memorised all 60 words @.@
but she kept forgetting words, like remembering "shrink" but forgetting how to spell "shrank, shrunk"

and she was getting quite bored too (who wouldn't be, when you have to memorise all the words ONLY USING YOUR MEMORY?!)
so even though i was kinda sian-ed that day, i was super loud and everything! and i had to exaggerate the way i pronounced the word!

shoot, shot, shot

haha! like that! i was going "oooo" and "o" to show her, and the girl started laughing her head off -.-

but i also started laughing after i forced her to repeat after me, to get the hang of it HAHAXD

but anyway, she memorised everything by the end of it! XDDD

and she had no problem memorising a few other words, using this method!

hopefully she finds this method useful, as i find it, when i was in primary sch till now XD

feel a sense of achievement! heh heh!

anyways, after that An was released! and he didnt have any problems! he has finished his work and all the corrections! i was O.O

he said it was cause there was a new "teacher" (adult volunteer) there, and that guy taught him. An also remarked he did his work super fast, BECAUSE THE TEACHER JUST TOLD HIM ALL THE ANSWERS STRAIGHT.

oh man -.-, i hope this teacher doesn't make An reliant on having answers supplied. and he wont be serious in learning at all, if he knows that he's gonna have answers supplied to him anyway!

grr. i hope the adult volunteer knows what hes doing. we'll see when i tutor An next week ;D
(that's if the guy doesn't finish telling An all the answers first. =.=)
(then again, maybe i'll just test An using the questions that guy gave An answers for, to see if An really knows how to do it xDD)

played with the children after that! realised that a child was spoilt, several are super shy. like they wanted to play but don't dare to ask.

haha! fenghan's super good at including shy children ;D

but the spoilt one likes fenghan alot! i don't know how fenghan's gonna handle her.. if i were the tutor of the spoilt one, i think the kid will hate me for forever more cause i'll be super strict with her.

eh, actually i think fenghan has the ability to make the child less spoilt! she keeps nudging the girl towards the less spoilt direction, like going

noo, 不可以这样，要。。。

eh. i think i would have liked fenghan to bits too, if i was the girl ;D
i must learn from fenghan to be kinder towards children, so that they'll be more willing to change and listen!

Farah's lil buddy seemed to like farah alot!
Jean's buddy was more interactive with her this week, i guess!

they were kept busy tutoring up till the last second, so i didnt really see, just heard little snippets here and there..

hoping we can discuss this weekend! sounding accusatory and frustrated isnt the way to go! @.@

and then, i played with An and his friend! they both are going to like physics alot! CAUSE THEY WERE PLAYING WITH DOMINOES! I LOVED THAT WHEN I WAS YOUNG TOO!

then they were experimenting with how far the lil bricks need to be placed to make it fall, how heavy (bricks placed on top of each other) the bricks need to be, for them to withstand the hit from the previous domino, but still not fall. i kept thinking of stability when i was watching of them! XDD

the outing should be orientated towards science! i think they'll be interested!

but when i was on the bus ride home, i started wondering.. what role do we play, exactly?

this is what i think..

We're like a group of mini teachers! we teach across every subject, but only for primary 3-4!
we're their confidantes, the seniors who impart to them how to learn and study, who gently nudge them to be better in their characters! and of course, PLAYMATES! HAHA ^^

of course, we cant be perfect also, so we also try to mould ourselves to became these patient beings from heaven *halo appears*

and of course, we also see ourselves in them, the problems they face that we faced and are facing, and when we see others having our problems, it's easier to find a solution that we both have, when we're seeing the problem from the 3rd POV.

i hate chinese! i dont wanna read it, i dont want to learn it!

that guy has no idea how much i wanted to say "i agree man!" but yeah, ive begun to be more serious and more committed and lessen the dislike of my subject.. the reason for my change in thinking? my mummy and zhanglaoshi!
mummy: "读华文很重要！华人一定要会读华文！"
zhanglaoshi never forced me to do chinese, and i dont know, i just.. it's like she's trusting me to do my work, even if i hand it in SUUPER LATE! but she nvr scolds me.. i dont know, but i just feel like doing my chinese cause she trusts me or something. XDD I LOVE HER TO BITS!
and of course, the biggest factor came when.. my aunt's malay friend, dosent watch malay shows, but watches mandarin shows instead! reason? cause mandarin shows have english subtitles, and she cant understand malay!! i felt damn shocked, and i was like "OMG.. I DONT WANT TO BE LIKE HER!"

im gonna relate my experiences to the little guy hopefully he gets the paradigm shift, like i did! and start working hard for his mother tongue!

yeah. i feel so 心痛 when i see the children struggle with the same problems i did, and the frustration and sadness and the whole emotional drama. I SHALL BE THERE TO OVERCOME IT WITH THEM! HEH HEH!

and all of a sudden, i feel so renewed with passion for this service learning!

<3333333333333333333333,>

19.3.08 reflections!

2008-04-02T22:21:00.000+08:00

everyone went tday! it's our first time XDD

things didnt go smoothly D:

We were supposed to leave school by 2.30, but we somehow managed to drag until 3.30..

and even though we told the centre we would reach at 4.00pm, we only arrived at 4.30!

so it was rather bad, although auntie yew hwa didnt comment on us being half an hour late..

after we reached, we found that there was another school band who would be teaching about 40 children(from all lvls).

