Planes-- The Movie

    Today, I went to the Lido cinema with my Aunt, cousin and brother to watch the movie "Planes" in 3D. The 3D glasses made my nose tired, so I kept pushing them up. I think that "Planes" is nicer than "Cars".  There are fewer sad bits in 'Planes' than in 'Cars'. I really enjoyed myself and I ate lots of popcorn and chips.  I even got a free goody bag with the book of the film and an activity storybook!

    After the movie, we took a train from Ion Orchard to Paya Lebar and from there, we took a taxi to Parkway Parade for lunch. We went Kkongdon Barbeque for a Korean barbeque lunch. We shared barbequed beef, pork and chicken. It was absolutely delicious!!!

   I really enjoyed myself and hope that I can go to the cinema to watch a movie again soon.

Learning Tapestry-- Adaptations

This time for Learning Tapestry, our topic is on adaptations. We went to the zoo to learn more about how animals adapt to their surroundings. 

We had a short talk on adaptations in an auditorium when we first arrived. There, we learnt what adaptations were. There are two main kinds of adaptations: - behavioural and structural. Behavioural adaptation is how animals behave according their habitat. For example, during a storm, polar bears will dig a hole in a bank and wait inside until the storm is over.

Structural adaptation is how an animal changes according to the surrounding. For example, polar bears have stiff hairs on their paws, which help them increase friction between their paws and the ice, so that they will not slip easily.

After the talk, we went to see the penguins for our station-based activity. After that, we went to see the kangaroos. One kangaroo crept from one enclosure to the other! We finished our activity and set off to watch the 'Elephants of Asia' show. At the show, we ate some snacks and I almost got splashed! The elephants were a bit playful. I laughed a lot there. Next, we went for lunch.After we finished lunch, we went to finish our activities.

The next day, we started on our projects. We had already done some research in the holidays. That project was the quickest project we had ever done! We presented but Sue-ann was a bit soft so we lost a few points.

On the whole, I really enjoyed this learning tapestry.

Pasir Ris

 I have always wondered what Pasir Ris means... Today I find out. In Malay Pasir Ris means white sand.(Now I understand why there is a White Sands mall!) Maybe the sand was whiter last time, or maybe because there is a good beach?So many people live in Pasir Ris.Pasir Ris includes Elias and Loyang. Pasir Ris comes under the Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC. The current minister is Mr Teo Chee Hean. There are quite a few condos being built now and there are also a few resorts. The malls include White Sands mall, NTUC Downtown East, E-Hub shopping mall,Elias mall and Loyang Point.There are also many primary and secondary schools there.

Tea

I have always wondered how my favourite drink was made. So, I went to look up on it. I learnt that tea is an evergreen plant that grows mainly in tropical and subtropical climates.

Tea plants are reproduced from seed and cutting; it takes about 4 to 12 years for a tea plant to bear seed, and about three years before a new plant is ready for harvesting.I Many high-quality tea plants are grown at  places of up to 1,500 m  above sea level! (WOW!) At these heights, the plants grow more slowly and acquire a better flavour.
Only the top 1-2 inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called flushes. A plant will grow a new flush every seven to 15 days during the growing season, and leaves that are slow in development tend to produce better-flavoured teas. 
 Pests of tea include mosquito bugs that can tatter leaves, so insecticides may be sprayed.

A tea plant will grow into a tree of up to 16 m if left undisturbed (That's tall!), but cultivated plants are pruned to waist height for ease of plucking. I would do that too!

Teas are divided into categories based on how they are processed. There are at least six different types of tea: white, yellow, green, oolong, black (Which is called red tea in China), and post-fermented tea (or black tea for the Chinese) of which the most commonly found on the market are white, green, oolong, and black. Some varieties, such as traditional oolong tea and Pu-erh tea, a post-fermented tea, can be used for medicinal purposes.

If the leaves from the tea plant are not dried immediately, the tea may become unfit for consumption, due to the growth of undesired molds and bacteria. At the minimum, it will make the taste of the tea unpleasant.

