Work for PSLE Marking Days 1 and 2

Yay! It seems like the SA2 papers are coming soon! Next Wednesday is D DAY!!!!! OMG. :-P~~~

Here's a list of things you have to complete as Home-based Learning for the FIRST 2 days of the PSLE marking days (i.e. Tuesday and Wednesday).

Please note that I will be checking on the progress of the Problemsums.com homework for Math! And please make sure that you time yourselves!

As a reminder, the user ID and password for your Problemsums.com is your BC/IC number.

Introduction for the "Short Sentence non-Yous"

             John and his family planned to go to the beach. It was a Saturday morning. The sun was shining high and bright in the sky already. And John was still fast asleep in bed!

           “JOHN! WHY ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING AT THIS HOUR? EVERYBODY IS WAITING FOR YOU!” yelled Mom from the kitchen.

Introduction for the "Yous"

            “Ring…..!!!” John woke up startled at the racket his alarm clock was making. “Oh, brother. I hate having to wake up so early in the morning on a WEEKEND!” complained John to himself.

              

             This got John thinking of a Saturday morning which started in a similar manner. On that fateful morning, John and his family had made plans to go to the beach early. It was the first weekend after school closed for the year and John’s father wanted to reward him for the fantastic results he had achieved for the year end examinations.

               Just as everyone was busy unpacking their bags at the picnic grounds, blah blah blah...

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

             “Ring…..!!!” John woke up startled at the racket his alarm clock was making. “Oh, brother. I hate having to wake up so early in the morning on a WEEKEND!” complained John to himself.

              

             This got John thinking of a Saturday morning which started in a similar manner... 

            John and his family had made plans to go to the beach early that fateful Saturday morning. It was the first weekend after school closed for the year and John’s father wanted to reward him for the fantastic results he had achieved for the year end examinations.

               Just as everyone was busy unpacking their bags at the picnic grounds, blah blah blah...

Public HEALTH Warning to P4 Endurance

DO NOT BE LIKE DHATRI IN THE CONSUMPTION OF SWEET STUFF.
IT IS VERY UNHEALTHY TO BE A GRINDING MACHINE IN DEVOURING THE SWEET STUFF OF THE WORLD. STOMACH WILL HAVE WORMS. EEEKS.

Things to Do in Preparation for EL SA2 Written Expression

lSome points you have already copied down...

• –Go with what you are comfortable with and CHOOSE the BEST question for YOURSELF.
• –Study WORD LISTS for different PLACES (like those in the ORAL practices) and INCIDENTS (what happened and what did the main character do about it).
• –Focus on ADDING ADJECTIVES (words to describe) to make your compo more interesting.
• –Remember to PLAN BEFORE WRITING (on question paper).
• –ALWAYS USE THE HELPING WORDS GIVEN (ALL of them).

Sleep Deprivation is NOT HEALTHY!

As we had discussed in class about our chronic lack of sleep, here are some sites which you may want to show your parents or simply read up on your own on the topic.

1. Signs of Lack of Sleep
2. Snooze or Lose
3. The Effects of Sleep Deprivation

So please remember to SLEEP EARLY and not indulge in TOO MUCH of one thing!
Think of the HARD DISK and SCREEN SAVER problem.

Happy Children's Day 4 Endurance!!!

Dear 4 Endurance,

I had a blast during this year's Children's Day celebrations. Teaching this class has been a wonderful experience for me thus far. Through my teaching years, I think you have been the most meaningful class to me. You've taught me that you can really become what you believe you can be, IF you set your mind to it. I've learnt a lot from you since the beginning of the year. And hopefully, everyone can really focus and work really hard during this last month in October to achieve what your goals are.

Just remember, walk, jump, skip, dance or leap you may, always go forward and show the world the little big steps you take to make yourself a better person than you'd been yesterday. =) I have faith in you, 4 Endurance, for you have taught me to always become a better teacher everyday, than I was yesterday.

Thank you 4 Endurance.

Yours always,
W.O.W.

P/S: Hope you had a blast today too!

THINGS Associated with the Police Post

Here are the rest of the words associated with the Police Post picture, which you may refer to AFTER you've attempted to fill in the rest of the table on your own.

Things

• Counter
• Information booklets
• Computer data base
• Case files
• Anti-crime campaign
• Police / Incident report
• Follow-up
• Uniform 
• Boots
• Evidence
• Hand cuffs
• Whistle

EL SA2 Oral Preparation - Some Practice Pictures

Instructions:

Simply click on the pictures to enlarge.

