Revision notes for EL

Dear children,

Some notes for your revision! (Parents please go through with your child.)

Section A: Vocabulary MCQ (5 x 1 mark)
Revise the words in your spelling list.
Underline key words that help you get to the answer.

Section B: Grammar MCQ (5 x 1 mark)
Underline key words that give clues to:
1) the tense
2) subject verb agreement (singular or plural)

Section C: Grammar Cloze (8 x 1 mark)
Draw arrows and link ideas to your answer.
Look out for:
1) the tense used in the story (check the sentence before and after)
2) special words like 'to', modal verbs 'can', 'will', 'could'... where we use the base verb form after them. (e.g. can dance, will sing, he likes to swim)
3) verb groups: did not see, does not want
4) subject verb agreement (singular or plural)
5) gender: male or female (e.g. Mr Raju ordered tea for himself)

Section D: Editing (5 x 1 mark)
1) Spelling error: Say out the letter sounds that you see. Read the sentence to get the meaning. Write the correct word.
2) Punctuation error: Check if it's a speech. Look out for words like 'asked' - ?, 'shouted' - !
Look out for capital letters that indicate the start of the sentence. Be careful though, some of the capital letters are proper nouns or names. Do not get confused by it.

Section E: Word Order (3 x 1 mark)
1) Order the words and write the number on top to make sure you don't leave out any word.
2) Check for names. The first letter has to be a capital letter.
3) Check for punctuation. If it is a question, you must put a question mark. If not, check if it's a full stop or an exclamation mark.

Section F: Joining of Sentences (2 x 2 marks)
1) Put a bracket on repeated words or phrases in the two sentences. Do not repeat the same words.
2) Check if the name is repeated twice. Use a pronoun (he, she, it, they...) to replace the second one.
3) Check for the order of events. Read and think, which happened first? E.g, Does a rainbow appear before the rain?

Section G: Comprehension (10 marks)
1) Read the True and False questions carefully. Underline the people and places and check the story carefully to see if it fits.
2) Use the process of elimination if needed. Cross out all the answers that you know are definitely wrong to try to get to the answer.
3) Check for tenses in the open-ended question. Many of you keep forgetting! Do not start your answer with 'Because..' , most of you are not able to write a complete sentence and you will get -1 for it. Answer to the point, there's no need to repeat the question.
4) Do not lift and copy the exact sentence from the passage. Make some minor changes and twerk it to fit the answer. 


Hope these help! Please feel free to ask me if you have more questions over the weekend. Take care!


All the best,
Mrs Soh

Updated: LJ to Philatelic Museum (29 Oct)

Dear children, 

Some updates about the day's plan:

1. We are going to have our recess break from 9 am - 9.30 am. Food is not allowed at the museum so we cannot bring any food with us.

2. You have to bring your MT materials as you will still have your MT lessons. We will leave the MT textbooks/workbooks in class after our recess break. The classroom will be locked.

List of things to bring in your small bag:
1. MT books
2. Story book for silent reading period
3. Pencil case
4. Clipboard
5. Water bottle
6. Money/food for recess

3. If you are bringing extra cash to buy souvenirs, please guard it carefully. The teachers will not be responsible for looking after your wallet.

I found the list of items on sale on their official website, so you may want to take a look if you are keen to purchase something from there: http://spm.org.sg/shop/stampfolios 

Parents, if you are allowing your child to buy something from there, please brief them on how you would like them to spend his/her money.

4. Thursday is our school uniform day for our class, so we will continue to wear that. 

Hope this makes it clearer now!

Sincerely,
Mrs Soh

Final Composition Notes

Dear children,

If you refer to an old blog post in April, there was a picture for you to practise writing. You can refer to it again here:

http://wtp2honesty.blogspot.sg/2015/04/extra-practice-for-composition.html

I found out that many of you have not attempted it yet, so you might want to try it.


We have gone through speech and its punctuation.

"Let's have a race!" John exclaimed.
"I'm bored. There's nothing to do," Kyle sighed.

Many of you are still not sure about the punctuation. It's a good time to start practising. If you are not sure, avoid using it tomorrow.

I have also listed down all the words that are useful for composition. We had a spelling test of useful words as well.

1. because

2. luckily

3. did not scold

4. in a hurry – hurriedly

5. rushed – in a rush

6. bleeding

7. hurt

8. groaned in pain

9. shocked

10. heaved a sigh of relief / He was relieved that…

If you want to revise further, you can try writing sentences with the words above.

REMEMBER:

1. PAST TENSE for stories

2. Contractions and present tense are only for speech "I don't know how to cycle," Sam said.

3. Write at least 3 paragraphs.

All the best for your writing test tomorrow!

