the road to work was closed for resurfacing rather than flooding, but the view3s over the water meadows were fab. shame for the houses built so close though.
work was work. Chris’s parents were here today whilst Chris finished off the base for the wendy house. the did Lego, and not really knitting, as Jane teaching sb, and she isn’t getting the hang of it. also lots of bob the builder inspired games with BB as well. when I got home, the Lego hospital had just collapsed, so helped rebuild it. Made cups of tea and SB read to ORT roman adventure to Chris’s mum while I drank it. minor riot act to SB as not done match and sort, even though I had left it out.
We then did a piano practice, which she did very nicely – good, as have bought next book from amazon in my amazon splurge, which now needs to be justified! As we were doing that BB wandered down from her sleep, and we some wandered back up to remove ‘poopy soggy botbot napnap’. SB was supposed to be doing maths with Nana, but I think the workings out had Nana bemused [we're now used to the Singapore scheme, but Nana would subtract as I would have done at school, none of this messing with loads of steps!] so SB then had to redo it when i got down. the subtraction was across the 10, so she was subtracting the 10′s ok, but then the smaller unit from the larger [ie the wrong way] . Ah well, got there in the end.
We played with the brio set altogether, and Nana and Grandad went home. then with the 3d shape maker polyhedron thingies which we finally gave to sb this Christmas. she made a pancake, I made pyramids and not pyramids – she could tell me which were right though. The girls then messed about with cbeebies website and numberjacks.
After tea and bath, SB and I played battleships until it was time for her to go to bed, and I finished my homework!! having finished it, i have just watched primeval? -a bit of a laugh!
Obviously the hospital had been unable to invest in repairs and maintenance due to the iniquitous funding structures imposed by central government, aggravated by incompetent local management.
I would like your opinion of the Brainbox electronics sets. I wanted to buy it in England, but didn’t as we were moving to Singapore at the time. I’ve found the Brainbox 500 which is equivalent to the Primary Plus in the UK (but I think this set comes from Australia or New Zealand instead). Anyway, they are selling it here for about the equivalent of 17 pounds. Is it worth it?
Secondly, I found a website http://www.singapore-math-online.com/ that has a free demo at the bottom related to Singapore style maths. My kids like to watch them. As well as learning a bit about the math styles here, your kids will be able to hear the mixture of Singapore-English accents in the cartoons :).
From year 2 the teachers really seem to focus on using models to solve word problems. It is stressed throughout primary school- and seems to be in the newest curriculum. So, instead of teaching a kid how to solve a word problem straightforwardly with addition/subtraction, the kids must draw a model before doing the addition/subtraction. It seems a bit backwards to me, though. I know that younger kids sometimes learn better by *seeing* models, but I think it is harder for them to actually think up the models.
Raihanah
we have enjoyed the brainbox primary plus. SB plays with it a fair amount. not always sure how much actual learning she does – but must be something going in! the kits are easy to use. i think there should be a bit more explanation in them though about what is actually going on [as in there is none]
we are still using my pals are here and the older primary maths books as Sb gets on well with them. her reading is behind her maths, so the word ones are a bit of a problem! we do have joining cubes and cuisinaires to help though.
thanks for the link Raihanah. Hope life is good for you out there.