The Hospital Ward

The Neighbourhood Market

The Public Swimming Pool

The Police Station / The Neighbourhood Police Post

The Arrival Hall of the Airport / Cruise Centre / Ferry Terminal

English Oral - Notes on Picture Conversation (12 marks)

Generally, you will be awarded higher marks when you are:

1. Able to say aloud your ideas fluently - there should not be long pauses between points;
2. Able to elaborate on your ideas clearly - explain on how and why you got the ideas; and
3. Able to make interpretations from the picture - be creative in stating your own opinions.

Some Tips for Acing Your Oral Examinations

A) Introduce yourself before beginning the oral examination.

   

For example, "Good afternoon Mr Tan. My name is Xiao Ming. May I take a seat please?"

B) For every point you want to make, always include the following:

• State your main point clearly,
• Describe your main point - be as creative and detailed as possible, and
• Say how you got that idea from the picture.

For example,

• There is a family of five having a picnic at the beach.
• They seem to be really happy and enjoying themselves thoroughly.
• We can see that from the way they smile and laugh with one another.

C) Always conclude your conversations.

For example, "If I were in the picture, I would want to be a part of the family having a picnic. I also want to have fun!"

Or

For example, "I wish I can go to the beach this weekend too. It will be lovely to cycle with my cousins and enjoy the cool breeze on my face."

Good luck!

English Language Spelling and Dictation T4W1 - Answers

Spelling (10 marks)

1.
Miss Lin   demanded   for all the past week’s homework from Nolric as he had been
dragging his feet on it.

2.
The sick little puppies must be   kept in isolation   from one another to minimise the
chances of their health getting worse.

3.
You never know what may be   hidden in the shadows   late at night, so please come
home earlier.

4.
Despite Melissa’s   pleas  , her mother refused to buy her the set of colour pencils.

5.
The twin’s parents   ignored   their constant complaints about having too many
assessment books to work on after school.

6.
The pickpocket was unable to steal Ken’s wallet as it was kept   securely   in his pocket.

7.
The quiet peace of the night was   disturbed   by the sudden screams from the staircase.

8.
“You should take   advantage   of this opportunity to show everyone just how capable
you are!” Olivia told her brother.

9.
We could all sense the school principal’s   disapproval   from the look on his face.

10.
The children were   accompanied   by two teachers during their trip to the Singapore
Zoological Gardens.



Dictation (5 marks)

           Meanwhile, the King of France was struggling to adapt to his new environment. He looked around his jail cell and saw two rats fighting over a piece of dry bread. The sight   made him feel quite sick.                                                                                             

Yay! The CA2 Week is ALMOST Over!

Phew! Today's been a crazy day in school. It seems like everyone is anxious about their CA2 results. Miss Lin returned us the English and Mathematics papers today to check through and tomorrow we will hopefully be able to go through the Science papers!

Soon... It'll be the one week September school holidays. Planned anything?

Science CA2 Paper Tomorrow!

Wow. What a week! Frist, we had the English Language CA2 paper on Monday, then the MT papers yesterday. Today's Mathematics paper was a blast (not sure in a good way or a bad way...) and tomorrow is the last CA2 paper: Science!

In this blog post, you will find some useful notes to help you revise for the Science paper.

The first section covers some of the key ideas and concepts you had learnt in the variou topics (especially Light and Heat). Next, you will be led through some of the ways to answer Science test questions, including some sample answers for commonly encountered types of Science questions. This section will help to hone your process skills.

KEY IDEAS AND CONCEPTS

1)   Plants and Plant Parts (Lower block/P3/Chapter 16 in PSLE Guide/Pg 111 - 118)

• Plants - Flowering (eg. Balsam plant) and non-flowering (eg. Bird's Nest fern) plants
• Plant parts - Roots, root hair, stem, leaves, flowers, fruits and each of their functions
• Identify and label the various plant parts
• The presence of the green pigment called chlorophyll in the leaves of green plants which enables the food-making process of photosynthesis
• Types of stems - weak vs strong, aerial vs underground, woody vs non-woody
• Parts of a leaf - leaf blade, leaf stalk and veins (network vs parallel)
• Types of leaf edges - entire edge, jagged/toothed edge, lobe edge
• Types of leaf surfaces/textures - rough, smooth, waxy, hairy
• Leaves that grow singly vs Leaves that grow in clusters
• Flowers that grow singly vs Flowers that grow in clusters
• Types of fruits - edible (can be eaten) vs inedible (cannot be eaten), fruits with one, a few and many seeds

2)   Fungi, Bacteria and Micro-organisms (Lower block/P3/Chapter 5 in PSLE Guide/Pg 39 - 41)