 I now know lots about tea! Hooray!:D

Green Tea Macchiato

A cup of Green tea macchiato

 Recently, I tried a new  drink called Green tea macchiato. I really like it. It is a cup of green tea(the Pokka kind)with a layer of milk foam on top. My Mum tried to make it and it turned out quite nice. However, I think that the KOI's milk is sweetened with something. The correct way of drinking it is to cut a small slit at the top of the cup,near the edge.Then, you tilt the cup up & drink. Tip:if you tip really high, you'll get more of the tea.:D

It's awesome!

I am David

'I am David'. Doesn't that make you think someone is introducing himself to you? Well, my name is NOT David and 'I am David' is actually the name of a book. I think this is a boring,yet interesting book. David, is too grown up for his age. He is always acting like an adult even though he is only twelve, equivalent to a Primary 6 child. Somehow, he can make his way all the way from Bulgaria to Denmark. To me, it is truly amazing.I mean, nowadays, if you ask a twelve-year-old to go to ,like, Kuala Lumpur on his or her own and on foot, they might just stare at you as if you were crazy and would not move at all. If they did start to go, they would be helpless and would most likely get lost or something like that.

My friend was telling us the negative things about David. For example, he is a liar and a murderer. But, he is only lying for his own safety and he is a murderer in an indirect way(the dog sacrificed itself for him). However, there are still many good points about David. He is very polite to everyone, even his captors. That, many of us cannot do. Many of us are rude to certain people when we are angry or hate or dislike the person we are speaking to.

All in all, I like the book 'I am David' as it tells us the hardships a boy faced on his journey to freedom. It is very moving in some parts and when you have finished reading it, you might have tears in your eyes like me and you will feel relieved that David's hardships are over. 

《差不多先生》读后感

       我觉得《差不多先生》是一个很有意思的故事。差不多先生是一个做事不认真和做事粗心的人。他常常把“十”字写成“千”字，“千”字写成“十”字。他做什么事情都差不多。因为他做事很差不多，所以他早点死掉。我觉得他真的是太马虎了。

  我认为如果我们像差不多先生那样，我们什么也没做好，会被骂很多。别人不会信任我们的。我们也会错过很多东西因为做事差不多。

Reflections on ' Girl who never let cancer get her down'

     Koh Li Min exhibited the value of perseverance. She showed us she lived up to her personal mantra by continually trying to train for physically demanding activities, such as cross-country running. She  also tried to attend her classes on time, even when on medical leave.
     My personal  'mountain' is my shyness. I get really nervous standing in front of a whole body of people to present. I hope that someday I will be able to overcome this challenge.

品德教育读后感

    这个故事告诉我们要宽厚待人。一天，小刚的妈妈被一个小男孩撞了后，他感到生气。可是妈妈说他不应该生气，因为小男孩已经道歉了。另一天小刚放学回家，妈妈发现他的膝盖擦破皮。她以为小刚在回家的路上跌倒了，但是小刚在膝盖擦破皮是因为休息时候被同学不小心绊倒。他告诉妈妈同学已经道歉了，而且他不是故意的，如果再告诉老师他会很难受，所以没告诉老师。妈妈夸他能够宽厚待人，是个好孩子。
  我觉得能够宽厚待人是一个很重要的技能。因为假如一个人做错事后，道歉了，你还想骂他或者教训他，他会很难过或会想骂你。如果你可以宽厚待人，他会比较开心，因为你原谅了他。
   每次我撞到人，我都会道歉。那些时候，我很怕被我撞到的人会骂我。但是，因为我已经道歉了，他们不会骂我，只是提醒我要小心而已。
  

学习挂毯

我们今年的学习挂毯是关于植物的。我们去了植物园看花。 我们学到了哪些植物是坚韧不拔的，好像:胡姬花，芦荟，仙人掌，勿忘我花，太阳花和菊花。也学到了哪些植物需要很多照顾，比如：薰衣草，茉莉花,三色堇和蒲公英。我喜欢学习挂毯，我一定要再去另外一个地方。

Learning Tapestry- Plants

It's Term 3 and our Learning Tapestry has just begun. My group members this time were Danushan (leader), Cheyenne, Haziq, me and Matthew.We did the FILA (Facts, Ideas, Learning issues and Actions) table last term.