An, whom im quite close with, was attending the lessons by the band. So i just assisted another student, jack, with his work until An came out. ^^

he was sometimes unable to do the practice maths questions, even though he understood the basics.. then i realised it was because he couldnt "see" how the questions are to be solved.. so i taught him how to draw bar models and see the differences between person A and person B.

then when An was busy drawing the bar models, i went around scouting! (i'm a guide, thats why. XDD)
everyone seems okay with their tutees, but sarah seemed to be having a little difficulty with her despondent buddy. so being the busybody, i popped over to see!

sarah was teaching maths, but the buddy wasn't absorbing anything.. and then i realised that i forgot to hold a mini meeting before the session to teach them how to teach!! so when the buddy went off to say byebye to her friend, i just roughly told sarah to use colour markers, let her choose the colour she wants, and to make the practice questions as space-consuming as possible.

then i went off to help An who was stuck, and once he was preoccupied with the question again, i popped over to sarah! and the buddy was still despondent..

so i asked sarah whether she could switch with me buddies for a little while, and she said it was fine, so of course i asked An to get his "okay" too..
i asked him whether he was okay with me tutoring another student first, and that i'll get back to him later..
An ignored my question. that was the first warning, but i didnt notice it.. so i asked him again. and then he started crying. just like that.

then i asked one of his good friends who was sitting next to me, why An was crying. he said it was because An doesnt like the feeling of abandonment and being alone, and he felt i was just using an excuse to try to abandon him..
i felt really bad and i apologized over and over to An, but he already ran off to the toilet while trying not to cry.. i really should have been more sensitive, especially since he was left alone here because both his parents were busy..

it didnt make sense to just waste time sitting there, so i went over to sarah's buddy to try to teach her how to divide.. i used a super loud voice and praised her for everything she did that wasnt wrong. haha, it kept her happy and more interested in doing the maths.. i started off with super simple and short explanations of how to find the next number to be divided, started off with very basic questions and slowly increased it until it was the standard that was in the assessment book. It worked, and she was able to understand how to use long division. and after that, we all had a bonding session over JENGA!

we got to know them more, forged closer relationships, learnt found out what they disliked, and i think on an overall, they seem to like us more and are more receptive of our instructions after that game. hopefully the next session will be as eye-opening as this one, albeit without the mistakes we made. and hopefully the effects of the mistakes i made this time will not last for long.. D:

Proposal for outing! xDD

2008-03-30T00:25:00.000+08:00

oh, i forgot to add in!

proposal for outing right, how about this?

look under "From 1st Generation to 2nd Generation"

it's a 4D show, my sis said it was damn exciting. not sure whether they can go in though O.O

haha ^^

BLOG IS UP! YAY

2008-03-29T23:59:00.000+08:00

Haha! this is finally up!! ^^

you guys cant believe the time i spent on this @#$%^& thing.

cause blogger has this new coding system, and i didnt realise until hrs later -.-

so yeah, i was about to throw the laptop and stamp on it 234567 times.

luckily i didnt. :DD

SOO! start posting!

feel free to edit anything here you like. haha!

p.s look whose the designer! it's jesslyn winata! XDD

let's jellydance! *wobbles*

Tuyan: [[Snowman Tidbits]]

haha!

HELLO JELLIES :DD (GASP! today is the anniversary of sept11!)

30th July reflection

6th August reflection...

6th Aug! :DD

6 Aug (last visit before break for exams)

30 july

29.8

16th July ReFleCtiOn...

16.7.08 reflections

16th July~

nine(teen! :D) of july thinkings

16 july

9 .7.o8 reflections

9th jUly ReFleCtiOn...

9 july

2nd juLy Reflection...

2nd JULY. (2 more days to USA's national day. :D)

27th June

lousy day, 2.7.08 reflections

2 July

27 juNe

6/25 Reflection...

5/14/08 Reflection...

Farah's 2nd visit to Army Museum

11.6.08

A visit to the Army Museum...

army museum for 12/6/08 :D

trip to army museum, 11.06.08

11.06.08 photos! :D

6/4/08 Reflection...

5th JuNe ReFleCtiOn!

5th june outing reflections!

Army Museum

4 Jun General supervision

28 May General supervision

5th june outing!

5.6 .08 reflections

4.6.08 Reflections

SO WASTED! D<

5.28 reflections

02 June outing!

04/23/08 Reflection...

5.28 reflections

5/28/08 ReFleCtiOn!!

28th May reflections!

Outings!

CID FILE~

04/16/08 ReFleCtiOn

reFlections 21may

21 May Reflections

21st may photos! (part2 again! XDD)

wah. many many photos!

21/5/08 reflections!

reflections 21/5/08

21st May!

random thoughts! :DD

14 May Reflections

Photos (part2!), 5.14.08

Reflection [4/9/08]

14 mAy

5.14.08 reflections -feng

NOT TUTORING! STATION GAMES!!

YAY! MORE UPDATES!

14.5.08 reflections

3/19/08 reflection

4/2/08 reflection

outing details!

reflections!

23/4/08...(Tuyan)

9/4/08...(Tuyan)

19/3/08---(Tuyan)

23.4.08 reflections

23 April ReFlectioNs

reflections for 16 april! :D

please read this before posting! XDD

reflections for 19/3 & 9/4

16.4.08 reflections

let's jellydance! wobbles