Primary Two Diary – 30 minutes revision + recommended list of assessment books

I’ll like to think I’m a pretty chill mum when it comes to Sophie’s studies. However, all alarm bells went off after she entered Primary Two when I had well-meaning friends prepping me for the huge jump in academics from Primary Two to Three.

Even her teachers reiterated the same message at our first PTM after Term 1 where they shared about the added demands towards the end of Primary 2 and even touched on streaming. I was sweating inside and thought to myself, the pressure is getting real.

As a parent, it can be a struggle to stand your ground and not succumb to societal pressure when everyone else seems to be sending their child for tuition or enrichment for every single subject to get ahead. I know that if I followed suit, I’ll just be giving Sophie unnecessary stress stemming from my insecurities.

When Mummy plays teacher

So the next best thing I did was to be more “hardworking” and coach Sophie on my own. I call it my 2^nd job after my official job.

Since Primary One, Sophie has demonstrated independence in doing her own learning and revision where she follows an after school time-table to do her smart work aka assessment books after completing homework from school.

This year, I moved her to a weekly To Do List which I bought from The Paper Stone, where I’ll pen down the work she needs to complete her daily revision. Sophie gets an immense sense of satisfaction from ticking the items she completes. It’s been a great way to nurture a sense of ownership for her own revision too.
After dinner, I’ll allocate between 30 minutes to an hour of revision to go through her homework and assessment books and explain areas that she didn’t know how to tackle earlier. To test her understanding, I’ll get her to explain how she derived her answers and also the methods her Mathematics teacher are using to ensure I don’t confuse her with my old school methods.

And as tempting as it may be, I refrain from pointing out errors in her school work but emphasis that she needs to get into the habit of checking her completed work. A discipline which is slowly getting more ingrained into her system day by day.

Find delight in teaching

Even though the extra revision at the end of the day can be taxing on both of us, I choose to see it positively where I get to be more involved in her learning. From it, it gives me opportunity to know what she enjoys learning and how I can further spark her joy and enthusiasm for it.

Take writing for example, at the start of the year I was adamant that she learns how to write well to prepare for composition writing in Primary 3. I critiqued her writing so harshly that she lost the joy of writing and dreaded it whenever it came to any form of writing practice. It was then that I saw how I had crushed her spirits and decided to switch things up by giving her less structured writing assignments.

What I get from her own are interesting stories told from her lenses, peppered with funny descriptions (she’s been known to be a funny one) and even poems and ending stories with morale of the story which reminds me so much of Tan Ah Teck in Under One Roof.

Her stories are such a delight to read and she enjoys it when I read it out loud in my most dramatic and animated voice. Now instead of pointing out her mistakes, I’ll highlight the high points of her writing and they are such a confidence booster to her when she realises how she can literally paint a picture with words.

Do we have frustrating days? Plenty, and some even end up in raised voices when I see a lack of effort and the slightest reprimands from me triggers the floodgates of tears. On those dreary days, I question if I’m too ambitious to think I can teach her without vomitting blood and if it’s easier to just outsource it.

But what I also see are the times when we learn together like Chinese where I have to whip out my mobile phone and check th meaning of words that we came across. It’s been humbling and I’ll like to think that Sophie sees that mummy is also making an effort to learn alongside her.

I may have digressed from the intention to share my recommended list of assessment books, but I hate to have you think that burying our kids with a mountain of assessment books is the way to go to reach for success.

Discover what excites them, lights up their eyes, makes them feel alive and fan those flame brighter 🙂

Recommended assessment books for Primary Two

Before I end the post, I know how mind boggling it can be to choose assessment books when you step into Popular, so here’s a list recommended assessment books for Primary Two for English, Maths and Chinese.

I highly recommend the book with the purple/ pink cover for Chinese oral and here are some sample pages with very good lists on descriptions.

 

I hope this has been useful. And if you have any assessment books for Primary 2 to recommend, do share them with me too 🙂

 

Here are some useful links on learning that you may be keen to read too.

• English Composition Writing for Primary One
• Teaching Writing to Lower Primary
• Resources for Chinese Oral (Part 1)
• Fun ways to learn Chinese 

 

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Tagged: chinese oral, composition writing, learning, Learning English, primary school, primary two, Primary Two assessment books