After-School Socializing

For the past 1 week, my 6.5 year old girl has been telling me to pick her up late from school. School dismisses at 12:15pm but she has been instructing me to pick her up at 1pm instead. Once her daddy picked her up at 12:15pm on the dot and she came home bawling and whining for a good 1 hour!


Sherilyn - mummy, tomorrow pick me up at 1pm ok? Don't come at 12:15pm ok?

Me - WHY??

Sherilyn - you always say that I give you lots of stress mah....so you come late and pick me up, less stress for you.

Me - and what else? Why do you want me to come late?

Sherilyn - so that I can help Ms P (her principal) stack up chairs and I can finish my homework there. I can also play with my day-care friends.

Me - so do you want me to send you to daycare? (Since last year, I have been contemplating sending this girl to daycare in the hope that this will help discipline her)

Sherilyn - NO NO! I don't want daycare. I just want you to pick me up at 1pm. Please don't come early OK?
(Today she reminded me countless number of times to pick her up at 1pm again tomorrow.)

And so this social-butterfly comes home a very happy girl everyday ever since I gave her 45 minutes of after-school play-time in pre-school, for her to mingle with her friends, complete her homework and to feel good helping her teachers :D


Top model at Old & New Stuff For Sale...

Teaching Sherilyn Money

One of the topics covered in Sherilyn's recent mid term exam for 6YO pre-schoolers is money, i.e. all the denominations, how to add up Ringgit note and sen and questions in comprehension format. The standard is equivalent to that of Primary 2 kids. I remember I had a hard time teaching Alycia 2 years ago. It's the same with Sherilyn now. I had to use real money to explain the concept to her, which I think helped her to understand better. Hmm, I wonder why the kindergarten teacher did not take the effort to ensure that all the kids understood before they tested them on this topic. I'll bet other kids had a tough time grasping the whole concept too.

During revision with Sherilyn, as usual the impatience in me made me blew my top when this rascal just could not get it right. Her attention span is very, very short and her mind is always wandering far away. My SIL from Singapore who was up in KL came to my rescue. Then my mum. At long last, she finally got it right with the help of 3 tutors. She scored a 96% for her Math!

... and little nosy parker wants to be involved in all her jie jies' activities too!

Sherilyn's Achievement

She may not be as disciplined as her jie jie and I need loads and loads of threats, bribe and reminders to get her to memorize her weekly spelling, ejaan and ting xie. But at least, she has been scoring full marks for all her ting xie, ejaan and spelling every week and I am proud of her. Nonetheless, I am still very worried how my rascal will cope in Primary 1 in a Chinese school next year. Hopefully the tough environment and Chinese teachings will shape her into a better disciplined and obedient kid. And I am slowly but surely turning into Amy Chuah aka Tiger Mother, else this rascal will be a wayward child.

Sherilyn's First Spelling

Sherilyn had her very first spelling yesterday. To my surprise, this girl came home and told me that she got a yellow star from her teacher for scoring full marks. Bravo to you Sherilyn!

It took lots of threats and reminders from me on this rascal for her to memorize her words. And I have to do this for the next few years.... almost everyday of the year for spelling, ejaan and ting xie. Gosh, my hair will shed further having to go through this!! After Sherilyn comes Cassandra who will start pre school next year. That's one of the throes of motherhood!

English For 5-Year Olds

I was doing revision with Sherilyn last week to prepare her for her exam and when I came to the Collective Nouns for animals, I was amazed to note that the 5-year olds in her pre school are taught these:

I am sure some of us don't even know the collective noun for goose, horse and whales eh? And I am amazed that my rascal could remember all the collective nouns here.

Yesterday I collected Sher's report card from pre-school. She scored 90% and above for all her papers. I am very proud of her. I hope she will continue to produce As for her papers next year, which will be her last year in kindy. But I'm worried how she will cope in a Chinese primary school given her dilly dally attitude. I hope she'll change.

Princess Wannabe's Last Day Of School

This was taken on Friday, the last day of the first school term...


Koo Mar bought this Princess Aurora costume, complete with the Princess clogs for Sherilyn when the girls were in Hong Kong last year. This was the 4th time she donned on this costume. For once I allowed her to bring Mamee to school for the teacher's day party. So unhealthy hor? Once in a blue moon should be ok wat right?

Sherilyn's Extra Curricular Activities

I got a phone call from the gals' principal this morning which gave me a scare and got my heart thumping away as I rushed to pick up the phone. I hate receiving phone calls from the gals' pre-school. Usually, any call from the school shouldn't be something pleasant right? The principal wouldn't call me to tell me how clever or how good my girl is right? Anyway, she called to inform me that Sherilyn's Mandarin enrichment class will begin next month, which is just next week. Her Mandarin enrichment class will be every Friday from 12 - 1:30pm and Alycia's Mandarin enrichment class will be every Tuesday from 12 - 1:30pm.

Sherilyn also has ballet class on Friday from 7-8pm. By the time Sherilyn's back from school, it would be almost 2pm. Knowing how slow this fler eats her food and knowing how much she likes to dilly dally when it comes to taking her shower, by the time all the dilly dallying and temper tantrums are over, it would be almost 5ish pm. So no need to take afternoon nap lar. I have to get Alycia and Sherilyn ready for ballet at 6:15pm - dress them up and tie up their hair. Maybe it's also a good thing coz Sherilyn has boundless energy. She rarely falls sleepy. Everyday, she would avoid taking her afternoon nap and at night when everyone else has gone to bed, she would also walk round the house and dilly dally again... until close to midnight. I wonder where she gets all the energy from.

Anyway, back to her Mandarin enrichment class. Perhaps it's not too bad an idea that she has a tightly packed schedule so that all the activities will burn her energy away and hopefully she will have no problem falling asleep when night comes. Hooray!

Sherilyn In Her Uniform

That's Sherilyn in her pre-school uniform, which belonged to Alycia. We didn't get her a new set of uniform as she could fit into Alycia's old uniform which Alycia has outgrown. Instead, we got a new set of uniform for Alycia. The school bag is new though and is given by the school.... well, it's already included in the semester fees.

That's the advantage of being the eldest child - you get new stuff all the time! When it's Cassandra's turn to go to pre-school, we don't even have to buy her any uniform, she'll have lots of old uniform from both her cheh chehs.... and that's one of the many advantages of having kids of the same gender... you can recycle their clothes!

Sherilyn Has Homework Too

I can't believe that Sherilyn has been bringing homework home everyday and she's only 3 years old. It's not just 1 page of coloring but 2-3 pages of coloring and her teacher wants the parents to do revision / reading with them at home too. Getting Sherilyn to do her homework is one tall order as my little tough nut just doesn't like to be instructed to do things. I think I will have the patience spending all my time persuading her to do her homework if Sherilyn was my only child. But I have 2 other very demanding kids and Sherilyn is always testing my patience to the limit. Sometimes, her homework gets unfinished and I just let it be. I do not want to threaten her with the cane to force her to complete her homework for it will only make her hate doing homework in future.