Category: Alycia’s school

UPSR Results And Close Of Primary Chapter

And so today is the day that Alycia and I have been waiting anxiously for over 2 months. Today is the day that the UPSR exam is released. I am sure you are waiting impatiently for this posting too, eh? 😉

I did not expect too much from Alycia in this UPSR exam. I did not expect straight As from her as I know her Chinese writing and BM writing are not her strong subjects. Moreover, after the controversy over the Form 5 level Chinese test paper given to Primary 6 UPSR students recently, I had lesser expectation from her. To add to that, from what she told me after her BM papers, I think she had written her BM essay out of topic. Double ouch! Thank God she survived without getting a ‘D’ / ‘F’ and got a ‘B’, PHEW!!

But you know what? She scored an ‘A’ for that highly controversial Chinese paper!  I am floored, ha!!

I only expected 3- 4 As from Alycia given all the boo boos that she made. Though Alycia has been getting the first place position in her class (2nd elite class) for all the exams this year, the bungle she made in her BM essay in this UPSR exam plus her mediocre strength in Chinese writing made her lose the few marks to garner an A for both the papers.

On another note, Alycia received a trophy from the school on Monday for good grades throughout the year 🙂

But I’m perfectly fine with her for not scoring straight As.  Scoring 5As 2Bs are good enough for me 🙂 After all, UPSR is only the first major exam that she had gone through. She will have many more exams awaiting her in years to come. Much much more tougher exams.

This morning, Alycia’s friend, J (a very outspoken girl) called me from school and pulled a prank on me!

J – hello aunty, your dear daughter is crying now. She only has 3As. Aiyo, she’s crying so badly now!!

Me – really ar? It’s ok la. Let me talk to her.

A – mummy, I got 5As and 2Bs ha ha ha!!! (and I heard a loud guffaw in the background from her cheeky friends @@@!!)

After school, one of Alycia’s bestie’s mother brought them to Mid Valley Megamall and Gardens Mall for lunch, shopping and dinner to celebrate the closing of a good chapter in primary school. Alycia had made many good friends and some of them will join her in high school next year.

Alycia and her besties have already made plans scheduled for tomorrow right through to next week, including a karaoke treat to all their teachers. I am glad that Alycia has enjoyed her 6 years of primary school thoroughly. I enjoyed mine immensely and till today, I still keep in touch with my besties since primary school 🙂

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Cakes vs Biscuits

Swiss roll cake vs chocolate chip walnut cookies. Which one is more of the junkie, in your opinion?

To my soon-to-be 11-year old, she tells me that cake is not categorized as junk food but cookies and biscuits are. Apparently, her teacher told the class that cakes can be brought to the children’s day party tomorrow but for biscuits… preferably not! What??! Aren’t cakes and biscuits almost the same? They are cousins and composed of almost the same ingredients, isn’t it? *scratch head*!!

The class has been told to bring such preferred sustaining food as noodles, spaghetti, fried nuggets, fried chicken, sausages and pizzas. But I ain’t going to wake up at 4am to cook such food nor drive to the school to deliver the food. You can call me lazy but time is just not on my side… for now.

Last night, my 11-year old asked me to buy a box of swiss roll cake for her children day’s party in school to be held tomorrow. When I told her that swiss roll is not suitable as the cream (made from milk) may turn bad, she said never mind, just get her a swiss roll cake as her teacher says cakes are ok! I don’t buy that reasoning ok. This morning, I went ahead and bought her a box of ‘superior’ chocolate chip cookies with walnuts from our favorite bakery. I said ‘superior’ as they are freshly handmade and do not contain preservatives. But the girl went ballistic when I told her just now that I bought cookies and not cakes! She said she ain’t bringing the ‘junkie biscuits’ to school coz her teacher said “cannot bring biscuits!” WTF!? Amusingly, sweets and candies can be brought to the party and she asked me to get a packet of sweets! Is this a joke or what?! LOL!

Anyway, when the girl saw the nicely packaged cookies that certainly do not look like any off the shelf biscuits, she changed her mind and said she is bringing them to school as well! That is the joke of the day for me, from my 11-year old!

The below pix were taken 3 hours ago at our condo when I picked up Alycia.  It rained cat’s and dog’s shit, resulting in a mini waterfall  from the roof gutters.

We stopped for a moment at the lobby to enjoy  the strong wind blowing at our faces, sound of torrential rain water (water is SO precious to us these days!) and chilly weather just now  🙂  I  imagined a dam full of water now, thus putting an end to the Klang Valley water woes forever! *wishful thinking*

 

 

 

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And Finally, The Report Cards

As the final school term is fast drawing to an end, with just 2 more school days to go, the much awaited report cards came back for tiger mommy to review and sign!

