Renaissance college 一問

whatever

My son was in Y1 and he will be Y2 in coming August. There's no home work except Chinese. During this year, my thought was alike other people's --- IS was too free, no homework, no such and such, don't know what they'd learned...etc.
At the end of the year, I have changed my thought about RC. My son brought home so many worksheets, art pieces... many many things. I can see they have done a lot or "Works" at school. LS is focus on "homework" while IS is more focus on "class-work". I believe that they had done more "work" in school then "homework" of the LS.
I can see my son improved so much during this year.
I am happy about that "As a parent, no need to follow homework but the kids did a lot of classwork at school." ... :)

琬晴B

My daughter will be going to Year 3.

To us, Year 1 was a honeymoon year. Little workwork at home but like "Whatever" said, she brought back a lot of classwork at the end of the year which amazed me. The workload for homework gradually increased in Year 2 but she still has time for reading & doing the supplementary exercises (assigned by me) & of course FREE time.

FYI, my little son will join RC this August. Hope this is not a "headache" year for me.

Radiomama

Hi hi, add oil!!

4wongs

Hi, Radiomaman & 琬晴B,

My little girl will be joining RC this August (Year 1 ), can you advise what I can prepare for her for new school life during summer

Did you provide supplementary materials / courses for your kids to do, can you give me more details?

Many thanks,
Mrs. Wong

琬晴B

Thank you for your support, Radiomama.
Will our children be in the same class again this year?

To Mrs. Wong,
I've replied to your PM. In short, I believe an appropriate amount of drilling is beneficial to children in academic wise.

4wongs

琬晴B, Thanks for your advice.

HaydenNg

Hi Radiomaman & 琬晴B,

My little boy is joining RC Y1 this coming Aug too.  He is a Dec small boy.  Could you please PM me the tips to prepare him.

Thanks for your valuable advice in advance.

Radiomama

Prepare for Year One:
1) Toilet training
2) Lunch training
3) Talk to your lovely kid everyday
4) Reading
5) Putonghua

Radiomama

Our kids will not be in the same class!  I will sure miss your Ms Clever!

原帖由 琬晴B 於 11-7-8 16:02 發表
Thank you for your support, Radiomama.
Will our children be in the same class again this year?

To Mrs. Wong,
I've replied to your PM. In short, I believe an appropriate amount of drilling ...

琬晴B

My tips will be very similar to Radiomama's:

1) Train your child to be independent.
2) Develop self-help skills.
3) Read, read & read. Because your child needs to read and write a lot since Year 1 so make sure he/she has enough "input".

Radiomama,
It's a pity!! My daughter didn't mention anything about Year 3 class/teacher. BTW, she has done some research on Toronto and Canada with your son. I still have that piece of writing with me.  Your son did a very good job!!!

Thank you for your praise. I read your blog and have been wondering if my daughter is Miss C. You're partially right. To me, she is Miss Clumsy.

HaydenNg

Thanks Radiomaman & 琬晴B for your valuable tips.

My boy can manage all your suggested skills except the proficiency in Putonghua and his writing skills.  What's the level of Putonghua is the school expecting for a Y1 new comer?

Thx!

Radiomama

Never too late.
1) Reading is kind of habit and you'd better start it from the early stage.
2) Does your kid learn phonics?  Ask him to start magic writing-write whatever he could say it aloud.  It works.

Radiomama

1) Bedtime story telling + daytime reading
- read side by side
- don't push him to read/recognise any words
- you could point at the words and read to him

2) Magic Writing is a method, not a book
- eg. 我仔仔k2時在課堂習作上寫下"IF NT OPN AND KLS TH BLD WILL NOT GOIN", 老師解讀密碼後在旁寫上: "if not open and close, the blood will not going."
- Actually some kids in Year One write in this way.  It's still fine.  However, teacher will guide them to write bits by bits.

琬晴B

Heamami, in terms of literacy, my son is worse than your son. He can't even recognize any of the words you mentioned. He still can't write his name properly, can't recognize some of the letters, like "U" "Y" "D" "g" "j"... He learnt Letterland at school but we took him to extra Phonics class starting this month.

I started reading to my son every night since he was 1-2 years old. He likes me to read but until now, his interest is solely on pictures, not words. However, he showed a genuine interest in books and even asked me to buy a book called "The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark" for him recently. All I can do is to keep and arouse his interest in books. Maybe one day, he will finally love READING!

About writing, as there is no (never!) homework for his kindergarten, in the past 2-3 months, I started asking him to write Chinese strokes & English letters every day. He showed little progress but I will say it's better than none. I just found this website yesterday (http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/) and my son was so excited because I asked him to write "I love cars." (Cars are his life. )

My son didn’t speak any English at all (& turned deaf ears to English) before entering an international kindergarten. After half a year or so, as he was the only Chinese in class, he could speak English fluently. So after all these inputs, I can only pray for another miracle to happen.

Radiomama,
I'm also interested in "Magic Writing" you mentioned. Is that a method or a book?

myjasmine

My daughter had not much interest in reading before joining RCHK.  But surprisingly she likes reading so much after the first year here in RCHK. And she can read quite well now, at least we are very happy with that.  So i think what we can do is to try to keep their reading habit and you will see the miracle sooner or later!

suzanlai

can anyone of you PM me which kindergarten your kids went before they enter RC? my girl is just goint to PN this sept and i will start researching on which k1 i should prepare her so that she can be competitive to go into IS like RC! can anyone kindly give me some information? and what kind of qualities do you think RC is looking for ? Thanks a million!!!