Answers for Papers

Dear pupils,

Please spend this PSLE marking week wisely for your revision.
Below are the answers for your papers. If you need to clarify your answers with me, you may post as a reply or ask during your lesson on Friday.

Reminder to revise your spelling lists for the entire year, and to work on your targeted practice too.

Set C

Set D

Practice Paper 4

Sincerely,

Ms Chan

Draw My Stamp Story exhibition

I'm posting this notice on behalf of Ms Bay:


Dear Parents,

Cedar Primary School is one of the five schools that took part in the 'Draw My Stamp Story' pilot project 2016 organised by the Singapore Philatelic Museum.
14 shortlisted entries of our pupils are put up on display for the public to view at
The Plaza, National Library (100 Victoria Street, Singapore 188064) on 19, 20 Aug (10am to 8pm) and 21 Aug (10am to 6pm). All pupils and their parents are welcome to enjoy viewing the exhibits.

Thank you and have a nice weekend.

Ms Eileen Bay
SH/Aesthetics

T3W3 Science Updates

Pupils have started learning about magnets under the theme of “Interactions”. Over the past few weeks, pupils engaged in a series of activities such as using the magnet to identify magnetic and non-magnetic materials, finding out which part of the magnet had the strongest magnetic force and so on.

The key ideas that were covered so far are:

·         Only magnetic materials are attracted to a magnet (Pupils have been taught the acronym “CoINS” to help them remember that magnetic metals – “Cobalt, iron, nickel, steel”.

·         Unlike poles of a magnet attract while like poles of a magnet repel.

·         The poles of a magnet have the strongest magnetic force.

Some common MISCONCEPTIONS that some pupils may have are:

·         “The magnets stick to each other / Magnetic materials can stick to the magnet” vs “The magnets attracted each other / Magnetic materials are attracted to the magnet”  – In the first case, instead of using the term “attract”, pupils use the word “stick” which is inaccurate.

·         “The iron bar attracted the magnet” vs “The magnet attracted the iron bar” – the first sentence is a common error as the the magnet is the one which has magnetic force and is pulling the iron bar towards itself.

·         “The magnet did not attract Object A” vs “The magnet repelled Object A” – these two sentences have two different meanings though some pupils may think that they mean the same thing. In the first sentence, “Did not attract” could simply mean a lack of interaction between the magnet and object; while in the second sentence, “repelled” indicates that there is a pushing force exerted by the magnet on Object A. 

Do feel free to contact me if you have further queries regarding Science / answering techniques.

Thank you.

Ms Natalie Chan

Grammar Games

Dear Children and Parents,

I hope the holidays have been a great time for relaxation and family bonding.

There are some games I would like to recommend for English concept revision:

1) Verb Viper (for Subject-Verb Agreement)

Link: http://www.arcademics.com/games/viper/viper.html

It allows pupils to practise Past tense, Present tense, Past participle, as well as To be and Have verbs.


2) Past tense Lily (for Past tense)

Link: http://www.english-online.org.uk/games/pasttense.htm

Help the frog to get across to the lily by clicking the correct past tense form.


3) English Irregular Verbs

Link: https://www.quia.com/cb/8111.html

For 1 to 2 players. Type the correct past tense form of irregular verbs to earn points!


4) Spelling Bee Quiz

Link: https://www.quia.com/pop/13123.html

Choose the correctly spelled words from the given list.


Have fun!


Sincerely,
Ms Cindy Chan

Class reminders

Dear parents,

We are coming to the end of the term soon. Please be reminded to log in to MC Online to reserve your slot for the Parent-Child-Teacher-Conference (PCTC) on 26 May.

I have returned pupils their SA1 papers and have gone through the corrections with them today. Kindly look through your child's work and acknowledge with your signature on the cover pages of each paper.

Thank you.


Regards,
Ms Cindy Chan

Preparing for Oral Exam

Dear Parents,

Your child will be having his/her Oral exam this Wednesday, 27 April. We have been practising the necessary skills in class. This post contains some tips for their preparation at home.

I will also return their books for preparation this week.

There are 2 parts to Oral -- Stimulus-based Conversation (10m) and Reading Aloud (6m). In the 5 minutes preparation time, start with passage first. Spend 3 minutes on it. The remaining time is for you to look carefully at the picture for SBC and think of the related topic and vocabulary you can speak about.

SBC (10m)

Pupils will usually be shown a picture and the examiner will ask three main questions (prompts).

General Tips:
1. The first question is solely based on the given picture. Use the picture to help you start the conversation. Think about the broader theme and the possible questions that will be asked. You may use descriptive vocabulary related to your five senses to improve your responses.

2. Try to share a similar experience to what is shown in the picture. If possible, give suggestions or opinions related to the topic. Example: with a picture of different types of food, pupils can think about their experience eating at a food court.

3. Speak clearly and confidently during the conversation. Speak in complete sentences as much as possible.

4. Try to maintain eye contact as much as possible.


Reading Aloud (6m)

1. In the 2-3 minutes preparation time, first scan the passage for potential difficult words.

2. Secondly, read again and pause where necessary (look out for commas and full stops). If the sentences are too long, please pause at appropriate places so your reading makes more sense.

3. Pronounce all words clearly, especially at the ending sounds. You may read at an appropriate pace, not too slowly or quickly.

4. Be expressive and try to vary your tone, especially where there is direct speech. Look out for the emotions the character is conveying, i.e. for someone who exclaimed, you may speak in a slightly louder and excited voice.


Hope this helps!


Sincerely,
Ms Cindy Chan

[Writing Tip] Avoid using boring words

Dear parents,

We have learnt in class that we can avoid using boring words in oral exams and composition writing Emotion words like 'happy' or 'sad' can be replaced with synonyms with different extent to accurately convey what we are feeling.

As a class, we listed out different words that can replace 'said' after working in clock buddies.



After that, pupils did a Word Cline in class (pair work). A word cline is a way of building vocabulary for them, by looking at words that all fit into a particular category, and arranging them in order of strength, or how strongly they represent the idea.

Some examples done by pupils:
Arranging by volume of voice (soft to loud)





Arranging by emotions:




I have found some synonym posters online to help your child expand on his/her vocabulary choice.

You may want to select a few words from each list for your child to learn, and consolidate learning through creating their own word clines. There is no right or wrong answers for word clines as they are based on the child's understanding of the words. However, it will be good if they understood the meaning of the words selected before attempting the word cline.

Poster credits to writeathome.com.



I will keep you posted with more resources and exam tips!


Sincerely,
Ms Cindy Chan