Sherilyn brought back her report card yesterday. She also helped to pick up Alycia’s report card from the teacher. Alycia has been on sick leave for 2 days, including today, after the day-trip with her school to Sekinchan on Saturday. This morning I went to Cass’ kindy to meet her teacher and to collect her report card.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the girls’ marks and position this time.  Alycia and Sherilyn’s wish came true and they are going to the class that they have wanted to go to.   Alycia’s ‘standard position’ improved significantly, though her marks for the test papers are pretty much the same this time, with improvement in some papers and a decline of a few marks for some papers.  Alycia’s class position remains top 5.

Sherilyn’s marks, class position and ‘standard position’ improved considerably this time.  From almost rock bottom in the mid year exam, due to a B in her Chinese test paper, she has climbed up fast and furiously this time. However, she still needs lots of polishing in her Chinese language subject. It will not be easy to remain in this class for Sherilyn next year if she does not work hard enough, especially in her Chinese language.

Cass has shown remarkable improvement academically too. From an almost zilch reading skill at the beginning of this year, she has now mastered the Sukukata (phonics in Malay) very well.  Her reading in English is also improving. Her thirst in reading suddenly grew overnight in the past one month.  She scored 100 in her BM paper and the rest were high 90s except for a 77 in her Chinese test paper. Chinese language is a subject which is pretty tough to master. It is even harder for our kids as both the hubs and I are yellow bananas — yellow skin on the outside but white in the inside like ‘gwai los’ lol!

Sherilyn will continue to attend the after-school enrichment centre next year.  She is VERY happy there and she comes home a very happy child every day.  There is lesser whining from her and she has so much to tell me about her friends every night.  She is also learning well from the enrichment centre. Right now, both Sherilyn and Alycia are looking forward to the trip to Kidzania organized by the enrichment centre.  As for Cass, I will have to ask the Mandarin tutor to drill her more starting from now.

I am going to put aside school books and exam stress for the next 2 months and am looking forward to enjoying the school holidays with the girls! 😀

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Exam Season Again But Not In The Mood For Drilling

Two more weeks and the 3 girls will be sitting for their Final Exam for the year 2013!  It is the time of the year again where stress is flying everywhere in the house. Well, it is only me who is stressed up actually.  The girls get stressed up because I am stressed up!  If only I can be nonchalant about exams and have a ‘come what may, things will be just fine’ outlook, I don’t have to have my eyebrows all scrunched up all the time haha!

Anyway, I am still too lazy to sit down to revise with the girls.  I am too comfy to leave my PC to the ‘pressure cooker’ where I know I will surely get cooked up and boiling after just half an hour.   The girls are still playing and reading story books.  Alycia is happy playing with the guitar, reading her stack of novels and fixing a clothes hanger from scratch…

This is her Kemahiran Hidup (Living Skills) homework from school and the pupils are required to assemble a clothes hanger by referring to a manual.

Half an hour later, my smartie successfully assembled the clothes hanger without getting any help…

Alycia asked me if I’d like to buy it from her at RM2!  This girl has a very entrepreneurial mind, just like her mummy and daddy!

I really think that the Kemahiran Hidup subject is an excellent subject for all students.  During my time, there was no such subject taught in schools and the lack of it has caused me to be quite handicapped when it comes to fixing things.  For the life of me, I can never assemble a piece of furniture or a fixture without help. Plus with a lack of patience, fixing things is just not my forte.  Thankfully my hubs and daughters are always more than willing to help out.

Have a great weekend friends!

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Would You Allow?

For the first time in my life, I have with much reluctance, allowed my first born to go on a school trip scheduled for next month.  Since last year, Alycia has been pestering us to allow her to participate in school trips.  I have on all occasions said no due to various reasons. Firstly is the increasingly high crime rate that has plagued our country. Kids are kidnapped, raped and murdered with no mercy.  People are robbed and shot to death in broad daylight.   It is just not safe to go anywhere anymore. Secondly, it is the nightmare that I had 9 years ago when Alycia was only a few months old. I dreamt that she was drowned. The dream is still vivid and lucid to me up until today. It is because of this dream that I am reluctant to let go of my precious baby to go to places unaccompanied.

Thirdly, I have no confidence in tour bus drivers anymore and I am sure many of you would feel the same too after reading news of fatal bus crash time and again.  And lastly, you would have probably read that Alycia was a hard-to-get baby. She was conceived via IUI fertility treatment, hence the name ‘precious baby’.   She will forever be my precious baby, the baby whom I had dreamed of for years.  She was the ‘designer baby’, perfect in every way.  We have had so many firsts with her and she will always have a special place in our hearts.  I have been telling her that she will be allowed to go on trips with her school only when she turns 12.  But she retorted and asked me why she has to wait so long when most of her classmates could go since years ago.