For our Learning Journey, we went to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. I was ECSTATIC as I had never been there before and was always hoping to go there.  It was mobile learning, so each group was given an iPad. We started by going to the Heritage tree (also known as the tembusu tree). Next, we went to somewhere outside the National Orchid Garden. There we had to take a photo with the national flower - the Vanda Miss Joaquim. We next visited the ginger garden where we bumped into Mrs Goh's class - 5G. For this station, the pictures in the  activity sheet were very confusing- we  couldn't figure out which plant we were supposed to be looking at. Luckily, Mrs Goh helped us by pointing the right plant out. There were 2 mini waterfalls there with a sort of small cave/tunnel where you could go behind the waterfalls. All of us crowded into the cave/tunnel and took pictures. We then lined up and proceeded to the lily pond where we composed an acrostic poem with the word "lily".

Finally after visiting the Heliconia Walk, we went to the cafe and had a break. Mum gave me a scrumptious bento to eat (there is a picture of it below :D ). We shared some of our food such as chips, "M&M's" and crackers. On the way back to school, Danushan was engrossed in typing in the answers onto the iPad. When I looked to my left, I saw that Matthew had fallen asleep!

When we reached school, we had another short break to finish uploading the answers. Then,  we had a whole period of free time!!!!

June 27th
The next day, we started discussing about what to do for our projects. My group decided to do the characteristics of different seed dispersd that our slides were yoo wordy.als. Mrs Sharma gave each group a laptop and we started our research. First, we started off by looking for Google Chrome. Danushan then searched for the Wikipedia and then searched seed dispersal in the search bar when he could have just searched "seed dispersal wiki" in the URL bar.  We transferred all the information to  Microsoft Word whether we needed it or not. Danushan and the other boys were hogging the computer, so Cheyenne and I could do nothing but watch them do their slides.  Finally, they allowed us to do a slide on wind dispersal. During Science period, Mr Lee came over to our group and said our slides were too wordy. He asked Danushan to look for Steve Jobs' presentations. Danushan then wasted quite some time looking at different ways of presenting Powerpoint slides. At the end of the day, he deleted our slide without even asking us! We were going to edit it but he just deleted the WHOLE THING!

June 28th
Danushan finished most of the slides and let us do the one on animals. We finished our slides and added transitions and animations etc. We copied out the things we were going to say and gave them to Cheyenne to print out.

June 29th
Presentation day. We were last to present our slides. Cheyenne had printed out the script but Danushan had printed out something else to say and it was much much longer! He only gave it to us when we were at the AVA room. He told us to memorise all that. In the end Cheyenne and I got developing in effective communicator because we read from his paper wholesale. How could we memorise all that in such a short time?! We were supposed to listen to the other groups too! It was so unfair to us. At least we all got a long weekend.

Reflection on Term 1

Term 1 is over. It contained many enjoyable events such as Sports Day and Chinese New Year. I learnt many new things I have never learnt before and I also learnt my teacher's expectations for us. Being in the top tier class, the expectations are quite high. I am sure that with our teachers's help we will be able to meet those expectations.

In Maths class, I learnt things like order of operations, using a calculator and am currently learning fractions. There is one exciting new thing we have done in Math. That is our speed tests. We have to finish ten questions in ten minutes. The questions are not always easy. We have a chart and when at least three-quarter of the class have got either nine or ten, we raise two bars.

In Science, we learned about the plant and human systems. We also learnt about different types of gases. We had one lesson in which we conducted an experiment on limewater.

In English, we did a lot of things. There were many packages and booklets and In The News and journals to do. Most of the things in the practice papers that we did were the same as what we did last year. We now have to do Grammer and Vocabulary exercises in the book.