• Some examples of fungi - mushroom, bracket fungi, bread mould
• Fungi are not plants - no roots and leaves; do not contain chlorophyll and cannot make their own food
• Fungi reproduce through spores
• Spores are found in spore cases (mould), sacs or gills (mushrooms)
• Fungi are important because they are decomposers and help to break down dead plants and animals into simpler substances
• Bread moulds cause food to spoil when they grow on them
• Micro-organisms are tiny living things which can only be seen under a microscope
• Some examples of micro-organisms - mould, yeast, penicillium, amoeba
• Yeast is used in the making of bread
• Penicillium (a type of mould) is used as an antibiotic in medicine

3)    Life Cycles of Animals and Plants (Lower block/P3/Chapter 7 in PSLE Guide/Pg 54 - 62)

• Life cycles are made up of a number of stages of growth which all living things go through - birth, growth, development and reproduction
• The life cycle repeats itself to ensure the survival and continuity of thats species of living things

• Animals with 2-stage life cycles - most mammals (eg. human being, dog, cow, etc)

• Animals with 3-stage life cycles - frog (eggs - tadpole - adult frog), chicken (egg - chick - adult chicken), cockroach (egg - nymph - adult cockroach), grasshopper (egg - nymph - adult grasshopper), etc

• Animals with 4-stage life cycles - butterfly (egg - larva/caterpillar - pupa - adult butterfly), moth, mosquito (egg - larva/wriggler - pupa - adult mosquito, housefly (egg - larva/maggot - pupa - adult housefly), mealworm beetle (egg - larva/mealworm - pupa - adult beetle), etc

• Identify and name the different stages (eg. pupa stage)

• Compare life cycles in terms of the number of Stages (2 vs 3 vs 4), Appearance between young and adult (alike vs not alike), Living habitat (land vs water), what they Eat

• Plants have 4 stages in their life cycles - seed, seedling, young plant, adult plant (with flowers; with fruits)
• The process of germination - seeds need water, air and warmth (not sunlight!) to germinate into seedlings
• Seed leaves are not true leaves - they store and provide food for the seed to grow during germination as it cannot make its own food yet without the true leaves
• True leaves have chlorophyll to enable them to make food

4)   The Digestive System (Lower block/P3/Chapter 15 in PSLE Guide/Pg 108 - 110)

• Identify and label organs in the digestive system - mouth, gullet, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum and anus
• Functions of each organ in the digestive system
• Digestive juices act on food and break it down into simpler substances for the body to absorb

5)   Air and the Respiratory System (Lower block/P3/Chapter 18 in PSLE Guide/Pg 122 - 130)

•  Air is a mixture of gases
• Components of air - about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.03% carbon dioxide, water vapour and other gases
• Oxygen is needed for burning - without oxygen, fire will extinguish itself
• Carbon dioxide is needed for plants to photosynthesise when there is light

• Breathing is not respiration
• Breathing is the inhaling and exhaling of air
• Respiration is the reaction in the body where oxygen and nutrients are used to produce carbon dioxide and energy
• Identify and label the parts of the body in the human respiratory system - nose, mouth, windpipe, lungs, air sacs and diaphragm
• Movement of diaphragm when inhaling and exhaling air

• Plants have tiny openings on the leaves called stomata to take in and give out gases, and to prevent water from evaporating on a hot day

• Fish and tadpoles breathe through gills in the water
• Frogs breathe through their skin in the water and through their lungs on land

6)   Matter and Its Three States (Lower block/P3/Chapter 8 in PSLE Guide/Pg 63 - 69)

• Matter is anything that has mass and volume
• Mass is the amount of matter in a substance and is measured using a lever balance
• Volume is the amount of space that a substance occupies

• There are three states of matter - solid, liquid and gas
• Solids have definite shape and volume
• Liquids have no definite shape but have definite volume
• Gases have no definite shape nor volume; so gases can be compressed

 
7)   Light and Shadows (Lower block/P3/Chapter 29 in PSLE Guide/Pg 256 - 263)

• Light is a form of energy that enables us to see
• Light travels in a straight line; it cannot bend
• The sun, stars, fireflies, fire, light builds which are switched on are some sources of light
• Light is absorbed by and bounced off (reflected) surfaces to allow our eyes to see the colours and such of the objects
• Light reflected by an object enters our eyes to enable us to see it
• Mirrors reflect light at a right-angle