After much argument with her over this trip, with her pleading, throwing tantrums and almost in tears, we have finally allowed her to go, albeit with great reluctance. It is a day-trip to some outskirt towns in Selangor. The hubs and I tried to find excuses and tried reasoning with her but to no avail. She was darn adamant on her insistence in joining the trip.  She told me that there will be no swimming pool or sea or river, thus I need not be worried of her drowning!

Alycia kept reassuring me that her teacher said that “it is VERY, VERY safe to join the trip!”.  I am quite certain she cooked up this sentence to try to convince me!  She told me that there will be four teachers in each bus.  I cannot wait for the day to come and be over with her coming back safely to me.

Would you allow your 10-year old daughter to go if you were me?

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Art For Year 4 KBSR Students

A few days ago, I was taken by surprise when Alycia showed me a pack of colorful styrofoam pieces for assembling.  For a moment, I thought that her friend had given her a pack of jigsaw puzzle. But she told me that it was her school homework from Art class!  I thought that she was  pulling my leg.  For the life of me, I have never received such fun looking homework from school, ever!  How could she have received from her school such awesome home assignment?  I think it is good that kids are given the opportunity to learn how to assemble such things.  I admit that I am terrible in assembling crafts like this one.  I have no patience or interest to do such stuff. So thumbs up to the school for introducing such an interesting craft to pique the interest of kids from young.

Alycia, having so much fun assembling the photo frame, which took her less than 15 minutes

Daddy was equally surprised to see this photo frame! For the lives of us, we have never done such  fun thing in school. All we did was the boring old stuff of drawing and painting lol!

Lastly, the pupils are to insert a photo into the photo frame before submitting their assignment to the teacher and Alycia chose her class group photo 🙂

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My Precious Baby’s Growing Up Fast

Alycia my first precious baby is growing up too fast. From a cartoon-crazed toddler, she is now ‘promoted’ to the next level. Though she is now only 6.5 years old and is in Standard 1, she looks like an 8-yo girl and many of her likes have now changed. During this school term break, the TV has been hogged by her the whole day. She now chases series like CSI, Numbe3s, Lost, Ultraman, Transformers and other TVB series! My mil had just left for Hong Kong and will only be back several months later and there is no one to control them and help me babysit the girls. My next best babysitter is of course the TV. I know it’s bad. But maybe not really that bad as my 2 older girls have improved their vocab tremendously by picking up from TV programs. When school re-opens next week, TV will be off limits, I must ensure this!


Alycia’s reading has also improved a lot. She can now read Chinese characters quite well, much better than the yellow banana here.

She bought this Chinese story book with Han Yu Pin Yin at only RM2 from her school.  The Han Yu Pin Yin is helping her a great deal in recognizing the Chinese characters.   

Next week I will be collecting her very first report card from her school.  I am anxious to know how she had fared in her first term exam.  Well, she got As for all her test papers.  But according to her, it seems like everyone else in her class fared just as well wor. I’ll see….

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Of Homework And Seven Year Olds

Alycia had forgotten to bring her school’s message book home one day and this spelt TROUBLE coz she wasn’t able to check the homework she had to do. Her school’s teachers are pretty strict and punishment will be imposed if students forget to do their homework or forget to bring a book.  Alycia had forgotten to complete her homework (given on Friday, to be passed up on Monday) twice and her class teacher wrote a note on the message book — that I was to call her!!  I freaked out when I saw the message!   I have since entered this ‘complete homework’ reminder into my computer’s eCalendar, lest I forget to check her homework again hahaha!!

Anyway, back to Alycia and her message book. I was spoon-feeding Baby with water that afternoon. This Baby is not one who would willingly drink water and needs lots and lots of patience and threats to make her drink water. Alycia freaked out when she found out that she had left her message book in her desk in school.  She pestered me non-stop to go to her school’s website right away to check what homework she was to do. This girl, when she wants something, she wants it right away and she cannot wait a wee bit.  Let her wait,  she will yak and nag to the point I am forced to grab some cotton wool and plug them on my ears haha!  She dragged Baby away from me and volunteered to feed Baby water so that I could log on to her school website on the spot.

I really cannot recall being laden with such heavy homework everyday when I was 7 years old. Is your 7 year-old child also bogged down with a lot of homework from school everyday?

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HEALTH FREAK MOMMY