Merry Christmas

Dear children,

Happy times fly. It is almost the end of December and Christmas is here.

How many of you enjoyed the book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"?
If you have not read or watched the movie adaptation, you may want to check out the website for interesting activities.

http://www.seussville.com/grinch/

Have a merry christmas! Treasure the good times with your family.

See you in 2009. Good news! I will be teaching P4 and we will see one another real soon.

Love,
Mdm Chan

Snorkelling trip 3rd November 2008

Thank you!

Dear parents,

Thanks a million for the wonderful food that you have prepared for our party. The children were fantastic in helping to clear up. I hope that they had an enjoyable time.

Happy Teacher's Day to you too! As parents, you also have a role to play guiding them and teaching them the right values in life. To me, you are also a teacher to them.

Thanks for playing a part and working together to mould their character.

Enjoy the September holidays with your child.
Note: I assigned a holiday homework for them to find out more about their favourite role model. You may enjoy the activity too.

Cheers,
Mdm Chan

Role Models for Children

Dear parents,

Here's the link to the article on role models for children.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3614/is_200204/ai_n9044749/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1

A short history of Singapore

Maria Hertogh Riot

Dear children,

Singapore is a multicultural society where we live, work and play with fellow Singaporeans with different races, religions and cultures. It is therefore of great importance that we respect our differences and celebrate the diversity.

We should treasure racial harmony that did not come by easily.

Find out more about the Maria Hertogh riot which was one of the many racial disputes that happened in early Singapore history.

Maria Hertogh Riot part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q51daa9HZ-M



Maria Hertogh Riot part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWlnUBIvHH0&feature=related

The Mozart Effect

Dear children,

Find out more about the fascinating life of one of the greatest musicians, Mozart.

http://www.stringsinthemountains.org/m2m/1once.htm

An excerpt about the Mozart effect:

The Mozart effect
Music may tune up your thinking, but you can't just crank up the volume and expect to become a genius
A DECADE ago Frances Rauscher, a psychologist now at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh, and her colleagues made waves with the discovery that listening to Mozart improved people's mathematical and spatial reasoning. Even rats ran mazes faster and more accurately after hearing Mozart than after white noise or music by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. Last year, Rauscher reported that, for rats at least, a Mozart piano sonata seems to stimulate activity in three genes involved in nerve-cell signalling in the brain.
This sounds like the most harmonious way to tune up your mental faculties. But before you grab the CDs, hear this note of caution. Not everyone who has looked for the Mozart effect has found it. What's more, even its proponents tend to think that music boosts brain power simply because it makes listeners feel better - relaxed and stimulated at the same time - and that a comparable stimulus might do just as well. In fact, one study found that listening to a story gave a similar performance boost.
There is, however, one way in which music really does make you smarter, though unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than just selecting something mellow on your iPod. Music lessons are the key. Six-year-old children who were given music lessons, as opposed to drama lessons or no extra instruction, got a 2 to 3-point boost in IQ scores compared with the others. Similarly, Rauscher found that after two years of music lessons, pre-school children scored better on spatial reasoning tests than those who took computer lessons.
Maybe music lessons exercise a range of mental skills, with their requirement for delicate and precise finger movements, and listening for pitch and rhythm, all combined with an emotional dimension. Nobody knows for sure. Neither do they know whether adults can get the same mental boost as young children. But, surely, it can't hurt to try.

From: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18625011.900-11-steps-to-a-better-brain.html

Listening to Mozart music may not make you smarter but it definitely will help to calm your mind down so you can concentrate on your work.