Ella's School Books

Certainly it's one of the reasons I became a teacher. Every September I think about visiting the book shops and buying a stack of narrow-ruled notebooks with Bobcat paw prints on them. I get such satisfaction from the smell of the paper, the brightness of a blank canvas, the feel of a fresh new pen making a subtle indentation in the cardboard as I carefully, in my neatest penmanship write my name, date, and subject on the front of each notebook. Don't even get me started about the thrill of writing out my class schedule in the empty assignment book. Ah, back to school time.

In Singapore, it's not time for back to school, but it is time for a week off before Term 4 starts on the 10th of September. That's when Ella and Zoe both start school here. I have been getting them both prepared at home for a month now so hopefully they will be somewhat prepared, but we'll see. Ella can now do addition and subtraction of numbers up to 40 as well as multiplication of numbers to about 10. She will be starting to learn division at school this term so I hope she's where she needs to be. We also have been working on handwriting and even spelling because yes, spelling counts here.

The kids in K1 can write words here and by the end of K2 they are supposed to be writing whole sentences. I have taught Zoe how to make most upper case letters and numbers to 10 but she cannot yet recognize lower case letters (or for that matter all of the upper case ones) and the number 6 is always written backwards. I am proud of her progress and I hope her teachers will be gentle with her.

I don't know what to expect in regards to their school day. I don't even really understand how the cafeteria (or canteen) works. They will have a lot to teach me.

I have checked out Ella's school books so that I could check to make sure she's close to where she needs to be. We have worked on everything but Chinese. I thought folks back home might be interested in what the school books look like here so I took pictures of the covers and of one page inside each book. I do this because I find it fascinating and thought you might too. For those of you who are not book nerds, particularly school book nerds like me, you can close the window now. The beach report will be the next post.

The day that Ella took her placement test at her school we were able to stop at the school book store, right next to the canteen, to pick up her books. They packed everything into a nice tote for us to carry everything easily. The woman who runs the store said that one of the packets we paid for was a test packet and that Ella would be given that in class obviously and not all at once. Here is what we did bring home though:

An Art Folio for her projects

A folio for her work. It has her school motto and mission on it.

Her handbook is also as assignment book.

Isn't this beautiful? It's a case for all her report cards, I think. Each one will fit inside a plastic liner and all kept together in this nice little collection.

These must be for essays at school.

Subject folders for Maths and English

and Mother Tongue! In E's case, Mandarin for novices. 

This is a folio case for her book about cultures around the world. I guess it's like social studies.

She has her own white board, dry erase marker, and eraser for answering and working out problems in class. It all tucks into this holder.

As I said, spelling counts:

And this grammar books teaches the different parts of speech in quite a lot of detail for primary schoolers.

What good is a grammar handbook without some worksheets?

Handwriting practice. We've already done several of these to help prepare.

Here it is. The Singapore Math Book! We have been working on this one a lot, as well as the similar ones we bought before we moved here. Singapore Math is known around the world and with good reason. Luckily the books we bought at home that said they were based on it actually are  similar so we could switch right over. I am stunned at the progress she has made in three hours a day (5-6 days a week) for a month. It makes me want to keep it up with all three kids. Instead of returning to work, I could stay at home and do supplemental activities with them for a few years. If only I could stand the headache it gives me every day trying to help E with one thing and Z with another simultaneously. 

What I found most impressive is the supplemental subject materials. The music, art, and health books are beautiful and thoughtfully done.

And here are the Chinese books. I was relieved when they told me she would be placed in a class with other students learning Chinese for the first time. Because it's called Mother Tongue, I was worried she would have take a class with some native speakers. My relief evaporated though when I remembered that she's starting in Term 4 so the kids will have been learning the language for a long time already. I hope she gets something out of it.

I can't wait to start seeing the Somerville kids' pictures for the first day back at school that will hopefully pop up on Facebook. I will miss not seeing familiar faces on the playground. Enjoy heading back, everyone!