Assiduous Cogitation

* The answer to the Math problem below is in the comments section*

This is the season again - right smack in the midst of intense revision and constant coaching for Big Bee's primary 2 final term exams. With no tuition or enrichment classes, I am her de facto creative writing mentor, English and Chinese tutor as well as Math teacher. Thank goodness my mum helps out with Chinese coaching sometimes!

Teaching and coaching is easy. Facing an occasionally irate child who is a perfectionist is a wee bit challenging. I believe in instilling discipline for children from a young age to be self-focused in their academic pursuits - which is not a relentless quest for perfection, but rather, ingraining a sense of responsibility and accountability. However, Big Bee carried this belief much further than I would like.

The evenings before her exams, she would get cold, sweaty palms and soles, although she still maintained a cheerful disposition. And she, very much like Hubby and me, prefers to work under stress and adrenaline, instead of dwelling in a complaisant environment with no pressure. As parents, we never ever gave her pressure to succeed and I tried not to talk about her exams as we revised her work, but she would give herself an invisible shroud of pressure.

Thankfully, we are now into her last paper tomorrow - Chinese. She slept easy tonight, ecstatic in the knowledge that she can celebrate and relax tomorrow afternoon. I had promised her that there would be no academic activities for a while, because I - like her - believe very much in the good old adage, "We work hard and play even harder".

Meanwhile, I am also looking forward to a breather from all these rigorous coaching, and to get back the momentum for more enjoyable homelearning activities with Little Bee, who had been feeling rather neglected this week.

To end off, here's a Math problem in her school workbook that was somewhat baffling for 8 year old kids, I thought. We managed to solve it for her (she was too mystified to solve it!), and I heard from Big Bee that no one in her class could solve it.

You have two empty pails. In one pail, you can put exactly 5 litres of water. In the other pail, you can put exactly 3 litres of water. You need exactly 4 litres of water. How would you measure exactly 4 litres of water using only the two pails?

On a lighter note, here's a composition from Big Bee that she wrote in May, which had gotten her 9/10 (4.5 marks each for language and content):

The Rescue

One windy afternoon, Danny decided to play with his new aeroplane that his father had bought for him for Christmas. Danny went to a park not far from his house. He went to a field near to a canal.

Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew Danny's precious aeroplane into the canal! Danny did not want his precious aeroplane to be swept away in the flowing water, so he tried to reach for the aeroplane. As he was too near the edge of the canal, he fell into the flowing water in the canal!

He was afraid that he might be swept away with the flowing water so he shouted for help. Luckily, a young man who was coming back from work heard Danny's screams. He rushed to the canal as the screams were coming from there. The young man jumped into the canal and carried him out of the canal. He had rescued Danny!

Danny's parents were getting worried as Danny did not come home, so they decided to go to the park to look for him. Danny's mother was shocked to see so many people crowding around her son who was wet. The young man told Danny's mother what had happened. Danny's mother thanked him. She also gave him some money as a reward. That was Danny's most unforgettable day in his life.