Elgarmummy.com

Author: Sarah

  • Favourite cartoons

    El and Gar love to watch cartoons. Here are a few of their favourite ones.

    Pingu

    I love Pingu! Pingu is a penguin that speaks penguin language, so everybody can understand the story without the need for translation. What I do with Gar and sometimes El when he is there, is to be the narrator. I will describe the scenes, the things, the actions, and come up with dialogue for him. This will help him to pick up a language better.

    One of the favourite episodes Gar likes to watch is Pingu The Mountaineer. What I did was to talk about the items in the house, such as the bag where Pingu comes across an old photograph of his father climbing a mountain with a cairn, or a stack of stones. At the funny parts, such as Pingu’s rope was stuck between two rocks, I added some sound effects to get Gar to laugh. At the part where he was scared to cross the crevasse, I pretended to be very frightened, and then added words of encouragement from the father.

    Educational Benefits: Moral values, Life skills, problem solving

    Barney
    Barney is an all-time favourite. Gar is obsessed with Barney, and wears Barney shirts, carries Barney toys, and does actions to the songs. When he spotted picture of BJ on the floor at United Square, he squatted down and kept pointing at them, every time without fail. El likes Barney too, as he is able to understand them better.

    Compared to El, Gar’s attention does not last that long, so even though we were watching Barney and friends live on stage, he would want to leave. However, he watched a lot of times because of the amount of time we spent there. When it comes to El watching Barney live, he was glued to the purple dinosaur. He danced, sang and did all the hand actions. He likes many songs.

    Educational benefits: Language, social skills, mathematics, science, nature, singing, character building

    Thomas And Friends
    I thought I had watched Thomas The Train before, but it was acted by real people, with large engines. That was more than 2 decades ago. The latest type is 3D animation. Gar likes to watch them over and over again, but is somewhat scared of the Fat Controller. There are many stories, but I am not that attracted to the stories. Gar likes to wave whenever the theme song comes on and there is a boy waving at a bridge at Thomas. We went to watch Thomas and Friends at City Square, but Thomas could only puff in and out, while the rest of the show was carried by two workers, whom we are not familiar with.
    Educational benefits: Moral values, character building

    Bob The Builder
    El had only recently started watching Bob The Builder. He loves to sing the theme song. What I like about Bob The Builder is there is usually a moral behind the story, and some lessons to be learnt. One example was to listen to what people need, and not do what you want, when an over-eager Scoop brought Sumsy all over the place to introduce the place to her. Other lessons included simple sums, as Sumsy could add up 3 and 2 to make 5.

    Educational Benefits: Social skills, Mathematics, Engineering, problem solving

    Octonauts
    I have not really watched much of Octonauts, but El discovered them on youtube. They are a bunch of animals and vegimals (mixed) in the underwater world going on adventures on aquatic vehicles. They try to rescue people. They introduce real sea creatures.

    Educational Benefits: Science, problem solving, adventure spirit

    Peppa Pig
    Peppa Pig is a female pig with a younger brother and her family. There are story books available in the library. The stories are simple, but I heard that many children like to speak like Peppa Pig with a British accent.

    Educational Benefits: Language, social skills

    The Magic Schoolbus

    I might have caught one or two episodes of The Magic Schoolbus when I was younger, and all I could remember about it is that the magic schoolbus could expand and shrink as the teacher takes them on excursions. I did not know El had watched it until just a few days ago, when we were on our way home, he started exclaiming that there was a magic schoolbus right beside our car. A van had the decals of the magic schoolbus on it, with a pretty large picture of Ms Frizzle. That was when he told me he had watched it on youtube. The series teaches students about science in an interesting manner.

    Educational Benefits: Science, Problem Solving

  • Bishan Park and Grub

    Bishan Park and Grub

    Despite living in a concrete jungle, we are surrounded by a lot of greenery. There is a lovely park at Bishan, and the canal had been transformed into a river. We brought Gar there during a late Sunday afternoon. He insisted on bringing Barney along, which he affectionately calls Boon-deh.
    Gar and Barney

    He jumped off our arms and wanted to walk around. He held our fingers with his little hand.
    Bishan Park

    We brought him to the dog park, and he saw a lot of little dogs, and big dogs. He giggled when the dogs barked.

    We also ventured into the river itself, which was almost dry save for a little trickle when there was no rain. There were frogs.

    Bishan Park river

    We saw people skating at the other corner.
    Bishan Park Gar

    We were looking for Grub, a restaurant that is feted for serving eco-friendly food, but could not find it.