Sincerely,

Mrs Soh

More Composition Notes

Dear children,

I noticed that this particular composition practice that we did in school was badly done. These are some of the common mistakes that you have made and I hope you would be able to avoid them in your exam on Tuesday.

1. Lack of explanation 

Many of you were not able to explain why a dog was chasing the boy (let's name him John). John could have done something that provoked the dog. It could be because he woke the sleeping dog up or he ran over the dog's tail etc. Actually, I will also accept if you say the dog started chasing him with no reason, perhaps the dog wanted to play. I would not penalise for this...

However, there is a need to explain where the dog disappeared to in the second picture. Did John manage to escape from it? Did the dog get distracted? I would think that John managed to be fast enough to lose the dog.

The man who helped John -- Who was he? Why did he have medicine with him?

I think he could be the park ranger. A person who works in a park. Then he would have a first aid kit with him. Some of you wrote that he's a doctor who passed by. That's okay too. Some simply wrote 'a man', and that's okay, but it will be better if you are able to explain further.

John's parents -- How did they know where to find John? Most of you simply wrote his parents came to pick him up. I think it could be the park ranger who called them up.

2. Tenses and Grammar

Some of you tried to use speech in your story but many of you kept getting the punctuation wrong. If you are not sure, then avoid it in your exam. We can have more practices but during the exam, I rather that you focus on the basics and cut down on the errors. Have a simple and error-free writing is better that having an exciting story with lots of mistakes here and there.

For verb groups, only the first word tells the tense: 

e.g. did not see,  did not look

'did not saw' and 'did not looked' are wrong.

Remember to use the base form of the verb when you see 'to' and modals:

e.g. He helped to apply the medicine.

e.g. He could not control his bicycle.

3. Paragraphs

Some of you kept forgetting to leave space for your paragraphs. One of you told me that your fingers are too small. If that's the case, leave a bigger space, it's not necessary that you must use only 2 fingers. It's just a guide!

Hope this helps! And here I write my version of the story.

________________________________________________

               "Ahh! Somebody help me!" John screamed as he cycled as quickly as he could. He was riding his bicycle in the park when suddenly a dog started chasing him. He was not sure why the dog was following him but he might have woken the sleeping dog with his noisy bicycle bell. 

                John heaved a sigh of relief when he had finally lost sight of the dog. As he looked back to check his surroundings again, he did not notice a stone on the ground and his bicycle went over it. As he was going too fast, he lost his balance and fell to the ground with a loud thud. "Ouch!" John shouted in pain. His knee was hurt and blood started flowing out of his wound. He started screaming for help. He was frightened. 

               Fortunately, a park ranger, Mr Tan, was working nearby. He heard John's cries and rushed over with a first aid kit. Mr Tan stopped the bleeding on John's knee and applied some medicine on his wound. John felt better instantly and stopped crying. Mr Tan asked for John's parents' number and alerted them about the accident.

              Soon, John's parents arrived at the scene. They were grateful and thanked Mr Tan profusely for his help. John left happily with his parents. Mr Tan smiled. He was pleased that he had done a good deed.

*Underlined words and phrases can be easily used in other contexts, so it will be useful to learn them.

E-learning details

Dear boys and girls,

You do not have to come to school for the next 4 days due to PSLE marking, but there are e-learning assignments assigned to you. Please take note of the work assigned and complete them all before coming back to school on Friday (23/10).

Day 1 - 19 October, Monday

Login to asknlearn and complete: 

1) SA2 English paper

2) Complete E-learning on 19 Oct 2015- Comprehension Practice created by Mdm Zulaiha

3) Maths - koobits

Day 2 - 20 Oct 2015, Tuesday

Login to asknlearn and complete: 

1) SA2 Mathematics paper

2) Complete E-learning on 20 Oct 2015- Comprehension Practice created by Mdm Zulaiha

3) Maths - koobits

Day 3 - 21 Oct 2015, Wednesday

Login to asknlearn and complete: 

1) SA2 Mother Tongue paper

2) Complete E-learning on 21 Oct 2015- Grammar Practice created by Mdm Zulaiha

3) Maths - koobits

Day 4 - 22 Oct 2015, Thursday

Login to asknlearn and complete: 

1) Complete E-learning on 22 Oct 2015- Grammar Practice created by Mdm Zulaiha

2) Maths - koobits

Other written work

1. Journal

2. English Practice Paper 2

Have a good and restful 4 days! See you all back in school on Friday!

Love,

Mrs Soh 

Phonics and listening comprehension

Dear children,

Can you remember the sounds that Teacher Betty went through today?

I hope everyone has been paying attention to all her lessons, as one of the components for listening is to identify and differentiate sounds.