• Different materials allow different amounts of light to pass through (Pg 259)
• Transparent materials - allow most light to pass through (eg clear plastic, glass) - little/no shadows
• Translucent materials - allow some light to pass through (eg. frosted glass, thin paper) - light shadows
• Opaque materials - do not allow light to pass through at all (eg. wood, metal) - dark shadows

• Shadows are formed when light is blocked by an object
• Shadows are formed in the direct opposite direction from the light source
• The size of a shadow depends on the distance between the light source and the object
• The further the object is from the light source, the smaller its shadow
• The nearer the object is to the light source, the larger its shadow

 

• At different times of the day, the sun casts different sizes of shadows of objects

8)   Heat and Temperature (Lower block/P3/Chapter 30 in PSLE Guide/Pg 264 - 267)

• Heat is a form of energy that makes things hot
• Things that produce hear are known as sources of heat
• Some sources of heat - the Sun, burning of fuels (eh. wood, coal), nuclear fission, electricity, friction

• Temperature is a measurement of how hot a substance is.
• A thermometer is used to measure the temperature of a substance.
• There are two types of thermometers - clinical and laboratory (Pg 265)
• Clinical thermometers are used to measure the temperature of the body (35*C to 42*C)
• Laboratory thermometers are used during Science experiments to take more precise temperatures (-10*C to 110*C)

• Heat flows from a body of higher temperature to a body of lower temperature

PROCESS SKILLS

a)   Observing

• Write down only what can be seen from the diagrams presented
  

b)   Comparing

• Compare qualities of the same category (eg. size vs size)
• John is a boy but Jane is a girl.

ANSWER KEY TO CA2 2009

PSLE Oral Examination Day 1

It's time to really get down to revising and preparing for next week's CA papers.
Just as a reminder, the schedule for our class is as follows:

• Monday, 23 Aug 2010 (7.45am - 9.15am) -  English Language
• Tuesday, 24 Aug 2010 (7.45am - 9.05am) -  Mother Tongue
• Wednesday, 25 Aug 2010 (7.45am - 9.30am) -  Mathematics 
• Thursday, 26 Aug 2010 (7.45am - 9.05am) -  Science

If you feel unwell on any of those days, you should pay a visit to the doctor and rest at home. Remember to obtain a Medical Certificate for the period you won't be in school! This is especially important as there will not be any make up paper at all.

To prepare you for the English Language CA2 paper on Monday, Miss Lin has uploaded the Term 3 spelling words you need to be familiar with onto AsknLearn and check the Message Board. You should find a message titled "P4 Endurance EL CA2 Revision - Term 3 Spelling Lists". Download the files attached and use them for your revision. More files will be uploaded onto AsknLearn over this weekend to help you with Synthesis (Reported/Indirect Speech) and Comprehension OE.

Miss Lin has also posted the answer keys to several of the Math worksheets we did on Decimals (e.g. Decimals Revision Three, etc) onto AsknLearn. More will be uploaded really soon! So please check the AsknLearn portal along with our class blog for more updates this "long" weekend!

The First Youth Olympic Game Ever!

Today marks the beginning of two weeks of exciting action amongst the world's greatest young athletes, who will motivate, challenge and inspire each other to out do themselves. They will be competing for medals and honour in 26 different sports for two weeks. Tonight's YOG Opening Ceremony will be watched by millions around the world and the stage is right here in Singapore! So remember to tune in to witness this special event and be a part of the action as a proud Singaporean (or friend of Singapore)!

CIP Learning Journey to Fort Canning's Spice Garden

Today, our class went to the Spice Garden at Fort Canning. Although the weather did not look very promising at the beginning of the field trip, it got a lot sunnier by the time we arrived at the entrance of the park.

As we alighted from the school bus at the ticket office of The Battle Box, you could practically smell the excited in us! =P After a short briefing by Miss Nurul in one of the air-conditioned rooms at the main building on the hill, we proceeded to walk a short distance to the Spice Garden.

Luckily, Miss Lin made sure that we were prepared against the mosquitoes that were aplenty there! We had our mozzie patches and repellants on us before even getting off the bus! Unfortunately, some of us were still "attacked' by the mosquitoes there. Even Miss Lin counted fifteen bites on her arms and legs! =(

Here are some pictures of the trip which were taken by Miss Lin.

The Beginning

It's halfway through Term 3 now. And with the CA2 papers looming ahead in two weeks, we're all scrambling through our days studying and cramming notes into our minds. Miss Lin is constantly on our backs to complete the tasks and study, study, study! 

Ahhhhhhhh!

This blog is a space where we collect our thoughts together, post comments, discuss issues, etc. It's now a blank canvas. It's up to us to draw, write, colour, decorate and showcase what we have on it.