    The following week, after searching for the directions, we discovered it was at the further end of Bishan Park, nearer to Sin Ming. There was a long queue, which we could check the status on my phone. As I did not mind dining outside, we managed to get a table about half an hour later despite still having many people in front of us in the queue.

    This time round, we brought El along too, so the brothers were chasing each other at a nearby pavilion while waiting. We also fed Gar his dinner while waiting.

    I tried the slow roasted pork belly. It was a bit weird to eat sio bak at a western restaurant, but I ordered it anyway. I have always hated mango, but decided to give the mango sauce a try. Surprisingly, I liked the sauce. The food was not too bad.

    El asked for Truffled egg cocotte, but stopped eating after taking a bite. He then had fries from our plate, but we ordered more and could not finish. I was surprised they did not have a kids’ menu, or something more kid’s friendly, but perhaps the cuisine was just not suitable for him as he was not that adventurous with food.

    Gar tried fries, and from then on, he wanted fries with his meals.

    Too bad we did not take any pictures. The staff was quite attentive. I was recommended a dessert, but I could not remember what it was. It was not to my liking. I think it was too sweet.

    If we had bought a unit at a nearby condo, perhaps we would take a walk at Bishan Park regularly, but since we have a pool at our own place and I had not stepped into the pool in half a year, perhaps we might not.

  • Parents and Teachers

    After I have become a parent, I start to review the way I teach, the things I do, and the things I say. Instead of just being a teacher, I start to put myself in the shoes of the parents, and think of what they really want to hear, and how exactly we can help them.

    It is all too easy to say ‘your son needs to pay more attention in class’, ‘your daughter did not do her homework’ and ‘your son is weak in English’. It is as if parents have the magical answers to solve these problems themselves. If they had the answers, they would not need the teachers.

    Now that I am a parent, I finally understand how important words can be. I am also able to observe my sons’ teachers, and learn from them.

    For example, my son’s former teachers would keep me updated on his progress. They would always have something nice to say when I picked him up from school. When there were issues, they highlighted them to me, but they offered suggestions, and they worked on the problems in school too. Of course, the class size is very small, with 5 to 8 students, and there are 2 teachers in the classroom, so they could really work their magic.

    That was big in contrast to my son’s new teacher, who just said that it was the first day of school and she had nothing to say about my son. If there were issues, then she would contact me. I felt terrible when I heard that. Did she care about my son? Perhaps it was because the class size is much bigger at this new school, with around 20 students, and she had too many students to observe in a short period of time.

    I had read books that said I should contact parents right at the start, and I should say nice things, but I never really got to it. There are 40 in a class, and with my other subject classes, I had more than 160 students. With all the time spent on lesson preparation, marking, holding CCAs, and attending workshops and meetings, there was little time left. By the time I called, it was usually to inform them about misbehaviours or poor results.

    During parent-teacher meetings, we mainly talk about results and behaviours. Sometimes parents take leave to come to the meetings, and they end up hearing things that they do not know how to handle.

    I had been listening to How to Talk so Kids Can Learn, and there was a section on how parents feel about teachers, and how teachers feel about parents. One point was quite poignant. Feedback from teachers are seen as a report card on the parents’ parenting skills. So when a teacher calls to say the child has misbehaved, the parent feels as if he or she has been dealt an ‘F’ on the report card.

    In addition, sometimes by the time teachers call, it is near to impossible to complete 15 assignments within a week when marks are due. I am guilty of that, and that is why I have made up my mind to improve myself.

    Conversations should be two-way. The teachers should find out more from the parents, and offer solutions. In my first year of teaching, my colleague told that to me, and I am very grateful to her for constantly sharing with me.

    I had started the year poorly, by calling parents up to tell them their children’s hairstyles were unacceptable. The next round of calls I had to make was not better. The students had not completed their work. I decided to look for something positive I could say about their child, which delighted them, before I talked about the issue. There were really positive things about their child. They had been friendly, helpful, and they had made some improvements from previous years. Of course, I still have room for improvement and I should by calling them much earlier to establish a positive relationship before I have to talk about something negative.

    With regards to praises and criticisms, the audio recording also mentions that it is important to describe the behaviour, instead of making judgments on the character. For example, if your child comes home with a good piece of work, don’t just say, ‘Fantastic, you are a genius!’ The child may feel that you are insincere, and he may also feel that he does not deserve it. Instead, say that I am proud that you managed to spell nine words correctly, or you have revised sufficiently for the chapter.

    If there is something to improve, do not label the child stupid or naughty. Just state the behaviour.

    At the same time, parents should not be over-demanding, or do helicopter parenting by hovering constantly around the child and the teacher. Of course, this is much better than parents who do not do anything.

    I am still learning from many people.

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