We did a listening practice and to update the parents, I'm going through the components one by one:

Part 1: Spelling

The spelling list has been given out today. Out of the 12 words, 4 words will be tested in our coming Listening Exam (27 Oct). Please refer to the list below:

Part 2: Picture Matching

Part 3: Sound Discrimination

Part 2 is straight forward, they tick the picture that has been read out. For Part 3, this is where Teacher Betty's lessons come in. The children will be tested based on the sounds they hear. The question paper will only have the letters A, B, C and D for them to circle. They have to listen carefully to the words that are read out.

It will be an audio recording of Teacher Betty's voice during our Listening Test, so the children should not have problems as they would be familiar with her voice.

How do I revise for it?

1. Learn the spelling words.

2. Ask if your parents can help test you in reading words and you list down the words that have the same:

a) beginning sound

b) ending sound

c) middle sound

d) sound (rhyming words)

Hope this helps!

Sincerely,

Mrs Soh

Prepositions of Time

Dear children, 

Today, we focused on prepositions of time, 'at', 'on' and 'in'.

Francesca was asking me which preposition when we talk about Christmas. I did a little research and found out that we either use on Christmas Day or at Christmas. It depends on whether you are looking at that particular day (25 December) or the holiday period itself. Hope this chart helps!

Sincerely,

Mrs Soh

Class photos

Dear children,

Happy Children's Day! Hope you like the presents and concert that the teachers had prepared!

Anyway, these are the 4 photographs that we took during our class photo-taking session. The envelope you received is for you to put in the amount of money you need to pay, and on it you have to write which photo you are buying and which size. Do take a look to see if your name is spelt correctly too.

Oh and also, thank you for all your generous donation to the Community Chest! Parents, if you have not received any acknowledgement message from me by the time you read this, it means I have not received anything from your child. If you do not wish to donate, please indicate $0 on the envelope and return it to me. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Mrs Soh

Oral Practice

Dear children,

Do you remember the important notes that come with our practice today?

1. Read the passage with expression. Add emphasis by saying certain words louder or slower to add meaning to the words.

e.g. 

Look! (louder - it is an exclamation)
It looks like a GIGANTIC bird... (louder, adding meaning that it is really big)
It is so AMAZING...
can fly so HIGH in the air

2. Read the word endings. If the word is in past tense, remember to read the -ed and the -d. If the word ends with '-s', read it carefully too.

E.g. 

I loved the chicken rice.
His mother cooked for him.
She points to an aeroplane.
It looks like a gigantic bird.

3. Read 'the' correctly. If it comes before a vowel, read it as 'd'.

E.g.

An aeroplane can fly so high in the air.
We always enjoy our visits to the airport. 

For the conversation practice, 

We talked about adding in our personal experience. 

E.g. What is your favourite food?

My favourite food is pizza. It makes me happy whenever I eat it. I usually eat it at Pizza Hut and I order the Hawaiian pizza. It has pineapples and ham and I think they are the best combination ever! We only get to eat there about once a month on a weekend. I love to eat it so much that I tried to learn to make my own pizza! I use a slice of bread and spread tomato sauce on it. Then, I put a slice of cheese and put some ham on top. It tastes delicious too, but it's still nothing like the one at Pizza Hut.
... ... ...

[If you haven't made pizza before and still want to talk more about it]: I haven't made pizza before but I would love to try! I have seen on TV how pizza is made and it looks really easy! If only my mother would allow me to join the pizza-making lessons. Maybe I would be able to make a special Hawaiian pizza with mushrooms and fried chicken!

... ... ...

Use your imagination. If you haven't done something before, you can still say it as something you would like to try. 

Hope this helps!


Sincerely,
Mrs Soh 

Model composition- A broken vase

Dear children,

Sharing with you Alysa's composition... Which are the good words and phrases you can pick up from her writing?

Things to take note:

1. Use the past tense for your story (Unless you have speech. Use present tense for speech.)

2. Put in full stops. Some of you wrote one whole paragraph without any full stop. -.-"

3. Read your story carefully. Does it make sense? Some of your stories mixed up the idea of the boys being friends and then they suddenly have the same mother. 

Let's work on these for now. See you tomorrow!

Sincerely,

Mrs Soh 

Silent sounds and editing

 Today, we learnt more about silent sounds in words. We listened to Teacher Betty's stories and did some exercises on it too. There was one more word we talked about as well when we were discussing about fish - salmon. Can you remember which letter is silent?

We had our first go at trying a few editing exercises. We came across the collective noun, 'a school of fish' and started talking about when to use 'many fish' and where to use 'many fishes'. We usually use 'fishes' when we are referring to many different types (or species) of fishes. 'fish' could be used to describe many of the same kind.

See you tomorrow, and don't forget to prepare for your spelling!

Sincerely,
Mrs Soh