Mother Tongue is pretty much the same.

My most favourite events were Sports Day and my birthday. On the whole, I enjoyed myself very much in Term 1.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin Part 1

For two weeks, we have been doing the Pied Piper of Hamelin for English literature.It was written by Robert Browning. We were given the poem and told to read it. We then watched a few vidoes on the story and poem on Youtube. It was quite fun. There was one video of man called Ron Reagan who recited the poem along with some facial expressions.
The next day, we had to find the meanings of twenty words we did not know. Some of the words I chose were: drysaltery, noddy and consternation.
Then we had to summarize the stanzas in groups. My group did stanzas 1,2 and 3. We copied the summary on pieces of jigsaw paper.
I enjoyed doing the Pied Piper. I hope to do more things like this.

My Day at Nex

Today, I went to Nex with my neighbours. We went there by car. It was a bit of a squeeze at the back as there was not enough space. After we reached Nex, we went to the library first. When we had returned our books, we went to RamenPlay to eat. I ordered a mini ramen, a crispy dango and an ice lemon tea. My mum did not like the lemon tea. She said it was Season's. On the other hand, I liked it. My brother(6 years old) was the last to finish. Then, as my mum was still hungry, we set off to find something to eat. She ate a bun from a Japanese bakery called The Green Pumpkin. I had a dorayaki. It is two pancakes with cream or filling in the middle. I enjoy watching it being made. There was also a man demonstrating how to make soba. Next, we went to Fairprice Xtra. Mum bought a silicone baking tin. Then we went back to the car. We retraced our footsteps but ended up at the wrong lift. So when we had found the correct lift, we forgot which floor the car was parked on! Mum and I guessed 3A, my neighbours guessed 3M. In the end we were all wrong. It was actually Level 3! When we reached home, my legs were very tired. But, I climbed the stairs and still ended up faster than the rest of them who took the lift.

I enjoy going to Nex very much!

The Happenings in Class

Yesterday, was presentation day. The presentations that my group did were not the way we
wanted it to go.
The bad points were:

1. We were too soft (English)
2. Our eyes were glued to the book (Mother Tongue)
3. Our presentation was too short (English)
4. The cover was spoilt (Mother Tongue)
5. We did not greet the class(English)

I hope the next time I have to do a presentation, I can improve on these points.

My School Project

Today, we finished our projects in both Mother Tongue and English. Sueann brought home the

English project and Tanya brought home the Mother Tongue Project. For English, our group did a

mind-map. It was fun. Everyone in our group contributed a little. I did the languages. Sueann

brought her i-pad. We all fooled around a little with the i-pad. Our group is called "angry birds". My group members are: Rachel, Gigi, Sueann, Wen Hao and myself. I enjoy being in this group very much. While doing this project, we had to clear Rachel's and my table, for we were using a vanguard sheet. The topic is about Eurasians in Singapore. We drew the Singapore flag with the word Eurasians on it. Tomorrow, we have to do a presentation on it.

Learning Journey to the National Museum

Yay! It's learning tapestry again! This time, our trip was to the national museum. We went by bus. I partnered my friend Dana, while Rachel partnered Sueann. We left at somewhere

around 9.30 a.m. Dana and I sat near the front of the bus and just behind Rachel and Sueann.

When I first saw the museum, there was only 1 thought in my head -- it was HUGE! Dana agreed with me.

After we had gotten down from the bus, we lined up with our partners. First, we visited the

film and wayang gallery. It was quite dark inside. we watched a bit of a black-and-white

movie until Mrs Soon my form teacher called us over to the back of the stage where she

showed us an old gramophone. Then we moved on to the wayang kulit section of the gallery. It

had puppets used for the shows and a stage. We also saw some costumes for people on display.

Next, we entered the fashion gallery. We had to fill up one of our worksheets here. My favourite part of this gallery was its back room. There were lengths of cloths to feel and two had a magnifying glass attached to them. And in display cases, there were old thimbles, a basket full

of things needed for sewing and many, many more!

