eduKate Singapore Tuition Centre: English Theme of the Month April 2015: Critical Thinking Skills

Dear Parents,

This month, we are teaching eduKate students Critical Thinking Skills. Students will be receiving their notes and shall cover the below modules:

  • What is critical thinking?
  • What are the components of learning?
  • What are the procedures to achieve critical thinking?
  • How to interpret and analyse data?
  • What do we need to avoid doing to achieve a balanced result?
  • Importance of critical thinking in our education.

Aims of this module: To create awareness in students attempting questions in their exams. Relevance of critical thinking skills to English shall be applied to composition writing and answering comprehension questions during the first two lessons.

Composition

Students are required to demonstrate reasoning in their compositions and develop a realistic approach to story telling. During the process of creating a story, students shall use the 3 pictures composition approach introduced in the new syllabus PSLE format. The students are required to gather and include effective implementation of tools from their creative writing classes. They also need to draw from their past experiences when fabricating their plot.

Comprehension

Students are required to demonstrate critical thinking skills of the following basic 6 questions: who, why, where, when, what and how when attempting to resolve questions in the new syllabus format PSLE questions. They are also required to critique and infer from the passage using the said skill.

For more information of this module, kindly email admin@edukatesg.com

eduKateSG Primary Students at Punggol
eduKateSG Primary Students at Punggol

Science is FUN! – Transportation of Water in Plants

Have Science Tuition at our eduKateSG Punggol Tuition Centre.

This week in Science, we learn about the plant’s transport system and zoomed in on how water is transported from the roots to the other parts of the plant through the xylem tubes. To demonstrate this, we conducted a simple and fun activity that is easy to carry out at home as well.

Materials required:

  • Fresh white chrysanthemum or carnation
  • Water
  • Food coloring
  • Plastic bottle

Procedure:

  1. Pour 1 cup of water into the plastic bottle and mix in 1/4 cup of food coloring.
  2. Trim the stalk of the flower using a pair of kitchen scissors at an angle such that the base is pointed and not flat. (Water absorption may be affected if the base is flat and the stalk sits at the bottom of the bottle.)
  3. Place the flower in the colored water and watch the petals change color!

after 45 minutes
after 45 minutes
after 1.5 hours

New Year, New Resolutions, New Aspirations

Welcome to 2015 and we wish you an awesome year ahead. So the new year is upon us and its that time where most of us reflect on what is important that needs some work on and making sure we do whatever we can to make our dreams come true, or to some of us, not to do something that we have done in our previous years and break that habit of ours.

What kinds of resolutions?

Basically, there are two types of resolutions that we categorise all this into: what we want to achieve in 2015, and: what we don’t want to repeat ever again. So a good way is to catalog your resolutions into these two sections.

An example of what we want to achieve: Get into School of Medicine.

An example of what we don’t want to repeat again: Stop procrastinating.

Start putting these points down and then move to the next stage.

How do we do this?

  1. The first step is to get a piece of paper and write down what you would like to do in 2015.
  2. Next, what you don’t want to do in 2015.
  3. Prioritise all the points and simplify it all.
  4. Plan how we can do achieve all these and be practical about it.
  5. Email this list to yourself and label it “Resolution 2015” for you to check it now and then
  6. Execute.

Next stage:

The first thing about new year resolutions is that we tend to forget we made them and slowly, our spots never change and we continue being the same person that we were last year. That’s when we need to make sure that we do remember to make this resolution into a checklist. So make sure that it is in a prominent place that you can remind yourself often enough of that resolution and check it off once you have achieved it.

Be reasonable with your schedules and make a plan that you can follow. I was a musician when I was much younger and we had to practice these musical passages that had an impossible amount of notes played at an impossible fast beat. There was no way we could have played it right off the first time round sight reading it. So what did we do?

We played it slow, like really slow, and started playing those phrases, note for note, beat for beat, but really really slow. Do it a hundred times. And then we took the speed up, like 5 beats per minute faster. It is an almost imperceptible change to the previous speed, and do that 100 times again. Because its hardly any faster, we don’t feel strained by it. Then another 5 beats per minute faster. Commit to it. It will slowly reach a speed where it is fast, a bit too fast for us to handle, and that was it for that day. And we came back again to it the next day, but we start at the next faster speed. Again, bringing it up to the next 5 beats per minute faster. After a few days of this slow imperceptible increases, guess what, we are now at that impossible fast speed that we needed to be to get the music right. Note for note, beat for beat. It was impossible at first, but it is not impossible anymore for us right at this moment. It is how we trick our brains and body into learning something that we thought we could never do that makes us one of the best learning machines in the world.

Why am I saying all this? Because something is impossible only if we let it be impossible. No one was born to this world running, or flying, but we have achieved all of this, and more. It just takes time, that very first step and keep on moving up the ante till we get where we want to be. So that bring us back to our resolutions.

Want to be a pilot in 2015? Yeah sure, why not? Take that first step, no matter how baby that step is. Make sure those steps gets stronger, faster, braver and slowly, with tenacity, you will reach there.

Aspire to be someone great, someone that is truly what you want to be. Write it down. Now! And let’s all make our 2015 the best year ever.

Happy New Year! And good luck on your new resolutions.

Exercise your brains for exam preparation.

Whether you are preparing for GCE, GCSE, IB, PSLE, SAT, or any examination, it is imperative to get your brains fit for the exams. Try these few websites for free brain teasers:

1) Brainmetrix.com contains general games that tests most of brain activities.  IQ based, Cognitive and even Sudoku can be found free in here.

BrainMetrix.com screen capture by Wong Kin Leong
BrainMetrix.com screen capture

2) GamesForTheBrains.com is also a general brain teaser free games website that are simple for children to navigate. Just click on the links you find on the frontpage and you are all set to go.

http://www.gamesforthebrain.com
http://www.gamesforthebrain.com screeen capture

3) BrainHQ.com is another website but it is slick and organised into memory, attention, brain speed, people skills, intelligence, and navigation exercises. However, it does need a sign up to get the basic tier games, and to access the full site there is a purchase involved.

by Wong Kin Leong eduKateSG
BrainHQ.com screen capture

 

by Wong Kin Leong eduKateSG Pinevale Tampines.