After that, we visited the food gallery. Again, we had to fill up another worksheet. Inside were displays of different types of food brought to Singapore by each race. My favourite part of this room was the place with all the jars and spices. We could smell a few of the spices showed there.

There was also an old ice shaver.

Next, we moved on to the photography gallery. I did not like it as much as the others. There were some drawers in the wall where when you pulled it out, there were pictures inside.

Finally, we moved on to the history gallery. We were each given an audio guide and an earpiece.

This was my favorite part of the whole museum. It was very dark and my earpieces kept on dropping off. I saw many very interesting exhibits such as: Major William Farquhar's collection of drawings, a rickshaw, swords and maybe a hundred more!

I was very disappointed when we had to leave, as I wanted to explore some more.

I would recommend everyone to go to this museum and I hope to come here again.

My Brother Feivel

On the 5th September, my brother Feivel , was born. He was born at the Mount Alvernia Hospital and is now 3 weeks old.

He looks exactly like my 6 year old brother when he was born. Feivel has a chubby face with cute little eyes and a tiny nose. He has tiny fingers that are smaller than my little finger. Whenever I touch his fingers, the whole hand will spread open and if I put my finger there, he will grab it. He has little feet with sharp toenails. His nails are thin and that makes them sharp. The soles of his feet are as soft as silk, that makes them very nice to stroke.

He sleeps most of the time so I hardly get to play or talk to him during the day as I am in school. When there is time, my brother and I will either sing songs or play with him. I like to carry him. When I do, my first brother will also want to carry him. Feivel poos and pees a lot. He drinks Mummy's milk which is the BEST food for a BABY! When he burps, he sounds like a duck. WACK!

I love him very much!

My Learning Journey to the Farms

I went for a learning journey on the 1st of July. I was super excited! as I had never been to a farm before. My form teacher, Ms Wong, had briefed us all about it the day before.

When we saw our bus, Whey Yinn and I joked that we were going to Malaysia. On the bus, Whey Yinn and I drew, coloured, did our LT worksheets and talked. Soon after that, it started to rain.

First, we arrived at farm number 1. It is called Kok Fah Technology Farm. It was still raining when we got there. Suddenly, Whey Yinn and I realised we had forgotten our umbrellas! Luckily Whey Yinn's dad had an umbrella. After that we met our guide, who took us on a walk around the farm. We saw many vegetables such as dwarf white cabbage, "nai bai", spinach and aloe vera. We also saw a tiller and learnt its function. After that, we were taught how to remove the flesh from an aloe vera leaf. Our guide brought us to see a fish called an arapaima. She told us it is a living fossil.

Then, we were each given an Aloe Vera drink. I did not really like it. My classmates were very interested in the birds there. I especially remember a rather large bird which would use its beak to help it to climb up the cage. Then we were off to Farm number 2.

Farm number 2 is called Aerogreen. We learnt the meaning of aeroponics, the method of growing plants in the air. On the way to the greenhouse where the aeroponics plants are grown, we saw other interesting plants such as water gourds which Chinese people used as water bottles in olden times.

At the greenhouse, our guide told us that sprinklers spray nutrients at the plants' roots. We experienced it for ourselves. I got wet! I also thought it was stinky. Later we were shown a sponge gourd which can be used as a bath sponge.[My Mum says it's called a loofah.] We also saw many long and snake-like snake gourds. Then it was time to return to school.

I enjoyed the trip very much. I hope Mum will bring me back one day as she is so into gardening.

The Library

Today I went to the library. I like going to the library because I like to read books and there are many books at the library for me to borrow. Books are nice to read. I like
to read Fiction books more than Non-fiction books. My mum makes me carry all my books on my own, she tells me to borrow as much as I can carry. My favourite authors are Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The books I borrowed today are:
The Tempest retold by Marianna Mayer, King Lear retold by Andrew Matthews, Paddington Goes To Town by Michael Bond and Winnie's jokes by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul.